The past three weeks of Negotiation 450

This is a bit late for a first post, but it will examine the first three weeks of in-class negotiation.

The first day of class we examined a version of the prisoners dilemma with ten rounds. I went with X in the first round, assuming everyone else would, and they did. This is unfortunate because when everybody picks X, everybody loses. After that I went with Y, hoping it would set a trend that others would follow. Round three had two other people join me in Y's, but still one hold out. We talked after round 4 however, and all agreed that for the most utility we would all vote Y. There was a little discussion about whether or not everyone could be trusted, but we agreed that any surprise disenters would receive a swift kick to the groin. Everyone followed the agreement and all four members of our group ended up with positive outcomes.

The next negotiation we did involved the sale of a used car, I being the seller. I managed to get $8,500 for it, which was equal to the down payment for the new car I wanted. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Our third negotiation involved the sale of a large quantity of pistons to an engine manufacturer. I was the buyer for the engine firm. The seller surprised me by high-balling right off the bat, asking for $800 per piston. I countered with $400, although in hind-sight I realized I should have gone lower, down to three or even two hundred. We ended up settling on $600 per piston which was right in the middle of both of our initial offers, and a 100% guarantee that the pistons won't fail. It was a bit high, but it was within the acceptable range.

The fourth in-class negotiation involved negotiation between two plant manager for the same computer company about quality control. I was the manager for the phillips plant, the one receiving faulty parts. We discussed the 95% standard and agreed that it should apply to all part lines, not oll the lines together. We ended up with an agreement that we though would be most beneficial and efficient for the company as a whole.

Got to run, but I'll to my best to keep this updated more regularly.

-Luke