Negotiators’ Effectiveness with Mixed Agendas: An Empirical Exploration of Tasks, Decisions and Performance Criteria

Abstract

This article analyzes the performance of 1,060 individuals in dyadic, mixed-agenda negotiations in order to further understanding of individual negotiators’ effectiveness and test the applicability of common negotiation advice. To evaluate performance, both established and new measures were employed. In general, individuals were not effective, although there was wide variation that included highly effective negotiators. In striking contrast to previous research, high-performing individuals’ achievements were not significantly related to maximum joint value creation or to maximum logrolling. Most of the variation in benchmarked (best-practices) effectiveness and in partner-compared effectiveness was explained by individuals’ decisions on three types of agenda items: pure conflict, reverse priorities, and no-conflict. Each had a significant effect (with one exception), but decisions on pure conflict influenced individual effectiveness much more than decisions on either of the other two. Additional results include the extent to which negotiators tended to compromise, logroll, agree on common values, and modify their decisions across items within an item type. Among other implications, these findings argue for richer, more nuanced treatment of individual effectiveness and for advice that is attentive to the structural features of particular negotiations.