The fashion in which negotiation weaves together facets of many managerial disciplines allows students to learn more about negotiation within the perspectives of their particular career or intellectual interests. Strategic decisions are almost always negotiated agreements. The same is true of most financial transactions and international deals. Most manufacturing research, design, development, production and marketing decisions are the result of negotiations among a firm's managers and may include outside suppliers and contractors. Game theory and decision analysis provide a quantitative construct for many different types of negotiation, including those in competitive situations.
Communication studies bring skills necessary to successful negotiation.
For example, management communication provides frameworks from rhetorical strategy and persuasion theory, as well as practice in essential skills such as listening. The law supplies the institutional framework for a large portion of business and other negotiations when parties intend their agreements to have legal impact. Most legal disputes eventually are settled by negotiation. Information technology provides an increasing array of software tools and approaches for supporting negotiation processes. System dynamics comprises a discipline combining modeling processes and technology capable of assisting negotiators to understand their issues and to test agreement options.