Dispositional and situational factors on bargaining concession rates and outcomes: predictive power of NIMBuS–an integrated model of Buyer-Seller negotiations

Abstract

We propose a process model that examines the antecedents and consequences of bargaining concession rates with managerially relevant constructs grounded in social psychology to predict negotiation outcomes in a sales setting involving multiple issues. The situational factors of relative power, constituent’s monitoring, time pressure; and dispositional factors of bargainer’s personality toughness and risk-taking propensity are integrated to test the associated set of hypotheses. Our novel approach employs a fractional factorial design experiment to test the predictions of our NIMBuS solution. The results of our sophisticated bargaining experiment support our model and hypotheses and add to the literature for empirical generalizability. We find in our integrated test that concession rates tend to be lower when bargainers are in a higher relative power position, are under lower time pressure, have higher personality-toughness, or have a higher risk-taking propensity. The underpinning of economic models asserting the importance of discount rates for concession-making does not hold. Our results indicate that the cost-prohibitive mechanism of organizational monitoring of salespeople may not be needed. Importantly, under asymmetric bargaining power situations, our model predicts actual outcomes better than the Nash solution. The critical importance of integrating social-psychological factors to understand the bargaining process and improve predicted outcomes is underscored.