Employee attitudes toward questionable negotiation tactics: empirical evidence from Peru

Abstract

This research investigates the influence of three theoretically valid independent variables – horizontal and vertical individualism–collectivism, ethical idealism and trust propensity – on employees' attitudes toward ethically questionable negotiation tactics in Peru. A total of 233 usable responses were collected from participants employed in various industries in the capital area, Lima. The results empirically corroborated a classification of three groups of negotiation tactics, namely pretending, deceiving and lying tactics, which seem to range in their scale of severity from being more to less socially acceptable. Peruvian employees who scored high on vertical individualism tended to score high on the endorsement of pretending, deceiving and lying tactics; those who scored high on horizontal collectivism tended to score low on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics; those who scored high on vertical collectivism tended to score high on the endorsement of the deceiving and lying tactics.