Abstract
This research examines the extent to which the email medium exacerbates the aggressiveness of opening offers made by negotiators from two distinct cultures. Hypotheses derived from negotiation, communication, and culture research predict that Hong Kong Chinese negotiators using email would exhibit a reactance effect and consequently engage in more aggressive opening offers and claim higher distributive outcomes than similar negotiators in the United States. Study 1 examines intercultural email negotiations and results indicate that Hong Kong Chinese negotiators made more aggressive opening offers and attained higher distributive outcomes than their U.S. counterparts. Study 2 results replicate Study 1 findings in an intracultural negotiation setting and also show favorable outcomes for Hong Kong email negotiators when compared to both Hong Kong and U.S. face-to-face negotiators. Overall, the findings suggest that Hong Kong Chinese and U.S. negotiators vary substantially in how they negotiate via email and face to face, which results in differences in distributive outcomes.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 628-643 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 2012 |
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by a grant from The Dispute Resolution Research Center, Northwestern University.
Keywords
- Aggressive offers
- Culture
- Distributive outcomes
- Negotiations
- Opening offers
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Cultural Studies
- Anthropology