Effect of Auditor Negotiation Experience and Client Negotiating Style on Auditors' Judgments in an Auditor-Client Negotiation Context

Abstract

SUMMARY In this paper, we present the results of an experiment that investigates the effects of two factors—auditors' negotiation experience and client negotiation style—on auditors' perceived ultimate negotiation outcome in terms of an asset impairment writedown. We show that negotiation experience leads to a higher perceived ultimate negotiated writedown for a client with a contentious negotiation style, suggesting that negotiation experience reaps benefits when it is needed most (i.e., when the client is difficult to deal with). Negotiation experience has no effect for a client with a collaborative negotiation style. We also find that the effect of client negotiation style on auditors' perceived negotiation outcome is contingent on the auditors' negotiation experience. Inexperienced auditors perceive a lower ultimate negotiated writedown when dealing with a contentious rather than a collaborative negotiation style client. In contrast, experienced auditors' perceived negotiation writedown is not affected by the client negotiation style. Data Availability: Contact the authors.