Workshop on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
Graduate School of Social Sciences
This intensive workshop on negotiation and conflict resolution combines skill building with the development of analytic skills in a ‘hands-on’ format following what is sometimes called the ‘Harvard method’ of negotiation. The workshop will be taught by David Laws of the University of Amsterdam and John Forester of Cornell University together with various guest lecturers.
Dates and credits
The workshop is a full-time course (3 ECTS credits). It will take place from 10-17 January 2014 (exluding Saturday and Sunday).
Participants
The workshop is part of the Master’s programme in Conflict Resolution and Governance of the Graduate School of Social Sciences (GSSS). The workshop is also open to Master’s students in other programmes within the social sciences or related disciplines.
The GSSS welcomes students from outside the GSSS (and UvA) to register. Please note that the number of places open to students from outside the GSSS are limited.
Costs
For students registered for a Master’s programme at a Dutch university, the course is free of charge.
Workshop content
The Workshop on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution starts from the observation that the world of public officials, citizens, entrepreneurs, consultants, and other professionals is marked by interdependence, by fragmented sources of power, and by an uncertain future. In this unruly world, the sources of understanding and stability are often provisional and the ability to learn and to manage change is at a premium. The diversity of society and the work force contributes to conflicts over goals, interests, and frames of reference. These characteristics create an ongoing need for the ability to craft stable agreements that advance interests, build trust, and construct understanding in complex and unstable environments. They create a need for negotiation.
Negotiation, in this light, is about the management of interdependence. It raises a series of questions that cut across the boundary between theory and practice. This creates a rationale for a teaching format that is both hands-on and theoretically oriented. The workshop provides this. Participants learn about negotiation by developing their skills in role-play exercises. Reflection on these experiences is linked to a systematic body of theory about what it means to negotiate and to negotiate well.
The organisation of the workshop addresses two goals:
- It will help you develop your understanding of negotiation in relation to themes like strategic action, rationality, ethics, social psychology, decision analysis, organisational behaviour and develop your ability to employ these concepts to analyse empirical cases.
- The course will also help you develop skills that will make you a better negotiator. It will prepare you to diagnose conflict, negotiate purposefully and thoughtfully, and critically evaluate outcomes and experience.
Information and enrolment
- For questions regarding the (logistics of the) workshop please contact Roos Krootjes at r.l.krootjes@uva.nl.
- Registration is no longer possible.