Chilling and hastening: The influence of third-party power and interests on negotiation

Abstract

This study simulated an organizational dispute to test two hypotheses derived from the strategic choice model of mediation about the influence of third-party power and interests on negotiation. The first hypothesis was that third-party compensation—the capacity to offer negotiators positive benefits—would produce a “chilling effect,” i.e., reduced concessions and greater negotiator hostility, especially when negotiators believed that the third party had a stake in the outcome of negotiation. The second hypothesis was that third-party pressure—the capacity to expunge negotiator benefits—would produce a “hastening effect,” i.e., greater concessions and cooperativeness between negotiators, especially when negotiators believed that the third party had no stake in the outcome. Both hypotheses were supported. The results suggest that negotiators sometimes use concession making as a strategy to affect the behavior of powerful third parties—either to elicit positive benefits or to avoid the loss of benefits—depending on their beliefs about what the mediator has at stake. Also, the results suggest that the strategic choice model of mediation is useful for understanding negotiator behavior as well as mediator behavior.