Negotiation Analysis: The Science and Art of Collaborative Decision Making (Paperback)

by Howard Raiffa (Author), John Richardson (Contributor), David Metcalfe (Contributor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Harvard professor emeritus Raiffa and his co-authors have everything covered in this exhaustive work, which examines the dynamics of win-lose, win-win and multi-party negotiations and throws novel approaches like game theory into the mix. Especially timely is the analysis of "external help," in which the authors evaluate the growing trend of mediation and arbitration. Though its stated goal is to "suggest how people-perhaps you-might negotiate better," that's a bit of wishful thinking; the book, more a mathematics text than a popular guide, isn't designed for a broad-based audience. But it's certainly thorough, with its plethora of decision-making scenarios (e.g., surgery or radiation? invest in a business, or not?) to bring advanced theories to life. And Raiffa (The Art and Science of Negotiation) is one of the deans of the field. 78 line illustrations, 84 tables.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
Harvard professor emeritus Raiffa and his co-authors have everything covered in this exhaustive work, which examines the dynamics of win-lose, win-win and multi-party negotiations and throws novel approaches like game theory into the mix. Especially timely is the analysis of "external help," in which the authors evaluate the growing trend of mediation and arbitration...It's certainly thorough, with its plethora of decision-making scenarios...to bring advanced theories to life. And Raiffa is one of the deans of the field. (Publishers Weekly )

Negotiation Analysis makes a significant contribution to an important field...This is a classic text, synthesizing two approaches to negotiation: the 'art' handles human factors and the 'science' structured models. The book aims to equip negotiators with the skills 'to do a better job.' It is a massive work--550 pages--created by perhaps the most powerful intellect in the field.
--Douglas Hague (Times Higher Education Supplement )

Howard Raiffa created the field of negotiation analysis, and this book is a great development of his ideas. It pushes negotiation analysis to a higher level and should be required reading for all serious students and practitioners of negotiation and alternative dispute resolution. The book is brilliant. It will help to make the world a better place.
--Max Bazerman, author of Judgment in Managerial Decision Making

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Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 1 edition (March 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674024141
• ISBN-13: 978-0674024144
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #318,080 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Treatise on Negotiation Analysis, January 13, 2005

By	Kurt S. Schulzke (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Negotiation Analysis: The Science and Art of Collaborative Decision Making (Hardcover)

This is a wonderful book for serious practitioners and students of negotiation. It covers the negotiation waterfront so completely that this reader -- who is also a writer and negotiation prof -- is left wondering what more can be said on the subject. Unlike most pop negotiation books, this tome drills deep into qualitative and quantitative approaches to structuring and analyzing simple and complex negotiation situations. The quality of the writing is superb. The author's insights are profound, informed by years of experience in the field. The quantitative discussion can be a bit intimidating, especially to math-challenged readers. But even without the quantitiave material, it's well worth the price of admission.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable book for negotiators, January 22, 2003

By	Nathaniel Wright (London, Greater London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Negotiation Analysis: The Science and Art of Collaborative Decision Making (Hardcover)

This book has a real wow factor. I was amazed at how much ground it covers - game theory, pscyhology, decision analysis, negotiation stuff. There's a great balance of technical help with easy-to-read conversations between hypothetical negotiators making the tricky concepts easier to understand. You probably won't want to read it from cover-to-cover but every chapter has really useful insights on how to negotiate better with positive or negative counterparts.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The reference in Negotiation., May 4, 2007

By	Miquel Tintore Rebholz - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a rich and complete book that touches all aspects of negotiation. The subtitle "The science and art of collaborative decision making" is might be even a better descriptor of the contents. The book has a certain scholar touch and is with 600 pages really comprehensive and more to be used as a reference than to be read in one sitting. For those that are more interested in a shorter book, "Co-opetition" might be a faster to read alternative that is quite in line with this book.

Professor Raiffa shows that negotiations and how to approach them depend mainly in how the structure of the negatiation is eg. integrative vs distributive. He proposes a very structured way to approach negotiations, being good prepared and looking for alternatives to an agreement before to have the freedom to forfeit the negotiation. Once meeting being creative working together with the other party helps to find those spots that are valued differently by the parties and offer possibility of common gains. Whether always the described Full Open Truthfull Exchange (FOTE) is possible might be doubted but it gives at least the yardstick how things could be. The author compares often diverse solutions and how the merit of each of them varies depending the criteria used, and what fairness in each case might be.

The book is divided in major themes that are gone through in detail, any of those can be read in an almost independent manner, without following the order in the book.
Part I. Fundamentals describes the basics of the books and what is the approach followed to structure negotiations. The Game Theory chapter is in itself an excellent summary on the theme and a nice introduction for those that never have been exposed earlier to the subject.
Part II. Two Party Distributive (Win-Lose) Negotiations. The type of negotiation we all think about as example is explained with plenty of details and examples, including a chapter on the particular case which are auctions.
Part III. Two Party Integrative (Win-Win) Negotiations. This is the second type of negotiation we think of. There are several exmaples of different problem types one can find, some as the repartition of goods has many practical applications for the majority of people in rela life situations and gives very practical insights.
Part IV. External Help. Describes what professional help can do for you in a negotiation, and what you ahould take into account before asking for help.
Part V. Many parties. Shows the complexity of negotiations of any type when a major number and how in that occasion agreements can be drafted.

In all chapters there are plenty of examples and information how people react in laboratory situations coming from the which gives the best approximation of real situations develop. Each chapter is closed with a summary of the core concepts which helps when one wants to review the book.

With the comprehensiveness of the book few things are missing or could have been mentioned additionally. The book has plenty of examples but I missed some exercises for the reader to prepare for the diverse points in each chapter. Two small misses that could be easily arranged are how to use decision trees to help finding alternatives and to mention some of the nice software packages that help to simulate random variables that affect decisions, eg Crystallball.