Summary This study compares negotiation strategy and outcomes in countries illustrating dignity, face, and honor cultures. Hypotheses predict cultural differences in negotiators' aspirations, use of strategy, and outcomes based on the implications of differences in self‐worth and social structures in dignity, face, and honor cultures. Data were from a face‐to‐face negotiation simulation; participants were intra‐cultural samples from the USA (dignity), China (face), and Qatar (honor). The empirical results provide strong evidence for the predictions concerning the reliance on more competitive negotiation strategies in honor and face cultures relative to dignity cultures in this context of negotiating a new business relationship. The study makes two important theoretical contributions. First, it proposes how and why people in a previously understudied part of the world, that is, the Middle East, use negotiation strategy. Second, it addresses a conundrum in the East Asian literature on negotiation: the theory and research that emphasize the norms of harmony and cooperation in social interaction versus empirical evidence that negotiations in East Asia are highly competitive. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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In this work we develop and validate a model measuring norms that distinguish three types of culture: dignity, face, and honor (Leung & Cohen, 2011). Our motivation is to produce empirical evidence for this new cultural framework and use the framework to explain cultural differences in interdependent social interactions such as negotiation. In two studies, we establish the content validity, construct validity, predictive validity, and measurement invariance of this measurement model. In Study 1, we present the model's three-factor structure and situate the constructs of dignity, face, and honor in a nomological network of cultural constructs. In Study 2, which uses a sample of participants from 26 cultures, we show that the measurement model discriminates among people from the three cultural regions corresponding to the dignity, face, and honor framework. In particular, we report differences between face and honor cultures, which are not distinguished in other cultural frameworks (e.g., Hofstede, 1980). We also show that the measurement model accounts for cultural differences in norms for use of negotiation strategy.

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In certain cultures, relationships are the reason for negotiation. In this article, we offer a rationale regarding why relationships have more or less salience across cultures. We present psychological, economic and sociological factors that explain the reasons for negotiating relationally. Propositions are made as to how cultural construal about relationships influences offers, targets and limits, negotiation strategy and, ultimately, economic and relational outcomes. Our major explanatory construct is new: cultural consensus about relationships. This construct is grounded in well developed theory of self construal and new empirical research showing the utility of measures of consensus in explaining cultural differences in behavior. With this theoretical contribution, we join the group of scholars who are advocating that more attention should be paid to negotiators’ subjective evaluations of the social and emotional consequences of negotiation.