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Does it pay to be angry in intercultural negotiations: depends on the power and personality orientation of the counterpart

Steffen Bertram (School of Marketing and International Business, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand)
Revti Raman Sharma (School of Marketing and International Business, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand)

Cross Cultural & Strategic Management

ISSN: 2059-5794

Article publication date: 18 October 2024

Issue publication date: 27 November 2024

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Abstract

Purpose

Though anger as an emotion is an important determinant of negotiation outcomes, the extant literature presents mixed and contradictory findings. We propose that the effect of anger in intercultural negotiations depends on the power and personality orientation of the counterpart negotiators.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on data from 429 working professionals in the USA, we conducted two experimental studies in which they responded to an angry Chinese counterpart.

Findings

We find that the intercultural negotiation outcomes depend on the three-way interaction between anger, power and personality orientation. Our findings suggest that US action-oriented negotiators conceded more in a high-power condition than in a low-power condition while responding to an angry Chinese counterpart, while US state-oriented negotiators showed no difference in concession size regardless of their power and counterpart’s anger.

Originality/value

Our work is unique in establishing three-way interactive effects of power, personality and emotions in intercultural negotiation outcome relationships. Our findings are specific to an intercultural negotiation context consisting of negotiators from low-status, low-power-distance countries (e.g. the USA) with their counterparts from high-status, high-power-distance countries (e.g. China).

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Note: We would like to acknowledge and thank Dr Cheryl Rivers for her developmental insights into the first author’s PhD project, which is the basis of this paper.

Citation

Bertram, S. and Sharma, R.R. (2024), "Does it pay to be angry in intercultural negotiations: depends on the power and personality orientation of the counterpart", Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 708-724. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-03-2024-0058

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024, Emerald Publishing Limited

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