THE PROCESS OF NEGOTIATING - STRATEGY AND TIMING AS PREDICTORS OF OUTCOMES

Using a simulated employment contract negotiation, this research teste d for differences in the use of cuing and responding strategies across four types of outcomes (stalemate, win-lose, suboptimum, and optimum) , over time, and across time and outcomes. The use of five strategies varied over time, portraying the negotiating process as one of decreas ing flexibility. Results also showed that distributive outcomes were c haracterized by high levels of positional information exchange whereas integrative agreements were characterized by high levels of priority- information exchange. It was possible to further differentiate two int egrative outcomes (suboptimum and optimum) in terms of how two strateg ies were used over time: optimum outcomes were associated with a rapid decrease in positional arguing and a slight increase in restructuring , whereas suboptimum outcomes showed the reverse pattern. Neither the frequency with which strategies were used nor their timing was able to differentiate impasse from win-lose outcomes. (C) 1996 Academic Press , Inc.