Contingent Use of Negotiators’ Tactics in Construction Dispute Negotiation

Abstract

In the course of negotiation, negotiators' tactics should be responsive to the situational factors. This is commonly described as the contingent use of negotiators' tactics. This study examines this concept in construction dispute negotiation (CDN) and has three stages of work. Stage 1 develops taxonomies of the three construction dispute negotiation dimensions: dispute sources, negotiators' tactics and negotiation outcomes by exploratory factor analysis (EFA). A structural equation modeling (SEM) is also used to confirm the taxonomies. Stage 2 examines the contingent use of negotiators' tactics on outcomes respective to the dispute sources through the use of moderated multiple regression (MMR). Stage 3 discusses the findings. The dispute source, "Delay" is found to be a universal moderator in the MMR analysis of the tactic-outcome relationships. That means when the dispute source is delay, a wide range of negotiators' tactics can be used respective to outcome intended. It is also found that the most versatile tactics are those that seek progress. This group of tactics is effective in almost every group of dispute source and in general positive results can be expected. However, aggressive and assertive tactics should be used restrictively as it will only be useful against a compromising negotiation counterpart.

The Roles of Withdrawal in the Negotiator Personality-Tactic Relationship

“…Behaviorists have attributed this happening to the influence of negotiators' personal qualities -personality (O'Connor, Gladstone 2015). Cheung et al (2009) further found that a negotiator's personality is intrinsically linked to his choice of tactic because personality influences the way a negotiator interprets a dispute. For example, a cooperative negotiator may view a challenge by his counterpart as an attempt to explore better options, but a competitive negotiator may view the same challenge as a threat.…”

Buyer and Seller Differences in Business‐to‐Business Negotiations

“…Sai On Cheung, Pui Ting Chow, and Tak Wing Yiu () identified tactics in the literature and ranked them according to usefulness. They found, for example, that negotiators use procedure ‐ focused tactics (Rahim ) such as making counter‐offers and offering trade‐offs across issues.…”

“…Progress seeking tactics seek to break stalemates by, for example, focusing on time pressures by emphasizing deadlines (De Dreu and Van Kleef ). The last category in Cheung, Chow, and Yu's () taxonomy, option generating , comprises tactics that help the parties identify mutually beneficial options (Walton and McKersie ). Mara Olekalns, Philip Smith, and Therese Walsh () proposed a taxonomy of six groups of tactics they categorized broadly as either cuing or responding, including restructuring , priority information , making concessions , positional information , and rejection .…”

Nexus of Interorganizational Trust, Principled Negotiation, and Joint Action for Improved Cost Performance: Survey of Chinese Megaprojects

“…Moreover, organizations can adopt principled negotiation for all types of disagreements to maintain a harmonious relationship throughout the process and avoid adverse impacts on the project (Cheung et al 2009). It also decreases monitoring cost and increases the possibility of achieving mutually beneficial agreements (Khalfan et al 2007).…”