Trust and negotiation tactics: perceptions about business‐to‐business negotiations in Mexico

Abstract

Trust plays a significant role in business peoples’ choices of negotiating tactics. This study compares the use of generally accepted negotiating tactics with dubious ones. Findings from a sample of Mexican business people indicate that the type of negotiation (intra‐cultural vs cross‐cultural) is predictive of the level of trust that a negotiator will place in an opponent and of the likelihood of using various negotiation tactics.

Employee attitudes toward questionable negotiation tactics: empirical evidence from Peru

“…Several researchers drew attention to the inverse relationship between trust propensity and endorsement of unethical negotiation tactics (Elahee et al 2002;Elahee and Brooks 2004;Olekalns and Smith 2009). The regression analysis indicates no significant relationship between trust propensity levels and endorsement of questionable tactics.…”

“…Low levels of trust have been reported to produce self-consciously competitive negotiating behaviors (Kimmel, Pruitt, Magenau, Konar-Goldband and Carnevale 1980), while high perceived levels of trust decrease deception and promote fair trade (Olekalns and Smith 2009). Elahee et al (2002) and Elahee and Brooks (2004) observe that business peoples' high levels of trust influence the likelihood of adopting ethically questionable negotiation tactics in intra-and cross-cultural negotiations. Rotter (1971) concludes that individuals with a high trust propensity act more trustworthy and exhibit dispositional tendency to behave in an honest, reliable and moral manner.…”

What do we know about buyer–seller negotiations in marketing research? A status quo analysis

“…Finally, similar to the negotiation environment category, it must be noted: Three studies from the 1970s and 1980s dealing with electronic support systems cannot cope with today's technical challenges. Concerning the issue of ethics and morality, the study by Elahee and Brooks (2004), for example, analyzes the relationship between trust and the use of morally questionable negotiation tactics. Thereby, findings from a sample of Mexican business people indicate that the type of negotiation (intra-cultural vs. cross-cultural) is predictive of trust towards an opponent and the likelihood of ethically questionable negotiation tactics being applied.…”

“…Process. The existing studies in the negotiation process category mainly analyze questions regarding ethics or morality, and fairness (e.g.,Al-Khatib, Vollmers, & Liu, 2007;Buchan, Croson, & Johnson, 2004;Elahee & Brooks, 2004).…”

Buyer and Seller Differences in Business‐to‐Business Negotiations

“…Research on B2B negotiations comprises an array of studies that explore negotiation behavior by sectors (e.g., Al-Khatib, Vollmers, and Liu 2007;Fleck, Volkema, and Pereira 2016;Sigurdardottir, Ujwary-Gil, and Candi 2018), by performance (e.g., Mintu-Wimsatt and Calantone 1996;Pullins et al 2000;Tellefsen 2006), within organizational teams (e.g., Smith and Barclay 1993;Tellefsen 2006); and with regard to organizational factors that influence the process (e.g., Michaels, Dubinsky, and Rich 1995;Katrichis 1998), power architecture (e.g., Balakrishnan, Patton, and Lewis 1993;Iyer and Villas-Boas 2003;Dukes, Gal-Or, and Srinivasan 2006), conflict or cooperation (e.g., Schurr and Ozanne, 1985;Strutton, Pelton, and Lumpkin 1993), cultural differences (e.g., Campbell et al 1988;Mintu-Wimsatt and Calantone 2000;Fang 2006), negotiation strategies (e.g., Graham et al 1988;Perdue and Summers 1991;Ganesan 1993), negotiation tactics (e.g., Alexander, Schul, and Babakus 1991;Volkema and Fleury 2002;Reid, Pullins, and Plank 2002;Sigurdardottir, Ujwary-Gil, and Candi 2018), and ethics, morals, and trust (e.g., Elahee and Brooks 2004;Al-Khatib, Vollmers, and Liu 2007).…”