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The purpose of this study is to predict cooperation in negotiation through the lens of individual differences. Specifically, this paper examines how a social competence variable called “political skill” relates to cooperation and subsequent effects on negotiation process, outcomes and negotiator reputation. The authors demonstrate how political skill fits in the evolving literature focusing on individual differences in negotiation by comparing political skill to a wide range of other individual difference measures.

This study was conducted by assessing individual difference measures at the beginning of graduate-level negotiation courses and tracking negotiation behaviors and outcomes over several months. This approach was chosen to minimize the potential for short, time-limited interactions to mask existing relationships. It also allowed the authors to include multiple negotiation interactions, which takes a broader view of negotiation performance, and assess negotiator reputation by allowing it to emerge over time.

The results of this study show that political skill, self-rated at the beginning of this study, is significantly related to a negotiator’s overall use of cooperative behavior as rated by peers. Political skill also showed a significant relationship with reputation for cooperativeness and aggregate outcomes in negotiations. These results control for other individual difference measures such as personality, implicit negotiation beliefs, social value orientation and negotiation self-efficacy.

Using a method that allows the effects of an individual difference to materialize over time, this study empirically establishes the connection between political skill and negotiation reputation, process and outcomes. The methodological contributions of this study explore the relations between self-rated individual difference variables, peer-rated cooperative behaviors and objective coded negotiation outcomes in evaluating political skill in negotiation.

In this investigation, the authors aim to ask whether engineers, as a profession, share distinct characteristics in their attitudes and behaviors relating to negotiations. Based on a review of the literature, the authors answer in the affirmative. Generally speaking, the existing studies on individual differences of engineers conclude that they are more conscientious, more goal-driven, more competitive and less people-oriented than non-engineers. The authors suggest that these differences have significant consequences on how engineers engage in negotiations. In particular, the authors propose that engineers’ approach to negotiation includes differences related to distributive versus integrative negotiation, emotional intelligence, perspective-taking and preferred persuasion techniques.

This paper involves an integrated literature review, combining research in management, psychology and engineering to investigate whether engineers approach negotiations differently from non-engineers.

The authors suggest that individual differences between engineers and non-engineers have significant consequences for how engineers engage in negotiations. In particular, the authors propose that engineers’ approach to negotiation includes differences related to distributive versus integrative negotiation, emotional intelligence, perspective-taking and preferred persuasion techniques.

The authors offer 11 research propositions in areas relating to how engineers engage in distributive versus integrative negotiations, emotional intelligence, perspective-taking and their preferred persuasive techniques.

There are important implications for how engineers and their supervisors should be aware of these differences between how engineers and non-engineers view negotiations and how these differences may affect them and their employing organizations. There are also cultural implications, particularly for organizations for which engineers comprise a majority or a minority of the workforce composition.

There are important implications for diversity in the engineering profession, especially as it relates to the hiring of women in engineering (as they now comprise a small minority of the profession).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates how engineers negotiate. Because engineering is a hugely important contributor to society, the results of this have important implications for the society.

What does it mean to be a “smart” negotiator? Few scholars have paid much attention to this question, a puzzling omission given copious research suggesting that cognitive ability (the type of intelligence commonly measured by psychometric tests) predicts individual performance in many related contexts. In addition to cognitive ability, other definitions of intelligence (e.g., emotional intelligence) have been proposed that theoretically could influence negotiation outcomes. Aiming to stimulate renewed attention to the role of intelligence in negotiation, we develop theoretical propositions linking multiple forms of intelligence to information acquisition, decision making, and tactical choices in bargaining contexts. We outline measurement issues relevant to empirical work on this topic, and discuss implications for negotiation teaching and practice.

As a departure from past research on emotional intelligence (EI), which generally examines the influence of an individual's level of EI on that individual's consequences, we examined relationships between the emotional intelligence (EI) of both members of dyads involved in a negotiation in order to explain objective and subjective outcomes. As expected, individuals high in EI reported a more positive experience. However, surprisingly, such individuals also achieved significantly lower objective scores than their counterparts. By contrast, having a partner high in EI predicted greater objective gain, and a more positive negotiating experience. Thus, high EI individuals appeared to benefit in affective terms, but appeared to create objective value that they were less able to claim. We discuss the tension between creating and claiming value, and implications for emotion in organizations.

The goal of this study was to examine individual, relational, and organizational determinants of negotiation behavior (problem solving, contending, yielding, and avoiding) between planning and marketing departments in manufacturing organizations. Results from a study among 41 managers and 85 planning and marketing employees within 11 firms showed that individual personality, perceived interdepartmental interdependence, and organizational strategy were each related to the negotiation behavior of department members. Desirable negotiation behavior—specifically, the problem‐solving approach—was more likely when individuals were extraverted and agreeable, when employees perceived high interdepartmental interdependence, and when organizations did not have a low‐cost strategy. Contending was more likely when individuals were extraverted and disagreeable, and yielding was more likely when department members perceived a power advantage vis‐à‐vis the other department. All four styles of negotiation behavior were more likely the less the organizations had a low‐cost strategy. These findings provide guidance to organizations in their efforts to encourage constructive negotiation behavior between departments.

This study aims to test the contributions of a new type of resilience, Trait Negotiation Resilience (TNR; Nelson et al., 2016), to negotiators’ effective behavior, perception of opponent and negotiation outcomes.

A laboratory study (N = 98; 49 dyads) featuring a mixed-motive negotiation task. Participants self-reported TNR (emotional skills, social sensitivity, intrinsic motivation for self-improvement and a sense of purpose to life events) up to a week before negotiating. After the negotiations, they rated their opponents on resilient, effective personal attributes and reported their own subjective value (SV). Trained judges watched the negotiations, coded objective outcomes and rated negotiators on dimensions of effective negotiation behavior. Statistical analyses accounted for dyadic interdependence.

TNR predicted higher levels of effective negotiation behavior, which, in turn, fully mediated TNR’s favorable contribution to negotiated value. TNR also predicted higher levels of SV, and this contribution was partially mediated by perceiving effective personal attributes in the opponent.

The sample size was moderate and it consisted of undergraduate students, most of them female.

Evidence on the contribution of a personality construct to both outcome and process negotiator variables; contribution to the research of specific types of resilience.

After a hiatus in the research on individual differences in negotiation, there has been a surge of renewed interest in recent years followed by several new findings. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects that personality, as structured by the five-factor model, have over negotiation behavior and decision making in order to create new knowledge and prescribe advice to negotiators.

This study replicates observations from earlier studies but with the innovation of using a different methodology, as data from a sample of volunteer participants were collected in regard to their personality and behavior during two computerized negotiation simulations, one with the potential for joint gains and the other following a more traditional bargaining scenario.

Significant results for both settings were found, with the personality dimensions of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion systematically reoccurring as the most statistically relevant, although expressing different roles according to the type of negotiation and measure being registered. The findings thus suggest a multidimensional relationship between personality and situational variables in which specific traits can either become liabilities or assets depending upon whether the potential for value creation is present or not.

The new findings on the impacts of personality traits on both distributive and integrative negotiations allow negotiators to improve their performance and to adapt to specific distributive or integrative negotiation situations.

The purpose of this paper is to review the studies of personality and negotiation and argues that the relationship between personality and negotiation is worth re‐examination and more research attention should be devoted to this area.

A cognitive model of personality and negotiation is constructed by integrating cognitive and social factors into the exploration of negotiation processes. The mediating roles of negotiator cognitions are discussed within this framework and relationships between personality and three negotiator cognitions: win–lose orientation, face‐saving and trusting are proposed.

This study provides an integrative model for studying the relationship between personality, negotiator cognition, negotiation behaviors and outcomes, and thus has impotent implications for future studies on negotiation.

The knowledge of the relationship between personality and negotiation will help organizations use personality assessment for better decisions about selection, promotion and training for improvement in negotiation skills.

This study attempts a complete exploration on the framework that integrates personality factors and negotiation behavior and outcomes, and provides potential directions for future studies on personality and negotiation.

Building on the dual-system approach and resource-advantage theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how a particular personality trait of negotiators – namely, agreeableness – moderates the effectiveness of using coercion and reward power to appropriate value in buyer-supplier negotiations.

Simulated negotiations in buyer-supplier dyads with 152 participants are analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis.

The analysis shows that negotiators’ agreeableness moderates the effectiveness of using coercion and reward power for suppliers, but not for buyers. Negotiators in the role of suppliers use reward power more effectively and coercion power less effectively if they have high agreeableness. Buyer negotiators benefit from using coercion, regardless of their personality.

This research focuses on two common negotiation tactics and one particularly relevant personality trait. Future research might examine additional tactics and personality traits, and might delve deeper into explaining the observed differences between negotiators in the role of buyer and supplier.

The findings suggest that negotiators on the supplier side can improve their effectiveness by choosing tactics that fit their personality. Negotiators on the buyer side should consider using coercion power, regardless of their personality.

This research introduces dual-system theory to the supply chain management (SCM) literature and suggests that SCM research can benefit from simultaneously examining conscious decision processes and subconscious influences. It further suggests that the effects of dual-system interactions are sensitive to context, and more theory accounting for differences between buyers and suppliers in a dyad should be developed.

The aim of this study is to examine how personality traits influence interviewees’ negotiation decisions as well as whether and to what extent such effects are moderated by one’s gender and risk attitudes.

An experiment was designed in which participants acted as interviewees and were asked to decide whether to initiate negotiations to potentially increase their salary and benefits. A logistic regression analysis and conditional process analysis were used to examine the effects of personality traits (agreeableness and extraversion) on the initiation of salary negotiation, as well as whether and to what extent such effects are moderated by one’s gender and risk attitudes.

A significant direct influence of extraversion and risk attitude on a job applicant’s initiation of salary negotiations. It was also found that risk attitudes moderate the effect of personality traits (i.e. agreeableness and extraversion) on individuals’ negotiation decisions. This study thus indicates that the effects of personality traits on job applicants’ initiation of salary negotiations are contingent on their risk attitudes.

To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the direct as well as moderated effects of personality traits on interviewees’ negotiation behavior in job interviews. The findings of this study thus significantly contribute to the literature in this line of research. Human resource professionals, as well as job seekers, may also benefit from the findings and implications of this study.