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ETHICAL DECISION MAKING IN NEGOTIATION: A SINO-AUSTRALIAN STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF
CULTURE
CHERYL RIVERS
Bachelor of Applied Science (Applied Geology) Bachelor of Science (Geology) Honours IIA
Master of Business Administration
Being a Thesis submitted to
School of Management, Queensland University of Technology,
in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2003.
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KEY WORDS
• Negotiation
• Ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics
• Ethical decision making
• Culture
• China
• Australia
• Contextual variables
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ABSTRACT
Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation: A Sino-Australian Study of the Influence of Culture
Cheryl Rivers
This thesis presents the results of three studies that extend understanding of
ethical decision making in negotiation. First, by comparing how Chinese and
Australian negotiators think about contextual variables in an interpretive study, an
extended model of ethical decision making in negotiation is offered. This study
suggested differences in how codes of ethics and perception of the other party were
understood as well as a shared understanding of the influence of the legal
environment across the two cultures. Importance of organisational goals and
personal and business reputation also emerged as important variables in negotiators’
ethical decision making.
The next study began testing the extended model with an investigation of the
interaction between culture and closeness of the relationship with the other party
using the SINS scale (Robinson, Lewicki, & Donahue, 2000). It was found that
Chinese negotiators generally rated ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics as more
appropriate than Australians, and that Chinese differentiated more in their ratings of
appropriateness according to the social context.
In the test for metric equivalence of the SINS scale, this study found that the
existing approach of inductively deriving types of ethically ambiguous negotiation
tactics based on ratings of perceived appropriateness is flawed since patterns of
ratings are likely to vary across groups of negotiators. In light of this, a new
typology of ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics is offered based on an a priori
identification of conceptually distinct types of tactics. This new inventory of items
represents the first step in the process of producing a cross-culturally generalisable
scale of ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part 1 Introduction Chapter 1: Cultural Differences in Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
1.1 Why are Differences in Ethics Important in Negotiation ............................................... 1 1.2 Adding Culture to the Ethical Decision Making Equation ............................................. 2 1.3 Research on Contextual Variables in Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation ............. 4 1.4 Extending Previous Research ......................................................................................... 6 1.5 Outline of this Thesis ................................................................................................... 11 1.6 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter 2: Definitions
2.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 14 2.2 Defining Ethically Ambiguous Negotiation Tactics (EANTs)..................................... 14 2.3 Defining Culture........................................................................................................... 16 2.4 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 19
Part 2 – Literature Reviews
Chapter 3: Contextual Variables that Influence Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
3.1 Overview ..................................................................................................................... .20 3.2 Summary Table of Findings ......................................................................................... 21 3.3 Codes of Ethics............................................................................................................. 26 3.4 Legal Environment ....................................................................................................... 27 3.5 Perceptions of the Other Party...................................................................................... 28 3.6 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 29
Chapter 4: Incorporating Moral Philosophy into Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation Research
4.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 31 4.2 Western Moral Philosophy Foundations in Negotiation Research ............................... 32 4.3 Western Moral Philosophy and Cross-cultural Studies ................................................ 34
Part 3 – Answering Research Question 1
Chapter 5: Research Design
5.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 38 5.2 China and Australia as Target Cultures........................................................................ 39 5.3 An Inductive Frame to Explore the Influence of Culture on the Contextual Variable . 40 5.4 Data Collection using an In-Depth Interview............................................................... 41 5.5 Criterion Sampling to Select Study Participants .......................................................... 46 5.6 Analysis of Data using Grounded Theory Strategies ................................................... 50 5.7 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 54
Chapter 6: Interpretation of the Interview Data 6.1 Overview ...................................................................................................................... 56 6.2 Codes of Ethics............................................................................................................. 57 6.3 Legal Environment ....................................................................................................... 64 6.4 Perception of the Other Party ....................................................................................... 70 6.5 Variables Identified from the Data ............................................................................... 79 6.6 An extended Model of Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation ................................. 89 6.7 Decision Trees of Ethical Decision Making................................................................. 91 6.8 Hypotheses for Future Testing ..................................................................................... 98 6.9 Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 99
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Part 4 Answering Research Question 2 Chapter 7: Testing the Culture – Contextual Variable – Ethical Decision Making Interaction: Research Design
7.1 Overview .................................................................................................................... 101 7.2 Introducing the SINS Scale ........................................................................................ 103 7.3 Use and Modification of the SINS Scale.................................................................... 107 7.4 Within-Subjects Design.............................................................................................. 110 7.5 A Two-Step Analysis ................................................................................................. 112
Chapter 8: Results of Study 2 8.1 Overview .................................................................................................................... 114 8.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis of the SINS scale in China and Australia ..................... 115 8.3 Hypothesis Test: ANCOVA of Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs...................... 119 8.4 Discussion .................................................................................................................. 131 8.5 Conclusions about The Relationship Between Perceptions of the Other Party, Culture and Ethical Decision Making.................................................................................................... 136
Part 5 A New Typology of EANTs
Chapter 9: Presenting the HAATTIN Inventory of EANTs
9.1 Overview .................................................................................................................... 138 9.2 Lessons from the SINS Typology .............................................................................. 138 9.3 A New Typology........................................................................................................ 143 9.4 Testing the New Typology Using Coding Exercises.................................................. 148 9.5 The HAATTIN Inventory .......................................................................................... 159 9.6 Development of the HAATTIN Inventory ................................................................. 161
Chapter 10: Pilot Testing the HAATTIN Inventory 10.1 Overview .................................................................................................................... 164 10.2 Research Design for Hypothesis Test......................................................................... 165 10.3 Results ........................................................................................................................ 168 10.4 Discussion About Hypothesis Test............................................................................. 171 10.5 Discussion About Application of the HAATTIN inventory....................................... 171 10.6 Exploring the Dimensions Beneath Ratings of Appropriateness................................ 175 10.7 Future Development of the HAATTIN inventory ...................................................... 187
Part 6 Conclusions And Implications
Chapter 11: Summary of Findings
11.1 Overview .................................................................................................................... 189 11.2 Theoretical and Empirical Contributions ................................................................... 191 11.3 Informing Practice...................................................................................................... 194 11.4 Limitations ................................................................................................................. 196 11.5 Future Research.......................................................................................................... 198 11.6 Summary Statement ................................................................................................... 197
References .................................................................................................................................... 199
Appendices
Appendix I: SINS Scale Distributed to Australians in Study 2 .................................................... 214 Appendix II: Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis .................................................................. 217 Appendix III: 75 EANTs Used in Coding Exercise in HAATTIN Inventory Development ........ 226 Appendix IV: HAATTIN Inventory Distributed for Pilot-Study ................................................. 229 Appendix V: MDS Maps of EANTS ............................................................................................ 235
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Contextual Variables Investigated in Ethical Decision Making Research
23
Table 2 Summary of Countries Investigated in Negotiation Ethics Research
35
Table 3 Characteristics of Respondents for Study 1
47
Table 4 The Five Factors and Items for the SINS Scale (Robinson et al., 2000)
103
Table 5 Sample Description for Study 2
111
Table 6 Significant Results of ANCOVA of Estimated Marginal Means of Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs Between China and Australia; Controlling for Age, Gender and Years of Work Experience
121
Table 7 Significant Results of ANCOVA of Estimated Marginal Means of Perceived Appropriateness Within and Between China and Australia
122
Table 8 Summary Table of Differences Between Cultures
129
Table 9 Summary Table of Differences Within Cultures Between Scenarios
130
Table 10 Titles of Coding Sheets Presented to Expert Coders in Round One
149
Table 11 Matrix Portion Showing How Coders categorised EANTs
152
Table 12 Tactics Placed in Multiple Categories by Expert Coders
153
Table 13 Results of Third Round Coding Exercise (7 Lay Coders)
156
Table 14 Sample Description for Pilot-Study of HAATTIN Inventory
167
Table 15 Estimated Marginal Means and Significant Differences for Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs Controlling for Age, Gender and Work Experience
169
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Model of Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
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Figure 2 Model of Culture in Context in Negotiation
19
Figure 3 Contextual Variables in Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
90
Figure 4 Decision Tree Showing Order of Consideration of Contextual Variables in Ethical Decision Making for Australian Negotiators
93
Figure 5 Decision Tree Showing Order of Consideration of Contextual Variables in Ethical Decision Making for Chinese Negotiators
95
Figure 6 Range of Perceived Appropriateness for HAATTIN Inventory
172
Figure 7 Range of Perceived Appropriateness for HAATTIN Inventory Organised by Type
173
Figure 8 Stress Plot of Different Dimensional Solutions
176
Figure 9 MDS Map of EANTs Dimension 1 (Immediacy) Versus Dimension 2 (Impression Management)
177
Figure 10 Map of EANTs Dimension 3 (Emotional Investment) Versus Dimension 4 (Signal Strength)
178
Figure 11 Lewicki et al.’s Model of Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
180
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DECLARATION The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made. Signed: ______________________________________ Date: _________________________________________
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In addition to thanking the people who were fundamental in the establishment of a grant for this research, most especially Michael Hudson from ENS, and Dr John Martin (now at RMIT) – I wish to thank a few special people who inspired me and motivated me to the end. First and foremost, I wish to thank Dr Anne Lytle of the Australian Graduate School of Management. On the day I walked into her office, I felt like a rain-dog that was welcomed into a cosy house and given a gentle pat while the storm raged outside. Anne has been consistently generous with her time, her encouragement and her formidable skill at extracting clarity where there is mostly muddle. This thesis would not have been finished without her weekends and weeks of unpaid work. While I will seek to mimic Anne’s research and supervisory skills going forward in my academic career, I mostly wish to emulate Anne’s generosity of spirit. Anne, the rain-dog is deeply grateful for the shelter and nurturing. Thank you. Secondly, although first in other ways, I wish to thank my partner and husband, Darryl Hawke. He has been a star in his support for me and this project – sending me off to China in the face of mayhem in his own job and saying ‘I understand’ lots during the write-up phase as I honed my witch from hell impersonation. Truly remarkable. Thanks Hawkie. This project included data collected in China. It would have been a complete nightmare if not for the help and enthusiasm of Sean Wang from China Ocean University in Qingdao who helped me set up interviews because he was interested in the project. Claire Song was my translator and also an excellent bargainer for handbags. I have a deep affection for Claire and Sean that goes beyond guanxi and they helped me learn much about China and the Chinese. Lastly, I wish to thank those who extended an encouraging hand or cheered me on my way. Dr Stephen Cox our methods guru in the Faculty of Business; Jeremy, Marcus and the crowd at Coffee on Albert; Assoc Prof Michelle Barker of Griffith University who helped me in my first year; Jen Cowan who played hostess extraordinaire in Sydney and administered helpful amounts of champagne and hilarity; and, my friends with PhDs who insisted if they could do it so could I. My office buddy, coffee pal and fellow PhD student, Jen Waterhouse warrants special mention. While I hope never to hear another word about the organisation she studied, I do hope we will continue our animated discussions (over coffee) about the value of government and that she will eventually concede that I am right. Thanks Jen.
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DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my Dad, Ron Rivers, for teaching me to give it my best shot.
In Memory of Ronald James Rivers
21st September 1928 – 23rd January 2001
1
PART 1 INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1 Cultural Differences in Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
1.1 Why are Differences in Ethics Important in Negotiation?
Ethics are our rules for making decisions, for answering the question ‘what is
the right thing to do?’ (Bagley, 2003). Negotiations involve lots of decisions: ‘how
much information shall I tell the other party?’, ‘what is the best response to their
offer?’ and it is our ethics, as part of our negotiation rule book (Bazerman, Curhan,
Moore, & Valley, 2000) that help us answer these questions. Ethical decisions have
been described as an inescapable component of negotiation (Barry & Robinson,
2002) because the opportunity to deceive is usually present because of information
asymmetries between the parties.
What happens, then, when two negotiators sit opposite each other with
different ideas about what is ethical and one negotiator uses a tactic that the other
party considers unethical? The answer is not good news. Lewicki, Saunders, and
Minton (1999) have described the response as causing ‘discomfort, personal stress or
even guilt’ (p:243) and that is for the perpetrator. The receiver is likely to be angry
and embarrassed and ‘most victims are likely to seek retaliation and revenge’
(Lewicki et al., 1999, p:244). A recent empirical study of Australian marketeers’
feelings about ethical dilemmas also describes potent emotional responses for those
on the receiving end of unethical actions. Marketeers described being appalled,
unhappy, angry, being uneasy and frustrated (McNeil & Pedigo, 2001).
Seeking revenge or being angry or frustrated does not sit well with advice on
how to achieve integrative potential in a negotiation such as cultivating trust and
credibility (Brett, 2001). Therefore, it is important for negotiators to be aware that
using tactics the other party deem ‘unethical’ can elicit strong responses and
influence their commitment to achieving integrative potential.
Although empirical research has established that there is a range of perceived
appropriateness of negotiation tactics (Anton, 1990; Barry, Fulmer, & Long, 2003;
Lewicki & Robinson, 1998; Lewicki & Stark, 1996; Robinson, Lewicki, & Donahue,
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2000.) our understanding of differences remains incomplete. It is important for
negotiators to understand both that there is a range of perceived appropriateness and
also why the differences occur. Equipped with this information, negotiators can
recognise when the other party is using tactics that they consider acceptable and
understand why the other party deems the tactic acceptable. This understanding can
help them avoid the feelings of anger, frustration and resentfulness toward the other
party. It can also help them avoid using tactics that might anger or incite revenge
from the other party, or if they want to use a tactic that the other party considers
‘unethical’, they can do so understanding the likely implications.
This research project explains why some of the differences occur and extends
understanding of why there are differences in what constitutes an ethical decision in
negotiation.
1.2 Adding Culture to the Ethical Decision Making Equation
Understanding differences in what constitutes an ethical decision in
negotiation is even more important when negotiation crosses national borders
because of the high cost of international negotiations and the greater potential for
misunderstanding. Given the increasing frequency of cross-cultural negotiations,
helping negotiators understand cultural differences in ethical decision making in
negotiations is an increasingly important endeavour.
Although it is widely accepted that there are cultural differences in
negotiation rule books (or negotiation schema) (Brett & Okumura, 1998) and it has
been confirmed that there are cross-cultural differences in perceptions of ethicality in
negotiations (Elahee, Kirby, & Nasif, 2002; Triandis et al., 2001; Volkema & Fleury,
2002; Volkema, 1998, 1999, 2001; Zarkada-Fraser & Fraser, 2001), there is little
understanding of how culture influences the ethical decision making in negotiation.
A model detailing the nature of the different rule books would help negotiators
understand differences in perceived ethicality of tactics.
Part of the problem in understanding how culture influences ideas of what is
ethical in a negotiation is that research has spanned a range of cultures and has
adopted different approaches to culture. These variations make aggregating the
findings difficult. For example, one stream of research has shown that some cultures
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are more tolerant of the use of ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics (EANTs1) than
others – e.g. Mexicans perceive EANTs as less appropriate than U.S. respondents
(Volkema, 1998), Brazilians rate EANTs as more appropriate than U.S. respondents
(Volkema, 1999), Japanese rate EANTs as less acceptable than other countries
(Greece, Russia, Australia, the U.S. and Britain) (Zarkada-Fraser & Fraser, 2001).
Other research has focussed on cultural value dimensions and concluded that vertical
collectivist cultures (Korea, Greece and Japan) were more likely to bribe than
horizontal collectivist cultures (Australia and the Netherlands) (Triandis et al., 2001).
A recent study by Elahee et al. (2002) also considered cultural dimensions in a
comparative study of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. They also reported higher
likelihood to use EANTs by collectivists (Mexicans) compared with individualist
countries (Canada and the U.S. ) and that collectivists would discriminate more
between intra- and cross-cultural negotiations in the likelihood of use of EANTs.
These findings suggest that there are cultural differences in negotiators’ rule
books of ethicality and provide inspiration to investigate the influence of culture
further. For example, are some cultures less ethical than others, or is it that they are
reading the negotiation situation differently?
The aim of this thesis is to extend understanding of the influence of culture
on ethical decision making.
Culture is the unique character of a social group (Brett, 2001). In order to
explore the influence of culture it is necessary to select a conception of culture. In
this thesis, a ‘culture in context’2 approach has been chosen. This approach defines
culture through the meanings attributed to the social context (Cai & Gelfand,
forthcoming; Gelfand & Dyer, 2000; Janosik, 1987). In culture in context, the
influence of culture is moderated by contextual factors (Janosik, 1987)
Because of this emphasis on contextual factors, ‘culture in context’ marries
well with the dominant view in the business ethics literature that ethical decision
making is situationally specific (Randall & Gibson, 1990). The importance of
context to ethical decision making is highlighted in one of the most cited definitions
of ethics in the business ethics literature: ethics are ‘the rules, standards, codes or
principles which provide guidelines for the morally right behaviour and truthfulness
1 Ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics are defined in the next chapter. 2 Culture and culture in context are defined in the next chapter.
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in specific situations’ (Lewis, 1985, italics added). The centrality of contextual
factors is also demonstrated by their feature roles in the main models of ethical
decision making in the business ethics literature. In Trevino's (1986) person-
situation interactionist model, situational variables moderate fixed individual
characteristics and in Jones' (1991) ‘issue-contingent model’ situational variables
combine to provide the moral intensity of an issue to be decided.
Following this emphasis on situational or contextual variables in the business
ethics research, this thesis embraces the culture in context construction of culture and
focuses on cultural differences in the understanding of how contextual variables are
understood and incorporated into ethical decision making in negotiation.
1.3 Research on Contextual Variables in Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
The aim of this thesis is to extend understanding of how culture influences
ethical decision making. The chosen culture in context approach directs attention to
exploring the influence of culture on understanding of contextual variables. This
section describes current understanding of contextual variables in ethical decision
making in negotiation.
Contextual variables have been considered in negotiation ethics research – in
the current model of the ethical decision making process by Lewicki et al. (1999)
shown below, five contextual variables are identified. These are a) the relationship
with the other party; b) the relative power of the negotiators; c) whether or not the
negotiator is acting as an agent; d) the group and the organisational norms, and; e)
the cultural norms. Yet the influence of contextual variables on ethical decision in
negotiation has not been comprehensively explored. The following review of
findings, to date, shows that there are sizeable gaps in our understanding of both how
negotiators understand contextual variables, and how they incorporate contextual
variables into their ethical decisions.
We know that when there is the likelihood of a future long-term relationship
with the other party, negotiators are less likely to endorse marginally ethical tactics
(Lewicki & Spencer, 1991 cited in Lewicki et al. 1999, Volkema & Fleury, 2002)
5
Figure 1: Model of Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
Source: Lewicki et al., (1999)
and that people are more likely to deceive a stranger than a friend (Schweitzer &
Croson, 1999). We also know that there is a link between the relative power of
negotiators and the expectation of undesirable behaviour (Tenbrunsel & Messick,
2001) however, the direction of that influence is unclear because there are conflicting
findings. On one hand, there is empirical evidence that negotiators with more power
will use EANTs (bluffing) more than their counterparts with less power (Crott,
Kayser, & Lamm, 1980) and on the other hand, there is evidence that when the
negotiator knows there is a power imbalance, they will be more open and provide
information (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2001). There is also research showing that
power has no effect at all (Aquino, 1998).
Negotiation researchers are yet to turn their attention to how the other
contextual variables influence ethical decision making in a negotiation. Following
Bowie and Freeman’s (1992) work, Lewicki et al. (1999) have proposed that when
people act as an agent they may be more willing to violate personal ethical standards.
Although there are numerous studies on the agency relationship in negotiation, no
studies could be found that specifically addressed their perceptions of ethicality in a
negotiation context. Similarly, although the influence of group and organisational
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norms have received significant coverage in the business ethics literature (see Ford &
Richardson, 1994 and Loe, Ferrell, & Mansfield, 2000 for reviews) only one study
could be found in a negotiation context. Aquino (1998) found that when ethical
standards were highly salient, negotiators were significantly less likely to use
deception, even when there were strong individual incentives to act otherwise.
Although this research is invaluable in confirming that contextual variables
do influence negotiators’ ethical decision making, the research can be conceptually
extended.
1.4 Extending Previous Research
By focussing on cultural differences in how contextual factors are
understood, this research project extends understanding of ethical decision making in
negotiation in two directions:
1. It provides further information about how contextual variables influence
negotiators’ ethical decision making, and
2. It provides an understanding of how culture influences the ethical
decision making processes in negotiation.
The sorts of questions it seeks to answer are: how are contextual factors
understood differently across cultures? Are there cross-cultural differences, or are
contextual variables such as relationship with the other party understood in the same
way across cultures? If there are differences, what are they and why do they exist?
Is it the nature of the contextual variable that is different across cultures? Using the
example of the contextual variable ‘relationship with the other party’ – is it
relationships that are different across cultures? That is, do people have different
kinds of relationships? Or is it that they are understood differently?
This section of the introduction explains how the research questions were
refined and the approach taken to address them.
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Refining the Research Questions
In order to explore how culture influences understanding of contextual
variables and how contextual variables influence the ethical decision, it was
necessary to first select some contextual variables for investigation.
Because there are so few empirical studies in the negotiation ethics area that
have considered contextual variables, the findings from the business ethics literature
were integrated to select contextual variables. Integrating the business ethics
literature led to a slight shift in emphasis away from traditional negotiation
contextual variables (for example, the relative power of the two parties) toward more
generic variables that many managers consider. The contextual variables identified
were codes of ethics, the legal environment and the perception of the other party.
This identification of these variables led to the refinement of the first research
question:
RESEARCH QUESTION ONE
Are there cross-cultural differences in codes of ethics, the legal environment and
perceptions of the other party in ethical decision making in negotiation and in
how they are understood by negotiators?
The outcomes from answering this research question were:
• an extended model of ethical decision making in negotiation,
• a set of hypotheses about the relationship between culture, the
contextual variables and ethical decision making in negotiation, and
• two decision trees that posit the relative importance of the contextual
variables in the ethical decision.
The next step is the systematic testing of the hypotheses. Testing all the
hypotheses suggested by the model is an endeavour that will extend beyond the time
constraints of this doctoral research program. However, the process was begun and
an initial step taken toward answering this second research question:
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RESEARCH QUESTION TWO
What is the relationship between each of the chosen three contextual variables
and culture and ethical decision making in negotiations?
Methodology for This Research
In order to talk sensibly about the methods adopted for this cross-cultural
study, it is necessary to first clarify that this research took place in China and
Australia. These two cultures were chosen because they represent two different
moral philosophies. China has a Confucian philosophic foundation and Australia
and has a Greco-Western moral philosophic foundation.
The focus on moral philosophies came out of critical analysis of writing by
negotiation philosophers and a review of countries selected for cross-cultural studies
in negotiation ethics research which suggested two things:
• there has been an implicit acceptance of Western moral philosophies
such as utilitarianism and Kantianism in the literature, and
• there has been insufficient attention paid to non-Western philosophies
such as Confucianism.
From this analysis, it is argued that it is important to investigate cultures that
have different moral philosophies when exploring the effect of culture on ethical
decision making. This conclusion, in part, drove the selection of China and Australia
as target cultures.
Because few studies have explored either the influence of contextual
variables, or the cross-cultural differences in how contextual variables are understood
by negotiators, an interpretive frame was used to answer the first research question.
Negotiators in China and Australia were selected for interview by criterion sampling.
They were interviewed using two scenarios that were designed to elicit comments on
the three contextual variables.
In China, the interviews were conducted in Mandarin with a translator and
then transcribed into English. Chinese participants received the two scenarios in
Mandarin which were subjected to a translation – back-translation process using
Chinese advisors.
9
In order to interpret the data, the approaches of grounded theory (after Glaser
& Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998) were adopted. A constant
comparison process – between subjects within cultures and between cultures was
used.
This study represents the inducto-hypothetico (after Cattell, 1988) part of
larger research design that went on to test the relationships suggested by the
interpretation of data in study one. As noted previously, the outcome of this study
was an extended model of ethical decision making in negotiation and a set of
hypotheses about the relationship between culture, contextual variables and ethical
decision making.
In study 2, the hypothetico-deductive phase of the research was commenced.
One hypothesis was selected for testing, concerned with the relationship with the
other party. To test this hypothesis, a within-subjects design was devised with
Chinese and Australian subjects evaluating the perceived appropriateness of EANTs
using the SINS scale (Robinson, Lewicki, & Donohue, 2000) which was modified
with two scenarios that varied according to the relationship with the other party. The
SINS scale is the validated tool in the negotiation ethics field. As well as scenarios
being added, the scale was subjected to a translation – back-translation process for
application in China. Over 200 Chinese and 200 Australian working adults
participated in this study.
Prior to analysis using ANCOVA (with age, gender and years work
experience being controlled) the metric equivalence of the SINS scale was tested
using exploratory factor analysis. This procedure was necessary because the SINS
scale had not been previously used in either Australia or China and the metric
equivalence of the constructs identified by Robinson et al. (2000) needed to be
checked.
Although incidental to the endeavour of answering the research questions, a
major finding of this thesis is that SINS factors proposed by Robinson et al. (2000)
are not generalisable across cultures. This finding led to the ANCOVA being run on
each of the 16 items in the SINS scale to test the hypothesis.
The findings from the second study provided further evidence that there are
cultural differences in the perceived appropriateness of EANTs with the Chinese
10
generally rating most of the EANTs as more appropriate than the Australians across
both scenarios. The data also provided empirical support for the idea that there are
cross-cultural differences in how the contextual variable ‘relationship with the other
party’ influences perception of EANTs.
These positive results from the test of the one hypothesis in study 2 urge
further systematic testing of the hypotheses proposed from the model. But the results
of the exploratory factor analysis on the SINS scale caused a quandary of ‘where
next?’ because the SINS scale appeared less than ideal for further Sino-Australian
comparisons. Because a cross-culturally valid instrument is such a vital part of
testing for cultural differences in how contextual factors influence ethical decision
making in negotiation, the decision was made to take a detour away from the
research questions and commence development of a new instrument of EANTs. It is
important to note that instrument development is a long and iterative process and the
steps presented here represent only the initial phase.
First, the lessons from the SINS scale were considered and research from the
workplace deviance literature and the deceptive communication literature was
incorporated to develop a new typology of EANTs. This typology was tested in
Australia using a series of exercises where coders placed each EANT into one of the
proposed types. The outcome of this process was a new 24-item inventory of
EANTs called the HAATTIN (How Appropriate Are These Tactics In Negotiation)
inventory. This inventory offers 8 types of theoretically distinct EANTs.
Further testing and refinement of the inventory in other cultures is necessary
before claims of cross-cultural generalisability can be made. Nonetheless, a pilot test
of the HAATTIN inventory was conducted in Australia to see if Australians could
distinguish between the items in the inventory. A multi-dimensional scaling exercise
was also conducted to explore dimensions underlying ratings of EANTs.
This pilot-test provided the opportunity to test another of the hypotheses
proposed in the interpretive study by adding a scenario to the HAATTIN inventory.
For this study, a between-subjects design was employed with a sample of 281
Australians. ANCOVA was used (with age, gender and years of work experience
controlled) to test the hypothesis at the item level.
11
In summary, this research cycles through an inductive stage at the beginning
to derive hypothesis from the data into a deductive stage using the SINS scale to test
one of the hypothesis. In light of findings about the lack of metric equivalence of the
SINS factors, a detour from answering the research questions is taken. Through a
series of coding exercises a new typology of EANTs is offered and an inventory of
EANTs is offered as the first step in the long process of developing a scale that can
be used in ethical decision making in negotiation research in different cultures.
1.5 Outline of this Thesis
This thesis is presented in parts. Immediately following this chapter,
definitions of the constructs ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics and culture are
presented which concludes the introductory section.
The literature reviews are presented in the next part in chapters 3 and 4. The
first literature review is concerned with the choice of the contextual variables for
investigation. Chapter 4 provides the detail necessary to show that countries with
non-Western moral philosophies have not received much attention in the literature to
date.
The next part of the thesis – part 3 – addresses the first research question ‘are
there cross-cultural differences in codes of ethics, the legal environment and
perceptions of the other party in ethical decision making in negotiation and in how
they are understood by negotiators?’ via an interpretive study. First the research
design is presented in chapter 5, followed by the findings and interpretation in
chapter 6. This chapter also presents the extended model of ethical decision making
in negotiation. Hypotheses about the interaction of culture, contextual variables and
the perceived appropriateness of EANTs are also presented here.
The next part of the thesis, part 4, cycles into the deductive phase of this
research. Systematic testing of an hypothesis is commenced to define the
relationship between culture and the one aspect of the variable ‘relationship with the
other party’. In chapter 7, the SINS scale by Robinson et al. (2000) is presented
before explaining how the scale was modified and translated. The sample is also
described in this chapter.
12
In chapter 8, the results of the two-phase analyses of the data are presented.
First the results of the exploratory factor analysis used to test the metric equivalence
is presented and discussed. Then the results of the ANCOVA are presented and
discussed. This study showed that the Chinese generally rated the EANTs as more
appropriate than the Australians and that the Chinese generally differentiated more
than the Australians as the scenario was varied.
As already noted, the finding that the factor structure of the SINS scale did
not generalise across cultures raised concerns about the typology of EANTs proposed
by Robinson et al. (2000) in their SINS scale. This finding led into a diversionary,
but nonetheless interesting phase of study. This study is presented in part 5 of this
thesis. First, in chapter 9, typologies from the workplace deviance literature and the
deceptive communication literature are reviewed before a new typology is proposed
and a set of EANTs is presented in the HAATTIN inventory.
Taking the step from an inventory of items to a validated cross-culturally
generalisable scale is a long term process requiring numerous iterations and rounds
of data collection in different cultures. Initial steps in this process are presented in
chapter 10 with a pilot-test of the inventory in Australia. The pilot-test also allowed
concurrent testing of one of the hypotheses from the model. Chapter 10 contains
details of the research design, the study results, a discussion about testing of the
hypothesis and the usefulness of the HAATTIN inventory and an interpretation of a
multi-dimensional scaling exercise.
The final chapter of this thesis, chapter 11, also forms the final part of the
thesis (part 6). Here the findings are summarised. The theoretical and empirical
contributions are described, the contribution to practice discussed and future research
directions are discussed.
1.6 Summary
At the beginning of this chapter, the importance of understanding differences
in ethical decision making in negotiation was presented. In order to better
understand why there are differences in negotiation ethics, a cross-cultural research
project has been conceived. The design and results will be described in detail in the
13
coming chapters. This chapter has provided an overview of the methods used and
the results found and described the layout of the coming chapters.
The next chapter in this introduction will define the variables of ethically
ambiguous negotiation tactics and culture.
14
Chapter 2 Definitions
2.1 Overview
In the fields of cross-cultural research, business ethics and negotiation ethics,
definitions adopted by researchers vary. This chapter defines the core constructs in
this thesis: ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics (EANTs) and culture. Both of
these constructs are central to the investigation of how culture influences
understanding of contextual variables in ethical decision making which is the task
undertaken in this thesis.
2.2 Defining Ethically Ambiguous Negotiation Tactics (EANTs)
In order to define ethically ambiguous tactics, this section first defines what is
meant by ‘ethics’ and then what is meant by ‘ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics’
(EANTs) which are referred to throughout this thesis.
Defining Ethics
Most people know that ethics is to do with what is right or wrong but find it
hard to define beyond that. They usually offer a similar definition for morals and
find it difficult to differentiate between ethics and morals. Although business ethics
academics appear to prefer the term ethics to morals, the terms are used
interchangeably. This switching of terms is correct because both terms have as their
basis the Greek roots ethos and ta ethika which was then rendered into Latin by
Cicero as mores (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989).
Definition of the ethics in both dictionaries and philosophy texts are
inextricably linked to Aristotle who used the term ‘ethos’ in his rhetoric and when
reviewing artwork, he referred to the representation of ethos in the paintings of
Polygnotus. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, he meant the pictures
portrayed character but as Aristotle elsewhere says that Polygnotus portrayed men as
nobler than they really are, some modern writers have taken ethos to mean ‘ideal
15
excellence’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). Subsequent usage of the terms ethics
and ethical in English has built on this interpretation and now the terms generally
mean the rules of conduct that guides a person to determine what is right in a certain
situation. The definition of ethics used in this thesis is from Lewis (1985) and is:
‘the rules, standards, codes or principles which provided guidelines for the morally
right behaviour and truthfulness in specific situations’.
Defining Ethically Ambiguous Negotiation Tactics (EANTs)
The term ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics has been agreed with other
researchers in the field.
The meaning of ‘ambiguous’ is ‘doubtful, questionable and open to several
possible interpretations’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989). If something is ethically
ambiguous it means there can be multiple understandings of whether it conforms to
standards of what is right.
Negotiation is generally accepted as being an interaction between two or
more parties who are working together to seek to resolve incompatible goals (after
Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993). Negotiations here are defined as deliberate interaction,
involving face to face discussions between two or more entities who are attempting
to define or redefine the terms of their interdependence in a matter’ (adapting Walton
& McKersie, 1991 and Weiss, 1996, 1993).
The word tactic is taken from military parlance and is the label given to a
manoeuvre in the course of battle. In a negotiation context it is an action or
statement used by a negotiator, usually with a view to achieving an aim. There are a
range of tactics that negotiators can use in a negotiation.
Pulling all these definitions together, an ethically ambiguous negotiation
tactic is a manoeuvre used in the course of a negotiation that may be regarded as
wrong by at least some individuals who participate in or observe the negotiation.
Ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics are referred to as EANTs throughout this
thesis.
16
2.3 Defining Culture
One of the main concerns for cross-cultural psychology theory development
is that there are numerous ways of conceptualising and operationalising culture
(Aycan, 2000) which makes it hard to aggregate findings and push forward
theoretical knowledge. This section elaborates on the ‘culture in context’ perspective
that was flagged in the previous chapter. First however, it defines ‘culture’.
The definition of culture presented in chapter one was from Brett (2001):
‘culture is the unique character of a social group’. More complex definitions are
common. The earliest definition of culture is from 1871 by the anthropologist E.B
Taylor as ‘that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals,
customs and any capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of a society’
(Taylor, 1871; p:1). One of the most widely cited definitions in the industrial and
organisational psychology literature is from Kluckhohn (1951): ‘culture consists in
patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by
symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their
embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e.,
historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values’
(Kluckhohn, 1951: p.86).
These definitions suggest that culture may manifest itself in terms of values,
beliefs, cognitive processes, and overt behaviour at the individual level and in
structures, practices, norms and rituals at the organizational level (Aycan, 2000).
This complex manifestation of culture gives rise to the question of how to
operationalise culture when trying to investigate its influence. There are three
common ways of conceiving of culture. The first of these is comparative cross-
cultural studies where the behaviour is measured directly in two or more cultures and
the differences attributed to culture. Such studies suffer from being atheoretical
(Gelfand & Dyer, 2000). The other two alternatives are ‘culture as shared values’
where culture is broken down into one or more cultural value dimensions (for
example individualism and collectivism identified by Hofstede, 1980) that are
measured at the same time as measuring a behavioural difference and the amount of
variance accounted for by the value dimension is determined; and ‘culture in context’
17
where culture is defined through the meanings attributed to the social context (Cai &
Gelfand, forthcoming; Gelfand & Dyer, 2000; Janosik, 1987).
Culture in context was chosen over culture as shared values because it
marries best with the dominant perspective in business ethics research that says that
ethical decision making is situationally specific (Randall & Gibson, 1990).
However, culture in context was also chosen over culture as shared valued because
there is an increasing body of literature that suggests that value dimensions lack
predictive power (for example Brett, 2001; Cai, Wilson, & Drake, 2000; Gelfand &
Dyer, 2000; and, Tinsley, 1998).
It has been shown that cultural dimensions account for only part of the
variance in negotiation outcomes. For example, in a 1998 study comparing U.S. and
Japanese negotiators, Brett and Okumura (1998) hypothesised that the value of
individualism-collectivism would be related to a high-self interest schema (the
amount of self-interest in a negotiation). Although it was found that U.S. negotiators
were more likely than Japanese negotiators to espouse self-interest schemas, the test
of how much variation between cultural group (nationality) and schemas was
mediated by the cultural value of individualism-collectivism found that the cultural
group – negotiation schema relationship was substantially greater than what could be
accounted for by a cultural value (Brett & Okumura, 1998, p:503). Similarly, in a
study of preferred models of conflict resolution, Tinsley (1998) noted that the
cultural group accounted for twice as much variance in model preference as value
dimensions.
There are also contradictory findings between studies that use value
dimensions which make it hard to aggregate findings. For example, Arunachalam
and Wall (1998) found that Hong Kong negotiators (collectivists) achieved a
significantly higher joint outcome than U.S. negotiator dyads (individualists).
Contrary to this finding, Brett et al. (1998) found that U.S. negotiators realised higher
joint gains than Hong Kong Chinese. Both research teams invoke the collectivist
value dimensions to develop hypotheses, but in different ways. The Arunachalam
and Wall (1998) study focussed on collectivists pursuit of group goals to explain
their finding whereas Brett et al. (1998) argue that the Hong Kong Chinese will take
‘a distributive, zero sum approach to negotiations, unless the negotiations are with an
in-group member, in which case negotiations should be cooperative, but not
18
necessarily integrative. At the same time, the high achievement orientation should
lead to high individual goals in the negotiation. However, the combination of high
achievement orientation and the distributive approach may increase the likelihood of
impasse and low joint gains’ (Brett et al., 1998 p:66). These examples show the
same value dimension, collectivism, being used to argue for different comparative
outcomes against individualists. Such contradictions demonstrate how it is difficult
to aggregate findings from different studies.
Unlike the culture as shared values approach where the effort is directed
toward seeking correlations between value dimensions and behaviours, culture in
context takes the perspective that culture is defined through the meanings attributed
to the social context (Cai & Gelfand, forthcoming; Gelfand & Dyer, 2000; Janosik,
1987).
Culture in context is a conception of culture that is closer to cultural
psychologists view of culture as a dynamic process (Cauce, 2002) where there is a
dynamic interplay between culture and other variables (either dependent or
independent) but it remains a sticky entity difficult to incorporate in a causal model
(Shore, 2002). A substantial advance towards modelling culture in context in
negotiation is shown in the following figure that is part of a model by Gelfand and
Dyer (2000). It shows culture as both influencing and being influenced by both the
proximal social conditions3 and the negotiator’s psychological states. Culture is also
shown having a moderating effect on the interaction between the social conditions
and the negotiator’s psychological states and a moderating effect on the relationship
between negotiator’s psychological states and behaviour. These multiple influences
of culture are consistent with theory that has shown there are differences in how
cultural groups assign meanings to contextual factors (Markus, Kitayama, & Heiman,
1996).
Adopting a culture in context perspective had implications for both the
research questions that are formulated and for the methodology. Because a culture in
context perspective acknowledges that there are multiple realities that are socially
constructed (Aycan, 2000) it led to research questions that ask how contextual
variables are understood and what are the differences in those understandings.
3 Gelfand’s and Dyer’s ‘proximal social conditions’ equate to ‘contextual variables’ in this thesis.
19
Figure 2: Model of Culture in Context in Negotiation
This Figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available at the QUT Library. Source: Gelfand and Dyer (2000)
In turn these questions prompted an interpretive rather than positivistic stance
because interpretive perspectives allow the researcher to engage in in-depth study of
the historical, social, political, economical, and institutional systems of cultures
(Aycan, 2000).
2.4 Summary
This chapter concludes the introductory section of this thesis. Two core
constructs that are referred to throughout this thesis have been defined: ethically
ambiguous negotiation tactics (EANTs) and culture in context.
Keeping within the culture in context perspective, the next task in this thesis
is to select contextual variables for investigation. This task is accomplished in the
next chapter. Chapter 3 contains a review of the literature from the negotiation and
business ethics fields to derive three contextual variables for investigation.
20
PART 2 – LITERATURE REVIEWS
Chapter 3 Contextual Variables that Influence Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
3.1 Overview
This chapter identifies three contextual variables that are influential in ethical
decision making that are investigated in this cross-cultural study. These are codes of
ethics, the legal environment and the perception of the other party.
Two bodies of literature informed the selection – the negotiation literature
and the business ethics literature. As noted in chapter 1, five contextual variables
were included in the Lewicki et al. (1999) model of ethical decision making but there
are few empirical studies that have investigated how these variables influence ethical
decision making. By comparison, the business ethics literature has a long history of
research into contextual variables. Although these studies are across a range of
ethical decision making situations, their findings helped guide the choice of variables
for this study.
Three criteria were used to select the contextual variables. Firstly, the
variable had to have been considered as influential by negotiation researchers, even if
there were few empirical studies that had investigated the influence of it. Secondly,
some empirical studies in the business ethics field, albeit not within a negotiation
context, had to suggest the variable was influential. Thirdly, the variable had to be
likely to be affected by culture.
Even using these criteria, the choice remains subjective and arbitrary. For
example, when many researchers had considered a particular variable, it made the
inclusion of that variable compelling. However, because there are so few studies that
have considered contextual variables in ethical decision making in negotiation, even
the arbitrary choices made here will help inform understanding of how negotiators
are influenced by contextual variables in their decision making.
Two variables included in Lewicki et al.'s (1999) model of ethical decision
making are not included in this discussion. Their model includes relative power and
21
acting as an agent as contextual variables. Although there are a number of studies
that show a link between perceived power imbalance and the expectation of
undesirable behaviour, the causal direction between expectation and behaviour is not
clear (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2001), with some studies showing that negotiators with
more power will use EANTs (bluffing) more than their counterparts (Crott et.al,
1980) and other studies showing that power has no effect at all (Aquino, 1998). No
studies could be found that specifically investigated the effect of acting as an agent
on ethical decision making in negotiation. Both of these variables are relatively
subtle nuances of the negotiator role and it felt that they were not particularly well
suited to exploratory cross-cultural research given their influence has not yet been
investigated in Western culture.
This chapter is divided into four sections. The next section describes the
table summarising the findings of the research and then, in turn, each of the chosen
variables is discussed.
3.2 Summary Table of Findings
A summary of the studies that have conceptualised or empirically tested
contextual variables as part of the ethical decision making process are presented in
Table 1 following. The table is presented in three columns, the first identifies the
variables discussed by the researchers, followed by the authors and year of
publication and the third column provides an overview of the findings of the study.
The first section of the table reviews the theoretical models of ethical
decision making. Some of these are well known like Trevino's (1986) oft-cited
person-situation interaction model and some are less well known. A glance down the
findings in this section of the table shows that organisational contextual variables
feature heavily. Variously labelled as professional codes, codes of ethics or
company policy are included in every model. The other contextual variable that is
considered in a few of the models is the legal environment. Both of these variables
have been chosen for further investigation in this study.
The second section of the table is titled ‘negotiation research on ethical
decision making’ and summarises the three studies that have looked at contextual
factors within a negotiation context. Comparing the different variables identified in
22
the Lewicki et al. (1999) theoretical model and the two empirical studies with the
variables included in the business ethics models, it is apparent that contextual
variables related to the relationship with the other party is unique to the negotiation
field. The Lewicki et al. (1999) model includes the relationship with the opponent
and relative power and the study by Volkema and Fleury (2002) considered the
perception of the other party including both relationship with the other party and
reputation. The perception of the other party was chosen as an influential contextual
variable.
The third and final section of the table reports the empirical studies that have
investigated contextual variables in ethical decision making. Given the volume of
studies in this area, two review papers form the back-bone of this section: Ford and
Richardson (1994) and Loe et al. (2000). The findings from this section support the
inclusion of codes of ethics as an important contextual variable for this study.
Each of the three variables is discussed, in turn, in the sections following the
table.
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Table 1 – Contextual Variables Investigated in Ethical Decision Making Research
Variable Author and Year Finding
Theoretical Models
Organisational factors Ferrell and Gresham (1985) The decision is affected by both the influence of significant others in the organisation and the existence of professional codes, corporate policy, and rewards and punishment.
Environmental factors Hunt and Vitell (1986) Although the focus of this model is on the use of deontological and teleological norms, it includes three contextual variables: legal environment, industry norms and organisational norms.
Organisational culture Trevino (1986) In strong organisational cultures, organisational members share values and the goals, purposes and beliefs of the organisation are clear and these help individuals judge what is right and who is responsible in a particular situation.
Organisational factors Jones, (1991) This model focuses on the importance of the ethical issue but acknowledges the influence of organisational factors such as group dynamics, authority factors and socialisation processes.
Institutional constraints and Organisational circumstance
Stajkovic and Luthans (1997)
This model identifies institutional constraints (such as ethics legislation) and organisational circumstances (policies and codes of ethics) as important influences on ethical standards.
Environmental factors and Situational factors
Zarkada-Fraser (2000) Environmental factors included in this model are the legal environment and professional, industry and organisational codes as well as company policy and culture. Situational factors include the organisational goal (the project) such as desirability, utility and the likelihood of a positive outcome.
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Table 1 Continued – Contextual Variables Investigated in Ethical Decision Making Research
Variable Author and Year Finding
Negotiation Research on Ethical Decision Making
Contextual Factors Lewicki et al. (1999) The 1999 model builds on Lewicki's (1983) behavioural model of lying and deception in negotiation. The contextual factors included are the relationship with the opponent, relative power, acting as an agent, group and organisational norms and cultural norms.
External Environmental factors and Situational Factors
Zarkada-Fraser and Fraser (2001)
This study explored the effect of company and professional code, legality and short and long term issues for the company on ethical choices of managers in different countries. Professional norms were identified as the most important of these.
Contextual Factors Volkema and Fleury (2002) This study measured perceived ethicality of and likelihood of use of a range of EANTs across a range of conditions. The study manipulated perception of the other party (eg reputation and relationship), organisational importance of the negotiation and constituents would learn of the negotiation.
Empirical Studies of Ethical Decision Making
Referent groups Ford and Richardson (1994) This review included peer group influence where they concluded that ‘the direct influence
of a person’s peers increases as the intensity of and frequency of contact increases’ (p. 212). They also reviewed four studies that investigated the influence of top management on ethical decision and found mixed results.
Significant others Loe et al. (2000) Eleven studies were reviewed and it was concluded that there was ‘overwhelming support for the importance of managing relationships within the work group and the pervasive influence of peers on ethical decision making’ (p. 199).
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Table 1 Continued – Contextual Variables Investigated in Ethical Decision Making Research
Variable Author and Year Finding
Empirical Studies of Ethical Decision Making Continued
Rewards and sanctions Ford and Richardson (1994) The four studies reviewed supported the efficacy of use of rewards and sanctions in managing ethical/unethical behaviour.
Opportunities, rewards and sanctions
Loe et al. (2000) A relationship between rewarding unethical behaviour and continuation of the behaviour was found in the majority of fifteen studies reviewed with rewards and supported behaviour occurring more frequently. It was concluded that sanctions and their enforcement minimized opportunity.
Codes of conduct Ford and Richardson (1994) The conclusion drawn was that existence of corporate codes of conduct will positively increase an individual’s ethical beliefs and decision behaviour. They also concluded that if rewards and sanctions for code adherence and violation will increase the effect of having a code of conduct.
Opportunity and codes of ethics Loe et al. (2000) A majority of the studies reviewed revealed that codes influence ethical decision making and assist in raising the level of awareness of ethical issues.
Ethical climate of organisation Ford and Richardson (1994) Ethics training programs had a positive effect on ethical behaviour. The more ethical the climate and culture, the more ethical the individual’s belief, but this finding may be moderated by organisational structure and design.
Organisational culture and climate
Loe et al. (2000) Culture and climate were found to be pervasive in influencing and adapting organisational ethics.
Organisation Level Ford and Richardson (1994) Studies reviewed yielded mixed results. It seems that the higher the level of an employee, the less important the ethical beliefs in decision making.
Industry factor – type of industry Ford and Richardson (1994) Only three studies considered this issue, but these suggested that there was no relationship between industry ethical standards and individual level ethical beliefs and decision making behaviour.
Industry factor – competitiveness of industry
Ford and Richardson (1994) Findings of the two studies reviewed were contradictory. One finding was that competitiveness tends to decrease ethical decision making (Hegarty & Sims, 1979). The other study found no relationship.
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3.3 Codes of Ethics
Organisational codes of ethics are one of the most widely incorporated
variables in studies in the business ethics field. For example, they are included in
most of the ethical decision-making models (Ferrell & Gresham, 1985; Hunt &
Vitell, 1986; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1997; and, Trevino, 1986) as shown in the first
section of the table. Codes of ethics have been selected for inclusion in this study.
Most business ethics researchers agree that a written code of ethics is a
formal way of communicating the desired corporate culture. For example, Cassell,
Johnson and Smith (1997) describe codes of ethics as the ‘visible and public
statement of ostensible organisational values, duties and obligations’ (p:1078) and
these codes help create ‘homogeneity of behaviour within an organisation’ (Carroll,
1978). Codes of ethics influence both the recognition of an ethical dilemma and the
acceptable process by which the dilemmas are resolved (Barnett & Vaicys, 2000).
However, there is debate about the efficacy of codes of ethics in influencing
behaviour according to a recent review of empirical studies. Eight out of the 19
studies reviewed by Schwartz (2001) found that codes were effective, whereas 2 of
the 19 studies reviewed found the relationship was weak and 9 out of the 19 studies
found there was no significant relationship between the two variables (Schwartz,
2001).
Within the negotiation field, there is acknowledgment that codes of ethics can
be influential on decisions by negotiators and it is part of the contextual variable
‘group/organisational norms’ included in the Lewicki et al. (1999) model. Like any
member of an organisation, negotiators are influenced by the norms and standards of
the organisation for which they work.
The effect of salient corporate codes of ethics in negotiation has been tested
in an experiment by Aquino (1998) who presented negotiators with advice about the
cultural practices (fairness and honesty in business dealings) of the company they
were representing. His data showed that with an organisational climate where ethical
standards were highly salient, negotiators were significantly less likely to use
deception even when there were strong individual incentives to act otherwise.
In this thesis, it was anticipated that there would be cross-cultural differences
in how codes of ethics are understood as a function of familiarity with codes in
27
organisations. For instance, codes of ethics have been common place since the late
1980s and 1990s in Western businesses (Brief, Dukerich, Brown, & Brett, 1996); and
an Australian study showed the median date of introduction of codes of ethics was
1992 (Farrell & Cobbin, 1996). However, in other cultural contexts, codes of ethics
do not have such a long history, such as in China where the pace of introduction is
slower and more recent (Tam, 2002).
3.4 Legal Environment
Like codes of ethics above, the legal environment featured in a number of the
models reviewed in Table 1 and has been included here as a variable of interest.
The legal environment is widely considered the first hurdle to be cleared in
ethical decision making (Cullen, 2002). For example, Bagley (2003) recently
advised that ‘for any proposed action, leaders must first ask ‘is it legal?’ … If the
action is not legal, don’t do it’ (Bagley, 2003: p.18). The legal environment is also
included in three of the ethical decision making models (Hunt & Vitell, 1986;
Stajkovic & Luthans, 1997 and Zarkada-Fraser, 2000).
Further, because there are different legal systems in different countries
(Beamer & Varner, 2001) it is worth investigating if there was a difference in the
way the legal environment is understood and used by negotiators in their ethical
decision making.
Cross-cultural research on how the law is understood suggests that there will
be a difference. For example, in a study across 32 countries, Trompenaars and
Hampden-Turner (1998) shows that managers differentially apply rules and sit along
a continuum according to whether they are Universalists or Particularists.
Universalists believe in applying a rule uniformly to all people, whereas
particularists believe in applying the rule according to the particular circumstance
and the relationship they have with the other party. Because there are cultural
differences in the percentage of managers preferring a universalistic approach, it
follows that culture affects how law is understood and incorporated into ethical
decision making.
There are few negotiation studies that have considered the effect of the legal
environment or law on ethical decision making (Shell, 1991), most probably because
28
U.S. law (where most of the negotiation research is conducted) provides that the duty
of good faith applies only to performance and agreement of contracts, not
negotiations (Burr, 2001). One negotiation study that has considered the influence of
law was Zarkada-Fraser and Fraser (2001) who looked at cultural differences in how
much contextual variables influenced the evaluation of negotiation ethics. This study
included ‘legal issues involved’ and ‘legal liability’. Zarkada-Fraser and Fraser
(2001) found differences between Japanese respondents and their other respondents
(from the UK, Australia, the U.S., Greece and Russia) in the relative importance of
the law compared with organisational codes. This study suggests that negotiators are
at least cognisant of the law in their ethical decision making and that there may be
cross-cultural differences in how it is understood.
3.5 Perceptions of the Other Party
The final variable identified for investigation in this study was the perception
of the other party. The focus on the other party is peculiar to negotiation research
and reflects the often dyadic nature of negotiations compared to other decision
making situations. Accordingly, it is not surprising that it is not included in the
ethical decision making models in the business ethics literature, nor has it been
widely studied by business ethics researchers.
There is a sizable body of research on how relationships with the other party
affect the negotiation process (see Valley, Neale, & Mannix, 1995 for a review),
however, most of this research has taken place in the U.S. and has implicit in it, a
Western understanding of what a ‘relationship’ is. Yet key differences exist between
cultures in how self and others are understood (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) and so
how relationships are defined. Thus, perception of the other party was considered a
fruitful avenue to investigate differences in ethical decision making in negotiation.
An example from business ethics literature confirms the expectation of cultural
differences. Comparing the particularistic Chinese and the universalistic West,
Worm and Frankenstein (2000) note that ‘in the guilt-focussed religions of the
universalistic cultures of the West, deception is considered immoral. In
particularistic cultures, honesty is only a norm that concerns the in-group or people
with whom one has established personalised relations. … According to Chinese
29
morals it’s not wrong to lie, or a more nuanced view would be that the Chinese are
honest and loyal to persons they know, not toward people in general.’ (p:275)
Two of the studies in the negotiation research section of Table 1 acknowledge
perception of the other party as an important contextual variable. As noted in the
introductory chapter, it is included in Lewicki et al.'s (1999) model of ethical
decision making as relationship with the other party. Here, it has been termed
‘perception of the other party’ to incorporate, among other things, the other party’s
reputation which has been identified by Volkema and Fleury (2002) as influential in
perceptions of ethicality in negotiation. Other important aspects of the perception of
the other party in a negotiation context may include interdependencies in the
relationship (Kelley, 1979) such as nature and closeness of the relationship (see
Valley et al., 1995 for a review) and expectations of future interaction (Shapiro,
1975).
3.6 Summary
This chapter has identified the three contextual variables that will be
investigated in this thesis. By integrating the business ethics research, three variables
have been chosen that are likely to be effected by culture and are likely to be
influential in ethical decision making. The three variables chosen are: codes of
ethics, the legal environment and perception of the other party.
Thus the first research question is:
RESEARCH QUESTION ONE
Are there cross-cultural differences in codes of ethics, the legal environment and
perceptions of the other party in ethical decision making in negotiation and in
how they are understood by negotiators?
As noted in the introduction, the outcome of answering this research question
is an extended model of ethical decision making in negotiation and a set of
hypotheses about the relationship between the variables, culture and ethical decision
making in negotiation.
30
The next step is to the systematic testing of the hypotheses. Testing the
numerous hypotheses that fall out of answering the first research question is an
endeavour that extends well beyond the time constraints of a doctoral research
program. However, the process will be begun and an initial step taken toward
answering the second research question:
RESEARCH QUESTION TWO
What is the relationship between each of the chosen three contextual variables
and culture and ethical decision making in negotiations?
Before addressing the first of these research questions, it is necessary to
choose which cultures will be investigated. A critical analysis of the negotiation
ethics literature in the next chapter will show that cultural differences in moral
philosophies have not been acknowledged by negotiation researchers in designing
their cross-cultural research. The next chapter considers these issues.
31
Chapter 4 Incorporating Moral Philosophy into Ethical
Decision Making in Negotiation Research
4.1 Overview
Having established the contextual variables for investigation in this research,
attention here is turned to the question of which cultures to research. This chapter
argues that the selection of cultures in cross-cultural ethical decision making research
ought to include reference to different moral philosophies because moral
philosophies provide the very foundation of ethical decision making.
For example, it is well accepted by philosophers that Western individualistic
ethical decisions is derived in part from Greek philosophy and that Asian
collectivistic ethical decision is based, in part on the philosophic teaching of
Confucius (Goldberg, 1988; Singer, 1993). Yet moral philosophy has received little
attention in selection of cultures for comparative negotiation ethical decision making
studies.
This chapter first argues that Western moral philosophic foundation has
underpinned negotiation ethics research. First, the prescriptive writing of how
negotiators ought to make ethical decisions shows the influence of Kantianism and
utilitarianism, two Western moral philosophies. A Western moral frame can also be
argued to have influenced research that has tested differences in perceptions of
ethical decision making because the question asked of respondents has been context
free, because Western moral philosophy has an inherent preference for universalism
where ethical rules ought to be applied consistently across situations (Trompenaars &
Hampden-Turner, 1998)
Section 4.3 then turns to the cross-cultural research and looks critically at the
choice of cultures in these studies and the justifications offered. It is argued that
researchers to date have not acknowledged the influence of moral philosophy on
ethical decision making.
Having established that Western moral philosophy has been the dominant
frame of researchers, it is argued that this study and future cross-cultural studies
should include countries with different moral philosophic foundations.
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4.2 Western Moral Philosophy Foundations in Negotiation Research
This section demonstrates that Western philosophy has influenced
prescriptive writing on negotiation ethics. First, however, it is appropriate to briefly
outline the major Western philosophies. Terms such as a Hobbesian perspective,
Kantianism, utilitarianism are used freely in the ethics literature but may not be
widely understood. The INFO BOX on the next page offers a highly selective but
hopefully informative snapshot of some of the most cited streams of Western
philosophy.
In the prescriptive literature, the influence of Western philosophy can be seen
in the title of one of the papers: ‘When People are the means: negotiating with
respect’ (Cohen, 2001). This title invokes one of the Kant’s principles - having a
moral duty to respect others. Cohen (2001) even articulates the point of this section
in his argument that a negotiator is obliged to respect other people and this duty (a
Kantian view) is not over-ridden by the negotiation context.
Similarly, the influence of personalistic ethics (be guided by your conscience)
is apparent in a paper by Shell (1991) who argues that the relying on the law is not as
safe as relying on ‘a cultivated sense of right and wrong to guide them in legal
matters’ (Shell, 1991, p:99).
Reitz, Wall, and Love (1998) clearly define the Western moral philosophies
that they draw on to evaluate whether or not negotiators should behave ethically.
They use the golden rule, universalism (Kantian ethics), utilitarianism and
distributive justice (after John Rawls) assessments of various tactics to argue that all
the philosophies ‘rule out several tactics, guide the use of some and permit the use of
others’ (Reitz et al., 1998, p:14). Dees and Cramton (1999) also articulate which
moral philosophies guide their assessment of ethicality: ‘Using standard forms of
ethical argument, a relatively strong prima facie case can be built against the general
practice of settlement-issue deception. It raises concerns on Kantian, utilitarian, and
justice grounds. Contributing to and capitalising on a false belief in another simply
for personal (or parochial) gain would seem to violate the Kantian injunction against
treating others as means only. When outright lies are used, it violates one of the
most common prohibitions found in deontological theories of ethics and in most
33
INFO BOX – A Brief, Selective and Subjective Overview of
Western Ethical Philosophies and Philosophers
Greek Philosophers
The influence of Greek thought on Western moral philosophy is profound (Jarvis, 2003a; Singer, 1995), in particular the teachings of the philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle (Rowe, 1993). From their writings and teachings in the fourth century BC, Western society has absorbed their view that moral virtues are the conclusion of practical reasoning (Goldberg, 1988) and that individual ethos are justified in terms of self-interest. The Golden Rule
The golden rule ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is pervasive in many Western (Christian) societies and is a contributing factor to the Western view that all individuals should be treated uniformly. In the bible, the quote is attributed to Jesus saying “all things therefore that you want the people to do to you, do thus unto them” Matthew 7:12 Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
Machiavelli lived in Florence, Italy, during the Renaissance and is worth mentioning because he has lent his name to the (measurable) personality trait of Machiavellianism which is usually equated to the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct. Machiavelli’s work focussed on how things were rather than how they ought be and his stories contain a message of the end justifying the means. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher who published a treatise on the state of nature in 1651 called ‘Leviathan’. This work also contributed to an individualistic view of the world because Hobbes argued that people prefer to act to promote their own interests and argued that morality is a matter of denying this preference (after Berkich, 2003). Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant offered principles that based not on outcome or consequence but on rational principled reason and a sense of duty. Kantian ethics are, thus, said to be deontological, which means the science of duty or ethics. Deontological philosophies tell us what we ought do compared to teleological ethics that focus on ends of final outcome. Kant posed his ‘categorical imperative’: act only on a maxim that you can, at the same time will to be universal law. In other words, what ever you do, everyone should do. Ethics books often use the radical example of whether or not to lie to a murderer asking you the whereabouts of his intended victim – the categorical imperative suggest that you should not lie. Kant also proposed the ‘principle of ends’, that people should never be a means to an ends, but an end in themselves. Kant’s principles are often called Universalism. Utilitarianism The principles of utilitarianism were defined by two British philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and his student John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). So named because it is based on the principle of utility, it approves or disapproves of an action depending on whether it increases or decreases the happiness of the party in question. Proper utilitarianism is ACT utilitarianism where each act is decided on an individual basis (Jarvis, 2003b) and an act is only right if it results in as much good as any available alternative (stedwards.edu, 2003) whereas a RULE Utilitarian would argue that we ought to act according to a set of rules that would result in the greatest good for the greatest number. There is a myriad of other ethical philosophers such as Jean-Jacque Rousseau, John Rawls, Martin Buber who are not included in the above overview. See Goldberg (1988) and Singer (1993) for comprehensive discussions.
34
major religions.’ (Dees & Cramton, 1999, p:236). Provis (2000) also specifically
invokes application of the golden rule in assessing ethicality of negotiation tactics.
A review of these papers shows a clear and articulated influence of Western
moral philosophies on the thinking of normative writers on negotiation ethics
supporting the observation by Whitcomb, Erdener and Li (1998) that Western
business ethics writing is underlain by Western moral philosophy.
It is a little more difficult to demonstrate the influence of a Western moral
philosophy on empirical studies of EANTs. The most telling indication that a
Western moral philosophy prevailed is in the question that was asked of respondents
to the survey instrument. Respondents were asked to rate the appropriateness of the
tactics in a situation in which ‘you will be negotiating for something, which is very
important to you and your business’. It may be the influence of traditions of Western
psychology that encourages the removal of extraneous and confounding variables
(Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991), but equally, the influence of a universalistic view of
the world that believes ethics can be applied across situations could have influenced
the researchers to ask respondents to make ethical decisions independent of detailed
situational context.
4.3 Western Moral Philosophy and Cross-cultural Studies
This section argues that cross-cultural researchers have not considered
differences in moral philosophy when selecting cultures in their research, and so
there is a dearth of studies that consider cultures with other than a Western moral
philosophy. Table 2, following, shows the countries investigated in the cross-
cultural research on ethical decision making in negotiation.
The majority of the countries share a Western philosophic base. They are
often chosen because they differ on Hofstede’s dimensions. For example, Volkema
(1998, 1999) has chosen Mexico and Brazil as countries that are culturally distinct
from the U.S. on their individualism and collectivism. Although it is true they do
differ according to value dimensions, the moral philosophy underpinning all three
countries is similar because of a strong Christian influence. The golden rule from
Christianity is arguably one of the decisive foundations of a moral philosophy and a
strong influence on ethical decision making. Thus Mexico and Brazil although
35
undoubtedly culturally different from theU.S. share with theU.S. the strong influence
of Christianity on ethical decision making.
Table 2 – Summary of Countries Investigated in Negotiation Ethics Research
Author(s) Countries included in Study Allerheiligen, Graham and Lin (1985)
United States, Japan, Brazil, PR China
Volkema (1998) Mexico and the United States Volkema (1999) Brazil and the United States Volkema (2001) Brazil, Chile, Great Britain, India, Mexico, Netherlands,
Norway, Spain, United States. Triandis et al. (2001) Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Greece, U.S., Australia, Germany,
the Netherlands. Zarkada-Fraser and Fraser (2001) Australia, Greece, Japan, Russia, UK, U.S. Volkema and Fleury (2002) Brazil, U.S. Elahee et al. (2002) Canada, Mexico and U.S.
The choice of countries is particularly telling in the Triandis et al. (2001)
study where Greece was included in the family of collective societies with Hong
Kong, Japan and Korea. Although it is well established that Greece is a collectivist
country, its philosophic foundations are similar to Western countries and distinct
from the Asian cultures with which it was grouped. Greek philosophy is one of the
cornerstones of Western philosophy and Greece is a strongly Christian country like
the U.S., Australia, Germany and the Netherlands, the ‘individualistic’ cultures
included in the study. Although the results of the study support that a collectivist-
individualist split of the cultures chosen, it can be argued that the moral philosophies
of the cultures also ought to be a major consideration in distinguishing cultures.
Of all the countries included in cross-cultural studies of differences in ethical
decision making in negotiations, only Japan, the Peoples’ Republic of China, Hong
Kong, Korea and India have fundamentally different moral philosophies than the
Western countries (Singer, 1993).
The issue of biased sampling of countries with a foundation of Western moral
philosophy versus non-Western moral philosophy needs to be acknowledged in
future research designs or it will remain an area that receives attention only by
accident and a substantial gap will remain in the understanding of cross-cultural
differences in ethical decision making.
36
Eastern ethics is based on Confucianism (Bond & Hwang, 1986; Wei, 1996).
This basis is a distinguishing feature of Eastern cultures and an important
consideration in the selection of countries in cross-cultural studies of difference in
ethical decision making.
Although most everyone has heard of Confucius, his contribution to Eastern
ethics is not widely taught in Western schools and universities, so it is appropriate to
briefly visit his philosophies to explain this point. As at the beginning of this chapter
a subjective and selective review of Western moral philosophic foundations was
offered, the following INFOBOX offers a similarly selective and subjective view of
Confucian ethics.
On reading the INFOBOX, it becomes apparent that ethical decisions in a
Confucian view are entirely situational. Righteousness of an action is determined by
who the other parties are and the shared relationship between the two. Thus,
excluding situational context in cross-cultural studies of ethical decision making,
especially when those studies incorporate a culture that is influenced by Confucian
ethics, is to ignore a key cultural difference in moral philosophies.
Other differences between Eastern and Western philosophy are also likely to
impact on ethical decision making. For example, the golden rule of Christianity has
influenced Western cultures and implores that all men should be treated as we wish
to be treated and, thus, implies universality of application of ethics. Regardless of
who the other person is, we should treat them as we wish to be treated. The
Confucian ethical view advocates only the reverse, that we should not do to others
that which we do not want done to us. Another significant difference is in the
instructions on how to react when an injustice is done. The Christian philosophy
advocates ‘turn the other cheek’ whereas Confucius said that injury should be repaid
with justice so that virtue could be repaid with virtue (Beck, 2003).
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INFO BOX – A Brief and Subjective Overview of
Confucian Ethical Philosophies A couple of hundred years before Aristotle was developing his ideas on moral virtue in Greece, Confucius (in pinyin: Kŏngfūzĭ) (551-479 BC) was drawing on the five classic texts of ancient Chinese philosophy to teach the values contained therein. Confucius lived during what is known as the Spring and Autumn period during the Zhou dynasty and it was a time of great social disorder in China (Wei, 1996). Driven by a desire to reassert the ancient (even then) moral codes of the classic Chinese texts Confucius taught an interpretation of the classic texts. His influence was established during his life when he was appointed as an advisor to the head of one of the ruling families (Beck, 2003) of one of the many states that existed at the time. However it was not until more than 300 years after his death that his teachings were adopted as the official moral and political doctrine of the State. The adoption of his teachings was during the Han Dynasty around 140BC (Ross, 2003). Although he never wrote a book, his teachings are preserved in The Analects, penned by his students and containing conversations between Confucius and his students. Westerners commonly get confused about whether Confucianism is a religion or not. During the Han Dynasty his teachings became one of the ‘Three Ways’ – one of the three traditional religions alongside Daoism and Buddhism. This appointment is somewhat ironic given Confucius’ attitude towards religion, which he did not speak about (Ross, 2003). Although Confucius is not the only philosopher to affect the moral codes in China and the East – a notable recent contributor is Mao ZeDong who introduced egalitarian ideologies that ran counter to the Confucian philosophy – it is Confucianism that provides the philosophical basis for East Asian cultures and accounts for the collectivism and power distant values scores of the countries in the area (Whitcomb et al., 1998). The fundamental Confucian assumption is that man is a relational being, socially situated and defined within an interactive context (Bond & Hwang, 1986). This relationalism means that ‘social interaction should begin with an assessment of the role relationship between oneself and the others along two social dimensions: intimacy/distance and superiority/inferiority. … Confucius advocated that procedural justice in social interaction should follow the principle of respecting the superior. The person who occupies the superior positions should play the role of resource allocator. In choosing an appropriate method for distributive justice, the resource allocator should follow the principle of favouring the intimate. From a Confucian perspective it is righteous to make decisions in this way’ (Hwang, 2000; p:168). Confucius focussed on obligations of rén – which has been translated as benevolence, charity, humanity, love and kindness, and lĭ – which is about ritual, propriety, good manners, politeness, ceremony and worship. It is rén which moves Confucian ethics to being interpretive and lĭ which provides the hierarchical aspect.
In light of the significant differences between Western moral philosophy and
Confucian moral philosophy, incorporating one or more countries with Confucian
moral philosophic foundations would be a contribution to the literature.
In the next chapter, the research design used to explore the first research
question is presented. The first decision to make is the choice of cultures.
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PART 3 – ANSWERING RESEARCH QUESTION 1
Chapter 5 Research Design
5.1 Overview
This chapter describes the approach used to collect data and answer the first
research question: are there cross-cultural differences in the codes of ethics, the legal
environment and perceptions of the other party in ethical decision making in
negotiation and in how they are understood by negotiators?
In order to discuss the specifics of this project, it is necessary to first explain
that China and Australia were the target cultures. Following the discussion in the
previous chapter about the need to consider the foundational moral philosophy in
selecting cultures to be investigated, section 5.2 explains why these were chosen and
the strengths and weaknesses of the two-culture research design. This discussion
provides the context for subsequent methodological detail such as translation
processes.
Section 5.3 describes the inductive frame chosen to answer the first research
question and then in section 5.4, the in-depth interview process that was used to
investigate the variables. Criterion based sampling was used to select participants in
this study. These participants are described in section 5.5, before a description of the
process of data analysis in section 5.6. In addition to the description of the data
collection and analysis, limitations of the research design are also discussed. Cross-
cultural research has some well recognised limitations (see Gudykunst, 2000; Lytle,
Brett, Barsness, Tinsely, & Janssens, 1995; Van de Vijver & Leung, 2000; Weldon
& Jehn, 1995) and that are often difficult to overcome and are subject to trade-offs
(Brett, Tinsley, Janssens, Barnsness, & Lytle, 1997). For example, this chapter
discusses issues such as equivalence, the threat of Western bias and the
representativeness of the respondents.
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5.2 China and Australia as Target Cultures
The two cultures studied were Australia and the People’s Republic of China
(henceforth referred to as either China or the PRC). Australia and China offer unique
and interesting target cultures to answer the research questions when considered from
a theoretical perspective. This section describes why they were chosen and the
strengths and weaknesses of the two-culture research design.
In theory-driven selection of cultures, the chosen cultures should be as far
apart as possible on the cultural dimensions being studied (Gudykunst, 2000). The
theoretical driver for the selection of cultures here was the different moral
philosophies of China and Australia. Comparing Australia, with its foundation of
Western moral philosophy, with China, and its Confucian moral philosophy, this
research will address a gap in the literature and inform our understanding of how
people from cultures with different moral philosophies vary in their ethical decision
making.
Australia is also the home base for the author and the industry partner who
funded this research and the desire to inform practice in an area of interest to
Australian negotiators was influential in the choice of countries. There is a dearth of
empirical studies about negotiation in Australia, yet, as a nation that substantially
relies on international trade (and the accompanying negotiation) it is important to
define and understand what distinguishes Australian negotiators.
In addition to the theoretical contrast provided, China is also of significant
interest to Australian negotiators as a trade partner and source of foreign investment.
In 2002 China was Australia’s fourth largest export market at AUD$8.4 billion, the
third largest source of imports at $12.8 billion (Austrade & Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, 2003) and Australia attracts in excess of AUD$3 billion in
Chinese foreign investment (Austrade, 2002).
Finally, related to both the theoretical and the practical, business relationships
between China and Australia are challenging because of the cultural differences. It is
an important goal of this research to provide empirical research that can help
negotiators from each of the countries construct successful negotiations.
One of the limitations in choosing a two cultures research design is that the
researcher cannot be certain that differences found are due to culture and not to a
40
range of other variables (Van de Vijver & Leung, 1997). Van de Vijver and Leung
(2000) argue for minimum of three culture studies and preferably four culture studies
made of two pairs of types. Although designing a 2 X 2 matrix to investigate is
theoretically compelling, the budget limitations were immutable. Although a two-
country research design might be weaker, two-culture studies make a valuable
contribution by acting as a pilot study, upon which later studies can be built (Lim &
Firkola, 2000). As this research is exploratory, understanding the variables that
affect ethical decision making in negotiation in two distinct cultures like China and
Australia offers a valuable starting point to develop a universal model of ethical
decision making in different cultures and provides baseline data for more complex
studies in the future between Australia and China.
5.3 An Inductive Frame to Explore the Influence of Culture on the Contextual Variable
‘It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories; instead of theories to suit facts’ Sherlock Holmes in a Scandal in Bohemia (Doyle, 1998)
This research addressed the question ‘are there cross-cultural differences in
the codes of ethics, the legal environment and perceptions of the other party in
ethical decision making in negotiation and in how they are understood by
negotiators?’ An inductive frame was chosen as the most suitable starting point
because the entire area of contextual variables in ethical decision making in
negotiation is poorly understood as are the differences between cultures. Using an
interpretative frame allowed exploration of the variables used by negotiators and an
understanding of how negotiators considered the variable. An inductive approach
was also the best way to seek out emic (culture specific) and etic (universal)
variables that emerge from data collected in each culture.
A purely inductive study infers general patterns of order from empirical data
and would not impose a priori structures prior to the data collection (Parke, 1993).
However, there are intuitional biases from having conducted the literature review.
The approach here was predominantly inductive because it sought out an
41
understanding of the variables from the data but was guided by the literature and
referred back to the literature in the analysis of the data.
Having identified the three variables for investigation from the literature, the
next step of the study was data collection. In this study, an in-depth interview was
used and a loop was set up between the literature, the interview transcripts and new
interviewees to test ideas as they developed. The end result of this process was a
model of ethical decision making in negotiations and an understanding of how the
three contextual variables are used by negotiators in the two cultures. From this,
hypotheses about the effect of the variables on ethical decision making in negotiation
are proposed.
This exploratory inductive design used some of the strategies of grounded
theory in the data analysis (after Charmaz, 2000; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; and,
Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998). However, it is not grounded theory per se. In
explaining the data collection and analysis, it is important to recognise that the
destination is a model that explores the three contextual variables and a set of
hypotheses about how these variables vary across cultures and how the variables
effect ethical decision making in negotiation. The desired aim is not a theory that
fully explains the relationship between the variables, culture and ethical decision
making in negotiation. It is the inductive-hypothetico part (after Cattell, 1988) of a
larger research design that will lead into a hypothetico-deductive phase of research in
study 2. So, although the data collection and analysis can be assessed for
trustworthiness, the validation of the theoretical model must be deferred until after
the testing of the model in the second study.
5.4 Data Collection using an In-Depth Interview
This section describes how data was collected to answer the research
question: ‘are there cross-cultural differences in the codes of ethics, the legal
environment and perceptions of the other party in ethical decision making in
negotiation and in how they are understood by negotiators?’.
The qualitative technique of in-depth interviews was chosen to ‘penetrate,
understand and illuminate the subjective world view of the participants’ because the
method has ‘the advantage of being able to explore the whole of a phenomenon
42
among smaller samples to arrive at enlightening and useful observations.’ (Kates,
1998 p:1874). In-person interviews are also the most common qualitative technique
used in ethics research (Randall & Gibson, 1990) because alternatives such as
observation techniques of ethical behaviour are almost impossible to set up.
One of the issues that confront ethics researchers is social desirability bias
because ‘major differences often occur between what people say they would do and
what they actually do. … Respondents may organise their responses in light of what
they feel others will expect is appropriate for someone like them in a particular kind
of situation’ (Randall & Gibson, 1990, p:467). Response bias was likely to be
exacerbated in the Chinese culture where face is important (Ting-Toomey & Kurogi,
1998) and where, in the experience of this researcher, there seems to be a perception
that what is said is somehow a reflection on China and that things ought to be said
that put China in a good light.
To limit the social desirability affects a vignette technique was used as it
allowed participants to talk about ethical decisions separate from their own
experiences and organisation. Vignettes also provide a high level of contextual
information and provide a level of uniformity and control over the stimulus across a
heterogeneous population (Alexander & Becker, 1978).
The following discussion shows the vignettes used and explains how they
were used to elicit discussion about the variables that were identified in the previous
section.
This scenario, a modification4 of one used by Glover, Bumpus, Logan, and
Ciesla (1997) was used to get the participants to discuss how codes of ethics are
considered in their ethical decision making and was also used to invoke discussion
on perceived differences in the legal environment between China and Australia.
4 The narrative voice was changed from ‘you are’ to third person ‘David Smith is’; the original version contained ‘eastern country’ which was changed to ‘China’; the word ‘gift’ was added to payments to make it sound more Chinese; specificity was increased about promotion ‘more money and status’ was added and by stating that it was against IMT company policy (rather than against company policies in general).
43
Scenario 1
An Australian David Smith is working in the sale of state of the art machine tool equipment, produced by his company, International Machine Tool Company (IMT) to China. This sale is particularly important because IMT is currently experiencing some domestic difficulties and the Chinese are virtually the only outlet for this highly profitable set of products at the moment. China does not have the capacity to make the equipment itself. Mr Smith has been working on the sale for several months, and everything seemed to be going satisfactorily. However, he has been told this morning that the key liaison person with the buyer has committed IMT to making a series of gift payments to various people, ranging from intermediaries to buyer representatives to government personnel, in order to secure a contract for the equipment in China.
Some of these payments must be made now, with no written agreement or guarantee of receiving the contract.
You understand that the importance of receiving the contract is very great, and it will have positive personal ramifications for Mr Smith in the form of a promotion (more money and status). However, you also know that it is contrary to the IMT company policy.
Participants were given this scenario to read in their language before
answering questions about it. They were first asked what advice they would give to
David in order for him to secure the contract and why they thought this was the best
advice. Although no two interviews were identical, participants were often asked:
▪ How, in advising David, they balanced the company goal with the
company policy, to get them to talk about how the policy affected their
decision;
▪ Whether they would think about the legal environment any differently if
David were doing business in another country, to get them to talk about
how the legal environment influenced their decision; and,
▪ How they thought the personal aspects of the deal would have affected
David Smith if the promotion was particularly important to David, to get
them to talk about how rewards affects ethical decision making.
The second scenario was written for this study and was based on some of the
tactics in Robinson et al.'s (2000) SINS survey5 which is the instrument that has been
5 The two SINS items this scenario was based on were #3: ‘attempt to get your opponent fired from his/her position so that a new person will take his/her place’ and #12: ‘talk directly to the people who
44
used by negotiation ethics researchers to investigate differences in perceived
appropriateness of EANTs.
Scenario 2
You are the lead negotiator for a company called ABC Manufacturing and are engaged in developing a joint venture project with an international company, XYZ Corporation. The leader of XYZ’s negotiation team is someone you went to school with and were quite friendly with at school, and through your university days, but you lost contact when he went to work overseas.
In the course of your negotiation, you have renewed your friendship over drinks and dinners after hours. You respect the negotiating skills of your former classmate very much. He is a formidable negotiator, a good match to your own skills and you are enjoying the process.
After three weeks of negotiation, where you have been working on the assumption of 50-50 ownership, your boss at ABC Manufacturing has come and told you that ABC Manufacturing wants at least 51%. You know from your negotiations to date that XYZ Corporation will not view this requirement favourably and wants to maintain 50% control.
Your boss at ABC Manufacturing has suggested that the lead negotiator from XYZ (your friend) “is just too good and we ought to get rid of him”. Your boss is quite insistent that you should adopt this strategy.
You know that you have a good opportunity to do as your boss has asked at the next dinner with the XYZ Corporation because you know that you will be sitting next to his boss and could easily tell the boss that your friend is not doing a good job and could get him removed from the negotiation.
You also know that a successful agreement is very important to your friend because he is new to the job and if he fails, then he may lose his job, which will affect his family badly. He helped you out when you were at university with getting your first job.
On the other hand, you know that if you succeed in fulfilling the requirements set down by your boss, you are likely to get a prestigious promotion and substantial pay rise which is much needed because you have a new baby in the house
This scenario facilitated discussion about how perception of the other party
affects ethical decision making as the scenario incorporates a friend as the other party
and an aspect of reciprocity because the friend helped them get a job in the past. The
influence of a ‘significant others’ is included as their boss has asked for the tactic to
be used.
Participants were given this scenario to read (in their language) and it was
also read to them. As with the previous scenario, the first question they were asked
was ‘what would you do and why?’ Again, although no two interviews were
identical, participants were asked about:
your opponent reports to, or is accountable to, and tell them things that will undermine their confidence in your opponent as a negotiator’.
45
▪ Whether the decision would have been any different if the other party
was not their friend, to get them to talk about the effect of their
relationship on their decision;
▪ Their concerns about being found out by their friend, to get them to talk
about how they saw the future relationship and how this view impacted
the work relationship; and,
▪ How they felt when they learned that the boss had asked them to use the
tactic to see how they considered the influence of a ‘significant other’, as
a boss would be described in the ethics literature.
Translation of Materials and of the Chinese Interviews
One of the issues that cross-cultural researchers have to consider when using
written materials like these vignettes is linguistic equivalence. To maximise
linguistic equivalence, the scenarios were back-translated and decentered as
recommended by Gudykunst (2000). Four Chinese advisors helped in this process
by both translating and back-translating and by suggesting changes to make the
scenarios sound realistic for the Chinese participants. This process was iterative and
the end results of it are shown in the above scenarios.
For the data collection, most, but not all of the interviews in China, were
conducted with a translator. The translator was a master’s student from China Ocean
University in Qingdao. Miss Song Miao (her English name is Claire Song) was 23
years old at the time of the study and had been learning English for 13 years. Her
English scores6 are very high and she had some interpreting experience with a joint
venture company who dealt with New Zealand businesses. Feedback from some of
the participants who spoke English indicated that Claire understood and interpreted
the responses accurately7.
6 In May 2000 Claire took a TOFEL test and scored 640 out of a possible 677. Recent TWE score was 5 out of 6, she got an overall grade of 7 for IELTS (highest score possible 9) and scored 670 out of possible 800 in the verbal English part of the GRE. 7 One participant who was a senior manager answered in English for about half of the interview. He was so impressed with Claire’s interpretation he offered her a job dealing with his foreign customers and conducted an on-the-spot interview with her.
46
The translator was introduced to the purposes of the study in a 3-hour long
session where she was interviewed (her answers did not form part of the data set) and
then the interview was worked through with a full explanation of what each question
was trying to get at.
Claire translated the participants’ answers ‘live’ during the interview and then
again during the transcription, which provided a check on the quality of the live
translation as the tape was stopped after each Mandarin statement and translated
without listening to the live translation.
5.5 Criterion Sampling to Select Study Participants
In this study, criterion sampling (after Miles & Huberman, 1994) was used to
select the participants. This section describes both the criteria and the sample
characteristics. Although sampling strategies in qualitative inquiries do not serve the
same purposes or subject to the same canons as sample selection in quantitative
research (Gephart Jr., 1993), the limitations of the sample will be discussed.
A good informant is one who has the knowledge and experience the researcher requires, has the ability to reflect, is articulate, has the time to be interviewed and is willing to participate in the study
(Morse, 1998; p:73)
The criteria applied to both Australian and Chinese respondents were that
they had to be both active negotiators in business, and they had to be representative
of their culture.
In Australia, participants spoke English at home and had lived in Australia at
least 20 years. Interviews took place in Brisbane, Queensland. The Chinese
participants were born and educated in China and had not lived abroad (with one
exception who studied a PhD outside China). Interviews took place in Qingdao,
Shandong8.
8 Shangdong is home province of Confucius and the people of Shangdong are proud of their reputation in China as being highly ethical.
47
Table 3 – Characteristics of Respondents for STUDY 1
Code Name
Age Gender Highest Education
Work Experience
(years)
Current Role Ownership Structure of Organisation
Australian Respondents One 29 M Bachelors 7 JV Manager Private Two 30 M Bachelors 15 Category Manager
(Importer) Private
Three 45 F High School 29 Sales and Marketing Director
Private
Four 43 M Bachelors 25 Dir Services Company Own private Five 37 M Bachelors 20 General Manager
(Importer) Own private
Six 39 M Bachelors 17 Financial Advisor (previously exporter)
Private
Seven 37 M Assoc Dip 16 Dir Australian-Chinese JV company
Own private
Eight 56 M High School 42 MD Importing Company
Own private
Nine 52 F High School 20 Fin Controller Importing Company
Own private
Ten 41 M Bachelors 20 Export Manager Private Average 42 23 Chinese Respondents Yi 35 M Bachelors 12 Manager Export Dept Semi-privatised Er 25 M Bachelors 2 IT Manager Government San 27 M Bachelors 5 Immigration Consultant Private Si 44 M PhD 20 Manager Export Dept Semi-privatised Wu 38 M MBA 18 Manager Export Dept Semi-privatised Liu 37 M Bachelors 15 Project Manager
(formerly procurement manager)
International JV
Chi 25 F Bachelors 3 Administrator Export Dept
Semi-privatised
Ba 32 F Bachelors 8 Manager Export Dept Private Jiu 32 M Bachelors 10 Import and Export
Manager Semi-privatised
Shi 30 F Bachelors 7 Export Manager Semi-privatised Shi yi 24 F Bachelors 1.5 Sales Manager Government Shi er 23 M Bachelors 2 Procurements Officer Private Shi san 26 M Bachelors 5 Sales Manager Government Shi si 29 M Bachelors 6 Exporter Private Shi wu 40 F Bachelors 18 Exporter Own private Shi liu 40 M Bachelors 20 Sales Manager Own private Shi chi 28 F Bachelors 4 Merchandiser Private Shi ba 26 F Bachelors 3 Sales Manager Private Average 31 9
48
A table with the demographic details of the participants from both Australia
and China is shown above. In Australia, ten managers were interviewed, of which
eight were male. The average age of the Australians was 42 years with an average
23 years of work experience. All worked for private companies and five of the ten
participants had partial ownership in the company in which they worked. In China,
the average age of the eighteen participants was lower at 31 years with 9 years
average work experience. There was more diversity in the type of company that the
Chinese participants worked for, with nine of the eighteen working for partially
privatised companies, six working for private companies, two working for the
government, and one working for a foreign joint venture company.
The code names for the participants are English and the pinyin version of
Mandarin numbers. Use of the different languages allows the reader to quickly
identify the country of origin of the respondents when reading their quotes.
In comparative cross-cultural research sample equivalence is important
(Gudykunst, 2000) because, when samples are not matched, observed cultural
differences may be due to sampling differences rather than cultural differences (Lytle
et al., 1995). Although it appears that the Australian and the Chinese samples are not
‘equivalent’ based on age, work experience and types of organisation worked for,
these criteria are largely irrelevant given the life experience differences between the
samples and the important criteria for comparison of the samples is whether they are
representative of negotiators of their country.
For example, two of the Chinese participants over the age of 40 discussed
their experience of the Cultural Revolution and talked of being sent to the country for
re-education. The Cultural Revolution has been described as a time when
‘Confucian loyalties were disdained to the extent that people were expected to attack
their superiors and turn their friends and family members to authorities for politically
incorrect thought and behaviour’ (Whitcomb et al., 1998, p:847) and there was a
‘fundamental change in basic values in Chinese society’ (Cheng, 1986, p:343). It is
simplistic to consider a sample of Chinese over the age of 40 can be ‘matched’ or
‘equivalent’ to a sample of Australians over the age of 40 on parameters such as age
or years of work experience, given that living through the Cultural Revolution
undoubtedly affected these respondents and most likely affected their ethical
decision making.
49
All the Chinese participants have been affected by the economic and social
reforms that were commenced in the late 1970s by Deng Xiaoping and the more
recent changes when China entered the World Trade Organisation. Company
structures have changed from being exclusively state-owned to also include private
companies and partially state-owned companies (Fryxell & Lo, 2001). Education
reforms have stimulated foreign language training and increased exposure to Western
business practice. It is likely that there is a much larger generational difference
between Chinese in their 40s and 20s than there would be in Australians of the same
age difference because of the reforms in China.
Because of these different life experiences between the Chinese sample and
the Australian sample, the sample equivalence should focus not on demographic
variables but on their equivalence as active negotiators and representative of their
culture. Both the Australian and the Chinese sample can be considered good
representations of the types of negotiators that would be engaged in cross-cultural
commercial negotiations. In Australia private companies are active in this area and
in China, it is a mix of private, semi-government owned and a few government
owned businesses. The age range of the Chinese participants offers some coverage
of the spectrum of different life experiences in China.
Considering the sample characteristics, it is appropriate to mention the issue
of transferability. Participants were chosen based on how well they would inform
understanding of how negotiators made decisions in negotiation not by a concern for
representativeness. The interpretative perspective in which the study is framed
precludes extrapolation or transferability. The objective of this study is not to
generalise to a wider population but to develop an understanding of how negotiators
consider the variables in their ethical decision making and to propose hypotheses that
can be tested in subsequent studies.
Sample size was partly limited by time and budget constraints, particularly in
China where all the interviews took place in a two-week period. However, data
collection continued until there was redundancy of themes as recommended by
Strauss and Corbin (1990) for the variables identified a priori. This study was also
interested in variables that emerged from the data and some of these themes were not
pursued to redundancy. Stopping data collection before redundancy occurred mainly
in China because time restrictions did not allow a full analysis of the interview data
50
in China and the themes became evident in the post-hoc analysis carried out in
Australia.
Ethical Clearance
To fulfil the ethical requirements of this research Australian respondents
received a written description of the research project and had to date a consent form
to show they agreed to participate. Interviews were tape-recorded, with the
permission of the participants.
The recruitment process of Chinese participants involved a letter of invitation
to recent graduates of the Trade and Development post-graduate diploma program at
China Ocean University in Qingdao to attend a one-day training program taught by
the author. Participants met the author and translator prior to the training and the
translator explained the nature of this research to the participant and requested
participation. All the participants agreed. Their permission was also sought before
the interview was audio-taped. The ethical requirements of informed consent were
established before any data was collected.
5.6 Analysis of Data using Grounded Theory Strategies
This section describes how the qualitative interview data were analysed. The
aim of the data analysis was two fold:
▪ To confirm whether the participants used the three contextual variables
as part of their decision making in negotiations; and,
▪ With respect to the three contextual variables, to try and understand how
they viewed it and the relationship it had with other variables and with the
decision that was made.
The analysis of data in this study drew on the principals of grounded theory
(Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Data was coded and then analysed using the constant
comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The constant comparison was
between participants, between the codes and between cultural sets.
51
Before discussing how the data was analysed it is appropriate to highlight
how interview data is presented. Firstly, quotations are not inside inverted commas
but are shown in a different font and are prefaced by the speaker. As already noted,
the participant number is in English for the Australians and the pinyin for the
Chinese participants to facilitate identification of the participant’s country of origin.
Secondly, neither the English translation of the Mandarin or the Australian
quotes have been corrected to ‘proper English’, nor has ‘[sic]’ been used to indicate a
grammatical error. Highlighting grammatical errors detracts from the participant’s
meaning and so has not been used here.
Steps in the Analysis
The first step was the verbatim transcription of the interviews to create a
permanent record to allow easy access to the data for analysis (Pidgeon & Henwood,
1996). Each interview was code-named according to the date of the interview.
In the first round of coding, the data from China and Australia was handled
separately. The first round of coding was into ‘major’ themes – these included each
of the three variables identified in section 3.4 and initially at least, the rest of the data
was placed in a file called ‘other data’. Each phrase, paragraph or unit of data that
held an idea was copied from the interview transcript file and placed into one of the
four country-specific files, with a reference to code-name and page location in the
transcript. This resulted in eight documents that contained all of the meaningful
material from the interviews. The only material excluded from these documents was
introductory material, asides that were unrelated to the purpose of the interview and
interviewer or translator questions. The eight documents that were produced wwere
called Australian codes of ethics/company policy; Australian legal environment;
Australian ‘other party’; Australian other data; Chinese codes of ethics/company
policy; Chinese legal environment; Chinese ‘other party’; and, Chinese other data.
Producing these documents that were separate from the interview transcripts helped
ensure that all the relevant material was considered in subsequent steps of the
interpretation of the data.
With the phrases and data units separated from the original context of the
interview, the next step was comparison of the data units for similarities and
52
differences. In this process, sub-themes were labelled. For a data unit to be labelled
a sub-theme, it was necessary for participants to have used the same phrase or
alluded to the same concept. It was not necessary for data units to be of the same
view about meaning or importance of a concept for them to be grouped together.
This approach to sub-categorising the data meant that sub-themes often contained
contradictory views about the importance of the sub-theme or what action was
appropriate. For example, one sub-theme that was identified within the ‘legal
environment’ theme was about whether or not the perpetrator would get caught for
breaking the law. The collection of data units on ‘getting caught’ (this was latter
called likelihood of enforcement) from the Australians included statements about
adhering to the law in all circumstances and counter to this, statements about
considering the law only when there was a chance that the perpetrator would get
caught. Such an approach to categorisation made it easy to see disconfirming and
contradictory evidence within a sub-theme.
The third phase of analysing the data was comparison between sub-themes
within and across the cultures. For example, in the ‘legal environment’ theme, a sub-
theme labelled ‘Chinese law’ had been identified in both Australia and China. This
sub-theme contained all the comments that referred to the legal environment in
China. An example of two comments thus coded are shown below – one from an
Australian participant (five) and one from a Chinese participant (shi san).
Participant Five I don’t see China as an overly regulated country. Well it might be regulated, but not enforced. Laughs. The laws are there, but yup9.
So umm, that with China was probably not a concern. And in another country it would be a concern. So that was not a big criteria in my decision, I don’t think, about legal ramifications within China.
Participant Shi san Because the law in China is not complete now, so maybe we can take use of this point, to do things such as this. So for an international company, which wants to make business in China, maybe at first, it can take use of this point, but if that company wants to make business in Chinese in the long term, it must consider that the law will become complete soon.
This phase of the interpretation enabled the identification of shared and
culture-specific themes. A shared theme that emerged from the quotes shown was
labelled efficacy of Chinese law.
9 Interviewer comment shown in italics
53
To test the ‘correctness’ of an interpretation, all entries in the major theme
document were review. For example, having identified this Chinese law theme,
every quote in both the Australian and the Chinese ‘legal environment’ files were re-
read to see if any had been missed that may inform or contradict the interpretation
about the efficacy of Chinese law.
It is important to reiterate that the aim of this interpretive process was to
develop an understanding of how negotiators use and think about the contextual
variables in their ethical decision making and to develop a model and set of
hypotheses for future testing. Accordingly, contradictory evidence was not
perceived as particularly problematic in this study. For example, one or two
respondents having an alternate view did not preclude the development of an
hypothesis about the influence of a contextual variable on an ethical decision.
To help interpret the data, memos in the form of diary notes were also used.
Memos helped put the comments in context. For example, one participant (San) said:
Participant San I will prefer to give up the chance to be promoted and to give the chance to John10.
Really? OK - can you tell me why - Why?
I will make money in the future, but once I lose friendship, I cannot get it back.
The memo entry for this interview noted that Participant San was very
wealthy and speculated that his wealth probably enabled him to take a generous
position toward his friends and his own financial needs.
Other Variables
In addition to the three variables identified prior to data collection
commencing, it was anticipated that additional variables would emerge from the data
analysis. As noted above, these were prepared for interpretation by being placed in
two files: ‘Australian other data’ and ‘Chinese other data’. The identification of
themes and sub-themes from these data sets followed the same process as above
10 The ‘friend’ in Scenario 2 was named John when read to male participants and Mary when read to female participants to make it easier to talk about him/her.
54
including looking for disconfirming evidence within the ‘other data’ files and in all
of the contextual variable files.
Limitations
One of the issues cross-cultural researchers confront when interpreting
‘foreign’ data is imposing their cultural frame, in this study, a Western bias on the
data. Although this bias is assumed to be present, it cannot be identified or separated
out. If it could be separated, it could also be managed. Ideally cross-cultural
research is conducted with multi-cultural teams (Gudykunst, 2000) to minimise this.
In this research, tentative interpretations of some of the themes from the
Chinese data were discussed with the translator as recommended by Temple and
Edwards (2002) and with Chinese advisors based in Australia with a view to
minimising Western bias. Nonetheless, it remains a limitation of the study.
The most widely venerated method of improving the trustworthiness of the
data interpretation is member-checks (Holloway & Wheeler, 1996, Miles &
Huberman, 1994) where the interpretation of the data is presented to the participants
for their evaluation of whether it makes sense to them. Undertaking member-checks
in this study was difficult for practical reasons - asking participants to give up more
time to discuss theoretical interpretation was difficult in Australia and impossible
given the time constraints in China. The interpretation was presented to one
Australian participant as well as a group of Australian negotiation consultants and
trainers to obtain feedback. Although all of these people were sophisticated and
curious, they were Australian and so not well placed to evaluate the Chinese
findings.
The comments obtained during this feedback did not lead to any changes in
the data interpretation as comments were supportive, but their ideas were
incorporated in the evaluation of what were the most important variables for the
formulation of the decision trees. For example, they pulled out personal and
organisational reputation as important to negotiators and so the data was re-visited to
see if the importance of these variables was apparent in the data.
55
5.7 Summary
This chapter described the inductive qualitative study used to answer the
research question: ‘are there cross-cultural differences in the codes of ethics, the
legal environment and perceptions of the other party in ethical decision making in
negotiation and in how they are understood by negotiators?’
Two scenarios were presented to elicit insights into how these variables affect
ethical decision making in negotiation from two sets of culturally different
negotiators in China and Australia. These scenarios were subject to a decentering
process and an iterative translation – back-translation process to maximise linguistic
equivalence. In China, interviews were conducted with a competent interpreter.
This chapter described how the data were analysed and interpreted to identify
shared themes across the cultures and themes that were unique to each culture.
Having established how the data were collected and analysed, the next
chapter presents the analysis and interpretation of this data. A model that elaborates
on the model of ethical decision making in negotiation by Lewicki et al., (1999) is
then presented.
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Chapter 6 Interpretation of the Interview Data
6.1 Overview
The preceding chapter has set the foundation to answer the first research
question: ‘are there cross-cultural differences in the codes of ethics, the legal
environment and perceptions of the other party in ethical decision making in
negotiation and in how they are understood by negotiators?’ The aim of this chapter
is to explore this research question. Here the data are presented and interpreted.
From this, an extended model of ethical decision making in negotiation and two
decision trees that show differences between China and Australia are presented.
The chapter is structured according to the three variables of interest. Each of
the next three sections deals with each variable in turn (section 6.2 on codes of
ethics, section 6.3 on the legal environment and section 6.4 on the perception of the
other party). A range of data is shown within the interpretation. Then, for each
variable, the major themes that emerged from the data is summarised. Hypotheses
about the relationship between the variable, ethical decision making and culture are
posited.
In addition to the variables identified a priori, interpretation of the data led to
the identification of three additional variables. Personal ethical standards,
organisational goals and personal and business reputation were important to the
negotiators in their ethical decision making. Section 6.5 discusses these variables.
Based on the themes that were identified, an extended model of how
contextual variables influence ethical decision making in negotiation is presented in
section 6.6. Two decision making trees that posit the relative importance of the
variables in ethical decision making for each culture are given in section 6.7. Section
6.8 provides an aggregated list of testable hypotheses related to the variables.
The conclusion in section 6.9 discusses the significance of the findings in
relation to previous theoretical writing and for practitioners.
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6.2 Codes of Ethics
In chapter two, codes of ethics were identified as the first variable of interest
for this study. As noted there, codes of ethics are incorporated in numerous models
of ethical decision making, although there are contradictory findings about the
efficacy of codes in directing behaviour. Cross-cultural differences in how codes of
ethics are understood and incorporated into decisions were anticipated based on
familiarity with codes of ethics.
To explore how participants understood and incorporated codes of ethics in
their ethical decision making, scenario one was used. Scenario one required
participants to advise an Australian businessman about making gift payments to
Chinese intermediaries. They were told that although it was important that the
contract be signed, it was ‘contrary to the IMT company policy’. Participants were
asked how the thought Mr Smith should balance the company goals with the
company objectives.
Interpretation of the data showed cross-cultural differences in how codes of
ethics were understood. Here, highlights from the interviews that represent the key
themes are presented. The themes reflect differences in understanding of code intent,
the relationship between the law and the codes of ethics, and the management of
code violations.
Different Understanding of Code Intent
The data suggests that there are differences in how Australian and Chinese
participants understand the intent of corporate codes of ethics. Australian
participants demonstrated an implicit understanding that codes were intended to
direct behaviour, ought not be broken and that there were serious implications if they
were broken.
Participant Four If Mr Smith were to do it, he has obviously breached company policy, he is jeopardising his whole career.
Participant Seven If that is a multinational and that is company policy, and working for bigger companies and I am just an employee, I wouldn’t have crossed the line. …. Because if it is against company policy, what is the point, I mean it is your job as well.
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The phrasing ‘obviously breached’ by participant four and ‘I am just an
employee, I wouldn’t have crossed the line’ by participant seven demonstrated an
understanding that the rules are in place and are intended to direct employee
behaviour. The phrases ‘jeopardising his whole career’ and ‘it is your job’ showed
the participants link code breaches with serious consequences.
On the other hand, the Chinese participants did not link the intent of the code
to their behaviour. Chinese participants expressed a belief that the code’s purpose
was to earn income for the company or to facilitate market entry. For example, in
the first quote below, participant er states that the policy is crafted ‘to make money
for the company’ and implied that changing it to accommodate market forces would
enhance the company’s ability to make money. Participant shi san also emphasised
the importance of policy flexibility to enhance market entry or organisational
success. Both participants saw the need for policies to change according to special
circumstances or market needs.
Participant Er And I think company policies are made to make money for the company, and because it is made by human beings, they can be changed according to the special situations here in China. … The company must adapt itself to the environment here in China.
Participant Shi san So the first important thing for foreign companies is to try its best to get the market here and adjust its company policies. And to get the market means the first step is to walk into the door and then to develop. If you cannot walk into the door, how can you develop later? So the company had better adjust its policy according to the special conditions in China. And when things are changing in China, the policy should also be changed to make the policies suit China.
One Chinese participant said she would first ‘evaluate’ the policy and then
decide its relevance, suggesting that the policy was an optional tool that could be
used to help, at her discretion.
Participant Shi qi If the policy is right, we will not sign this contract – we will follow the policy. We assess the company policy, if it is reasonable, we will not change it.
In comparison to the Australian responses, the Chinese had a different
understanding of the intent of the code and how it should be used. The Chinese did
59
not share a Western conception of company policy as a way of communicating
organisational values for the purpose of influencing employee behaviour (Carroll &
Gannon, 1997).
If it is not common business practice in China to have a policy outlining
prescribed behaviour, the Chinese participants will not have developed familiarity
with the intent of a policy or implications for breaches. This proposition was
discussed with a commercial lawyer in Qingdao who reported that most Chinese
companies do not yet have policies in place. Further support for this idea comes
from a study of 300 Taiwanese firms where only half had codes of ethics (Hung,
2002) and a recent discussion paper about the evolution of corporate governance in
China confirms that there is ‘considerable confusion over what corporate governance
is in the Chinese context’ (Tam, 2002, p:308), and that codes are thought of as a way
to introduce Western practices into China that may not be completely relevant.
One Chinese participant, however, understood the reason for the code and the
implications if it were broken.
Participant Liu For me, absolutely we not do things like this, because even if it is to develop a new customer, a new market, we should also [apply] the normal [policy]. This is absolutely, for our company, not acceptable.
This participant worked for a Sino-Western joint venture and had been
exposed to a Western style company policy where implications of breaches were
explained. All the other Chinese participants worked for Chinese private, partially
private, or governmental organisations and it is likely that these organisations did not
have explicit written codes of ethics. The joint venture participant’s understanding
of the purpose and consequences of codes suggests that if codes are communicated
explicitly, Chinese may have a similar understanding to intent and purpose of codes
of ethics as seen in the Australian responses.
The first conclusion about codes of ethics is that there are differences across
the two cultures in how well the intent of a code is understood and that this
difference can be at least partially explained by lack of familiarity with codes of
ethics by the Chinese participants.
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Influence of the Law on Codes of Ethics
Following the interpretation above, that the majority of the Chinese
participants did not see codes of ethics as guides for their behaviour, they were asked
about what guided their decisions. Participants reported that the law was consulted
for such guidance over and above company policy. The following quotes show both
the primacy of ‘law above company policy’ and the influence of law in making
company policy:
Participant Qi So first thing is the law. Because the law is above the policy, the policy is the company level, but the law is first thing, it is the country level.
Participant Shi er I think such policies are made according to the law in Australia, which are complete. But in China the law it is not complete, it is different. It is different, it is legal, so why not company adjust its policy. Because by doing that, you can make more profit for the company. Chinese special condition.
On the other hand, most Australian participants didn’t mention the legal
environment in discussions of company policy. Australians typically referred
directly to codes of ethics for guidance in their decisions and subsequent behaviour,
perhaps because codes often presented a more stringent set of requirements.
Although there was not much direct mention of the law there appeared to be an
implicit understanding of the law, and its influence on codes of ethics. For example,
one Australian participant said that company policy was ultimately driven by the
law:
Participant Eight
Well, we develop policy as we need it. But we are also very flexible in the way we change it, and we change it often to suit the circumstances. Provided it is not illegal, and in terms of defining legality, is another thing. We certainly wouldn’t do anything that is wrong or illegal deliberately.
In Australia, company actions come under the Commonwealth Criminal code
(Section 12.1), and companies are obligated to make sure they are not expressly,
tacitly or impliedly11 authorising or permitting commission of an offence of the law.
11 This is a verbatim quote from the law.
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One of the main ways that lawyers recommend companies conform to the law is by
implementing corporate codes of conduct (Omond, 2002). In other words, what is
acceptable under the law drives the boundaries around corporate codes of ethics.
These codes, however, can be more stringent than just complying with the law,
providing a rationale for why Australian participants might have focused more on
codes of ethics to guide their behaviour.
Recognition and Response to Breaches in Codes of Ethics
It appears that Australians have a clearer understanding than the Chinese
about the intent of codes of ethics, and focus on these codes to guide decisions. It
follows that Australians should be clearer in their ability to recognise violations of
the code. In this section, a comparison of how Australians and Chinese respond to
possible code violations is given.
The majority of Australian participants said that in response to a potential
breach of a code of ethics, they would escalate the issue to more senior managers and
comply with their advice. For example:
Participant Two Mr Smith shouldn’t make the payment because it is against IMT company policy. What Mr Smith SHOULD do, is go back to IMT and speak to whoever it is, about how important it is to the organisation to make it, so he isn’t making the decision on his own.
Participant Five Explain to your boss what are the pros and cons, what you are thinking and then you leave it with the boss at the end of the day, of what he chooses to do.
Participant Six Not if it was strictly against company policy and I was told it was a bribe, I would go to senior management and say, we can win this job, but they have told us we have to pay a $250 000 bribe. Do you want to do it?
These responses suggest that participants avoid making and taking
responsibility for a decision on an issue that involves breaking their organisational
code of ethics. If they are instructed by their superiors to breach the code, however,
most seemed willing to comply.
A related theme that emerged from the Australian data was a willingness to
accept non-explicit breaches of codes. Knowingly violating company policy was
deemed unacceptable for Australians. However, they seemed willing to complete a
62
transaction if they were not directly informed of a transgression of company policy.
If they did not know, or only suspected that there was a violation, participants were
willing to look past the possible breach and continue on with their business. In the
following example, participant two distinguishes between ‘believing we are paying’
and being ‘actually told’. Similarly, participant six says violations need to be
‘strictly identified’ for him to feel compelled to respond to the breach.
Participant Two That may happen to deals we may do, but they know not to tell us about them. So it may just be added onto the price on the bottom line, and all we believe we are paying is the price. OK. As long as that is my understanding, then I am happy. When someone actually tells me they are paying money out, on our behalf, in order to secure a contract, then I need to do something about that.
Participant Six I suppose I looked at in light of being a consultancy fee first. But if it was strictly identified, as you need to pay this bribe to get this job, then, as an employee of that company I wouldn’t do it, unless I had the approval of senior management.
The Chinese data were analysed to see if Chinese participants had a similar
approach to the Australian participants when a potential breach of a code was
recognised. One Chinese participant suggested that, like the Australians, she would
escalate a potential breach of a code upwards to senior management. In the quote
below she says she will ‘talk with’ her boss to see if an exception could be made to
the policy:
Participant Shi qi I will talk about this with my boss if they can make exceptions under the company policies.
The most common Chinese response to the issue of how to deal with the
potential breach was a desire to find a way around the code that would achieve the
objective. Several Chinese participants suggested that they could use their ‘own
money’ to secure the contract in scenario one, as shown in the following quotes.
Participant Shi si Well maybe I can send the money using my own money. Not using the money of the company.
Participant Shi For example, one of my friends stays in Beijing and has a chance to connect with a government person and he also worked for a foreign company and so he had a good chance to do the business with China and
63
so he take, some of his own money (his income) to buy some presents for this person. So I think this is not breaking the company rules?
Participant Qi Perhaps I will try other ways to secure the contract. Methods that are not against the company policies. I can use my money.
Although the intent to find ways around the codes is shown in the quotes
above, the ‘problem solving attitude’ of the participants is not apparent. In
delivering their answers and solutions, the Chinese participants were keen to find a
good solution so that everyone was happy. Participant Shi above talks about ‘the
good chance to do business’ and checks back that he ‘is not breaking the company
rules’.
This attitude may be related to the earlier theme about the Chinese being
unfamiliar with codes of ethics and for what codes are intended. By suggesting that
they use their own money, these participants show they do not understand that the
intent of the code is to prevent payment of gift money.
Interpretive Summary and Hypotheses for Future Research
Interpretation of the data here shows the main cross-cultural difference in
how codes of ethics are understood is related to the relative lack of familiarity that
the Chinese have with codes of ethics. Lack of familiarity is a result of a ‘structural
difference’ between Australian and Chinese companies’ use of codes of ethics rather
than a difference in the interpretation of identical sets of codes by negotiators in the
two countries. It follows that in countries where they are not used, negotiators will
not consider them.
From this, it is posited that there will be differences across cultures in how
much negotiators consider codes of ethics in their ethical decision making,
depending on their use in their country and by their organisation.
The Australian participants were familiar with codes of ethics and were able
to recognise a potential breach. In this situation their response was to escalate the
issue up to more senior managers for advice about how they should act. Australian
participants differentiated between explicit and non-explicit breaches of codes.
Australians were prepared to act in a way that breached codes, provided it was not an
explicit breach.
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Because the Chinese participants were not familiar with codes of ethics, they
looked to the legal environment for guidance on appropriate behaviour. Being
unfamiliar with codes of ethics, they did not understand their intent and sought
creative ways around the code to achieve organisational goals.
Combining these themes, it is posited that in cultures that are unfamiliar with
codes of ethics and their intent, there will be little influence on behaviour.
Negotiators from cultures that are not familiar with the intent of codes of ethics will
not recognise a breach as easily as a negotiator from cultures where there is a high
familiarity with codes of ethics.
Based on these interpretations about how familiarity with codes of ethics
influences ethical decision making, the following hypothesis is proposed for future
testing:
H1: Negotiators who are familiar with their company’s codes of ethics will rate EANTs as less appropriate if they are told that the tactics will explicitly breach their company’s codes of ethics, whereas negotiators who are not familiar with their company’s codes of ethics will not change their rating of appropriateness of EANTs if they are told the tactics will breach their company’s codes of ethics.
6.3 Legal Environment
The legal environment was chosen as a variable of interest because it is often
cited in Western business ethics writing as being a barrier to unethical behaviour: ‘if
the action is not legal do not do it’ (Bagley, 2003). This expectation that managers
will adhere to the law may be related to how universalistic the culture is. Also there
are well-established differences in the legal systems of Australia and China. Thus,
similarities and differences in how Australians and Chinese negotiators understand
and use the law in their ethical decision making is explored here.
To explore how participants understood and incorporated the legal
environment in their ethical decision making, scenario one was used. Scenario one
required participants to advise an Australian businessman about making ‘gift
payments’ to ‘various people, ranging from intermediaries to buyer representatives to
government personnel in order to secure a contract for the equipment sale in China’.
This scenario was used to prompt discussion about what actions participants would
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take and they were also asked if they would act differently if the story took place in
another country.
This issue is topical in China nowadays as recent law reforms against
corruption have led to government and business leaders being convicted under anti-
corruption laws, including imposing the death penalty. At the most recent National
People’s Congress in March 2003, there were further calls for stronger anti-
corruption laws (China Daily, 2003).
Interpretation of the data suggests shared views across the cultures about the
legal system in ethical decision making in negotiation. The themes that emerged
were that negotiators consider the law and want to abide by it, but do not always
adhere to it. Their assessment of whether they should adhere to the law is related to
their understanding of whether the law is enforced and the size of the breach they are
considering.
Awareness of the Law
Although ‘legal environment’ is included in theoretical models of ethical
decision making, the first question explored in the data was ‘do negotiators think
about it?’ The following series of quotes show that both Chinese and Australian
negotiators are aware of the law, but there is a range of views of whether or not they
think they should adhere to it.
Some of the participants indicated that they both think about the law and they
think it is desirable to abide by it and stay within its boundaries in decision making.
Here, a quote from Australian participant nine shows that she considers
adherence to the law as ‘very important’ and that if she were to do something wrong
she could ‘be up against it’ which infers difficulties would follow. Similarly,
Chinese participants express a desire to act within the law. Participant wu talks
about the importance of ‘doing things legally’ although it is interesting to note that
he is willing to ‘try every possible way’ suggesting that the law is a limiting factor in
his choices. Participant liu, a worker in an international joint venture company says
that the law is the first consideration for his firm, and that ‘we will do everything …
legally’.
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Participant Nine That was my first reaction. My very first reaction, I mean yeah. Legal was very important to running a business. We do nothing wrong. If it was me, I would be saying don’t go with it, you know. You can be up against it – it is just totally illegal.
Participant Wu Now in China, it is legal for Chinese companies, to give, they call it commission, to those kind of brokers. It is legal. … In order to reach that target, we must try every possible way. Yes it is very important for us to do things legally.
Participant Liu The legal thing is the first thing that we should consider. Because when our partner from Canada came here, my boss also told me that when they are here should follow the Chinese law. We will do everything that should be legally correct.
Other participants also show an awareness and acknowledgement of the law,
but said it was not necessary to abide by it. In the following quote, Australian
participant ten is talking about his job of exporting a product into China. He explains
that his current business arrangements are violating Chinese law and says he ‘has no
problem with that’. So although he is clearly aware of the legal environment, he
does not believe it is necessary to abide by it. In the next quote, Chinese participant
shi liu identifies the need to consider the law but suggested that even if ‘actions are
illegal’, it is possible to manage violations by keeping violations secret.
Participant Ten All the product into China at the moment is going in illegally, through the back door. I don’t have a problem with that – I think their tariffs and all that are too high – if they try to bring it in through official means, they end up paying too much money, so the business wouldn’t go ahead. So it is either you do business this way – or you don’t – business fails.
Participant Shi liu For the company, for the boss, he should basically to consider the business action depend on the law, on the regulation basically. Should sometimes be flexible, under the table. Yes – if gifts are very expensive, maybe a little. I think it is no problem for a company to do so, because even if actions are illegal, we can do the thing under, underground.
The first conclusion about the legal environment based on this data is that
negotiators are aware of it but have differing views on whether or not they need to
take it into account. This conclusion applies to both Australian and Chinese
negotiators.
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Views about the Efficacy of Chinese Law
Historically, Chinese law has reflected a Confucian emphasis on governance
by ethics over governance by rule. This emphasis has resulted in a general aversion
or disregard for the law and litigation in China (Yeung & Tung, 1996) and meant that
personal relationships are important in how the law is applied.
Although the legal system is undergoing reform, it is fair to say that the ways
laws are administered in China are still influenced by personal relationship. One of
the issues explored in the interviews was about the perceptions of the law in China
and whether negotiators see it as a ‘paper tiger’. A telling example of how the law is
perceived as a paper tiger by Chinese comes from a famous Chinese book My
Country, My People:
‘The official in the metropolis, who can drive at sixty miles an hour, while the traffic regulations allow only thirty-five is gaining a lot of face. If his car hits a man, and when the policeman comes round he silently draws a card from his pocketbook, smiles and graciously sails away, then is gaining greater face still. … And if the policeman insists on taking the chauffeur to the station but the official telephones to the chief of police, who immediately releases the chauffeur and orders the dismissal of the little policeman, then the face of the official becomes truly beatific.’
(Lin, 1998, p:195).
The data has been interpreted as showing that the Chinese legal environment
was not seen as a deterrent to either Australian or Chinese participants in choosing
what behaviours they wanted to pursue. In their answers, the Australians focussed
on enforcement issues in China whereas the Chinese talked about the law being
incomplete. These expressions mean that the legal environment in China was not
considered a threat by negotiators in their ethical decision making and so was largely
ignored.
In the first quote shown below, participant five from Australia distinguishes
between the existence and enforcement of a law and describes China as a country
where the laws are ‘not enforced’. Similarly, participant eight talks about the low
likelihood of being caught for violating the law in China saying ‘it is very easy to get
out of China ‘unless they are chasing you for something serious’.
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Participant Five I don’t see China as an overly regulated country. Well it might be regulated, but not enforced. (Laughs.)
Participant Eight I wouldn’t be too worried about being caught doing something wrong in China. Because it is very easy to get out of China. Unless they are on to you. Unless they are chasing you for something of a serious nature.
These Australian negotiators are evaluating the legal environment based on
how laws are enforced. Thus, the contextual variable ‘the legal environment’
contains two facets – the rules (as written or understood) and an assessment of
whether the rules will be enforced successfully.
Chinese participants describe the legal environment in less direct terms,
talking about Chinese law not yet being ‘complete’. Participant ba says that
completion of the law will take a long time. In the second quote, participant san
links the incomplete state of the law with the difficulty in applying the law and says
‘few people …get punished’.
Participant Ba Well in China the law is not complete. Although there is the aim to achieve completion of the law, but that will take a long time.
Participant San It is very normal here in China. Few people who adopt this method get punished. The law in China is not complete although there are some stipulations on this kind of action, but it is not easy to apply the law.
These quotes suggest that, like the Australian negotiators, the Chinese are
also evaluating the legal environment in terms of its ability to enforce the laws.
The first conclusion drawn in this section was that negotiators are aware of
the law but have differing views about whether or not they need to take it into
account. Building on this, the data here suggests that the decision about whether or
not to take the laws into account is related to the likelihood of the law being enforced
is considered.
Size Matters
The second theme that emerged from the analysis of the data was related to
the decision of whether or not to take account of the law. Here the issue was related
to the size of the breach of the law. The data shown in this section suggests that
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small breaches of the law are acceptable, but big or substantial breaches of the law
are not.
Australian participant eight says ‘if it is a few thousand dollars … it is not
really considered illegal’. Two Chinese participants also expressed this sentiment.
Participant shi qi implies that if the amount of money paid is ‘in proportion to the
service the intermediary offer’ then it is acceptable. However, she says that if the
money is ‘a large sum it is illegal definitely’. Similarly, participant shi yi
differentiates between the law for the government officials who cannot receive even
small gifts but implies small gifts are acceptable for others. She goes on to say that
‘if it is expensive it will break the law’.
Participant Eight That is a very important question, how much are we talking about? Because that – if it is a few thousand dollars, it is not really considered, in my way of measuring things, it is not really considered illegal. But if it is a million dollars, it is going to be illegal.
Participant Shi qi It is very normal to give money to intermediaries because of their service. Also, to construct friendship (you yi) but it is not the right thing to give money to government officials. It is wrong. All of this is under the circumstances that the money is not a large amount of money. It is in proportion to the service the intermediaries offer. Yes the first thing that I will consider is if it is illegal. If it is a large sum of money it is illegal, definitely. For example, it is a bribe.
Participant Shi yi You know in China, there are many strict rules for government officials, they are not permitted to accept gifts from companies especially those foreign companies. So you did take that into account? If the gift is not so expensive, it breaks the rules for government officials, but if it is expensive, it will break the law.
This differentiation based on the size of the breach provides yet another facet
to the way the variable ‘the legal environment’ is considered by negotiators in their
decision making. The interpretation of the data here suggests that small breaches of
the law are not considered violations.
It was difficult to locate any empirical studies that have explored this issue in
the business ethics literature. One study that has looked at modifiers of ethical
decisions found that the seriousness of an ethical infraction was rated toward ‘should
definitely be considered’ in deciding whether to discipline an action by managers
(Giacalone, Fricker, & Beard, 1995). Like the negotiators here, the sample that
completed the Giacalone et al., (1995) study considers the seriousness of a breach as
an important characteristic.
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Interpretive Summary and Hypotheses for Future Research
The interpretation of data here points to consistency in how the legal
environment is considered across the two cultures rather than differences in how it is
understood. It is posited that across cultures, negotiators are aware of the legal
environment in their ethical decision making.
Although not apparent from the selected data here, a review of all the quotes
about the legal environment show the Chinese participants talked more about the law
much more often and fully than the Australian participants. This difference may be
related to the different types of legal systems in the two countries as the Australians
are used to a structured and relatively consistently enforced system compared to the
Chinese. Australians may be implicitly aware of the law but not articulate their
opinion or thoughts about it because they take it for granted. The difference in
frequency of comments about the legal system suggests that the legal environment is
in the background for Australian negotiators compared with the Chinese.
Based on the quotes about the efficacy of the law in China, it is posited that
negotiators take account of the likelihood of a law being enforced in their
consideration of the legal environment. The other dimension to how they consider
the legal environment is related to the size of the breach with the negotiators
differentiating between large and small breaches of the law.
Based on these interpretations about how law enforcement and size of a
breach influences how negotiators refer to the law in their ethical decision making,
the following hypotheses are proposed for future testing:
H2: Negotiators will consider EANTs that break the law as more appropriate if there is a low likelihood of the law being enforced and consider EANTs that break the law as less appropriate if there is a high likelihood of the law being enforced. H3: Negotiators will consider EANTs that break the law as more appropriate if the breach is small and consider EANTs that break the law as less appropriate if the breach is large.
6.4 Perception of the Other Party
Perception of the relationship with the other party has been described as the
second pivotal judgement in negotiation (after judgement about the type of conflict)
(Morris & Fu, 2001) and one of two critical factors in a negotiation (Pavitt & Kemp,
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1999). In chapter two, perception of the other party was introduced as a variable for
investigation as research has shown that the relationship between negotiators can
affect information sharing and outcomes in negotiation (Valley et al., 1995). Also,
there are established differences between cultures in how relationships are
understood (Markus et al., 1996).
To explore how participants understood and incorporated their perception of
the other party in their ethical decision making, scenario two was used. The scenario
contains a complex set of relationship and obligation dilemmas. In the scenario, the
negotiator is asked by his or her boss to use an EANT against the other party with
whom they have a friendly relationship. Participants were asked what actions they
would take and were asked questions about how they perceived the friendship, how
they balanced the friendship off against their desire to achieve the company goals
and against their personal goals and motivations.
In the analysis, a number of similarities and differences between Australians
and Chinese were identified. Here the highlights from the interviews that represent
the key themes are presented. The themes that emerged were that negotiator’s
obligation to the other party is determined by the strength and closeness of their
relationship. Chinese negotiators have to manage the guanxi effect when choosing
EANTs.
Obligation Towards the Other Party
The data suggest that there are differences in what is considered by
Australian and Chinese participants in their evaluation of the relationship with the
other party. In the scenario the other party was a friend. The Australians weigh up
their obligation to the business against their obligation to their friend. The Chinese
on the other hand expressed that their first obligation was to their friend.
Australian participants labelled the issue in the scenario a ‘test of loyalties’
between their obligation to their friend and their obligation to the company as shown
in the following quote from participant ten.
Respondent Ten Test of loyalties isn’t it? I think you are going to have to push for, you have got to get 51% haven’t you?
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In this quote, participant ten shows that he is weighing up his obligation
(loyalties) to both his friend and to his company. He perceived his obligation was to
his company, and achieving the goals requested of him. Other Australian
participants also expressed their obligation to their organisation over their obligation
to their friend. In the following quote, participant six infers that when negotiating on
behalf of a business there is an obligation to distinguish between the business and the
friendship, with the first obligation being to the business. Participant four articulates
his reasons for choosing loyalty to the organisation over his friend – the business
pays him.
Participant Six ‘I mean I have to just distance the two, and I would hope my friend would too, and I would just recognise that a negotiation is a negotiation, and he needs to do whatever he can do to benefit his organisation and I do whatever I can do to benefit mine.’
Participant Four OK – at the end of the day the hand that feeds me is not my mate. Umm – it would be a business decision. … I think I would probably steer towards the hand that feeds me. So I would think I would support the company.
This final quote suggests that there are complex motivations coming into play
– participant four seems motivated to keep his job and might be concerned about
unemployment. Other Australians participants favoured supporting the friend. In the
following quotes participant eight says he is ‘really loyal to good friends’. Similarly,
participant nine argues that in order to live with herself, she would need to do the
right thing by her friend and would not take the action recommended by the boss.
Participant Eight If he was a friend, I am loyal to him. I am really loyal to good friends, and friendship means a lot.
Participant Nine ‘He has obviously been a good friend and you know has done that for you. … I know it is a dog eat dog world out there, BUT you have to be able to live with yourself as well, you know, and know that you have done the right thing by him. … I just wouldn’t do it.’
Although some Australians favour the organisation and others favour the
other party, the range of responses show that Australians make an assessment about
the other party in terms of the obligation they feel toward them vis a vis other
obligations they perceive they have.
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A slightly different overall pattern emerged from the Chinese data. Although
one Chinese respondent chose loyalty to the company over the friend, saying she
‘had no other choice’ than to do what her boss wanted of her to do, because it was
‘the decision of the company’ (participant ba), this sentiment was not the common
Chinese view. Most of the Chinese participants expressed that their first obligation
was to their friend.
In the first quote below, participant wu tells the story of the Chinese god
Guan Gong who provides an exemplar of behaviour for others to follow. Participant
liu argues that he will not ‘sacrifice the friendship’ just to do well in his job. The
final quote provides a reason why a Chinese participant will not take the action
requested by his boss. Participant er says that friendship is more important than any
rewards a company can give him.12
Participant Wu In traditional Chinese culture, I don’t know if you have noticed it or not, in many companies there is a person [sculpture of] Guan Gong – the advantage of that person is that he emphasises honesty and friendship. To show that we are honest and emphasise friendship very much and the old Chinese man can bring us luck in making money. In order to help his friends, he will even sacrifice his own life.
Participant Liu Friendship is the most important thing. I won’t sacrifice the friendship in order to perform excellently in my job.
Participant Er The reason why I won’t do this, is that there is a strong friendship between us. And even if he will never find it, I will never do it. I think friendship is more important than benefit. So that means you would do what in this circumstance?13
I will prefer to give up the chance to be promoted and to give the chance to John. Really? Can you tell me why - Why?
I will make money in the future, but once I lose friendship, I cannot get it back.
In comparison to the Australians, the Chinese participants did not appear to
go through a weighing up process of questioning their relative obligation to their
friend versus their obligation to their company.
Although the data from the participants does not show the motivations of the
Chinese or the Australians, one possible explanation of the differences in attention to
their obligations to the firm lies in their likely differences on Trompenaar's and
12 This participant was very wealthy and this may have influenced his answer. 13 Interviewer comments shown in italics.
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Hampden-Turner's (1998) value dimension of Universalism (the Australians) versus
Particularism (the Chinese). Universalists emphasise societal obligations whereas
Particularists will sustain and protect valued relationship regardless of rules.
Proffering loyalty to an abstract entity such as a company is a characteristic of
Universalistic. An example of this willingness to be loyal to a company is shown in
this advice from a Western ethicist: ‘ most folks believe that employees have a prima
facie duty of loyalty to their companies and that it would be wrong for an employee
to seek personal gain at the expense of company profit’ (Corvino, 2002, p:181,182).
Managing Guanxi
A theme that emerged from the Chinese data related to their preference to
help the friend was the Chinese consideration of guanxi, an emic Chinese construct.
Guanxi carries expectations and obligations that are different from how
Westerners view relationships (Cai & Gelfand, forthcoming). Guanxi is defined by
Yeung and Tung (1996) as the general term for social networking and is often
translated as ‘relationship’ or ‘connection’. Guanxi is guided by two concepts: the
code of brotherhood and the code of reciprocity (Chenting, Sirgy, & Littlefield,
2003). The two Chinese characters that make up the term mean a gate/pass or ‘to
connect’ thus guanxi refers to the establishment of a connection between two
independent individuals to enable a bilateral flow of personal or social transactions.
However, both parties must derive benefit from the transaction to ensure the
continuation of such a relationship. Notably, guanxi is directed towards
enhancement of the individual’s interest and is away from the betterment of society
as a whole (Ang & Leong, 2000).
Concern for guanxi was shown by Chinese participants when they talked
about their obligations to help their friends if the negotiation left their friend in an
unsatisfactory position. A number of Chinese participants suggested that they should
look after their friend ‘privately’ (participant ba).
In the quotes below, participant shi liu talks about providing economic help if
his friend loses his job. Participant shi san offers a tangible way how he would help
his friend: he would ask his boss to employ the friend if he is ‘defeated’ in the
negotiation.
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Participant Shi liu But in this way I will take some method to help my friend as well. From the other hand – for example, [if] my friend lost his job, it will make difficult, for him and his family, his wife and children. I will support him from economic. I have to do so.
Participant Shi san If my friend is defeated by me, I will compensate him, for example, to ask my boss to employ my friend.
This theme was not apparent in any of the Australian responses. Although
Westerners place reciprocity as a central part of their moral principles, e.g.
reciprocity is Cicero’s ‘first demand of duty’ (Singer, 1995), the Chinese
interpretation of reciprocity within guanxi is widely accepted as driven by Confucian
ethics; (Chenting et al., 2003; Hwang, 2000) and different from the Western version
of reciprocity (Hansen, 1993).
It is posited that the quotes here are expressions of Chinese reciprocity that is
part of guanxi and that this obligation within guanxi is a point of distinction between
the Chinese construct ‘perception of the other party’ and the Australian construct.
Closeness of the Relationship
A theme that was shared across the two cultural groups has been labelled
‘closeness of the relationship’. This theme has two facets. The first facet is to do
with perceived appropriateness of EANTs. The data was interpreted to mean that
negotiators from both China and Australia think EANTs are more appropriate if they
do not know the other party. The second facet of the closeness of the relationship is
related to information sharing. Negotiators from both China and Australia expressed
willingness to share information with the other party when they were in a close and
friendly relationship. Each of these facets is discussed in turn.
Negotiators in both China and Australia changed their willingness to use an
EANT when the relationship with the other party changed. In the scenario, they
were asked to use an EANT on their friend. The participants were asked if they
would be willing to use the tactic, if the other party were not their friend.
Negotiators said they would act differently with the other party if they were
not friends. In the first quote below, participant eight says that he ‘might be able to
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handle’ the situation differently if the other party was not a friend. Participant qi is
more specific in her willingness to use the EANT proposed to her in the scenario,
saying that if the other party is not her friend, that it is an appropriate tactic.
Similarly, participant si says that if the other party was not his friend, he was willing
to do anything to achieve the goal set for him by his boss.
In the final quote given below, participant shi san shows the relative
importance of friendship to his obligations to his boss and the organisational goals.
He says that if the other party is not his friend then he will show loyalty to his boss.
Participant Eight Now if he is in another scenario, which is not a friend, and a different person, I might be able to handle it in a different way.
Participant Qi If she is not my friend, it is a proper tactic. But if Mary is, it is not.
Participant Si Even if my boss did not give me any specific instructions, if John is not my friend, I will try every method to achieve my boss’s goal.
Participant Shi san If John is not my friend, and there is an old Chinese saying “people should be loyal to his boss”. I must consider the company’s goal. As long as it is legal. You can do that.
The change in perceived appropriateness depending on the closeness of the
relationship is supported by anecdotal commentary in research of Western
negotiators. In a study of perceived ethicality of tactics, Anton (1990) received
comments from some respondents that one scenario was different ‘because the other
party in that scenario was not a stranger, as in the other scenarios, but a co-worker. It
was quite acceptable to tell a stranger one wants more than one really wants in a
negotiation, but it was not acceptable behaviour with whom there was an established
relationship’ (Anton, 1990):277).
The change in perceived appropriateness by the Chinese participants can be
best explained in the well-documented differences between rules and obligations
towards in-group versus out-group. For example, Triandis et al. (2001) has argued
that negotiators from vertical collectivists countries (such as China) are likely to lie
in a negotiation situation because the distance between enemy (the out-group, in a
negotiation ‘the other party’) and self is great. Similarly Worm and Frankenstein
(2000) notes that honesty is only a norm that concerns the in-group, or people with
whom one has established personalised relations. Other studies have also found this
in-group, out-group distinction such as Leung (1988) who found collectivists were
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found to be more likely to sue a stranger than a friend when compared to
individualists, and be less sensitive to ethical problems when the situation helps a
friend (Moon & Franke, 2000). It is worth noting that these studies suggest that the
collectivists (Chinese) would differentiate more than the individualists (Australians),
not that the individualists do not differentiate between in-group and out-group.
Social identity theory has shown that Westerners do differentiate between in and out
group (Kramer, Pommerenke, & Newton, 1993).
The quotes from the study suggest that some negotiators make a judgement
about how appropriate EANTs are according to the closeness of the relationship.
Both Chinese and Australian negotiators differentiated between friends and those
they did not know.
The second facet of the theme ‘closeness of the relationship’ is related to
information sharing. Negotiators from both China and Australia expressed a
willingness to use the friendship with the other party to hold informal talks with the
aim of progressing the negotiation.
In the following quotes, participant three suggests that she will be able to find
‘another alternative’ if she can talk to the friend. Similarly, participant seven talks
about crafting ‘a middle deal’ with his friend. Chinese participant shi san says he
will try to achieve agreement by talking with his friend.
Participant Three I would perhaps go down the track of talking to this friend of mine and finding another alternative.
Participant Seven Because he is a close friend, I sit down with him and say this is, I would be absolutely up front and honest with your friend. … You will speak to your friend, you will find if there is any possibility of it moving, possibly, by speaking with him and you have a long history with him he may say, well, if there, if we did this that and the other, or OK you can have 51% ownership and we will have, give us something yeah, profit share, and so make it 60-40 profit share initially but you have the ownership so you have got the control. Umm, see if you can craft a middle deal, but do it absolutely honestly with your friend.
Participant Shi san I will make an appointment with my friend, only him and I. I don’t mean to disclose business secrets to my friend, I will tell him my boss’s idea (about 51%) and tell him it is good for both of the companies, to achieve agreement.
The common theme of these quotes is the willingness to share information
with their friend. Surprisingly few studies have investigated this link between
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relationship and information sharing. One unpublished study found that close
negotiator dyads were more likely to share information than dyads with distant
relationships (Greenhalgh & Chapman, 1993 cited in Valley et al., 1995). This
finding is consistent with research in communication that has shown that in close
relationships (husband and wife) there is significantly more information shared than
in distant relationships (Schoeninger & Wood, 1969).
Support for the idea also comes from studies that have investigated the trust-
information sharing link if it is accepted that when there is a friendly relationship
between negotiators, there will also be greater trust. A recent study found that
perceived trustworthiness in buyer-seller relationships is correlated with greater
information sharing (Dyer & Chu, 2003).
The data from both China and Australia supports the idea that a willingness to
share information with friends is shared across cultures.
Interpretive Summary and Hypotheses for Future Research
The interpretation of the data here shows that ‘perception of the other party’
is a complex and multi-faceted contextual variable. Some aspects of it are shared
across cultures and there are some aspects that are unique to China.
Both Chinese and Australian participants expressed a greater willingness to
use the proposed EANT when they did not know the other party. It is posited that
closeness of the relationship is one of the determinations negotiators make in their
assessment of the other party and it is hypothesised:
H4: Negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate the more they value their relationship with the other party.
The Australian negotiators were varied in their decision about whether or not
they should support the other party and cited their obligation to the company as part
of the weighing up process. By comparison, the Chinese mostly favoured supporting
their friend and were also willing to provide ongoing support to their friend outside
the negotiation. It was posited that this observed pattern was related to the emic
Chinese relational construct ‘guanxi’.
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Based on the importance of managing guanxi for Chinese negotiators,
established differences in how relationships are understood through culture specific
practices and meanings (Cai & Gelfand, forthcoming) and documented differences in
how collectivists (eg Chinese) will differentiate more than individualists (eg
Australians) between their in-group and out-group (Triandis et al., 2001; Worm &
Frankenstein, 2000), the following hypothesis is proposed:
H5: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with another party with whom they have a relationship, whereas Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a stranger.
The theme ‘closeness of the relationship’ was also related to negotiators
willingness to share information. The data suggests that negotiators in a close
relationship are willing to share information.
6.5 Variables Identified from the Data
Coincidentally, with the analysis of the data about the three variables
discussed thus far, three additional variables were identified from the data
inductively. Although discussion of these three variables is ancillary to the task of
answering the first research question, it provides further insight into the ethical
decision making process of the participant negotiators and is helpful in developing
understanding of what contextual variables are important to negotiators in ethical
decision making.
The three variables identified from the data were personal ethical standards,
organisational goals and personal and organisational reputation.
The first variable discussed here is personal ethical standards which is an
individual level variable rather than a contextual variable. However, it is important
because the data suggests that it is the first ethical decision that negotiators make.
They ask themselves ‘do I think this act is ethical?’ The interview data suggests that
if a tactic does not ‘pass’ this test, the contextual variables are irrelevant.
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The second variable identified from the interviews has been labelled
organisational goals. A number of participants talked about how the organisational
goals influenced their decision to use, or not use EANTs.
The third and final variable identified from the interviews was personal and
organisational reputation. Negotiators in both China and Australia considered their
actions in light of the likely long term effect on their reputation.
After discussing each of these variables, propositions about the variables are
offered, along with hypotheses for future testing.
Personal Ethical Standards
Participant Yi You should have a regulation, policy, not only for business, but also for your life.
Without showing the many, many quotes, it is difficult to convey the
emphasis that participants placed on personal ethical standards. Participants
emphasised that the first decision taken was related to their own standards. Actions
that violated their standards were not contemplated further. Asking the participants
to consider an EANT they considered ‘unethical’ elicited a passionate response -
participants leaned forward in their chairs, they shook their heads and they implored
the researcher to understand the importance of what was being said. Interpreting the
passion with which the responses were delivered suggests that personal ethical
standards are the most important variable in ethical decision making.
Personal ethical standards are not a contextual variable. However, it is
important to acknowledge that they act as the first filter through which ethical
decisions flow. If an EANT is against the personal ethical standards of a negotiator,
contextual variables are irrelevant. That is why they are included here although not a
contextual variable per se.
A range of quotes relating to personal ethical standards are given below. No
cross-cultural differences in how this variable was understood were found.
Negotiators from both countries talked about their personal principles. For
example, Australian participant seven talks of having his ‘own personal policy’ and
says violating these principles is ‘not worth it for a deal’ suggesting that adhering to
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his standards is more important to him than achieving business goals. Similarly,
Chinese participant Shi er says that everyone has a ‘base’ to his personal principals,
equivalent to the English metaphor of ‘drawing a line in the sand’ beyond which he
would not go. He talks of firing his boss, meaning he will leave the company.
Participant Shi san also rates adherence to his personal principles as higher than
staying with the same company and says he will leave the company if dissatisfied
with the values of the organisation. Participant eight from Australia says that doing
things ethically plays on his mind a lot, and even though he is keen to win business,
he is unwilling to do things he considers unethical. The final quote in this series is
from participant wu who says we will be judged by our soul, and that he would feel
uncomfortable about talking ill of someone because business is not a battle. This
quote was included because it shows the depth of feeling that the participants held
about this topic.
Participant Seven This is personally, if I was going to have to actually lie to his boss about something that he wasn’t doing, I couldn’t do, I wouldn’t do that. It just is not worth it. I guess it is a bit, you know, moralistic and in business a lot of people would, but I have found that you don’t have to. If you stand firm, you really have to set yourself a set of goals, sorry, a set of standards, it is your own policy, your personal policy… and I couldn’t do that. It is not worth it for a deal.
Participant Shi er Everyone has a base to his personal principals, maybe some instructions, you do not like them, but you can still accept them in order to secure your job. You will do what the boss asks you to do. But if these instructions are below the base of your personal principals, then you will not do them. Maybe you will fire the boss. It is a matter of personal principals.
Participant Shi san I make my decision according to my personal principals. I will consider more about my development and the company’s development and I will talk with my boss to see if we can find other ways to achieve this goal. If my boss insists on his strategy I will consider if this company is suitable for me. It is not comfortable to work for such a company as their values are not attractive.
Participant Eight I mean in that situation, I would want to win. I always want to win. But I want to win ethically. I am not a person, I can’t ever recall doing anything that I would say was unethical to win. And I know people who do. I would be looking at the ethics of it, all the way. … So that, that would play on my mind a lot.
Participant Wu But we will be judged by our own soul. After speaking badly of others, I will feel uncomfortable. Even if John was not my friend. The business world is not a battlefield. So if you give up now, it does not mean that you are defeated forever. There are other business chances.
The next three quotes demonstrate the primacy of personal standards over the
assessment of the other party in these participants’ ethical decision making.
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Participant five from Australia says that it would not ‘matter where they are from’ he
would not use the EANT because it would portray him as an insincere person.
Chinese participant shi wu says that if something is ‘wrong’ he cannot do it whether
he knows the other party or not. The third quote is from participant wu, who notes
that his ‘first reason is not friendship’ but that he wants to have lofty ideals.
Participant Five The same reasons as that, you would portray yourself as a ahhh, ahhh, an insincere person. OK? I wouldn’t do it with an overseas client and I wouldn’t do it with an Australian client. Either one, it wouldn’t matter where they are from.
Participant Shi wu If I know him, I cannot do that. If I don’t know him, I can’t do that either. That is wrong.
Participant Wu To have lofty ideals is very very important to my whole life [and] career. If I did something immoral in one case, when others realise it, I would lose a lot of chances in the future. And in this case, my first reason is not friendship; it is that I would like to have lofty ideals. And to be an honest person.
It is posited that negotiators first measure the appropriateness of an EANT
based on their personal principles. This characteristic of ethical decision making in
negotiation was consistent across the two cultures and although there may be
differences in ethical standards, the data suggests that negotiators refer to their own
ethical standards first, before considering the context of the negotiation.
The proposition that personal values are an important variable in ethical
decision making is well grounded in ethics theories and incorporated in ethical
decision making models such as Ferrell and Gresham (1985), Hunt and Vitell (1986)
and Trevino (1986). Although empirical studies have shown that decision makers
consider their personal values in their ethical decision making (Allen & Davis, 1993;
Singhapadkdi & Vitell, 1993), few studies have investigated the ranking of personal
values vis a vis other variables. One study that has tackled the task found that
approximately half of the respondents ranked personal codes of ethics as more
influential than formal or informal professional codes (Pierce & Henry, 1996) thus
suggesting it is important to decision makers.
Organisational Goals
The second variable identified from the data was organisational goals, which
refers to the objective of the negotiation, such as making a one-off sale, or
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establishing a successful joint venture. The data suggested that negotiators take into
account the importance of the organisational goal when evaluating the
appropriateness of EANTs in negotiation.
There were some aspects of how organisational goals were understood that
were shared by Chinese and Australian participants. For example, negotiators from
both cultures referred to organisational goals as the primary objective of the
negotiation. Other aspects of how ‘organisational goals’ appear to be unique to
China. In China, the data showed that the importance of the organisational goals is
related to the seniority of the person in the organisation.
To demonstrate that negotiators include organisational goals in their ethical
decision making, quotes from Australian and Chinese participants are given. The
Australian negotiators consider the organisational goals ‘part of the weighing up’ of
the complex decision. Participant four talks about ‘coming to terms with’ how
important it is to get the business and says if the need for business is desperate then a
‘needs must’ scenario comes into play, that is that he will use EANTs if he perceives
that the business situation is desperate. In the next quote, participant seven is talking
about his own business and a recent experience of loosing $200,000 in a Chinese
joint venture because his Chinese partner deceived him. He talks about the
experience in terms of how much the venture is worth to him overall and says it is
‘balance of weighing up’ suggesting that his organisational goals countered, at least
in part, his feelings of being deceived by the other party.
Participant Four How desperate does Mr Smith want to penetrate the market, and how desperate does Mr Smith want to achieve, is what he has to come to terms with. … ….desperate times, desperate measures. How much, it all comes back down to a ‘if needs must’ scenario.
Participant Seven OK we left $200,000 there BUT and it cost us about $200k in the transaction and in the interest so it has been an expensive exercise for us, but the venture is worth so much more than that for us. It is a balance of weighing up, but I will always be very careful with him.
The Chinese participants talked about organisational goals much more
explicitly saying ‘the number one goal for the company is to make money, to
maximise profits’ (participant ba). The quotes below show that participant jiu
believes that making money is the goal of all organisations. The next quotes show
that the Chinese participants ranked the goal of the organisation as quite important,
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although there are apparent differences in just how important it is ranked. Participant
wu says he will do everything possible to achieve the goal of the company providing
it is legal. Participant Shi liu infers that he will act according to his ‘focus on the
company profits’.
Participant Jiu I think the company is Chinese one or foreign one, the first thing is for it to make money. Not only for Chinese companies, but also for foreign companies, the same.
Participant Wu Goal is the first thing. In our experience, we also think so, goal is the first thing, we must set up our target first. In order to reach that target, we must try every possible way. Yes it is very important for us to do things legally.
Participant Shi Liu To give some gifts, agree to give some gifts to the officers and some relative people. To consider the profit of the company, to consider the open the potential market for the company, it is necessary I think.
Yes – other thing we can do is focus on the profit and focus on the development of the company.
The data suggests that negotiators in both countries are guided, in part,
according to the organisational goals they are trying to achieve. Some negotiators
expressed the view that EANTs were more appropriate when the organisational goal
was highly desirable or important to them.
Although surprisingly few studies have investigated the effect of goals on
ethical decision making, this idea has some support in the literature. An early study
by Hegarty and Sims (1979) found increased competitiveness increased the incidence
of unethical decisions. What is known is that goals are motivational (Locke &
Latham, 1990) and at the individual level, goals effect formation of negotiation
targets and strategy (Lewicki et al., 1999). Although slightly tangential to the direct
effect of different organisational goals, some recent negotiation research has found
misrepresentation was more common in dyads that were motivated to be
individualistic (competitive) rather than cooperative (O'Connor & Carnevale, 1997).
One difference that was found between the Australians’ and the Chinese’
construction of organisational goals was that for the Chinese, the importance of
organisational goals appears to be related to seniority of the negotiator. The more
senior a Chinese manager, the more dedicated he or she was to pursuing the
organisational goals.
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This idea is articulated in the following quote by participant shi liu, a
manager and owner of a company. He says there is a difference in ‘the thinking
between the boss and an employee’ and for him every business opportunity is very
important.
Participant Shi liu In my mind, the responsibility and the thinking between the boss and an employee is really different, because the boss have to consider the whole company, where every employee, not for special one, the whole company, every employee. I have to pay the salary, everyone’s salary, not for one or two. Yes. So the idea is different when you are the boss. Yes. How can I get salary, OK. So in negotiation, every business is very important, we have to try to win. Every chance, OK. I have to try to grasp every business chance, to win the profit, to get money. Not for myself, only for the company, for every employee, I think.
The following quotes are from participants who are in more junior positions
in their companies. These quotes endorse the above idea. Participant shi san says
the boss of the company maybe ‘considers more issues than’ him. Participant shi si
says that the boss is in charge of the company and wants to make it profitable. In the
final quote, participant er articulates that his boss values the achievement of
organisational goals more than he does, for him, his friend is more important.
Participant Shi san If my boss insists, on his strategy, I will follow his instructions this time for the company. Because he is the boss of the whole company, so maybe he considers more issues than I do.
Participant Shi si It is very natural for my boss to think this way. He is in charge of the whole company and he wants to make the company a profitable one.
Participant Er I think the company’s benefit is more important to my boss than I. But to me, the friendship is more important.
This perception about goals was not uncovered in the Australian data and it is
proposed that it is peculiar to China. Chinese negotiators seem to identify more
closely with and are more committed to achieving their organisational goals if they
are in senior or responsible positions.
Commitment to organisational goals is posited to be related to age. Ralston,
Egri, Stewart, Terpstra, and Yu (1999) have identified three generations of Chinese
managers based on the economic experiences lived through by them. They have
identified a ‘new generation’ of Chinese managers under the age of 40 (when they
wrote the article in 1999) who ‘grew up mostly during the era of social reform’
which is when the majority of industrialisation took place. Ralston et al. (1999)
describe their new generation as scoring significantly higher on individualism in
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comparison to older generations of Chinese managers and suggest that a possible
implication of these higher scores is that younger Chinese are more likely to act
independently.
One manifestation of this increased individualism is the willingness of young
Chinese to job-hop. Recall that in an earlier section, Chinese participant shi san was
quoted that he would leave the company if dissatisfied. The phenomenon of job
hopping by young professional Chinese has been identified in industry discourse. A
1997 report noted that ‘there are about 10 openings for every one qualified employee
in China … job-hopping is rampant – some changing jobs every six months’ (Pacific
Bridge Inc, 1997). More recently, the same company described there being 3 jobs
for every qualified candidate (Pacific Bridge Inc, 2001). A manager from the Boston
Consulting Group also recognises that young Chinese move about, but does not think
it is disloyalty ‘I think it’s an idea of improving yourself, improving your chances for
success’ (Bean, 1998).
It is possible that there is a correlation between commitment to the
organisational goals and ability to job-hop. It is logical to think that older staff will
occupy more senior positions and that they are not part of this ‘new generation’ who
are able to change jobs easily. Because the older staff cannot move jobs, it is logical
that they would have a greater commitment to the organisational goals than junior
staff who are able to move to another job easily. Future research could investigate
this link between commitment to goals and seniority in China.
Business and Personal Reputation
The final contextual variable that emerged from the data was business and
personal reputation. Reputation in negotiation has been defined by Tinsley,
O'Connor, and Sullivan (2002) as socially constructed labels that extend the
consequences of a party’s actions across time, situations and other actions. So
although personal reputation is obtained by an interaction in a negotiation, it is
something that a negotiator takes away from the negotiation. It is distinct from the
‘perception of the other party’ and the relationship with the other party even though
negotiators can be concerned about their reputation with the other party with whom
they are negotiating.
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It is important to distinguish that the reputation considered here belongs to
the negotiator and not to the other party. Most of the work in reputation in
negotiation has looked at how perception of the other party’s reputation effects the
negotiation rather than how negotiators think of their own reputation.
Participants in both China and Australia discussed the importance of personal
and business reputation. The negotiators in both countries talked about how small
the business network was and talked about word getting around. In the first quote
below, participant seven says that although there are short term gains ‘you’re ABC’s
number one employee’ when it came to getting another job, the information would
get out and your reputation would precede you. The Chinese participants also
articulated concerns about taking actions that impact on the company or personal
reputation because ‘once people’s reputation is damaged’ it takes a long time to
repair it (participant shi qi). The final two quotes here show two participants
concerns for the long term affect on the reputation of the company. Participant jiu
links a damaged reputation to future development in China.
Participant Seven But if you do this once, the way that business is, the business community is, if you did that fine, you maybe got the 51%, yeah the 51% and your ABC number one employee, and suddenly there is a structural change, a takeover, … Umm, but, the business world is very small. And as you get out into doing business outside of Australia you find out just how small the whole thing is, you run into people everywhere and everybody knows somebody that knows somebody. And especially in Brisbane, if you do that, it is going to get out.
Participant Shi qi I will not do that just for the money. The reputation is very important for business men. Once people’s reputation is damaged it will take you a long time to repair it.
Participant Jiu And as to a large company, if it adopts such methods, that will not be good for its reputation and development here in China.
Participant Liu In the future, also, there will be some affection to the reputation of the company, the way of operating, of their people.
It is posited that negotiators consider their personal and business reputation
when contemplating the use of EANTs.
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Interpretive Summary and Hypotheses for Future Research
The interpretation of the data here shows that the three variables ‘personal
standards’, ‘organisational goals’ and ‘personal and business reputation’ are
considered by negotiators in their ethical decision making.
Both Chinese and Australian participants emphasised the primacy of the
individual variable personal values and indicated that they first considered if an
EANT was acceptable to them in their ethical decision making. It is posited that
personal ethical standards act as a filter for EANTs and it is hypothesised:
H6: Negotiators will rate EANTs that violate their personal ethical standards as inappropriate regardless of how the context of the negotiation is manipulated.
Both Chinese and Australian negotiators consider the contextual variable
organisational goals in their ethical decision making. It is posited that as the goal
increases in importance, some negotiators will consider it more appropriate to use
EANTs if it helps them achieve the goal. However, for the Chinese, the willingness
to pursue goals appears to be moderated by seniority in the organisation, with greater
commitment to the goals by more senior Chinese managers. It is hypothesised:
H7: Australian negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate if the outcome of the negotiation is more important for the organisation. H8: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate if the outcome of the negotiation is more important for the organisation and they hold a senior position in their company.
Both Chinese and Australian participants acknowledged that using EANTs in
a negotiation could impact their personal and professional reputation. It is posited
that EANTs will be considered as more appropriate when the reputation of the
negotiator is unlikely to be affected, such as in a once-off sales negotiation. It is
hypothesised that:
H9: Negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate if the negotiation is a once-off sales negotiation than if it involves future contact either with the other party or within the same business environment.
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6.6 An extended Model of Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
Based on the data presented in this chapter and the interpretation thereof, an
expanded model of ethical decision making in negotiation has been formulated. This
expanded model is shown in Figure 3 below. Where a link between variables has a
related hypothesis, the hypothesis numbers is shown (eg. H1). This section then
explains the model and explains how culture affects the variables and which ones are
substantially different because of culture.
The model below extends the extant model of ethical decision making
proposed by Lewicki et al., (1999) by showing that culture (a contextual variable in
the Lewicki et al., 1999 model) interacts with other contextual variables. Culture is
shown to have both a main effect on some of the contextual variables as well as a
moderating effect the way some contextual variables are understood in negotiation.
The model advanced here is consistent with Gelfand and Dyer's (2000) cultural
perspective on negotiation which says culture will moderate the influence of
proximal situational conditions.
Figure 3: Contextual Variables in Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
Perception of Other party•Obligation toward the other party •Guanxi•Closeness of relationship
Cult
ure
(Mor
al P
hilo
soph
y)
Tactics appropriate for this negotiation
The “Art of Strategy –the RANGE of tactics that couldbe used
Organisational Codes of Ethics Organisational Goals• Urgency of •Identification with
Legal environment•Enforcement •Size of breach Personal &
OrganisationalReputation
H1
H2, H
3
H5
H7, H8
H9
H4
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Based on the analysis of the data from the interviews, it is posited that culture
will have a direct effect on the nature of organisational codes of ethics and moderate
the way codes of ethics are understood by negotiators.
According to Figure 3, the legal environment and the organisational goals
also influence codes of ethics. The influence of the law on codes of ethics was
discussed in section 6.2. It was noted that in countries like Australia (where codes
are widely used) organisations use the law as a guide in preparing their codes of
ethics. The relationship between codes of ethics and organisational goals is proposed
as being bi-directional; however this relationship was not explored in this research
and requires further consideration.
It is posited that the legal environment is directly affected by culture. The
legal environment is shown to have an effect on the range of tactics that could be
considered by the negotiator because in some countries, some tactics are illegal. The
legal environment also affects the choice of tactic and negotiators consider the
likelihood of enforcement of the law and the size of the breach in their conception of
the law. National culture is also shown as moderating how the legal environment is
understood because there are cultural differences in enforcement of law.
Culture is shown to have a moderating effect on the way organisational goals
are considered by negotiators. Previous research suggests that culture may have a
direct effect on the choice and type of goals (Brett, 2001, Lytle, 1994), however, the
types of goals investigated in this research did not suggest such a relationship.
Further research would allow more detailed investigation of the type of goals and
how culture interacts with them. Negotiators consider urgency of the organisational
goals and there appears to be a range of how much people identify with the
organisational goals.
It is posited that culture directly affects perceptions of the other party, which
is consistent with cultural theory of how people identify themselves and their
relationship with others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Markus et al., 1996). For
example, how guanxi effects the perception of the other party is culturally specific.
Culture is also posited to moderate how the perception of the other party influences
the ethical choices in a negotiation.
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Personal and organisational reputation was shown to be a consideration in
negotiators’ ethical decision making but no cross-cultural differences were observed
in how these variables were defined or understood. Culture is also posited to have an
effect in how reputation is considered by negotiators.
6.7 Decision Trees of Ethical Decision Making
One of the tools that ethics writers use to explain the influence and interaction
of variables in the ethical decision making process is a decision tree. For example, a
recent Harvard Business Review article argued that the first ethical decision
managers needed to make was whether or not an action was legal (Bagley, 2003) and
presented a decision tree where legality was the first decision.
As decision trees are useful in showing the ranking of contextual variables,
two decision trees are proposed here that speculate the prioritisation of the personal
and contextual variables for Chinese and Australian negotiators. It is emphasised
that the prioritisation is speculative – it is based in part on the data and in part on
what the literature says is important. Rigorous testing is required before claims of
validity can be made. Although the order of decisions cannot be substantiated at this
point, the decision trees presented here provide a useful starting point for future
research into which contextual variables are the most important and the order in
which they are considered by negotiators ethical decision making.
To enhance understanding of the two decision trees it is best to think about
the negotiators considering an EANT – such as one of the SINS scale items
(Robinson et al., 2000). For example, they might be considering using SINS tactic 1:
promise that good things will happen to the other party if he/she gives you what you
want, even if you know that you can’t (or won’t ) deliver these things when the
other’s cooperation is obtained.
For both the Chinese and Australian negotiators, interpretation of the data
indicated that the first thing they ask themselves is ‘will my personal values allow
me to do this?’ This question represents the personal ethical standards variable that
was discussed earlier in this chapter. If their answer to this question is ‘no’, then the
negotiator will not use this tactic. Thus, for the first question the Australian and
Chinese decision trees is identical. After this question, the trees differ. The
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proposed Australian tree will be discussed first followed by a discussion of the
proposed Chinese tree.
The Australian Decision Tree
The next question the Australians ask themselves is open to debate. Based on
Bagley's (2003) decision tree that emphasised the primacy of the law in ethical
decision making, the idea that the legal implications were the next consideration is
posited. However, the Australian negotiators did not emphasise the law and instead
focussed on whether or not an action was a violation of company policy. In the
interpretation of the data on codes of ethics it was argued that because Australian
companies use the law as a minimum standard in the development of their codes of
ethics, Australian negotiators implicitly not explicitly considered the law. Instead,
they focussed on corporate policy and were concerned if a violation was explicit or
not. Based on this focus, it is proposed that the question 2 for the Australian is a
question of whether the action/tactic is an explicit violation of company policy.
Figure 4: Decision Tree Showing Order of Consideration of Contextual Variables in Ethical Decision Making for Australian Negotiators.
Australian negotiators’ ethical decision making decision tree
1) Will my personal values allow me to do this?
No
2) Is it an explicit violation of company policy?
Yes
No
4) Will it hurt my reputation?
Yes
3) Is it OK with Senior Managers?
Yes
Yes
Don’t do it
No
Don’t do it
Don’t do it
No
5) Will it hurt OP relationship?
No
Don’t do it
6) Shall I use this tactic?
Yes
No
Don’t do it
Yes
√ Take action
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If the answer to question 2 is yes, it is proposed that the decision process will
flow on to a question that is a subsidiary to how Australians understand codes of
ethics. The Australian data on codes of ethics/company policies was interpreted to
mean that if there was a violation of policy Australians would take the issue to a
senior manager. For example, participants said if they were asked to pay a bribe, and
it was made explicitly known to them that they were paying a bribe, they would
revert the decision to their boss. If their boss said it was OK, they would continue
through the decision tree. If the bribe were presented to them as a commission, they
would not consider it a violation of their company policy and they would continue
through the decision tree. Thus, question 3 shown on the proposed Australian
decision tree is ‘is it OK with Senior Managers?’
Alternately, if the response to question 2 was ‘no’ then the decision tree
would have branched toward the question 4.
It is proposed that question 4 is related to Australians’ reputation and is
shown in the decision tree as ‘will it hurt my reputation?’ This speculation is based
on the comments by Australian participants about the importance of their reputation
to them and how they perceived the business world as small. Because commercial
negotiations take place in often close-knit industries, negotiators are concerned about
the effect of actions on both their personal and business reputation. Although the
focus during the interviews was the Chinese market and, intuitively, the Chinese
market is large and so reputation might not be deemed important, one participant said
‘and that gets around in China, no matter how large China is’ (participant two). The
placement of this question in the decision tree requires considerable testing before
validity can be claimed. Personal reputation was not one of the three contextual
variables that were chosen a priori and it may be that having ‘found it’ led to a bias
about the variable. That is, it may have been inadvertently treated as more ‘striking’
because it was unanticipated.
Assuming that the Australian negotiator decide that use of tactic or taking an
action will not hurt their reputation (question 4), the decision tree continues to the
next level where the Australians consider if the tactic/action will hurt their
relationship with the other party (shown as question 5). It is posited that because
Australians have a strong distinction between work and personal life (Trompenaars
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& Hampden-Turner, 1998) as demonstrated by responses like ‘I just have to distance
[my friendship and the negotiation]’ they will place their relationship with the other
party after their concerns for their business reputation. Like the order of the previous
questions, this needs to be subjected to rigorous testing before any claims of validity
can be made.
The final question that has been posited is based on intuition – ‘shall I use the
tactic or not?’ This question is presented in the decision tree as question 6. It is
anticipated that future research will undertake exploration of whether there are steps
missing in the decision tree.
The Chinese Decision Tree
As noted in the above discussion, question 1 on the Chinese decision tree is
the same as the Australians’. It is a question of whether the use of a tactic or action
will violate their personal values.
Figure 5: Decision Tree Showing Order of Consideration of Contextual Variables in Ethical Decision Making for Chinese Negotiators.
Chinese negotiators’ ethical decision making decision tree
1) Will my personal values allow me to do this?
No
2) Do I have to take account of the law?
Yes
No
4) Is my relationship with OP important?
Yes
3) Can we work around the law?
Yes
6) Will it hurt my reputation?
Yes
No
Don’t do it
Yes
5) Can I manage the guanxi?
Don’t do it
No
Don’t do it
7) Shall I use this tactic? No
Don’t do it
Yes
√ Take action
No
Don’t do it
No
Yes
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As with the development of the Australian decision tree the next question
considered for inclusion in the Chinese decision tree was related to the law based on
the recently published decision tree by Bagley (2003) that emphasised the primacy of
the law in ethical decision making. A number of comments from Chinese
participants such as ‘the first thing is the law’ suggest that the legal implications of a
decision are an important consideration for Chinese.
However, because the law is not uniformly enforced in China (Hao, 1999), it
is posited that the question is whether or not the law needs to be considered rather
than whether or not an action is legal, as in Bagley’s (2003) decision tree. This is
presented as question 2.
It is proposed that the third question is a subsidiary question to how they
understand the law. As noted above, Chinese law is not applied uniformly and this
fact was observed by a number of Chinese participants. Accordingly, it is proposed
that if the Chinese negotiator answers the affirmative to question 2, the next question
they will ask themselves is whether or not they can work around the law (question 3).
These two questions differ substantially from the questions proposed as 2 and
3 in the Australian decision tree where the Australians were considering the
corporate code of ethics in place of the law. These difference provide an interesting
avenue for future research to confirm the process of decision making in negotiation
across the two cultures.
Following the decision about whether taking the action will be a violation of
the law, it is speculated that the next question is related to the relationship with the
other party. This speculation is based on the emphasis placed on friendship by the
participants in their responses and on the acknowledged importance of relationships
in Chinese society (e.g. Bond & Hwang, 1986; Hwang, 2000).
According to the data interpretation, the construction of the Chinese
perception of the other party was multi-faceted and included an assessment of how
close to the other party they felt. Thus, question 4 in the decision tree is presented as
‘is my relationship with the other party important?’, including an assessment of
guanxi obligations. It follows that if the relationship is important to the Chinese
negotiators, and they answer yes to question 4, the next question will be related to
their guanxi obligations. Question 5 is shown as ‘can I manage the guanxi?’
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Like the Australian participants, the Chinese negotiators considered the
implications of using a tactic on their business and personal reputations.
Accordingly, the question ‘will it hurt my reputation?’ has been included as question
5 in the decision tree. A point of distinction from the Australian decision tree is the
relative priority of reputation and the importance of their relationship with the other
party. In the Chinese decision tree, ‘will it hurt my reputation?’ has been placed
below the relationship questions. This ordering accords with research showing that
the Chinese place great emphasis on relationships (Hwang, 2000) and are
interdependent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
The difference between Chinese and Australians in the ordering of questions
concerning relationship and reputation will provide another interesting avenue for
future research into the cross-cultural differences in decision trees.
The final question in the Chinese decision tree (question 7) is based on
intuition – shall I use the tactic or not? Like the Australian decision tree, it is
anticipated that future research will clarify if there are additional questions that need
to be precede the final question.
Differences between Australian and Chinese Decision Trees
In summary, the priority of the contextual variables is posited to vary across
the cultures. The order presented needs to be tested in future research before any
validity can be claimed. However, the decision trees, in their current form, provide a
useful starting point for future investigation. The ordering of the variables is
supported in part by the data and in part by established differences between
Australian and Chinese. The key differences between the two decision trees are:
▪ The Australians are posited to first consider if the tactic is a violation of
the company policy/codes of ethics whereas the Chinese ask if it is a
violation of the law;
▪ Chinese negotiators rank the relationship with the other party, and assess
their potential to manage the guanxi as the next level of decision making
before considering their reputation; and,
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▪ Australian negotiators have these two variables in the reverse order with
their consideration of their reputation before their consideration of their
relationship with the other party.
6.8 Hypotheses for Future Testing
The next step in this research project is to begin answering research question
two, which is: what is the relationship between each of the chosen three contextual
variables and culture and ethical decision making in negotiations? To do this,
hypotheses will be chosen from those generated in this section to test in study 2.
This section lists all of the hypotheses that were proposed in this chapter.
H1: Negotiators who are familiar with their company’s codes of ethics will rate EANTs as less appropriate if they are told that the tactics will explicitly breach their company’s codes of ethics, whereas negotiators who are not familiar with their company’s codes of ethics will not change their rating of appropriateness of EANTs if they are told the tactics will breach their company’s codes of ethics.
H2: Negotiators will consider EANTs that break the law as more appropriate if there is a low likelihood of the law being enforced and consider EANTs that break the law as less appropriate if there is a high likelihood of the law being enforced.
H3: Negotiators will consider EANTs that break the law as more appropriate if the breach is small and consider EANTs that break the law as less appropriate if the breach is large.
H4: Negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate the more they value their relationship with the other party.
H5: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with another party with whom they have a relationship, whereas Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a stranger.
H6: Negotiators will rate EANTs that violate their personal ethical standards as inappropriate regardless of how the context of the negotiation is manipulated.
H7: Australian negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate if the outcome of the negotiation is more important for the organisation.
H8: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate if the outcome of the negotiation is more important for the organisation and they hold a senior position in their company.
H9: Negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate if the negotiation is a once-off sales negotiation than if it involves future contact either with the other party or within the same business environment.
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6.9 Conclusions
The aim of this chapter was to address the first research question: are there
cross-cultural differences in the codes of ethics, the legal environment and perception
of the other party in ethical decision making in negotiation and how they are
understood by negotiators? Two scenarios were developed to explore understanding
of theses variables by Chinese and Australian negotiators.
Although there were some shared understandings of aspects of contextual
variables across the cultures, the interpretation of data presented in the chapter
included a number of differences that were attributed to the influence of culture.
Codes of ethics were posited to be influential for Australian negotiators but not
Chinese negotiators. Instead, Chinese negotiators looked to the law for guidance.
Because the Chinese were not familiar with codes of ethics, they were not aware of
what constituted a breach of the code. The interpretation suggests that codes of
ethics will only be a useful guide for behaviour in cultures where they are common
and understood by employees. Negotiators from countries such as Australia where
codes of ethics are well understood should not expect negotiators from countries like
China to be operating under a code of ethics similar to an Australian code of ethics.
Similarly, if negotiators in a multi-national company have members on their team
from countries that do not have a history of using codes of ethics, then they should
not be surprised if those team members violate the codes in pursuit of their
negotiation goals.
The understanding of the legal environment did not differ across cultures.
Both Chinese and Australian negotiators did not consider Chinese law enforcement
very effective. Part of the understanding of the legal environment was the size of the
breach concerned.
As expected, there were cross-cultural differences in how the perception of
the other party was understood. The Chinese were much more concerned about their
obligations to the other party than the Australians, which was attributed to the emic
cultural construct guanxi. Although both the Chinese and Australians said they
would be more willing to use EANTs when they did not know the other party
compared to when they did know the other party, it was posited that the Chinese will
discriminate more in perceived appropriateness of EANTs between a friend and a
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stranger because of the importance of guanxi in China and in accordance with
cultural theory about distance between self and other (Hwang, 2000).
Three variables were identified inductively from the data. These were the
individual variable ‘personal values’ which negotiators used as a filter for their
ethical decision making. Secondly, organisational goals were identified as being
important to negotiators in their ethical decision making. A cultural difference was
identified for the influence of organisational goals, as the Chinese seem more
sensitive to organisational goals according to seniority in the organisation. Thirdly,
‘personal and business reputation’ was identified as a contextual variable that is
considered by negotiators across cultures.
An extended model of ethical decision making was presented that shows the
complex relationship between culture and the contextual variables. The model builds
on the extant model of ethical decision making by Lewicki et al. (1999).
This chapter also described two decision trees that posited the priority of the
contextual variables in the two cultures. Although tentative, these decision trees can
be used as the basis of future investigations into which variables are the most
important.
Hypotheses about the relationship between the contextual variables and the
ethical decision and, where appropriate, the cultural interaction, have been developed
for future testing of the model. The next step is the systematic testing of the
hypotheses to answer research question two: what is the relationship between these
contextual variables and culture and ethical decision making in negotiations?
This question is addressed in the next chapter.
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PART 4 ANSWERING RESEARCH QUESTION 2
Chapter 7 Testing the Culture – Contextual Variable – Ethical Decision Making Interaction: Research Design
7.1 Overview
The previous chapters presented the inducto-hypothetico phase of this
research project to address the first research question. The results were an extended
theoretical model of ethical decision making in negotiation and a set of hypotheses.
The model proposed cross-cultural differences in codes of ethics, the legal
environment and perceptions of the other party as well as differences in how they
were understood. The expanded model addressed the first research question.
Now this research project moves into the hypothetico-deductive phase with
the testing of one of the hypotheses proposed in the last chapter. Having proposed a
number of relationships between culture, the contextual variables and ethical
decision making, it is appropriate to begin testing them. Testing the relationships
will address the second research question of this thesis: What is the relationship
between these contextual variables and culture and ethical decision making in
negotiations?
One hypothesis was selected for this investigation. Related to perception of
the other party, the selected hypothesis was:
H5: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with another party with whom they have a relationship, whereas Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a stranger.
This chapter describes the research design used to test the hypothesis and
serves as a lead-in to the results and discussion that are presented in the next chapter.
These two chapters address the second research question and form part 4 of the
thesis.
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To test the hypothesis, scenarios containing contextual information were
added to the scale that has been developed to measure attitudes towards EANTs – the
Self-reported Inappropriate Negotiation Strategies or SINS scale (Robinson et al.,
2000). This scale was chosen to test for differences in how ‘the relationship with the
other party’ affected perceived appropriateness of tactics in a negotiation because:
a) it was developed specifically to test how negotiators view EANTs
(Robinson et al., 2000), and
b) it offered the most up-to-date measurement tool of attitudes about
ethics in negotiation.
The SINS scale consists of 16 items that are aggregated into five types of
tactics. This scale is introduced in the following section, 7.2. The discussion follows
the evolution of the scale and describes how exploratory factor analysis was used to
identify types.
The use of exploratory factor analysis to identify types of EANTs in the SINS
instrument is interesting because it is coincidentally the same technique that is used
to test for metric equivalence of the items, which is a step that has to be taken here
because the administration of the scale is across two cultures. This point is discussed
in more detail in the final section of this chapter.
Before discussing the analysis tools, the development of the scenarios that
prefaced the SINS scale to test the hypothesis is discussed in section 7.3. Other
minor modifications to the scale and the translation process to maximise linguistic
equivalence are also presented in this section.
The within-subjects design used to test the hypothesis and a discussion of the
strengths and weaknesses of the design are presented in section 7.4. The sample of
Chinese and Australian managers is also described.
The final section of this chapter, 7.5 describes the two-step analysis of the
data collected. As noted above, because the SINS scale has not been validated in
Australia and China, it was necessary to run exploratory factor analysis on each of
the four data sets: 2 scenarios X 2 cultures to test the metric equivalence of the items.
It was anticipated that that factor structure would be consistent with that published by
Robinson et al. (2000). However, the factor analysis showed that the factor structure
was not uniform across the data sets. The implications of this finding are important
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for two reasons. Firstly, from the perspective of testing the hypothesis, it means that
the data has to be analysed at the item level because there are not shared factors.
Thus the relationship between culture and the perception of the other party was tested
at the individual item level using ANCOVA. Secondly, and more intriguingly, the
inconsistent factor structures raises questions about the veracity of using exploratory
factor analysis to identify types of EANT and also whether factor structures are
likely to be consistent across groups that are predicted to differ in their ratings of
appropriateness.
7.2 Introducing the SINS Scale
As already noted, the SINS scale (Robinson et al., 2000) was chosen to test
the hypothesis because it offered the most up-to-date measurement tool of attitudes
about ethics in negotiation. This section describes the scale and describes how the
five ‘types’ represented by the 16 items were derived via exploratory factor analysis.
In order to discuss the evolution of types, the table below gives the five types
of EANT identified by Robinson et al. (2000). The authors do not describe their
categories beyond showing the items in them.
Table 4: The Five Factors and Items14 for the SINS Scale (Robinson et al., 2000)
This Figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available at the QUT Library.
14 The item wording is from the original version. Modifications were made to the wording for the administration of the survey in this study and are described in the next section.
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Table 4 Continued: The Five Factors and Items for the SINS Scale (Robinson et al., 2000)
This Figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available at the QUT Library.
The typology presented by Robinson et al. (2000) represents an evolution of
work commenced in 1983 by Roy Lewicki when he proposed a five-way typology of
deceptive behaviours in negotiation (Lewicki, 1983) based on writings about lying
behaviour, principally after Bok (1978). The 1983 classification of deception was:
1. Misrepresentation of one’s position to another party about preferred
settlement or resistance point.
2. Bluffing occurs when a negotiator says he/she will do something when he/she
does not intend to, for example, false threats and false promises.
3. Falsification occurs when presenting factually erroneous information into the
negotiation – such as false financial statements – as though the information
were true.
4. Deception occurs when a negotiator constructs a collection of true or untrue
arguments that leads the other party to the wrong conclusion
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5. Selective disclosure or misrepresentation to constituencies occurs in
relation to other parties in the negotiation – for instance a negotiator may not
tell their constituency what happened in a negotiation or may not tell the OP
the true wishes of his/her constituency.
This typology was first tested in a study by Anton (1990). He constructed 5
brief negotiation scenarios for each the first four categories resulting in 20 scenarios.
First he asked three graduate students to sort the scenarios according to type. This
process resulted in full agreement. He then asked a collection of reasonable people
(n =304) to rate each scenario on perceived ethicality to test if the types were
distinct. Anton reported that each of the categories were distinct, however there was
‘a good deal of correlation (.66) between bluffing and value discovery’ (called
misrepresentation by Lewicki) (Anton, 1990, p:272). This correlation suggests that
the participants in Anton’s study were not easily distinguishing between the two
types.
The next development toward the SINS typology was in the late 1990s when
Lewicki and Robinson (1998) built on the 1983 typology and used exploratory factor
analysis to identify types. The authors compiled a list of tactics ‘from a number of
research and practitioner-oriented publications on strategy and tactics in negotiation’
(Lewicki & Robinson, 1998, p:668) and pared the list down to 18 items using the
1983 categories ‘as a rough guide’. The 18-item questionnaire was administered to
MBA students and their ratings of appropriateness of the tactics were subjected to
exploratory factor analysis (maximum likelihood analysis with varimax rotation) ‘to
determine the dimensions which might underlie the aggregate of items’ (Lewicki &
Robinson, 1998, p:668).
They identified 5 factors from responses of 320 MBA students from Ohio
State University in the U.S. They then ran principal component analysis (with
varimax rotation) on two data sets of MBAs from Ohio State University (n = 364)
and from Harvard Business School (n = 736) and the combined sample (n=1100).
The authors consider the two separate samples to show ‘close correspondence
between the factors’ and the factors from the combined sample to be ‘consistent
with, and supportive of the initial analyses from the OSU sample’ (Lewicki &
Robinson, 1998, p:673).
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However, examination of the published factor loadings shows that 3 of the 18
items do not consistently load onto the same factor across the three samples (OSU,
Harvard and combined). The reasons for these differences were not explored in the
1998 study and in any case the 1998 typology was soon to be gazumped by the SINS
typology. However, it is important to note that two similar samples of samples of
MBA students15 studying in the U.S. produced different factor structures.
One other study also showed inconsistent factor structures using the 18 item
Lewicki and Robinson (1998) questionnaire. A cross-cultural study of Brazil and the
U.S. by Volkema in 1999 included a principal component analysis (varimax
rotation). The sample sizes in each culture were quite small (n = 136 in Brazil and n
= 135 in the U.S.), which probably influenced the resultant factor structures.
Nonetheless, the structures were inconsistent. Only 15 of the 18 items loaded as
expected for the U.S. sample and 12 of the 18 items loaded as expected from the
Brazilian sample (Volkema, 1999).
These inconsistent factor structures have not been addressed in the literature
but are important. Especially in this study because exploratory factor analysis is the
tool used to confirm metric equivalence of the SINS instrument across the two
cultures. The results above raise questions about whether factor structures will hold
across groups when the groups are predicted to have different ratings of
appropriateness such as in the Volkema (1999) study comparing Brazil and the U.S.
Further, it raises questions about whether or not factor analysis is the appropriate
way to identify a typology of EANTs if the factor structures are not stable.
Factor analysis was also used as the tool to develop the typology for the SINS
scale. Robinson et al. (2000) combined their earlier work (Lewicki & Robinson,
1998) with the writings of some negotiation ethicists (Cramton & Dees, 1993, Dees
& Cramton, 1991, 1999). They generated ‘10 general categories of deceptive tactics’
and created a 30 item scale by using existing tactics or writing new tactics to reflect
the categories and then explored the underlying structure of this scale using principal
component analysis on a sample of 762 first-year MBA students. The 30 items were
15 n1 = 364, 70.3% male with an average age of 26.1 years and average work experiences of 3.9 years and n2 = 736, 71.3% male with an average age of 26.2 years and an average of 4.3 years work experience
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reduced to 23 items16, which yielded five factors. The five factors were introduced in
table 4 above and were labelled: 1) traditional competitive bargaining, 2) attacking
an opponent’s network, 3) false promises, 4) misrepresentation/lying and 5)
inappropriate information gathering. The 23 items were then reduced to 16 items as
shown in table 4 above.
The factor structure of the SINS scale was tested on the original data and on
another sample of 615 MBA students and the inventory replicated as expected. As
far as the author is aware, although the studies using the SINS scale has been
published (Banas & McLean-Parks, 2002) there are no published studies that have
undertaken exploratory factor analysis to test the stability of the factor structure and
so it is pre-emptive to expect that the factor structure will not be stable. It is however
appropriate to be mindful of the questions relating to stability when considering the
results of this study.
In summary, this section has described the evolution and development of the
SINS scale which was used in this study as the tool to measure ratings of
appropriateness of EANTs in China and Australia. The SINS scale is a 16 item
instrument that is aggregated into 5 types of EANT. These types have been
identified via exploratory factor analysis. Because the SINS scale is a recent
development there are no published studies that have used exploratory factor analysis
to confirm that the factor structure is stable. However, earlier work on the 1998 scale
suggests inconsistent factor structures may be an issue.
It is exploratory factor analysis that is used to check that the items have the
same meaning. This step is described in the section 7.5 on the analysis of data.
7.3 Use and Modification of the SINS Scale
Having described the nature of the SINS scale, this section describes the
modifications that were made to it for this study. First, it was modified to
incorporate the contextual variable being tested. Second, it was translated and back-
translated to allow administration in China.
16 Reduction of the 30 items to 23 items was by discarding items with a communality of less than 0.30 and items for which the primary loadings were different on the five, six and seven factor solutions.
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The English language versions of the scales as issued in Australia are
attached in appendix I.
Addition of a Contextual Variable to the SINS Scale
Two scenarios were devised that varied according to the closeness of the
relationship with the other party. These two scenarios are shown below with the
differences shown in bold type. Both scenarios were presented to the respondents
followed by the 16-item SINS scale.
Scenario One
You are the lead negotiator for Company X and are engaged in developing a joint venture project with a local company, Company B. You have just discovered that the lead negotiator for Company B is someone you know: someone who was in your class at school. Your classmate has a reputation of being a good negotiator. Your company wants the majority share of equity in the joint venture project. You believe that Company B will not be happy about this.
Scenario Two
You are the lead negotiator for Company X and are engaged in developing a joint venture project with a company from overseas, Company B. You have not met the negotiator from Company B before, but you have heard that the lead negotiator has the reputation of being a good negotiator. Your company wants the majority share of equity in the joint venture project. You believe that Company B will not be happy about this.
The choice of school mate versus someone you have not met before in the
two scenarios followed Hwang's (2000) three-level theory of interpersonal
relationships in Chinese society. A classmate belongs in Hwang's (2000) middle
level of interpersonal ties, which he calls ‘mixed ties’: relationships with
acquaintances outside the immediate family. Yang (1994) confirms that a classmate
(‘tongxue’ in Mandarin) is understood in popular discourse as a ‘reservoir of binding
ties and ethical obligations’ (Yang, 1994, p:111) and explains that the character for
‘tong’ means ‘same’ or ‘shared’.
The second version of the scenario refers to a negotiator ‘you have not met
before’. This description falls into Hwang's (2000) third and most distant level of
interpersonal relationships which he calls ‘instrumental ties’: those established
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between an individual and stranger simply for the purpose of acquiring a particular
resource.
Chinese and Australian negotiators were shown the two scenarios prior to the
distribution of the survey and both groups approved them as realistic.
In addition to completing the SINS questionnaires, respondents provided
demographic information.
Modifications and Translation of the SINS scale
Each of the scenarios was followed by the 16-item SINS scale (Robinson et
al., 2000). The wording of the items was modified to replace ‘opponent’ with ‘other
party’ to reduce a fixed pie bias (Pruitt & Carnevale, 1993) that might have been
induced by the term opponent. ‘Opponent’ was also at odds with the wording of the
scenario, which specified the objective of the negotiation was the development of a
joint venture project.
To maximise the linguistic equivalence, the survey went through a back-
translation process as recommended by Ady (1994) and Gudykunst (2000). The
back translation showed numerous discrepancies so the author worked with a third
translator to achieve consistency of meaning. Although confident of the quality of
translation when the surveys were distributed, feedback suggested some problems
remain and a post hoc translation identified the following equivalence issues. These
issues are flagged below but do not become important until the analysis discussion in
Chapter 8.
1. The word constituent/constituency, which appears in three items, has
several equivalent Mandarin words. The choices were between characters
that approximate ‘boss’ or ‘company / work unit’ or ‘electoral members’.
The first option was chosen but this translation has a different conceptual
meaning and given the hierarchical nature of China, the meaning of boss
may have influenced interpretation of the question.
2. Question 15 was potentially confusing to the Chinese respondents as it
could be thought of as two phrases. In English it reads: ‘Guarantee that
your constituency will uphold the settlement reached, although you know
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that they will likely violate that agreement later’. A number of
respondents advised, that as a single tactic, it does not make sense
because it requires a negotiator to make a promise on behalf of his boss
knowing his boss would lose face when the deal was not completed.
Such an action would violate the rules of face as it is inappropriate to act
to damage the face of a boss, or indeed other people to whom there is an
obligation. It may have been confusing for respondents.
These issues of functional equivalence are considered in the analysis
discussion.
7.4 Within-Subjects Design
Data were collected using a repeated measures (within-subjects) design. Two
copies of the SINS scale prefaced by the contextual scenarios described above were
distributed in China and Australia.
The choice of a within-subjects design conforms to earlier studies of how
contextual variables affect perceived appropriateness of EANTs (Volkema & Fleury,
2002) and offers the advantage of controlling for subject heterogeneity in age and
work-experience.
In addition, this design was chosen to maximise the sample size for the factor
analytic study required to assess metric equivalence. The Chinese data was collected
without an established network and so it was difficult to be confident that large
enough samples would be collected if a between-subjects design were pursued.
The potential disadvantage of this crossed design is that the respondents
might recognise the purpose of the study and so modify their natural response. To
minimise this, the scenarios and scale were on separate sheets to discourage
comparison of answers.
A further limitation of the design was the administration of the surveys in the
same order for all the respondents. Thus, part of the observed relationship within the
subjects may be an ordering effect.
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Subjects
The sample was drawn from working adults in both China and Australia. In
China, 254 working Chinese were found through students in the author’s Business
English class in the city of Qingdao, Shangdong Province. In Australia, the 202
subjects were identified through the author’s business network. Data were collected
in 2002. Details of the sample are contained in the following table.
Table 5: Sample Description for STUDY 2
Chinese Sample
Australian Sample
Number of respondents 254 202 Average Age 29.4 years 38.8 years Average years work experience 8 years 20 years Percentage Female (Number) 51.2% (130) 36.1% (73) Percentage Male (Number) 48.8% (124) 63.9% (129)
One of the important issues for cross-cultural researchers is ensuring sample
equivalence because observed cultural differences maybe due to sampling
differences rather than cultural differences (Lytle et al., 1995). There, differences in
the percentage of each gender, average age and average work experience of
respondents from China and Australia suggest these demographics should be
controlled for data analysis.
The generalisability of the findings from this data is limited to the city from
which the data was collected in China: Qingdao in Shangdong province because of
well-established regional differences in China. Degree of economic reform (Jian,
Sachs, & Warner, 1996) and influence of Western values (Au, Chan, & Tse, 1998)
are important in distinguishing Chinese regions from each other. Qingdao is
peculiarly influenced by its historic occupation by the Germans early last century (Ip,
2003), its early and ongoing economic reforms as a major seaport and its history of
attracting considerable foreign investment (Du, 1999). Lastly, Shandong Chinese
have a reputation of being highly ethical, because Shandong is the home province of
Confucius. All of these attributes preclude generalisation to the wider Chinese
population.
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7.5 A Two-Step Analysis
As noted in the introduction, before the hypothesis could be tested, it was
necessary to test whether the SINS scale was metrically equivalent across cultures.
To test this, exploratory factor analyses were run across each combination of culture
and scenario: Chinese negotiating with classmate, Chinese negotiating with stranger,
Australian negotiating with classmate and Australian negotiating with stranger. The
factor solutions were compared between cases and with the five-factor solution
proposed by Robinson et al., (2000)17.
Factor structures were extracted using maximum likelihood estimates of the
oblique (direct oblimin) loadings as this rotation was found to provide the least
factorially complex solution. This extraction was used for all the factor analyses.
All of the 16 items were kept in the factor analysis, to facilitate comparison to the
Robinson et al. (2000) solution. The pattern of items loading above 0.3 were
interpreted18.
The results of this factor analysis are discussed in detail in the next chapter.
A comparison of the loadings showed variation across the cultures and from that
published by (Robinson et al., 2000). Because no factors were found in all four of
the cases, the hypotheses were tested at the individual item level.
The hypothesis was tested in a repeated measure General Linear Model
(ANCOVA).
Because of demographic differences in the two different cultures, estimated
marginal means were calculated controlling for age, gender and work experience.
This decision accords with findings in the negotiation literature that have established
17 The comparison with the Robinson et al. (2000) factor solution was initially difficult as Robinson et al. (2000) used principal component analysis rather than factor analysis and did not report a full loading matrix. Robinson et al., (2000) graciously provided their raw data for use in this study. A factor analysis (maximum likelihood with oblimin rotation) was run on a subset of one of the Robinson et al., (2000) data sets (from Harvard University) which was reduced to Anglo-Americans so that it was similarly culturally homogenous to the data sets collected for this study. N= 311, average age = 26.8 years (sd = 2.39), 24.9% sample was male and 75.1% was male. Maximum likelihood factor analysis (oblimin rotation) reproduced the five factor model reported in the Robinson et al., (2000) study. The factor loading matrix is reported in appendix II and was used as the basis of comparison with the factor structures from the data here. 18 There is no universal agreement on what constitutes an adequate loading or at what level an item is considered to be cross-loading. For example, Stevens (1996) suggests that for a sample size of 250, .33 is a significant loading at p<0.01. He goes on to say that a variable should share at least 15% of its variance with a factor (a loading of .3). In this study, a loading above 0.3 is considered a grey area and is included in the analysis.
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demographic variables influence perceptions of perceived appropriateness of EANTs
and so suggest that these may confound the influence of other variables in empirical
studies.
For example, the finding that women are generally less accepting of EANTs
than men is fairly consistent in the negotiation literature (Anton, 1990, Lewicki &
Robinson, 1998, Robinson et al., 2000;Volkema, 1999, 2001). Similarly, the
relationship between age and perception of ethicality is fairly consistent in the
negotiation literature with older people thinking it less appropriate to use EANTs
although many of the studies have used MBA or undergraduate students and the age
range of samples is not very wide.
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Chapter 8 Results of Study 2
8.1 Overview
This chapter is organised according to the steps followed to confirm or
disconfirm the hypothesis about the relationship between culture and ‘perception of
the other party’ on perceived ethicality in negotiation:
H5: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with another party with whom they have a relationship, whereas Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a stranger.
As noted in the previous chapter, the initial step was a check on the metric
equivalence of the SINS scale by exploratory factor analysis. Results are presented
in section 8.2 showing that the factor structure was not replicable across the two
cultures. This inconsistency is explained by the fact that the latent factors are
constructed of items that co-vary according to perceived appropriateness. Because it
is predicted that patterns of perceived appropriateness will vary across the two
groups, it follows that the factor structures based on similarities of rating would not
generalise.
Following this conclusion, the data were analysed at the item level. Section
8.3 presents the results of the ANCOVA comparing the Australian and Chinese data
to test the hypothesis. The Chinese generally rated the EANTs as more appropriate
across both scenarios and differentiated more than the Australians between the
scenarios. These results are discussed in section 8.4.
In the conclusion in section 8.5 the theoretical contribution of this study is
discussed. In light of the conclusions about the SINS scale’s generalisability
across cultures and concerns about the veracity of the SINS typology, it is
proposed that it is necessary to undertake some instrument development work
before continuing testing differences between China and Australia.
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8.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis of the SINS scale in China and Australia
This section describes the results of the exploratory factor analyses testing for
metric equivalence of the data. These were compared across each culture and
scenario: Chinese negotiating with classmate, Chinese negotiating with stranger,
Australian negotiating with classmate and Australian negotiating with stranger and
with the five- factor model reported by Robinson et al. (2000). The maximum
likelihood estimates of the oblique (direct oblimin) factor loadings for the 16-item
scale are presented in appendix II.
In order to test if the Robinson et al. (2000) factor structure was replicable,
the first step was to request a five-factor solution using maximum likelihood
estimates. In appendix II the factor-matrices are presented for each scenario in each
culture. It can be seen that none of the four cases produced a five factor structure
that matched that reported by Robinson et al. (2000). Robinson et al.'s (2000)
traditional bargaining factor was identified in three out of the four cases: the
Australian negotiators in the classmate scenario, Chinese negotiators in the classmate
scenario and the Chinese negotiating with a stranger. The inappropriate information
gathering factor was identified in both the Australian data sets: Australians
negotiating with classmates and Australians negotiating with a stranger.
Because the solutions did not match the five-factor model proposed by
Robinson et al. (2000), further analyses were run to find a less complex factor
structure for each case using multiple criteria such as eigen values over 1, Cattell’s
scree test and requesting 6, 4 and 3 factor solutions. All 16 items were kept in the
analysis. A four-factor solution provided the least number of cross loading items in
each case and these are also given in appendix II. However, there was little
consistency between the cases in the items that loaded on each factor. The traditional
bargaining factor identified by Robinson et al., (2000) was in three of the cases. It
was not found in the data for Australians negotiating with a stranger. The only other
factor that was produced in more than one case was Robinson et al.'s, (2000)
‘inappropriate information gathering’ factor (items 5,13, 6) which occurred in both of
the Australian cases.
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Explaining the Inconsistent Factor Structures
Although the explanation for the different factor structures is not particularly
complex, finding that different groups have different factor structures calls into
question some of the assumptions underlying the SINS scale and the typology
presented by Robinson et al. (2000). This discussion starts with an explanation for
the different factor structures before turning to the implications.
The factor structures of the cases are different because the pattern of ratings
of appropriateness are different. Factor analysis looks at shared co-variance and
items that are rated similarly by lots of respondents will load together on a factor.
The difference between groups reflects a different pattern of perceived
appropriateness of the EANTs. This difference is not particularly surprising in light
of the hypothesis that predicted differences in perceived appropriateness between the
Chinese and Australians across the scenarios in this study.
It is easier to think about this proposition if the complexity of the SINS scale
is stripped away and a simpler study is described. Imagine a scale with six tactics is
administered to two groups with 200 people in each group. The members of Group
A believe fervently that the ‘ends justify the means’ and consistently rate all six
tactics at the upper end of the scale (around 7, very appropriate). Group B on the
other hand believe that deception is unacceptable and rate the items at the lower end
of the scale (1, 2 or 3) more or less randomly. A comparison of the results of a factor
analysis from these two data sets is telling. The factor analysis on the data from
Group A would produce just one factor with all six items loading on it. By
comparison, the factor analysis run on the data from Group B would result in more
factors depending of what items co-varied consistently.
The interpretation here is that the pattern of ethically questionable tactics
proposed by Robinson et al. (2000) are not ‘types’ of tactics, rather groups of tactics
that were rated as being similarly appropriate by the samples in their study. The
pattern of perceptions of appropriateness that were described by Robinson et al.
(2000) is likely to be different for different groups.
This contention that the factor structure will vary across groups can also
explain the inconsistent factor structures that were found using the 1998 Lewicki and
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Robinson scale (Lewicki and Robinson, 1998 and Volkema, 1999) that were flagged
in the previous chapter.
The interpretation that the factor structure will not hold across groups is
significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, it calls into question whether it is
appropriate to derive a typology of EANTs from a factor analysis of ratings of
appropriateness of EANTs. Secondly, it calls into question whether a composite
measure is what is needed when measuring differences in appropriateness of EANTs.
Each of these will be discussed in turn.
Do ratings of shared appropriateness constitute a type of EANT? Robinson et
al. (2000) think so because they state they are ‘exploring the underlying factor
structure’ of the 30-item scale (Robinson et al., 2000, p:651), and express confidence
that they found ‘a stable five-factor model of the typology used by lay persons in
conceptualising the structure of ethically questionable negotiation tactics’ (Robinson
et al., 2000, p:654).
Counter to this, it is posited here that the correct answer to the question ‘do
ratings of shared appropriateness constitute a type of EANT?’ is no. For a typology
to be derived from factor analysis, it would require that every item in a type is rated
consistently by the group of respondents. Such consistency of ratings is unlikely for
types of EANTs.
Consider a type classification offered by Robinson et al. (2000) ‘false
promises’ and the variety of EANTs that could fall within this range. Consider two
EANTs that are both false promises. 1) You promise the other party that you will
talk to your boss about their concerns over an issue if they give you a concession
now, even though you have no intention of talking to your boss. 2) You promise the
other party a 10% signing bonus if they agree to the price, even if you do not intend
to give it to them. Recall that using factor analysis to identify this type requires both
of these EANTs to be rated consistently so that they co-vary together and load onto
the same factor. That is, each item has to be rated the same distance apart on the
scale of appropriateness by lots of respondents. Intuitively, people will vary in their
relative ratings of these two items. Someone who is very focussed on the outcome
may rate both items as appropriate whereas many people would consider the second
tactic as less appropriate because of the calibre of the deception, the personal nature
of it and because the perpetrator will almost certainly be found out when he or she
117
does not follow through on the promise. If there was such a range of opinion in a
group of respondents, remembering that just such a range is a prediction in many
studies, a factor analyses will not show the two false promises loading together.
It is proposed that if researchers want to define the types of EANTs they will
have to find an alternative approach to factor analysing responses about perceived
appropriateness. Factor analysis is a tool that is appropriate to identify underlying
latent constructs and dimensions but it is not appropriate to identify types of EANTs
using a ‘how appropriate is this tactic?’ question.
If this point, that factor analyses of ratings of EANTs do not lead to a
typology, is accepted, it opens up a whole array of new questions and issues. How
do we build a typology of EANTs if not via an inductive analysis? What are the
latent variables that underlie ratings of appropriateness of EANTs? How do we find
them? And, importantly for the analysis of the data in this study: how do we best
compare groups’ ratings of appropriateness of EANTs? Identifying concerns about
the use of factor analysis in the field of EANTs has opened a proverbial can of
worms.
Some of these questions will be considered later in this thesis. However the
focus here must remain on answering the research questions posed about the
influence of culture on ethical decision making in China and Australia. Thus the
question of greatest concern is the last: how should we compare the two groups’
ratings of appropriateness of EANTs? More explicitly, because the factors derived
from the four data sets (2 cultures X 2 scenarios) are not consistent, is it appropriate
to use an aggregated measure or should the analysis be done at the item level?
There tends to be a blurring of the evaluation of theoretical and applied
survey instruments in the literature with a uniform focus of validity even though they
have different purposes. As noted by Flynn and Pearcy (2001) it is necessary to
distinguish between measuring a construct or phenomenon for diagnostic or
managerial reasons versus measuring the same construct for theoretical reasons.
The purpose of this administration of the SINS scale is diagnostic and direct.
It is seeking to measure differences in ratings of EANTs. Because the factor analysis
of the four data sets showed that there are no consistent factors, analysis is virtually
forced down the road of item-level comparisons. However, it is important to note
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that item-level analysis is appropriate for this study irrespective of the results of the
factor analysis.
It is posited that the comparison of ratings of appropriateness of EANTs
across groups should be done at the item level, not because of inconsistent factors,
but because what is being tested is a discrete event represented by an unambiguous
description of the event and can be measured directly. It is proposed that the
decision to use a negotiation tactic (ethically ambiguous or otherwise), or rate its
appropriateness is a separate rating from the ratings of other EANTs. Single-item
measures, although not popular, are appropriate when the construct being measured
is sufficiently narrow and unambiguous to the respondent (Wanous, Reichers, &
Hudy, 1997).
Because this claim is contrary to the dominant paradigm that single-item
measures are bad and multiple-item measures are good it is important to differentiate
what is being done here from tasks that use and require composite measures. Single-
item measures are appropriate when there is a narrow construct. Scalar measures are
necessary when investigating complex constructs that cannot be easily understood by
respondents or are difficult for researchers to pin down. If for instance, researchers
identify underlying dimensions to ratings of EANTs, such as the motivations to use
EANTs, then they will need to identify and use a composite measure. The research
here is focussing on measuring differences in ratings of EANTs so using a multi-item
measure would obfuscate both the ratings and interpretation. Aggregation of ratings
of different EANTs would cause the clarity of each item to be lost.
Accordingly, the decision here is to analyse the data at the item level. This
decision leads back to the task at hand, which is to test the two hypotheses using the
data collected using the SINS scale. The testing of the hypothesis is presented next.
8.3 Hypothesis Test: ANCOVA of Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs
The hypothesis about the influence of culture and the closeness of the
relationship with the other party on perceived appropriateness of EANTs being tested
in this analysis is:
119
H5: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with another party with whom they have a relationship, whereas Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a stranger.
Graphically, this hypothesis would be shown in the following way.
Proposed relationship between hypotheses: Chinese will consider EANTs as less appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a former classmate & more appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a stranger
6.00
5.00
2.00
4.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
As noted in the previous chapter, the analysis for testing the hypothesis was
conducted at the item-level. The dependent variables were the ratings of
appropriateness of each EANT item (for example, the ratings of item 1 on scenario
one and item 1 on scenario 2). Because of demographic differences in the two
different cultures, estimated marginal means of the ratings of appropriateness were
calculated controlling for age (33.54 yrs), gender and work experience (12.71yrs).
The independent variables were culture (China or Australia) and Scenario (1 or 2).
To test the hypothesis, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) of the estimated
marginal means of each EANT’s perceived appropriateness was conducted within
and between cultures. The results of significant interactions between culture and
scenario are shown in Table 6 following. Table 7 reports within culture differences
and between culture differences for each scenario. The estimated marginal means
are presented graphically for each item.
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Table 6: Significant Results of ANCOVA of Estimated Marginal Means of Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs Between China and Australia, Controlling for Age, Gender and Years of Work Experience
Item Significant Interactions
Item 1: Promise that good things will happen to Company B’s lead negotiator if he/she gives you what you want, even if you can’t (or won’t) deliver these things when the other’s cooperation is obtained.
Item2: Intentionally misrepresent information to Company B’s lead negotiator in order to strengthen your negotiating arguments or position.
Culture * scenario F(1, 450) = 17.01***
Item 3: Attempt to get the lead negotiator from Company B fired from his/her position so that a new person will take his/her place.
Culture * scenario F(1, 450) = 16.63***
Item 4: Intentionally misrepresent the nature of negotiation to your constituency in order to protect delicate discussions that have occurred.
Item 5: Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by paying your friends, associate and contacts to get this information for you.
Culture * scenario F(1, 450) = 3.9*
Item 6: Make an opening demand that is far greater than what you really hope to settle for.
Culture * scenario F(1, 449) = 4.07*
Item 7: Convey a false impression that you are in absolutely no hurry to come to a negotiated agreement, thereby trying to put time pressure on Company B’s lead negotiator to concede quickly.
Item 8: In return for concessions from Company B’s lead negotiator now, offer to make future concessions that you know you will not follow through on.
Item 9: Threaten to make Company B’s lead negotiator look weak or foolish in front of a boss or others to whom he/she is accountable, even if you know that you won’t actually carry out the threat.
Item10: Deny the validity of information which Company B’s lead negotiator has that weakens your negotiating position, even though that information is true and valid.
Item 11: Intentionally misrepresent the progress of negotiations to your constituency in order to make your own position appear stronger.
Item 12: Talk directly to the people to who Company B’s lead negotiator reports to, or is accountable to, and tell them things that will undermine their confidence in him/her as a negotiator.
Item 13: Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by cultivating his/her friendship through expensive gifts, entertaining or personal favours.
Culture * scenario F(1, 450) = 3.26+
Item 14: Make an opening demand so high that it seriously undermines Company B’s lead negotiator’s confidence in his/her ability to negotiate a satisfactory agreement.
Item 15: Guarantee that your constituency will uphold the settlement reached, although you know that they will likely violate the agreement later.
Item 16 Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by trying to recruit one of his/her team members (on the condition that the team member brings confidential information with him/her).
+ p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01,*** p<.001
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Table 7: Significant Results of ANCOVA between Estimated Marginal Means of Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs Within and Between China and Australia
Item Mean difference between Scenario
Chinese
Mean difference between Scenario
Australians
Mean Difference between cultures
Scenario 1
Mean Difference between cultures
Scenario 2
Item 1: Promise that good things will happen to Company B’s lead negotiator if he/she gives you what you want, even if you can’t (or won’t) deliver these things when the other’s cooperation is obtained.
.49 F(1, 450) = 32.59***
.28, F(1, 450) = 8.43**
.30 F(1, 450) = 4.43*
.51 F(1, 450) = 8.21**
Item2: Intentionally misrepresent information to Company B’s lead negotiator in order to strengthen your negotiating arguments or position.
.87 F(1, 450) = 81.53***
.22 F(1, 450) = 3.76+
.80 F(1, 450) = 29.18***
1.47 F(1, 450) = 61.46***
Item 3: Attempt to get the lead negotiator from Company B fired from his/her position so that a new person will take his/her place.
.80 F(1, 450) = 52.99 ***
1.25 F(1, 450) = 58.77***
1.99 F(1, 450) = 121.03***
Item 4: Intentionally misrepresent the nature of negotiation to your constituency in order to protect delicate discussions that have occurred.
.28 F(1, 450) = 5.70 *
Item 5: Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by paying your friends, associate and contacts to get this information for you.
.52 F(1, 450) = 20.50***
1.83 F(1, 450) = 78.04***
2.21 F(1, 450) = 114.26***
Item 6: Make an opening demand that is far greater than what you really hope to settle for.
.37 F(1, 449) = 16.94 ***
1.36 F(1, 449) = 45.86***
1.07 F(1, 449) = 24.68***
Item 7: Convey a false impression that you are in absolutely no hurry to come to a negotiated agreement, thereby trying to put time pressure on Company B’s lead negotiator to concede quickly.
.44 F(1, 450) = 3.33+
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Item Mean difference
between Scenario Chinese
Mean difference between Scenario
Australians
Mean Difference between cultures
Scenario 1
Mean Difference between cultures
Scenario 2 Item 8: In return for concessions from Company B’s lead negotiator now, offer to make future concessions that you know you will not follow through on.
.24 F(1, 450) = 3.79+
1.23 F(1, 450) = 42.94***
1.14 F(1, 450) = 32.70***
Item 9: Threaten to make Company B’s lead negotiator look weak or foolish in front of a boss or others to whom he/she is accountable, even if you know that you won’t actually carry out the threat.
Item10: Deny the validity of information which Company B’s lead negotiator has that weakens your negotiating position, even though that information is true and valid.
.22 F(1, 450) = 6.14*
.45 F(1, 447) = 5.31*
.54 F(1, 447) = 6.98**
Item 11: Intentionally misrepresent the progress of negotiations to your constituency in order to make your own position appear stronger.
.15 F(1, 450) = 4.54 *
Item 12: Talk directly to the people to who Company B’s lead negotiator reports to, or is accountable to, and tell them things that will undermine their confidence in him/her as a negotiator.
.43 F(1, 450) = 11.43 ***
.66 F(1, 448) = 10.60***
.89 F(1, 448) = 19.16***
Item 13: Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by cultivating his/her friendship through expensive gifts, entertaining or personal favours.
.32 F(1, 450) = 12.58***
1.47 F(1, 450) = 54.94***
1.74 F(1, 450) = 77.01***
Item 14: Make an opening demand so high that it seriously undermines Company B’s lead negotiator’s confidence in his/her ability to negotiate a satisfactory agreement.
.25 F(1, 449) = 6.68**
.47 F(1, 449) = 4.42*
.43 F(1, 449) = 4.38+
Item 15: Guarantee that your constituency will uphold the settlement reached, although you know that they will likely violate the agreement later.
.21 F(1, 450) = 5.49*
.20 F(1, 450) = 3.91*
.98 F(1, 450) = 26.98***
.99 F(1, 450) = 23.38***
Item 16 Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by trying to recruit one of his/her team members (on the condition that the team member brings confidential information with him/her).
.19 F(1, 449) = 4.39*
2.02 F(1, 449) = 105.07***
2.02 F(1, 449) = 89.04***
+ p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01,*** p<.001
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SINS Scale Item 1. Promise that good things will happen to Company B’s lead negotiator if he/she gives you what you want, even if you know that you can’t (or won’t) deliver these things when the other’s cooperation is obtained.
2.28
1.78
1.79
1.49
1.00
1.20
1.40
1.60
1.80
2.00
2.20
2.40
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with strangerScenario
Perc
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ness Chinese sample
Australian sample
SINS Scale Item 2. Intentionally misrepresent information to Company B’s lead negotiator in order to strengthen your negotiating arguments or position
3.26
1.79
2.38
1.57
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
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riate
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Chinese sample
Australian sample
SINS Scale Item 3. Attempt to get the lead negotiator from Company B fired from his/her position so that a new person will take his/her place
3.30
1.30
2.50
1.25
0.50
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 4. Intentionally misrepresent the nature of negotiation to your constituency in order to protect delicate discussions that have occurred
2.32
2.07
2.09
2.11
1.80
2.00
2.20
2.40
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
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Chinese sample
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SINS Scale Item 5. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by paying your friends, associate and contacts to get this information for you
4.24
2.04
3.72
1.89
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
4.50
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
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riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 6. Make an opening demand that is far greater than what you really hope to settle for.
4.34
5.41
3.97
5.34
3.00
3.50
4.00
4.50
5.00
5.50
6.00
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 7. Convey a false impression that you are in absolutely no hurry to come to a negotiated agreement, thereby trying to put time pressure on Company B’s lead negotiator to concede quickly
5.475.52
5.35
5.08
4.50
5.00
5.50
6.00
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 8. In return for concessions from Company B’s lead negotiator now, offer to make future concessions that you know you will not follow through on
3.42
2.29
3.28
2.06
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
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Australian sample
Chinese sample
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SINS Scale Item 9. Threaten to make Company B’s lead negotiator look weak or foolish in front of a boss or others to whom he/she is accountable, even if you know that you won’t actually carry out the threat.
2.21
1.941.94
1.79
1.00
1.20
1.40
1.60
1.80
2.00
2.20
2.40
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
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riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 10. Deny the validity of information which Company B’s lead negotiator has that weakens your negotiating position, even though that information is true and valid.
3.39
2.85
3.18
2.73
2.00
2.20
2.40
2.60
2.80
3.00
3.20
3.40
3.60
3.80
4.00
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 11. Intentionally misrepresent the progress of negotiations to your constituency in order to make your own position appear stronger.
2.11
2.03
1.88
1.99
1.80
1.85
1.90
1.95
2.00
2.05
2.10
2.15
2.20
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
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d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 12. Talk directly to the people to who Company B’s lead negotiator reports to, or is accountable to, and tell them things that will undermine their confidence in him/her as a negotiator.
3.10
2.21
2.67
2.02
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
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Perc
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Australian sample
Chinese sample
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SINS Scale Item 13. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by cultivating his/her friendship through expensive gifts, entertaining or personal favours.
3.98
2.24
3.66
2.19
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
4.50
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 14. Make an opening demand so high that it seriously undermines Company B’s lead negotiator’s confidence in his/her ability to negotiate a satisfactory agreement.
3.88
4.31
3.63
4.10
3.00
3.20
3.40
3.60
3.80
4.00
4.20
4.40
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
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riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 15. Guarantee that your constituency will uphold the settlement reached, although you know that they will likely violate the agreement later.
3.19
2.20
2.98
2.00
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
SINS Scale Item 16. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by trying to recruit one of his/her team members (on the condition that the team member brings confidential information with him/her).
4.25
2.24
4.01
2.05
1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
4.50
Negotiating with former classmate Negotiating with stranger
Scenario
Perc
eive
d ap
prop
riate
ness
Australian sample
Chinese sample
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Hypothesis Test
The hypothesis:
H5: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with another party with whom they have a relationship whereas Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a stranger. predicted two things. First it predicted an interaction between culture and scenario –
that is to say there would be cultural differences in how much the scenario influenced
the ratings. Secondly, it hypothesised that the Chinese would differentiate more than
the Australians because they would rate the appropriateness of EANTs lower for
scenario 1 than would Australians and higher for scenario 2 than would Australians.
As shown in Table 6, a number of items showed a significant interaction between
culture and scenario (items 2, 3, 5,6 and 13) but as illustrated in the graphs preceding
table 6, none of these items had the Chinese rating the EANTs in scenario 1 as less
appropriate than the Australians so none of the ratings of the items supported the
hypothesis.
However, the prediction of greater discrimination by the Chinese was
supported for the items with a significant interaction between culture and scenario.
Trends Identified
Although the hypothesis was not supported, a number of interesting trends
are apparent in the data.
Firstly, as summarised in Table 8 following, the Chinese respondents rated
the appropriateness of the EANTs higher than the Australians across both scenarios
for the majority of items (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15 and 16). As shown in tables 7
and 8, these ratings were significantly higher for most of these items (the exception
being item 9).
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Table 8: Summary Table of Differences Between Cultures
ITEM China higher across both
scenarios
Significant Difference Between Cultures
Scenario 1
Significant Difference Between Cultures
Scenario 2 Item 1: Promise that good things will happen to Company B’s lead negotiator if he/she gives you what you want, even if you can’t (or won’t) deliver these things when the other’s cooperation is obtained.
√ √ C √ C
Item2: Intentionally misrepresent information to Company B’s lead negotiator in order to strengthen your negotiating arguments or position.
√ √ C √ C
Item 3: Attempt to get the lead negotiator from Company B fired from his/her position so that a new person will take his/her place. √ √ C √ C
Item 4: Intentionally misrepresent the nature of negotiation to your constituency in order to protect delicate discussions that have occurred.
A C
Item 5: Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by paying your friends, associate and contacts to get this information for you.
√ √ C √ C
Item 6: Make an opening demand that is far greater than what you really hope to settle for. √ A √ A
Item 7: Convey a false impression that you are in absolutely no hurry to come to a negotiated agreement, thereby trying to put time pressure on Company B’s lead negotiator to concede quickly.
C A
Item 8: In return for concessions from Company B’s lead negotiator now, offer to make future concessions that you know you will not follow through on.
√ √ C √ C
Item 9: Threaten to make Company B’s lead negotiator look weak or foolish in front of a boss or others to whom he/she is accountable, even if you know that you won’t actually carry out the threat.
√ C C
Item10: Deny the validity of information which Company B’s lead negotiator has that weakens your negotiating position, even though that information is true and valid.
√ √ C √ C
Item 11: Intentionally misrepresent the progress of negotiations to your constituency in order to make your own position appear stronger.
A A
Item 12: Talk directly to the people to who Company B’s lead negotiator reports to, or is accountable to, and tell them things that will undermine their confidence in him/her as a negotiator.
√ √ C √ C
Item 13: Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by cultivating his/her friendship through expensive gifts, entertaining or personal favours.
√ √ C √ C
Item 14: Make an opening demand so high that it seriously undermines Company B’s lead negotiator’s confidence in his/her ability to negotiate a satisfactory agreement.
√ A √ A
Item 15: Guarantee that your constituency will uphold the settlement reached, although you know that they will likely violate the agreement later.
√ √ C √ C
Item 16 Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by trying to recruit one of his/her team members (on the condition that the team member brings confidential information with him/her).
√ √ C √ C
√ = Significant difference between the cultures, C = China higher than Australia for scenario, A = Australia higher than China for scenario
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Table 9: Summary Table of Differences Within Cultures Between Scenarios
ITEM Significant Difference between scenarios
Australians
Significant Difference between scenarios Chinese
Item 1: Promise that good things will happen to Company B’s lead negotiator if he/she gives you what you want, even if you can’t (or won’t) deliver these things when the other’s cooperation is obtained.
√ 2 √ 2
Item2: Intentionally misrepresent information to Company B’s lead negotiator in order to strengthen your negotiating arguments or position. √ 2 √ 2
Item 3: Attempt to get the lead negotiator from Company B fired from his/her position so that a new person will take his/her place. √ 2
Item 4: Intentionally misrepresent the nature of negotiation to your constituency in order to protect delicate discussions that have occurred. √ 2
Item 5: Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by paying your friends, associate and contacts to get this information for you. √ 2
Item 6: Make an opening demand that is far greater than what you really hope to settle for. √ 2
Item 7: Convey a false impression that you are in absolutely no hurry to come to a negotiated agreement, thereby trying to put time pressure on Company B’s lead negotiator to concede quickly.
√ 2
Item 8: In return for concessions from Company B’s lead negotiator now, offer to make future concessions that you know you will not follow through on. √ 2
Item 9: Threaten to make Company B’s lead negotiator look weak or foolish in front of a boss or others to whom he/she is accountable, even if you know that you won’t actually carry out the threat.
Item10: Deny the validity of information which Company B’s lead negotiator has that weakens your negotiating position, even though that information is true and valid.
√ 2
Item 11: Intentionally misrepresent the progress of negotiations to your constituency in order to make your own position appear stronger. √ 2
Item 12: Talk directly to the people to who Company B’s lead negotiator reports to, or is accountable to, and tell them things that will undermine their confidence in him/her as a negotiator.
√ 2
Item 13: Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by cultivating his/her friendship through expensive gifts, entertaining or personal favours.
√ 2
Item 14: Make an opening demand so high that it seriously undermines Company B’s lead negotiator’s confidence in his/her ability to negotiate a satisfactory agreement.
√ 2
Item 15: Guarantee that your constituency will uphold the settlement reached, although you know that they will likely violate the agreement later. √ 2 √ 2
Item 16 Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by trying to recruit one of his/her team members (on the condition that the team member brings confidential information with him/her).
√ 2
√ = Significant difference between scenarios, 1 = scenario 1 is higher, 2 = scenario 2 is higher
A number of items were rated as more appropriate by the Australians. These
are items 4, 6, 7, 11, 14 as can be seen in the graphs preceding. Item 6 showed
significant differences between cultures for each scenario. For item 14, the
Australians rated the EANTs as significantly more appropriate than the Chinese for
scenario 1, but the difference for scenario 2 was only marginally significant.
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The final trend that is of interest is illustrated in table 7 and summarised in
table 9 above. The Chinese discriminated significantly between the scenarios for 11
of the 16 EANTs whereas the Australians discriminated significantly between the
scenarios for only 4 of the 16 EANTs.
Each of these trends will be elaborated on and discussed in the next section of
this chapter.
8.4 Discussion
The aim of this section of the chapter is to elaborate on the trends observed
on the data and offer explanations that account for the observed differences between
and within the data sets.
As noted, the hypothesis was not supported by the data. Although the data
trended in the direction anticipated by the hypothesis, with the Chinese
discriminating more than the Australians, it was not anticipated that the Chinese
would rate the majority of the tactics across both scenarios as more appropriate than
the Australians.
This finding begs the question ‘why do the Chinese rate the majority of the
items as more appropriate than the Australians?’ The most obvious answer is that
the Chinese mental model of negotiation or their rules of negotiation incorporates an
expectation and tolerance of deception occurring within the negotiation that is greater
than the Australian expectation and tolerance of deception and so the Chinese have
rated most of the EANTs as more acceptable than Australians.
This idea is supported in both the academic and practitioner literature. In a
book about Chinese philosophy as applied to business, Chu (1992) uses the words of
an American client to compare Western and Asian business perspectives:
‘‘Compared to Asians, we are not very good at practicing deception. We refuse to
acknowledge that we even practice it, as to do so would violently contradict our
cultural belief system. Even though people in the Western culture are repelled by the
idea of deception, in reality we are unable to escape it.’ While Westerners are
practicing deception, they pretend that they are not, whereas Asians accept the reality
of deception as a necessary element in their daily lives. They write books on and
glorify the study of the art of deception’ (Chu, 1992, p:184). Describing deception as
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a ‘necessary element in their daily lives’ suggests that Asian negotiators have a
tolerance for deception incorporated in their mental models of negotiation.
In developing the first part of the hypothesis (that Chinese would rate EANTs
as less appropriate than Australians when negotiating with someone who they have a
relationship with) the logic was that the Chinese would be concerned for potential
damage to their guanxi with the other party (because they had a relationship with that
person) and so would rate the tactics as less appropriate than Australians. If,
however, Chinese rules of negotiation include the expectation that deception is a
normal part of negotiation, then deceptive tactics would be widely anticipated and
recognised in negotiation. It follows that, even when Chinese are negotiating with
someone in their guanxi circle (as in scenario 1), the tactics are useable because the
other party has the ability to recognise the tactic, will label the tactic as ‘standard’,
and it will not cause affront to face (mianzi) or be indicative of the true feeling of the
other party.
Chinese negotiation pedagogy also emphasises a view that ‘the marketplace
is a battlefield’ and promotes a win-lose frame (Zhao, 2000). This idea is related to
the philosophy of Sun Tze’s The Art of War, which is widely studied throughout
Asia by businessmen (Chu, 1988).
It is possible to see a relation between some of the tactics and some of Sun
Tze’s advice on the art of war. For example, item 5: ‘gain information about
Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by paying your friends, associate and
contacts to get this information for you’ can be interpreted as mimicking Sun Tze’s
advice on the use of spies. In chapter 13 of Sun Tze’s writings, he notes that it is
inhumane to not employ spies if their information will shorten a war, and the only
way to get good spies is to pay them fairly (Sun, 1981). A familiarity with and
ascription to the advice of Sun Tze would account for the Chinese rating this tactic as
significantly more acceptable than Australians for both scenarios. If the Chinese
consider this tactic a normal part of business practice, and know little about the other
party as they would in scenario 2, it is logical that they would rate it as more
appropriate in scenario 2 than in scenario 1, thus accounting for the significant
difference between scenarios.
Academic writers have also argued that collectivists are more likely to engage
in deceptive behaviour than individualists, albeit for slightly different reasons than
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familiarity with ‘The Art of War’. Triandis et al. (2001) have argued that people in
collectivist cultures (such as China) will ‘do what is expected of them by the norms
of their ingroups and their roles. If we observe a person’s behaviour in a role that
requires deception (e.g. a negotiator who is not supposed to show his hand) we may
be more likely to see this behaviour in collectivist than in individualistic cultures’
(p:75). Triandis et al. (2001) found that collectivism at the cultural level was
positively related to the use of deception.
The picture then, from both the professional literature and the academic
literature suggests that the Chinese have a mental model of negotiation that is
tolerant and accepting of the use of EANTs. Thus, their ratings of perceived
appropriateness for EANT are higher than Australian ratings of perceived
appropriateness.
In this thesis, a ‘culture in context’ view of national culture has been used.
Such a definition propounds that it is not possible to separate the contextual parts of a
culture (such as the legal environment) from the influence of culture. Nonetheless it
is interesting to consider that the ratings by the respondents would have, in part,
reflected some of the contextual issues of their country. For example they may have
been invoking their legal environment or their corporate culture in their process of
rating the tactics.
Higher Ratings of Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs by the Australians
Although the main trend is that the Chinese rated the tactics as more
appropriate across the two scenarios than the Australians, five items proved an
exception to this rule. These are items 4, 6, 7, 11 and 14. For three of these EANTs
(item 6, 11 and 14) the Australians had a higher rating of appropriateness across both
scenarios, with item 6 showing significant differences between cultures for both
scenarios and item 14 showing a significant difference for scenario 1. Items 4 and 7
also proved an exception to the trend of Chinese rating EANTs more appropriately
than the Australians. For both of these items, there was not a significant difference
between the ratings of the two cultural groups.
Two of these items, 4 and 11, had conceptually different meanings in the two
cultures because of translation and so will be discussed separately.
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The other three items were:
▪ Item 6: Make an opening demand that is far greater than what you really
hope to settle for;
▪ Item 7: Convey a false impression that you are in absolutely no hurry to
come to a negotiated agreement, thereby trying to put time pressure on
Company B’s lead negotiator to concede quickly; and,
▪ Item 14: Make an opening demand so high that it seriously undermines
Company B’s lead negotiator’s confidence in his/her ability to negotiate a
satisfactory agreement.
These three items were classified by Robinson et al. (2000) as ‘traditional
competitive bargaining tactics’ in the development of their SINS scale. If these
tactics are indeed ‘traditional’ for Westerners, it would account for the relatively high
approval ratings given them (vis a vis the other tactics) by the Australians and may
account for why they were rated more highly by the Australians than the Chinese. If
the Australians perceive the EANTs as traditional, it follows that they will be
familiar with them, anticipate their use in a negotiation and rate them as more
appropriate.
An example of how traditional these tactics are comes from a leading text
book in negotiation. Talking about distributive bargaining, Lewicki et al., (1999)
consider getting the other party to change their view of their resistance point by
influencing their belief about the value of an object as a ‘fundamental’ strategy.
Items 6 and 14 reflect such a view.
A reason that tactics 6 and 14 were rated as less appropriate by the Chinese
could be that the Chinese do not consider a standard ‘opening’ tactic. Chinese
negotiators tend first to establish agreement on general principles before moving to
more specific issues, as the Chinese generally try to avoid or postpone direct
confrontation (Zhao, 2000). The lower Chinese rating may have come from the
Chinese participants’ emphasis on the use of the tactics at the beginning of the
negotiation in their reading of the EANT. They may consider tactics 6 and 14 as
appropriate later in the negotiation.
Items 4 and 11 were problematic in the Mandarin version because the word
‘constituents’ was translated as boss. So it is not appropriate to compare the
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Australians responses with the Chinese responses because there is not linguistic
equivalence19.
The Chinese rated these EANTs as significantly more appropriate in the
second scenario than in the first. Both items require the negotiator to ‘intentionally
misrepresent’ the progress of the negotiation to their boss.
If a Chinese negotiator were to lie to his/her boss, it would almost certainly
result in a loss of face (mianzi). The Chinese negotiators may have been concerned
about being ‘found out’ by their guanxi network in scenario one, because it is
possible there would be link between the former classmate and their boss. However,
in scenario two with the stranger, there would be no such link, thus explaining why
the Chinese would consider the tactic more appropriate.
Australians Discriminate Across Scenarios Less Frequently than the Chinese
It is the relationship between the scenarios within-subjects that tells the most
interesting story in this data. The hypothesis flowed from the emphasis Chinese
participants in Study 1 placed on friendship and it was anticipated that the Chinese
would differentiate more between the scenarios than the Australians.
This trend was apparent in the data with significant differences between
scenarios for items 1,2, 3,4,5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 16 for the Chinese
respondents. By comparison, the Australian respondents only differentiated
significantly between the scenarios in items 1, 7, 8 and 15 as seen in Tables 7 and 9.
The differences between the Australians and the Chinese can be accounted
for by their relative ratings on the cultural value dimension of universalism
(Australians) versus particularism (the Chinese) (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner,
1998). Universalists tend to apply rules equally to all people (Trompenaars &
Hampden-Turner, 1998) whereas Particularists focus on the nature of the situation
and the relationship with those involved when judging a situation. Paraphrasing
Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (1998) description of how particularists judge
situations and applying it to a negotiation context: ‘this person is not a negotiator, but
my friend or person of unique importance to me, with special claims on my love or
19 This is also true of item 15.
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my hatred. I must therefore sustain, protect or discount this person no matter what
the rules say’ (p:31).
This idea that the Chinese will consider the relationship also accords with the
view of Fang (1999) who notes that negotiation in China has a social dimension.
The data suggests that the context of the situation is interpreted differently for
the Chinese than it is for the Australians. Because the Chinese are more relational
than the Australians, they discriminate more based on the context. The data supports
the conclusions made in study one about the consideration of relationship with the
other party given by the Chinese.
8.5 Conclusions about The Relationship Between Perceptions of the Other Party, Culture and Ethical Decision Making
The aim of this chapter was to report the results of the study into the
relationship between culture and ‘perception of the other party’ on perceived
ethicality in negotiation as expressed in the hypothesis:
H5: Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as less appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with another party with whom they have a relationship, whereas Chinese negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate than Australian negotiators when negotiating with a stranger.
Although the data did not support the hypothesis, a number of differences
were identified in the data that demonstrated cross-cultural differences in the degree
of influence of the contextual factor. The Chinese discriminated between the two
scenarios in a number of the EANTs whereas the Australian did not.
The provision of empirical data demonstrating this relationship is the first
brick in the wall that needs to be built to answer the second research question in this
thesis: What is the relationship between the contextual variables and culture and
ethical decision making in negotiations?
The results presented here add to the studies that have collected ethical
decision making data from cultures with a Confucian moral philosophy. Although
much more testing is required, the data points to the Chinese being more approving
of EANTs in general than the Australians. It was posited that the Chinese are more
approving of EANTs because deception is accepted and anticipated in the Chinese
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(Confucian) culture and that Chinese negotiators hold a different mental model of
appropriate negotiation tactics than the Australians. Future research can explore
whether other cultures with a Confucian moral philosophic foundation also rate
EANTs as more appropriate than Westerners.
In addition to addressing the research question about how culture interacts
with contextual variables, this chapter has identified a significant issue with respect
to the SINS scale and SINS typology of EANTs.
In section 8.2 the results of the exploratory factor analysis were presented. It
was argued that the factors identified in the Robinson et al. (2000) study were not
replicable because patterns of perceived appropriateness are predicted to vary across
groups. Further it was argued that it is not appropriate to derive a typology of
EANTs from a factor analysis that asks respondents about how appropriate they view
the tactics, because ratings of appropriateness are not expected to be consistent
enough across a group of negotiators to allow types to items in a type to load
together on a factor.
It was also argued that the purpose of the SINS scale in this study is to
measure a simple construct: how appropriate EANTs are. Because appropriateness
of EANTs is unambiguous, it is appropriate to analyse data from the SINS scale at
the item level. Pursuing this simple construct was distinguished from studies that are
interested in the latent constructs that underlie ratings of appropriateness. For
research that is comparing complex dimensions, it will be necessary to identify these
dimensions and produce multiple item scales.
In light of these conclusions about the SINS scale, and with a view to further
testing the influence of contextual variables identified in the conceptual model
proposed in chapter five, it is necessary to take a detour from answering the research
questions. It is necessary to begin considering the questions that have been raised in
this chapter about the SINS scale and to begin consider type of EANTs and the
development of a new instrument. Instrument development is a long-term and
iterative process but is necessary before more data is collected to test the model.
This task is commenced in the following chapter.
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PART 5 A NEW TYPOLOGY OF EANTs
Chapter 9 Presenting the HAATTIN Inventory of EANTs
9.1 Overview
This part of the thesis takes a detour from answering the research questions.
In order to continue testing the hypotheses about the inter-relationship of culture,
contextual variables and ethical decision making, it is necessary to have a tool that is
valid across cultures. Instrument development is a long term process that requires
replications before claims of validity can be made (Flynn & Pearcy, 2001). Because
of the need for replication, the process needs to extend well beyond the scope of this
thesis. However, the first steps are taken here and described in this section.
This section is presented in two chapters. In this chapter, a typology of
EANTs is proposed and an inventory of items presented. In the following chapter, a
pilot-test of the inventory is presented and the dimensions underlying ratings of
appropriateness is explored.
The inventory of EANTs is called the HAATTIN inventory which stands for
How Appropriate Are These Tactics In Negotiation. In order to develop the
inventory, the SINS scale was critically evaluated (section 9.2) and other literatures
which informed the selection of theoretical types of EANTs were reviewed (in
section 9.3). Types of EANTs were proposed and were tested against a collection of
EANTs from the negotiation literature and practitioner sources via a series of coding
exercises. The coding exercises are described in section 9.4. The HAATTIN
inventory is presented in section 9.5 before a discussion of the future development of
the inventory in section 9.6. The HAATTIN inventory is pilot-tested in the next
chapter.
9.2 Lessons from the SINS Typology
The development of the SINS scale was described in chapter 7, where it was
explained that the scale was the evolution over 20 years from an early
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conceptualisation of types of EANTs by Roy Lewicki in 1983. The aim of this
section is to consider the weaknesses of the SINS typology in order that these
weaknesses are addressed in the development of a new typology. Three issues are
flagged here: 1) the content adequacy of the SINS scale; 2) that using exploratory
factor analysis does not produce ‘types’ and the SINS types contain conceptually
distinct items, and 3) that some of the tactics are a mix of motive and tactic which is
potentially confusing. Based on these concerns it is argued that it is necessary to
define conceptual types of EANTs from a theoretical base. The next section (9.3)
turns to other literatures that have derived typologies of deceptive behaviours.
Content Adequacy of the SINS scale
Content adequacy is defined as a psychometic property which exists when the
content of a measure covers a representative sample of the domain to be measured
(Schriesheim, Powers, Scandura, Gardiner, & Lankau, 1993) and it is a necessary
pre-requisite for construct validity of items. In simpler terms and with respect to the
SINS scale, content adequacy refers to whether the scale offers fair coverage of types
of EANTs. Content adequacy of the SINS scale is important for this research project
because the data are being analysed to measure differences in ratings of perceived
appropriateness of EANTs and so it is necessary to be confident that the entire
domain of EANTs is fairly sampled.
It is proposed that the SINS scale is not content adequate. This proposition is
based on three observations. The first observation is related to the framing of the
field in the early 1980s. When he published his five types of deceptive behaviour in
a negotiation, Lewicki described his typology as ‘not …an exhaustive list of the
ways that lying and deception can enter into negotiation’ (Lewicki, 1983, p:71).
Early framing of the field is an issue because subsequent development to the SINS
scale represents a refinement of the 1983 typology rather than any substantial
additions.
For example, in the second phase of development of a typology by Lewicki
and Robinson (1998), three of these five 1983 categories were replicated. Although
the authors compiled a list of tactics ‘from a number of research and practitioner-
oriented publications on strategy and tactics in negotiation’ (Lewicki & Robinson,
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1998, p:668) the influence of the 1983 contribution appears considerable. Lewicki
and Robinson note that the 1983 categories were ‘used as a rough guide in paring
down the list’ (Lewicki & Robinson, 1998, p:668). Robinson et al. (2000) also drew
heavily on their earlier work to generate their categories of deceptive tactics,
although they did introduce the writings of some negotiation ethicists (Cramton &
Dees, 1993, Dees & Cramton, 1991, 1999).
The second issue that suggests content adequacy of the SINS scale and
typology may be a concern is also related to the framing of the field by the
publication of the 1983 typology and is the apparent acceptance of the Sisela Bok
definition of lying used by Lewicki in 1983. Bok (1978) defines lying as ‘any
intentionally deceptive message that is stated. Such statements are most often made
verbally or in writing, but can of course also be conveyed via smoke signals, Morse
code, sign language or the like. Deception then, is a larger category, and lying forms
part of it’ (Bok, 1978, p:13, 14). Bok’s lies are stated and cover only sins of
commission (what actors choose to do). By default this definition ignores sins of
omission (what an actor chooses not to do).
Although it is difficult to assess how influential Bok’s writing was in the
development of the SINS scale overall, it is notable that only one tactic in the SINS
scale is a sin of omission20. That the SINS scale does not include many ‘sins of
omission’ is further evidence that the types do not provide coverage of the universe
of ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics. For example, withholding information
that is requested might be considered ethically ambiguous and is also a sin of
omission.
The third issue which points to the need to improve the content adequacy of
the SINS types is related to the most recent development work on the SINS scale by
Barry et al. (2003). Noting the SINS scale focuses on cognitive tactics: actions that
involve management and manipulation of information in the negotiation encounter,
Barry et al. (2003) argue for inclusion of tactics of emotion management. For
example: ‘responding with enthusiasm at a proposal when one is not enthusiastic,
acting surprised or pretending to be angry when one is not, or pretending to be
unemotional when one is, in fact agitated.’ (Barry et al., 2003 p:7). Barry et al.
20 This is, arguably, item 7 “convey a false impression that you are in no hurry”. However, how this information is conveyed is not given so it could be a sin of omission or a sin of commission.
140
(2003) extended the SINS scale to 32 EMTs – 16 original SINS scale items and 16
items tapping emotion management perceptions. The successful addition of emotion
management types by Barry et al. (2003) raises the question of what other types of
tactics are not included and so also supports the contention that the SINS scale
probably does not offer coverage of the whole field of EANTs.
Conceptually Distinct Items Within SINS Types
In the previous chapters it was argued that a factor analysis based on ratings
of appropriateness of EANTs does not produce types of EANTs. Rather it produces
factors where the items are perceived as similarly appropriate or inappropriate. This
section looks at the whether the items within the SINS factors are similar or not and
argues that conceptually different items occur in some SINS types.
Considering the items in the SINS type ‘False Promises’, only one involves a
third party in the tactic. Two of the items make promises that ‘you the negotiator’
are obliged to follow through on (items 1 and 8) and one item ‘guarantees that your
constituency will uphold the settlement’ (item 15) thus invoking a third party’s
involvement. There is a conceptual difference between EANTs that require a person
to put their own reputation on the line (making promises on their own behalf) and
making a promise that others are obliged to keep. Identifying such conceptual
differences supports the previous arguments that exploratory factor analysis is not an
appropriate tool to identify types of EANTs.
Although not a mix of distinct items within a SINS type, it is noteworthy that
the SINS types cover tactics undertaken within the formal negotiation, which are
directed at the other party and tactics that occur outside the formal negotiation and
are directed at third parties. For example, all of the items that factor together under
Robinson et al.'s (2000) ‘inappropriate information gathering’ occur outside the
formal negotiation. Although Robinson et al.s', (2000) implicit assumption that a
negotiation includes the information gathering and relationship building time outside
of formal meetings is well-founded, framing ‘negotiation tactics’ as those that can
occur during the entire process makes the task of developing a typology overly
complex. It is proposed that it is appropriate to put a fence around the negotiation
and look just at those tactics that can occur in a formal negotiation. That is, those
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tactics that one negotiator can implement with the other party sitting opposite him or
her.
SINS Items Mix Motive and Tactic
Closer examination of the items in the SINS scale shows that they often tap
into the motivation in addition to describing the tactic. For example item 4 of the
SINS scale reads “intentionally misrepresent the nature of negotiations to your
constituency in order to protect delicate discussions that have occurred”. Item 11
reads “intentionally misrepresent the progress of negotiations to your constituency in
order to make your own position appear stronger”. In both cases the tactic is the
same: misrepresentation of progress to the constituency and the only difference is in
the motivation. In their review of scale development Hinkin (1995) is critical of
items that are double-barrelled and tap more than one behaviour or attitude.
Mixing the tactic and motivation muddies the waters and ideally, identifying
the types of tactics should be separate from a study of whether the motivation
justifies the tactic. It is also worth noting that in the analysis of appropriateness of
EANTs to date, the perspective tested has always been the actor. Some research in
other fields has tested whether actions are seen as deceptive or not from the
receiver’s perspective. If the items in the SINS scale were looked at from the
receiver’s perspective, only the tactic could be described, not the motivation, because
the motivation is, at best, a matter of inference but more likely unknowable to the
receiver.
Summary of Lessons about SINS typology
The conclusions from this review of the SINS scale development are:
1. The SINS typology does not offer content adequacy of the field of EANTs;
2. Using exploratory factor analysis has resulted in conceptually distinct EANTs
being included within some of the types, so it is necessary to use an
alternative method to identify types of EANTs;
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3. Some of the tactics include motivation as well as the tactic, a practice that
ought not continue because it makes classification of EANTs more difficult;
and
4. The typology includes tactics that extend beyond those that are directed to the
other party.
In light of these conclusions, a new typology of EANTs is needed. In the
next section, the contributions of other literatures are considered.
9.3 A New Typology
Having established that the SINS typology can be extended, this section
describes the new typology. Following the criticisms of inductively deriving a
typology using exploratory factor analysis of EANTs, the approach here is to propose
a typology from theory and then test that with a pool of EANTs to see if EANTs can
be categorised into the types. The first step is the derivation of types and in this
section attention is turned to other typologies of deceptive behaviours. Although
much theorising has been done on honesty, truth and lying in philosophy,
organisational behaviour and business ethics, there are only a few coherent
typologies (Scott & Jehn, 1999) to review. The two areas of investigation here are
the workplace deviance literature and studies of deception in communication.
The Workplace Deviance Literature
Under the banner of workplace deviance, Robinson and Bennett (1995)
proposed a typology that varies on two dimensions – whether the deviant behaviour
was minor or serious and whether the deviant behaviour impacted on the
organisation or on individuals. This typology suffers from mixing related behaviours
across types. For example, in the organisational behaviours intentionally working
slow, taking excessive breaks and leaving early are considered minor offences and
are separate from lying about hours worked, which has been deemed as a more
serious offence. Yet all three incorporate types of lying about hours worked and so
are conceptually similar.
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The other dimension offered by Robinson and Bennett (1995) is along the
organisational or interpersonal array. Although it is difficult to relate the
interpersonal – organisational array directly to EANTs in negotiation, it provides an
interesting distinction between tangible types of behaviours (where people steal or
some such) and those that affect the feelings of others (such as showing favouritism).
This latter categorisation is similar to the distinction that Barry et al.(2003) drew
when they argued for the inclusion of a range of EANTs related to emotion in their
extension of the SINS scale.
In a more recent effort at categorising dishonest acts in the organisational
behaviour literature, Scott and Jehn (1999) identified different types according to a
tangible physical act (theft, of either property or production) and intangible act that
involved dishonest treatment of information (deception by either lying or
concealing). Again, although this categorisation cannot be directly overlayed onto
EANTs in negotiation, it points to a potentially useful distinction between actions
and ways of treating information that could be used within the EANTs typology.
The Deceptive Communication Literature
Turning to the literature on deceptive communication, a much longer history
of research into classifications of deceptive communication practices is apparent. As
far back as 1975, it was proposed that deceptive messages could be classified
according to whether the speaker was concealing a message or distorting the
information in it. Turner, Edgley, and Olmstead (1975) identified four categories of
deception from analysis of conversational records. These categories were lies (ie
contradictions), exaggerations (more or modified information via superlatives)
concealments in the form of secrets (absent information), half-truths (less or
modified information) and diversionary responses (use of topic changes and
irrelevant information).
This final category, diversionary responses has not been incorporated in any
typology of EANTs to date. It is however descriptive of a number of tactics that can
be used in negotiation such as changing negotiators or even changing the subject.
The aim of both of these is to divert attention away from some other issue in a
negotiation.
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A particularly influential article in the late 1980s by Metts (1989) specified
three different lie types: falsification (asserting information contradictory to true
information or explicitly denying the validity of true information); distortion
(manipulating of true information through exaggeration, minimisation and
equivocation such that the listener misinterprets) and omission (withholding
references to relevant information) (McCornack, Levine, Morrison, & Lapinski,
1996). This work was added to by Bavelas, Black, Chovil, and Mullett (1990) who
demonstrated that the manner in which the information is presented can be exploited
to produce deceptive messages. Bavelas et al. (1990) argued that messages can vary
on truthfulness (information contained therein) or on equivocality (or the manner in
which they are delivered).
One of the criticisms of the typologies is that ‘the categories are rarely
complete or mutually exclusive, and they fail to capture the subtleties and contextual
complexity associated with managing information. In particular, typologies do not
reflect degrees of message alteration.’ (Burgoon, Buller, Guerrero, Afifi, & Feldman,
1996).
In answer to this concern, McCornack (1992) offered his Information
Manipulation Theory (IMT) which argues that people can manipulate information in
one (or in any combination) of four primary ways. His four dimensions follow a
widely accepted communication theory called Grice’s conversational implicature
theory. This theory is based on participants in any verbal interaction being expected
to make a contribution ‘such as is required, at the state at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged’ (Grice,
1989). In other words, when we are participating in a conversation we assume that
the other party is conforming to our expectations and are not deceiving us. Grice
(1989) has four ‘maxims’ for conversation and McCornack (1992) argues that it is
violation of one or more of these categories that leads to deception. The four
categories are:
1. Maxim of Quantity relates to expectation regarding the amount of
information that should be provided within a message. Assumes that
conversational contributions will be as informative as required (and not more
informative) given the demands of the situation. A message is measured by
how informative/uninformative it is.
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2. Maxim of Quality relates to expectations regarding the veracity of
information presented with participants expected not to present information
that is known to be false or to make claims for which they lack adequate
evidence. A message is measured by how truthful/untruthful it is.
3. Maxim of Relation suggests that participants will make their contribution
relevant given the constraints established by the preceding discourse. A
message is measured by how relevant/irrelevant it is.
4. Maxim of Manner relates to not what is said, but how it is said, including
the expectation that participants will avoid obscurity and ambiguity and
present information in a brief and orderly fashion. A message is measured by
how clear/unclear it is (McCornack, 1992).
In summary, ‘IMT posits that in ordinary conversations, individuals monitor
the information they disclose along four primary dimensions: amount, veracity,
relevance and clarity. When choosing to mislead others, individuals can manipulate
the information they disclose in terms of these four dimensions’ (McCornack,
Levine, Solowczuk, Torres, & Campbell, 1992)
IMT has been tested empirically (see McCornack et al., 1992; Yeung, Levine,
& Nishiyama, 1999), and it has its critics (see Jacobs, Dawson, & Brashers, 1996) as
well as supporters, however it seems to hold up in the studies that have been done21.
McCornack acknowledges that one of the key empirical issues with IMT is that
messages can be combinations of the codes and although this interdependence of
different forms of manipulation is a basic property of information manipulation, it
does generate the empirical problem of sorting out which form of manipulation is
responsible for observed effects. (McCornack et al., 1992).
IMT offers much promise for the classification of EANTs that are verbally
communicated. Using IMT as a template requires a split between EANTs which
involve verbal communication (speaking) and tactics that do not involve verbal
communication (where a negotiator does something). This split accords with the
conceptual split offered by Scott and Jehn (1999) in their typology between actions
and information manipulation. 21 In testing of IMT there were 6 categories: completely disclosive/baseline category, manipulations of quantity, manipulations of quality, manipulations of relevance, manipulations of clarity and significant combinations. In contrast to negotiation research the test of deception put the respondents as the recipient of the message.
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Aggregating the Two Literatures
The review of typologies identified a number of ideas about how
communication can deceive and how actions can be considered unethical. The
following issues were identified as important in the development of a new typology:
1. Based on the Scott and Jehn (1999) typology of deviant behaviours, there is a
conceptual split between non-verbal tactics (actions) and verbal tactics
(communicating information); and,
2. For those EANTs that involve communicating information, information
manipulation theory (McCornack, 1992) offers a way of conceptualising
different types of verbal EANTs.
Proposing a New Typology
Based on these observations, a new typology of EANTs was proposed. It is
important to reiterate that the task was limited to EANTs used in the formal
negotiation and the much bigger task of defining all negotiation tactics – including
those without the formal negotiation is for the next stage of development or for those
who will follow. This delineation is a departure from the approach of Robinson et al.
(2000) SINS typology where tactics that occur outside the formal negotiation were
included.
The first typology was based on a split between verbal and action EANTS,
with a number of subcategories.
Under the banner of verbal EANTs, the IMT categories were broadly
followed and it was proposed that tactics could be classified as:
1. Not providing enough information /withholding information, which falls
into the IMT category of quantity violations;
2. Making untrue promises, which is within the IMT quality violations;
3. Making untrue threats, which falls within the IMT quality violations;
4. Presenting untrue information, which is within the IMT quality violations;
5. Providing irrelevant information, which is related to the IMT category of
relation;
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6. Using positive feelings, which is related to the IMT violation by manner;
and,
7. Using negative feelings, which is related to the IMT violation by manner.
Under the category of action EANTs it was proposed that there are two types
of EANTs:
8. Doing things that increase the pressure on the other party; and,
9. Doing things that create a diversion from your true intent.
9.4 Testing the New Typology Using Coding Exercises
Having proposed a typology of EANTs, the aim of this section is to explain
how the proposed typology was tested for content adequacy – that is coverage of the
field of EANTs. Content adequacy was tested by seeing if a pool of externally
derived tactics could be placed into the EANT types. This approach bypasses the
concerns of inductively deriving a typology from exploratory factor analysis.
Coding exercises were used to see if the typology made sense – first to
experts and then to lay coders. Three coding exercises were done with modifications
to the typology between each phase. The end result is a typology of tactics that lay
coders identified as conceptually distinct.
One of the distinguishing features of this coding exercise from previous
studies of EANTs typologies is that, here, the pool of tactics used to test the typology
was not generated by the author but was taken from previous work and from an
industry listing of tactics in negotiation. This approach is a more conservative test of
a typology than using author-generated items to test against the EANTs and helps to
demonstrate content adequacy of the typology.
This section first describes the design of the tests, then the pool of tactics that
were used and, then, the sample of coders who participated in the study. The results
of each of the three coding exercises are given in turn.
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Design of Coding Exercise
Each round of the coding exercise was presented to the coders in a pack
containing three things. Firstly, they received separate A4 sheets each with one of
the proposed types written on it. The list of titles on the coding sheets for the first
round of the exercise is shown in the following table. They also received a set of
sticky labels with each tactic typed onto one label. Finally, they received a set of
instructions explaining that the task was to stick each tactic label onto one of the type
sheets. In the first round only, coders were given the option of creating a new type if
they felt the need. They were also allowed to place tactics onto an ‘uncodable’ sheet,
but were encouraged to use this sheet only as a last option.
Table 10: Titles of Coding Sheets Presented to Expert Coders in Round One
Title on Coding Sheet 1 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by…
NOT PROVIDING ENOUGH INFORMATION / WITHHOLDING INFORMATION 2 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by…
MAKING UNTRUTHFUL PROMISES 3 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by…
MAKING UNTRUTHFUL THREATS 4 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by…
PRESENTING UNTRUTHFUL INFORMATION, ALTHOUGH NOT AS A THREAT OR A PROMISE
5 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by… PRESENTING TRUE INFORMATION THAT IS IRRELEVANT
6 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by… PRESENTING POSITIVE FEELINGS THAT ARE NOT SINCERELY FELT
7 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by… PRESENTING NEGATIVE FEELINGS THAT ARE NOT SINCERELY FELT
8 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by… TAKING ACTIONS THAT INCREASE THE PRESSURE ON THE OTHER PARTY
9 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by… CREATING A DIVERSION AWAY FROM YOUR TRUE INTENT
10 Tactics that some negotiators might think are marginally ethical because they manipulate by… (YOUR CODE)
Coders were told that the task did not involve them making a judgement
about the appropriateness of the tactic. They needed to try to categorise the tactic
into a type regardless of whether they agreed that it was a useful or appropriate
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tactic. Coders were also invited to make notes next to tactics if they felt that any of
them could have been classified into other types.
How each coder classified the tactic list was entered into a spreadsheet with
the types across the top and each of the tactics down the side. The number of coders
that classified the tactic into each type was recorded. The end result was a matrix of
tactics against types and the tactics that were consistently coded was easily apparent
from the high number at the intersection of tactic and type.
The first coding exercise was used to choose a set of tactics that were coded
consistently before lay coders received a reduced set of tactics to code. The types
were also refined based on the comments of the expert coders.
Tactic Pool Used to Test the Typology
The tactic pool was generated by combining, de-duplicating and simplifying
(by removing the motive) the 30 items used by Robinson et al. (2000) in the SINS
scale development, the 16 items added by Barry et al. (2003) and a list of 56
negotiation tactics developed by an Australian negotiation consulting and training
organisation ENS International. One criterion for removing tactics from the list was
that no reasonable person would consider the tactic unethical. For example
suggesting a hypothetical solution to gauge the other party’s reaction was deemed
likely to be considered appropriate by reasonable people and so excluded. Items that
involved communication with or involvement of third parties outside of the formal
negotiation (for example all Robinson et al.'s, 2000 ‘misrepresentation to the
constituency’) were also removed. This process resulted in a list of 75 tactics that
were used in the first coding exercise are given in appendix III.
Using an externally derived set of tactics to test the typology offers increased
confidence in the inventory’s content adequacy because the types were tested against
a diverse sample of tactics.
Subjects
For round one, with 75 tactics and 9 categories of types, expert coders who
were familiar with the process of negotiation were used. These 12 coders were either
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ENS International negotiation trainers, academics who taught negotiation courses, or
practicing Australian negotiators.
For round two, lay coders were used and they received a pack with 38 tactics
and 8 categories of types. The lay coders were doctoral students in the School of
Management at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
For round three, lay coders were also used and they received a pack of 32
tactics and 8 categories of type. The lay coders were a mix of doctoral and Masters
students from the School of Management (QUT) and the School of International
Business (QUT) and Australian managers.
Results of Coding Exercise One
Coding exercise one resulted in a matrix of 75 tactics x 27 types. That is, the
expert coders generated an additional 16 categories between them. Tactics were
grouped according to the highest score they received under any code. Table 11
following shows 11 of the 75 tactics that were grouped together because more than
half the coders categorised the tactics as ‘presenting untruthful information’. The
number in the fourth column indicates how many coders placed it in this type.
Reading from the top of the tactic list, it shows that 9 of the 12 coders
categorised tactic 3 ‘tell the other party they can only get what they want from me,
even if I know they can go elsewhere’ as ‘presenting untruthful information’. Three
expert coders classified this tactic as ‘making an untruthful promise’. The second
tactic shown, number 7, was rated by 11 of the 12 expert coders as belonging to the
type ‘presenting untruthful information’. One expert coder categorised this tactic
under ‘take actions that increase the pressure on the other party’ (which is not shown
in the section of the matrix presented above).
Based on this presentation in the matrix, it was easy to see which of the 75
tactics were coded consistently.
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Table 11: Matrix Portion Showing How Coders Categorised EANTs
Tactic description and number Making Untruthful Promises
Making Untruthful
Threats
Presenting Untruthful information
3. Tell the other party they can only get what they want from me, even if I know they can go elsewhere
3 9
7. Tell the other party something that I have made up to make my position appear stronger
11
16. Exaggerate how my proposal will benefit the other party’s position 2 8
18. Engineer it so the other party has access to untrue information that supports my position 11
51. Cite an imaginary authority that supports my case 2 10
61. Provide statistical misinformation that supports my case 11
10. Imply that I have plenty of time to come to a negotiated agreement even if I do not 1 7
50. Tell the other party about an imaginary stronger third party 3 7
13. Say information that the other party has is not valid, even if it is 1 6
44. Give the impression that I know more than I actually do 6
46. Present the other party with facts that might mislead them 6
Some tactics were classified across a number of categories. That is, they were
not put into any one category by 6 or more expert coders. Seventeen tactics were
classified across a range of categories. These tactics were excluded from the next
rounds of the coding process. These are shown in Table 12 below.
These tactics were dropped from further classification work in this process
because they were identified as being a combination of types of ethically ambiguous
behaviour. Combinations of types were also a feature in the development of IMT by
McCornack et al. (1992). McCornack et al. (1992) noted that although this
interdependence of different forms of manipulation is a basic property of information
manipulation it generates an empirical problem of sorting out which form (type) of
manipulation (tactic) is occurring.
An alternative explanation and one that needs to be considered in future
research is that some of these tactics may belong to a separate category or type.
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Table 12: Tactics Placed in Multiple Categories by Expert Coders
No Tactic 5 Appeal to the other party to help me because they are wealthier and in a position to help me. 12 Sit completely still and put on a passive front even if I am agitated. 31 Act in a way that is irrational. 32 Act inscrutably - remain poker-faced, hide non-verbal reactions, remain silent or avoid
excessive talking. 33 Express an intention to behave detrimentally to the other party or their interests. 36 Pretend to be unemotional even if I am agitated. 40 Say that I definitely do not want the other party to do something. 45 Trade issues that I made up as ‘concessions’ to the other party. 47 Pretend to have withdrawn but maintain control of my team behind the scenes. 53 Associate other party or aspects of their case with some unsavoury connection. 54 Make negative comments about the other party’s position, condition, operations or approach. 57 Act the opposite of expected. Be contrary. 62 Act ill-informed about something that I do not want to talk about. 63 Pretend that I do not understand what the other side is asking me to do. 64 Feign an internal dispute on my team (good guy /bad guy) 68 Deliberately misinterpret the other party and then act as if that misinterpretation is a fact.
The expert coders were asked to make comments about tactics that they had
difficulty understanding and about the types. Based on these comments, some
rewording of some of the tactics and in some of the types was done. A number of
coders pointed out that EANTs need not be deceptive. The examples given were
threats which can be sincere threats but still considered ethically ambiguous and
taking actions such as changing negotiators, which might be considered an EANT
but cannot be considered deceptive.
Based on the comments some rewording of both the tactics and the types
occurred before the second round of coding.
The number of types was reduced to eight by combining ‘providing irrelevant
information’ into ‘say something that is not completely truthful and honest’. The
eight types for round two were:
1. Withhold information from the other party;
2. Verbally Make Untruthful promises;
3. Verbally Threaten the other party;
4. Say something that is not completely truthful and honest, though not as a
threat or a promise;
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5. Express positive feelings toward the other party;
6. Express negative feelings towards the other party;
7. Pressure tactics to unsettle the other party or wear them down; and,
8. Create a diversion away from the current negotiation topic.
The tactic list was reduced to 38 for the second round of coding by choosing
the most consistently rated tactics in the first round.
Coding Exercise Two
For the second coding exercise, eight lay coders who were doctoral students
in the School of Management at Queensland University of Technology were asked to
classify 38 tactics into the 8 types listed above.
There was little consistency across the coders in this round and the raters said
the meaning of the category labels were not clear. Based on their comments, the
category titles were refined and the exercise was re-run with another group of lay
coders described below.
Coding Exercise Three
For the third coding exercise, seven lay coders were used. The lay coders
were a mix of doctoral and Masters students from the School of Management (QUT)
and from the School of International Business (QUT) and Australian Managers.
Based on the comments of the lay coders in the previous round, the category
labels were simplified to the following eight types:
1. Withhold information from the other party;
2. Make promises that are not sincere;
3. Threaten the other party;
4. Use or say untruthful information but not as a threat or as a promise;
5. Use positive feelings toward the other party;
6. Use negative emotions / feelings towards the other party;
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7. Intentionally unsettle or wear the other party down but not by threats or lying;
and,
8. Divert attention away from the current negotiation topic
A total of 32 tactics were presented to the coders. These tactics appear in the
table below which also shows the results of the coding exercise. The table shows a
high level of consistency between coders with only 7 of the 32 tactics coded into
more than one category by the coders.
To test the agreement among the lay coders, a multi-rater Kappa measure
(Siegel & Castellan, 1988)was calculated. The multi-rater kappa was 0.91, which
indicates very good agreement among the coders.
The agreement between lay coders suggests that the types of EANTs are
conceptually distinct and that lay coders are able to distinguish among the types.
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Table 13: Results of Third Round Coding Exercise (7 Lay Coders) Withhold
information from the
other party
Make promises that are
not sincere
Threaten the other
party
Use or say untruthful
information but not as a threat or a promise
Use positive feelings
toward the other party
Use negative
emotions / feelings
towards the other party
Intentionally unsettle or wear the
other party down but
not by threats or
lying
Divert attention of
the other party away from the current
negotiation topic
Included in
HAATTIN inventory (item #)
Withhold information from the other party 1. Say things that emphasise only the positive aspects of my position and don't mention negatives.
7 √ (1)
8. Keep negative information to myself. 7 √ (11) 19. Do not tell the other party information that would help his/her position. 7 √ (17) 22. Hide my real bottom line. 7 Make promises that are not sincere 11. Say I will give concessions in the future, in return for concessions from the other party now, even if I will not follow through.
7 √ (2)
34. Promise to reward the other party at some future date, although I will not follow through on the promise.
7 √ (9)
67. Make an attractive offer to the other party but then ‘change my mind’ at the last moment.
4 1 2
75. Say good things will happen to the other party if he/she gives me what I want now, even if I won't deliver it.
7 √ (18)
Threaten the other party 4. Say I will harm the other party if he/she doesn't give me what I want now, even if I will not harm them.
7
14. Say that I will use negative personal information about the other party to their detriment, although I am just bluffing
7 √ (3)
17. Threaten to leave the negotiation permanently unless the other party offers me some concessions now, even though I will stay.
7 √ (12)
78. Tell the other party that if they do not answer my request by a deadline that I will never do business with them again
7 √ (21)
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Table 13 Continued: Results of Third Round Coding Exercise (7 Lay Coders) Withhold
information from the
other party
Make promises that are
not sincere
Threaten the other
party
Use or say untruthful
information but not as a threat or a promise
Use positive feelings
toward the other party
Use negative
emotions / feelings
towards the other party
Intentionally unsettle or wear the
other party down but
not by threats or
lying
Divert attention of
the other party away from the current
negotiation topic
Included in
HAATTIN inventory (item #)
Use or say untruthful information but not as a threat or a promise 7. Tell the other party something that I have made up to make my position appear stronger.
7 √ (4)
13. Say information that the other party has is not valid, even if it is. 6 1 18. Leave untrue information that supports my position in a place where the other party could find it
7 √ (10)
51. Cite an imaginary authority that supports my case. 7 61. Provide statistical misinformation that supports my case. 7 √ (19) Use positive feelings toward the other party 26. Pretend that I am delighted about something the other party said. 7 √ (5) 27. Respond with enthusiasm to a remark from the other party even if I am not enthusiastic.
7 √ (13)
29. Express sympathy with the other party’s plight although I do not care. 7 √ (20) 74. Get the other party to think that I like him/her personally even if I do not. 7 Use negative emotions / feelings towards the other party 2. Pretend to be disgusted at a comment from the other party. 7 √ (7) 6. Act as though I am appalled by an offer from the other party even if the offer was predictable.
6 1
25. Act as though I am very disappointed with how things are going. 7 √ (16) 30. Act as though I am very angry about the situation. 7 √ (22) Intentionally unsettle or wear the other party down but not by threats or lying
35. Keep repeating my demands over and over. 7 √ (6) 56. Change negotiators to throw the other party off balance. 6 1 √ (14) 58. Send two demands with time deadlines. 1 6 √ (23) 66. Reopen supposedly settled issues. 5 2
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Table 13 Continued: Results of third round coding exercise using 7 lay coders Withhold
information from the
other party
Make promises that are
not sincere
Threaten the other
party
Use or say untruthful
information but not as a threat or a promise
Use positive feelings
toward the other party
Use negative
emotions / feelings
towards the other party
Intentionally unsettle or wear the
other party down but
not by threats or
lying
Divert attention of
the other party away from the current
negotiation topic
Included in
HAATTIN inventory (item #)
Divert attention of the other party away from the current negotiation topic 39. Appear to move in one direction to divert the other party’s attention from my real goal.
7 √ (8)
43. Introduce imaginary issues into the negotiation to disguise my real intentions 7 √ (15) 77. Give the other party lots of detailed information to overwhelm them. 2 5 √ (24)
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9.5 The HAATTIN Inventory
Based on the results of the third coding exercise, three tactics from each of
the eight categories were chosen for inclusion in a new inventory of EANTs. The
tactics chosen were those rated most consistently in the third coding round. These
are indicated in the previous table by a tick in the final column on the far right with
the item number in the inventory.
The name of the new inventory is the HAATTIN inventory – How
Appropriate Are These Tactics In Negotiation? The HAATTIN inventory is
presented on the next page. Because the research objective of this thesis is to
understand how contextual variables influence perceived appropriateness of tactics, a
scenario needs to be written before the inventory is administered. The 7-point
appropriateness scale is included to measure perceived appropriateness of each
EANT in the survey.
Eight types of theoretically distinct EANT are included in the HAATTIN
inventory. The distinction between categories was established via the coding
exercise with both expert and lay coders. This process of identifying types
distinguishes the HAATTIN types from the SINS types.
Using this approach to derive the items in each type means that the three
items within one type are likely to vary in their rating of appropriateness. Recall in
the review of the factor analysis of the SINS scale, that item that load together on a
factor co-vary and have a shared pattern of ratings of appropriateness. Here, the
items were grouped together via a coding exercise that asked about the conceptual
similarity of the EANTs. Thus, it is anticipated that within any one type there may
be a variety of ratings of appropriateness. A variety of ratings would also mean that
using exploratory factor analysis, which looks for co-variance of ratings of
appropriateness, will not result in the typology here.
To demonstrate what is meant by a range of ratings of appropriateness,
consider the three items within the type ‘use negative emotions/feelings towards the
other party’. These are:
▪ Pretend to be disgusted at a comment from the other party (item number
7 on the inventory);
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The HAATTIN Inventory
Scenario Written to test a contextual variable of interest How appropriate would it be to use the tactic in this negotiation situation?
1 -------- 2 -------- 3 -------- 4 -------- 5 -------- 6 -------- 7 Not at all appropriate
Somewhat appropriate
Very appropriate
Rating 1. Say things to the other party that emphasise only the positive aspects of my position and
don't mention negatives. _____
2. Say I will give concessions in the future, in return for concessions from the other party now, even if I will not follow through.
_____
3. Say that I will use negative personal information about the other party to their detriment, although I am just bluffing.
_____
4. Tell the other party something that I have made up to make my position appear stronger. _____
5. Pretend that I am delighted about something the other party said. _____
6. Keep repeating my demands over and over. _____
7. Pretend to be disgusted at a comment from the other party. _____
8. Appear to move in one direction to divert the other party’s attention from my real goal. _____
9. Promise to reward the other party at some future date, although I will not follow through on the promise.
_____
10. Leave untrue information that supports my position in a place where the other party could find it.
_____
11. Keep negative information to myself. _____
12. Threaten to leave the negotiation permanently unless the other party offers me some concessions now, even though I will stay.
_____
13. Respond with enthusiasm to a remark from the other party even if I am not enthusiastic. _____
14. Change negotiators to throw the other party off balance. _____
15. Introduce imaginary issues into the negotiation to disguise my real intentions _____
16. Act as though I am very disappointed with how things are going. _____
17. Do not tell the other party information that would help his/her position. _____
18. Say good things will happen to the other party if he/she gives me what I want now, even if I won't deliver it.
_____
19. Provide statistical misinformation that supports my case. _____
20. Express sympathy with the other party’s plight although I do not care. _____
21. Tell the other party that if they do not answer my request by a deadline that I will never do business with them again
_____
22. Act as though I am very angry about the situation. _____
23. Send two demands with time deadlines.
24. Give the other party lots of detailed information to overwhelm them. _____
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▪ Act as though I am very disappointed with how things are going (item
number 16 on the inventory); and,
▪ Act as though I am very angry about the situation (item number 22 on the
inventory).
It is likely that respondents will vary in their opinion of these tactics because the
three negative emotions that are described vary in intensity. For example, acting
disappointed (as in item 16) is a much milder emotion to display than disgust or
anger as in the other two EANTs. Because disappointment is the mildest of the
emotions in the list, negotiators might rate using disappointment as more acceptable
than the other two EANTs. Yet these tactics are conceptually similar as they are all
displays of negative emotion.
The presentation of the HAATTIN inventory concludes the first phase of
development of a cross-culturally generalisable scale of 8 different types of EANTs.
This inventory was derived from testing a typology derived a priori against a range
of EANTs derived from both the negotiation literature and practitioner sources. This
testing procedure suggests that the HAATTIN inventory offers an improved level of
content adequacy over the SINS typology. As noted at the beginning of the chapter,
it is likely that there are culture specific tactics and perhaps types that need to be
identified.
The final section in this chapter discusses some options for the development
of the HAATTIN inventory.
9.6 Development of the HAATTIN Inventory
The HAATTIN inventory has been shown, via a multi-level coding exercise,
to contain eight theoretically distinct types of EANTs. Twenty-four tactics have
been selected to represent the eight types (three tactics per type). In its current form,
the inventory represents the first step toward a survey to test the inter-relationship
between culture, contextual variables (using scenarios to preface it) and perceived
appropriateness of EANTs. The testing of the typology against a pool of tactics from
the negotiation literature and the practitioner literature suggests it offers improved
content adequacy of the field of EANTs over the SINS scale.
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However, further testing and refinement of the inventory is needed before it
can be used across cultures and claimed to be valid. A number of steps need to be
taken. Firstly, the tactics need to be checked to ensure they mean the same thing in
other cultures. Secondly the coding exercises need to be repeated in other cultures to
check that the categorisation is consistent with what is shown here.
Thirdly, the possibility that emic (culture specific) types of tactics exist needs
to be considered and incorporated into the typology and the inventory. Local types
of tactics should be identified from an analysis of local negotiation training products
and negotiation books. For example, Zhao (2000) describes a Chinese strategy
called cooperative egoism meaning ‘selfish competition through cooperation’ (p:
217). Zhao (2000) argues that this strategy is very different from Fisher, Ury, and
Patton's (1991) well-known ‘principled negotiation’ because of the selfish intent
behind the cooperation. ‘The cooperative egoism strategy emphasises using
cooperation to reach a skewed win-win result: you win more than your counterpart
does’ (Zhao, 2000, p:219). Tactics and types such as those proposed by Zhao (2000)
need to be explored to see how they differ from the tactic types identified thus far.
Until this step is taken, the typology cannot claim to offer content adequacy of the
field of EANTs.
Fourthly, and separate from the cross-cultural endeavours, expansion of the
typology needs to be considered to identify additional types of EANT. Seventeen
tactics were discarded in the first round of coding because they were classified across
the categories proposed. It may be that there are additional types of tactics not yet
identified that could account for some of the discarded tactics. For example, several
of the tactics were similar because they all withhold an emotional response. Tactic
12 was ‘sit completely still and put on a passive front even if I am agitated’; tactic 32
was ‘act inscrutably - remain poker-faced, hide non-verbal reactions, remain silent or
avoid excessive talking’ and tactic 36 was ‘pretend to be unemotional even if I am
agitated’. Thus the categorization of emotion management tactics first described by
Barry et al. (2003) of negative and positive emotion tactics might need to be
expanded to include tactics that withhold emotion or are emotionally neutral.
Lastly, development of the HAATTIN inventory toward a scalar measure can
be guided by results from studies that have used the inventory. Although exploratory
factor analysis of data that rates the appropriateness of EANTs has been shown to
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produce inconsistent results, other techniques can be used to analyse such data. In
particular, multi-dimensional scaling offers a method to identify and explore the
dimensions underlying the decision to rate an EANT as appropriate or not.
Nonmetric MDS is more flexible than factor analysis, because exploratory factor
analysis is limited to the analysis of correlation coefficients (Livneh, Livneh, Maron,
& Kaplan, 1996) and because it is easier to interpret distances among points than
angles between vectors as is required in factor analysis. The results of a multi-
dimensional scaling analysis can be used to inform work required to further develop
the HAATTIN inventory.
Having taken the first step in developing a new survey for testing differences
in perceived appropriateness of EANTs, a pilot-study of the inventory is presented in
the next chapter.
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Chapter 10 Pilot Testing the HAATTIN Inventory
10.1 Overview
This research project has cycled through an inductive study to answer the first
research question about whether there are cross-cultural differences in three
contextual variables and proposed an expanded model of ethical decision making in
negotiation. A deductive study was then presented in response to the second
research question about the interaction between culture and contextual variables in
ethical decision making. The empirical testing of the model identified a number of
issues with the SINS scale. Because a survey instrument that offers content
adequacy and that is valid in different cultures is a pre-requisite for testing the
interaction of culture, contextual variables and ratings of appropriateness of EANTs
in negotiation, attention was diverted toward a survey development exercise.
In the previous chapter, different typologies of deceptive behaviours were
reviewed and a new typology and inventory of EANTs was presented. The
HAATTIN (how appropriate are these tactics in negotiation) inventory contains 24
items that represent 8 types of EANTs The items were selected for inclusion after a
multi-phase coding exercise by expert and lay coders.
As noted in the previous chapter, validating the HAATTIN inventory in
different cultures will be an on-going process. It cannot be used to test for
differences across cultures until coding exercises have been conducted in other
cultures and emic (culture specific) EANTs are incorporated. Confirmation of
shared meanings across cultures is also needed. However, it is both appropriate and
interesting to do a pilot test in Australia to see if Australians can understand the
EANTs and discriminate between them.
As well as pilot testing the HAATTIN inventory to see if respondents can
discriminate between items, the pilot study offered the opportunity to test another of
the hypotheses proposed in the first study of this thesis. Because the pilot test was
conducted only in Australia, an hypothesis that did not include culture was chosen.
Within this criterion, the selection of an hypothesis was arbitrary with the next
criteria being the interest of the researcher. The hypothesis chosen is about the
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influence of organisational goals on the perceived ethicality of EANTs because this
area has not received much research attention to date. The hypothesis being tested in
this pilot-study is:
H7: Australian negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate if the outcome of the negotiation is more important for the organisation.
This pilot-test provides an insight into whether laypersons can differentiate
between the questions and also provides insight into how the items within types hand
together.
Finally, the data from the pilot study was analysed using multi-dimensional
scaling to provide insight into the underlying dimensions that negotiators consider
when making an evaluation of the appropriateness of an EANT. As noted in the
previous chapter the results of this multi-dimensional scaling exercise illuminates the
directions for future scale development and research.
The aim of this chapter is to describe the pilot-study sample, detail the
methods and present the results for the respective analyses and discuss the
implications of these analyses. In the next section (section 10.2), the research design
for the test of the hypothesis is described including the characteristics of the sample
and the ANCOVA used to test the hypothesis. The results of the ANCOVA are
presented in section 10.3. Two discussions of these results are then presented.
Section 10.4 discusses the influence of contextual variables on perceived
appropriateness of EANTs. The next discussion section (10.5) addresses how well
the respondents were able to discriminate between items in the HAATTIN inventory.
In section 10.6, the interpretation of the dimensions underlying the ratings fo
appropriateness is presented with a discussion about the multidimensional scaling
technique used.
The final section of this chapter discusses future development of the
HAATTIN inventory incorporating what has been learned from the pilot-study.
10.2 Research Design for Hypothesis Test
In order to test the influence of the contextual variable ‘organisational goals’,
the HAATTIN inventory was modified by the addition of two scenarios. These were
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devised to vary according to how important the organisational goal was to the
negotiator. These two scenarios are shown below with the differences shown in bold
type. Copies of the inventories as issued are attached in appendix IV.
Scenario One
You are the lead negotiator for Company X and are engaged in a negotiation to sell an expensive turbine system to Company B. It is vital for your company that you secure the sale because the market has been very competitive lately and your company has not met its targets and will make losses unless this sale is secured.
Scenario Two
You are the lead negotiator for Company X and are engaged in a negotiation to sell an expensive turbine system to Company B. Although your company is hopeful about the negotiation, this year has been very profitable for the company and has met all its sales targets.
Subjects were asked to place themselves in the business scenario and advised
they were being asked about negotiation tactics that may be considered controversial.
Subjects were asked to indicate how appropriate the tactic would be to use in the
scenario on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = not at all appropriate, 7 = very appropriate) for
the 24 items in the HAATTIN inventory.
In addition to completing the HAATTIN questionnaire, respondents provided
demographic information (age, gender, country of birth, language spoken at home,
years work experience, current position and negotiation training undertaken).
Between-Subjects Design
Data were collected using a between-subjects design. Each participant
received a copy of the HAATTIN inventory prefaced by either scenario one or two.
A between-subjects design was chosen to remove any chances the
participants would recognise the purpose of the scenario by being able to compare
the two scenarios and modify their responses.
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Subjects
The sample was 281 Australian laypersons contacted through the author’s
business network. The average age of the respondents was 37 years with the range
from 16 years to 72 years. 51.2% of sample were female (144 females) and 48.8%
(137) were male. Average work experience was 17.9 years within a range of 1 year
to 52 years. 146 individuals completed scenario one and 135 completed scenario 2.
The details of the two groups are shown in the following table. Evaluation of the
assumption of homogeneity of variance was satisfactory.
Table 14: Sample Description for Pilot-Study of HAATTIN Inventory
Scenario One
Scenario 2
Number of respondents 146 165 Average Age 39.2 34.8 Average years work experience 19.5 16.1 Percentage Female (Number) 50% (73) 53% (71) Percentage Male (Number) 50% (73) 47% (64)
Analyses
In order to test the hypothesis that the groups would significantly differ
according to the scenario, ratings of perceived appropriateness were compared
between groups using ANCOVA at the individual item level. Initial analysis of the
data showed gender, age and years experience were having a main effect for some of
the items. Thus, estimated marginal means were calculated controlling for age
(37.07 yrs), gender and years of work experience (17.85 yrs) and an ANCOVA re-
run. The estimated marginal means were compared to test the hypothesis.
Data were analysed at the item level consistent with the argument presented
in the chapter that analysed the results of the SINS scale. The purpose of this study
is to compare how the contextual variable influences ratings of appropriateness of the
EANTs. Because ratings of appropriateness are an unambiguous construct, it is
appropriate to analyse data from the HATTIN inventory at the item level. Again it is
important to distinguish such diagnostic aims from research that is interested in more
complex nuance-laden constructs. If measuring complex dimensions it is necessary
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to identify these dimensions and produce multiple-item scales, but for identification
of differences between groups, item-level analysis is sufficient.
10.3 Results
This section reports the significant results of the ANCOVA of the estimated
marginal means of the perceived appropriateness at the item level, grouped by type.
The data is presented in Table 15 on the following pages.
The hypothesis:
H7: Australian negotiators will consider EANTs as more appropriate if the outcome of the negotiation is more important for the organisation
predicted that the rating for scenario one would be higher than for scenario two.
After adjustment by covariates, the perceived appropriateness of EANTs varied
significantly between the groups for five items (of 24 items), providing limited
support for the hypothesis. All except one of the remaining items (18 out of 24
items) were rated as more appropriate for scenario 1 (the goal was more important
for the company) than for scenario 2 which is in the direction predicted by the
hypothesis.
Within types of EANTs there were two trends. In some types, the ratings
were similar for each item of the three items. For example, for the type ‘intentionally
unsettle or wear the other party down but not by threats or by lying’ the ratings for all
three items were in the low to mid 3s on the scale of appropriateness. Similarly, the
ratings for the items within the type ‘use or say untruthful information but not as a
threat or promise’ were rated in the high 1s to low 2s on the scale of appropriateness.
The items within ‘make promises that are not sincere’ were also rated within a small
range around the high 1s to low 2s on the scale.
The second trend within a type was a range of ratings across one or more
units on the Likert scale. For example, for the type ‘threaten the other party’ the
three items were rated from 1.57 to 3.4.
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Table 15: Estimated Marginal Means and Significant Differences for Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs Controlling for Age, Gender and Work Experience
Ethically Ambiguous Negotiation Tactic Categorised Under Type Estimated Marginal Mean: Scenario 1: Negotiation vital to company
Estimated Marginal Mean: Scenario 2: Negotiation not vital to company
Difference and F statistic
Type 1: Withhold information from the other party 1. Say things to the other party that emphasise only the positive aspects of my position and don’t mention negatives
4.76 4.43
11. Keep negative information to myself 4.29 3.86* .43 F(1,276) = 4.44*
17. Do not tell the other party information that would help his/her position 3.82 3.77 Type 2: Make Promises that are not sincere 2. Say I will give concessions in the future, in return for concessions from the other party now, even if I will not follow through.
2.16 1.81* .35 F(1,276) = 6.51*
9. Promise to reward the other party at some future date, although I will not follow through on the promise 1.83 1.66 18. Say good things will happen to the other party if he/she gives me what I want now, even if I won’t deliver it
2.03 1.85
Type 3: Threaten the Other Party 3. Say that I will use negative personal information about the other party to their detriment, although I am just bluffing. 1.57 1.45 12. Threaten to leave the negotiation permanently unless the other party offers me some concessions now, even though I will stay
3.40 3.17
21. Tell the other party that if they do not answer my request by a deadline that I will never do business with them again 2.90 2.77 Type 4: Use or say untruthful information but not as a threat or as a promise 4. Tell the other party something that I have made up to make my position appear stronger 2.33 1.98* .36
F(1,276) = 4.41* 10. Leave untrue information that supports my position in a place where the other party could find it. 1.74 1.66 19. Provide statistical misinformation that supports my case. 1.73 1.50
+ p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01,*** p<.001
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Table 15 Continued: Estimated Marginal Means and Significant Differences for Perceived Appropriateness of EANTs Controlling for Age, Gender and Work Experience
Ethically Ambiguous Negotiation Tactic Categorised Under Type Estimated Marginal Mean: Scenario 1: Negotiation vital to company
Estimated Marginal Mean: Scenario 2: Negotiation not vital to company
Difference and F statistic
Type 5: Use positive feelings toward the other party 5. Pretend that I am delighted about something the other party said. 4.84 4.24 13. Respond with enthusiasm to a remark from the other party even if I am not enthusiastic. 4.63 4.13* .51
F(1,275) = 8.03 ** 20. Express sympathy with the other party’s plight although I do not care. 4.12 3.74* .38
F(1,275) = 3.95 * Type 6: Use negative emotions / feelings towards the other party 7. Pretend to be disgusted at a comment from the other party. 2.80 2.56 16. Act as though I am very disappointed with how things are going. 3.63 3.45 22. Act as though I am very angry about the situation. 2.72 2.48 Type 7: Intentionally unsettle or wear the other party down but not by threats or by lying
6. Keep repeating my demands over and over. 3.25 3.39 14. Change negotiators to throw the other party off balance. 3.71 3.43 23. Send two demands with time deadlines. 3.46 3.38 Type 8: Divert attention of the other party away from the current negotiation 8. Appear to move in one direction to divert the other party’s attention from my real goal. 3.52 3.49 15. Introduce imaginary issues into the negotiation to disguise my real intentions 2.77 2.59 24. Give the other party lots of detailed information to overwhelm them. 4.09 3.78
+ p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01,*** p<.001
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10.4 Discussion About Hypothesis Test
In the introduction of this chapter, it was noted that as well as pilot testing the
HAATTIN inventory to see if respondents understand the EANTs and discriminate
between them, this study offered the opportunity to test the relationship between
organisational goals and perceived appropriateness of EANTs. This section
addresses that objective and discusses whether negotiators rated the EANTs as more
appropriate when the organisational goal they were trying to achieve in the
negotiation was very important for their organisation, compared with having a less
important goal.
Combined, the data suggests that the contextual variable ‘organisational goal’
influences Australians’ ethical decision making. The data suggests that as the goal
becomes more important to the company, the ratings of perceived appropriateness of
EANTs increases.
As noted in the discussion on organisational goals in the qualitative study in
chapter 5, there is a dearth of empirical studies that have considered the effect of
organisational goals on negotiation tactics. However, one stream of research in the
conflict management literature does align with the finding reported here. Studies by
Fukushima (1996) and Ohbuchi, Fukushima, and Teseschi (1999) have shown that
having a goal oriented toward obtaining or protecting something economically
valued increases the use of confrontational and assertive tactics.
The results of the test offers tentative support for the inclusion of
organisational goals in the ethical decision making model although further testing is
necessary to confirm that the trend found in this data. It would also be interesting to
see how varying the types of goals influences ethical perceptions of negotiators as
well as whether there is an interaction between culture and organisational goal on the
perceived appropriateness of EANTs.
10.5 Discussion About Application of the HAATTIN inventory
Although this inventory requires further testing, it is appropriate to assess the
usefulness of the HAATTIN inventory on the basis of the data analysed here. This
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discussion addresses one of the stated aims of this pilot-test: to see if respondents
understand the EANTs and discriminate between them.
In light of the success of the coding exercises conducted during the scale
development, it was anticipated that the participants would be able to distinguish
between the EANTs. The following graph shows the estimated marginal means of
the perceived appropriateness of the items for each scenario in the order the
questions were given.
Figure 6: Range of Perceived Appropriateness for HAATTIN Inventory
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Item number
Perc
eive
d A
ppro
pria
tene
ss
Scenario 1 Scenario 2
The graph shows that the responses ranged between 1.45 (just above not at all
appropriate) and 4.84 (above somewhat appropriate). This range is comparable,
although slightly smaller than the range of perceived appropriateness in the
administration of the SINS scale to the Australians in Study 2 of this thesis. There,
the range was from 1.25 to 5.52. Because the ratings are context sensitive and the
scenarios in the SINS administration were different from scenarios here, and the
questions are different, it is difficult to compare the SINS and HAATTIN inventory
directly. However, the ranges are similar which is at least indicative that the
HAATTIN inventory offers similar utility to the SINS scale.
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None of the items in the HAATTIN inventory were rated at the upper end of
the range of perceived appropriateness. These ratings are not surprising because the
tactics were chosen to represent ethically ambiguous tactics and so unlikely to be
scored at the upper end of the scale as ‘very appropriate’.
The graph of the ratings, in the order the respondents completed the
questionnaire suggests that the respondents were able to distinguish and discriminate
between items. The discrimination is particularly evident where there is a big
difference between consecutive items. For example, item 1 was rated in the 4’s
whereas item two, the next EANT that the respondents read, was rated around 2.
The second issue that is considered here is the difference of ratings within
type. The following graph shows the ratings of perceived appropriateness in type
clusters.
Figure 7: Range of Perceived Appropriateness for HAATTIN Inventory Organised by Type
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
1 11 17 2 9 18 3 12 21 4 10 19 5 13 20 7 16 22 6 14 23 8 15 24
Item number
Pece
ived
App
ropr
iate
ness
Scenario 1 Scenario 2
Withold information from the other party
Make promises that are not sincere
Threaten the other party
Use or say untruthful information
Intentionally unsettle or wear the other party down
Use negative emotions/feelings toward the other party
Use positive feelings toward the other party
Divert attention of the other party away
One of the distinguishing features of the HAATTIN inventory compared to
the SINS scale is that the types were developed a priori and the items within a type
were conceptually similar but not necessarily rated as similarly appropriate as
discussed in the previous chapter (in section 9.5). Difference in ratings within type is
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apparent on the graph in three types: ‘threaten the other party’, ‘use negative
emotions/feelings toward the other party’ and ‘divert attention of the other party
away from the current negotiation’.
For the type ‘threaten the other party’, there is a range of perceived
appropriateness from 3.40 for scenario 1, item 12 (‘threatening to leave the
negotiation permanently’) 1.57 for scenario 1, item 3 (‘threaten to use personal
information about the other party to their detriment).
Similarly, the range of appropriateness of EANTs that use negative
emotion/feelings toward the other party for scenario 1 is between 2.72 (item 22, ‘act
as though I am very angry about the situation’) and 3.63 (item 16, ‘act very
disappointed with how things are going). The ratings for the tactics that were
included to represent the type ‘divert attention of the other party away from the
current negotiation’ also covered a range of ratings of appropriateness. For scenario
1, the lowest rating in this type was item 15 (introduce imaginary issues into the
negotiation to disguise my real intentions) with an average rating of 2.77 and the
highest average rating was 4.09 (item 24: give the other party lots of detailed
information).
Although this spread of average ratings of appropriateness was anticipated, it
is interesting because it suggests that with more EANTs of these types in the list, it
may be possible to identify sub-types within each of these three types. For example,
there may be a sub-type of threats that are rated at the higher levels (perhaps
‘innocuous threats’ or ‘non-personal threats’) and there maybe a sub-type of threats
that will be rated at lower levels (perhaps ‘aggressive threats’ or ‘personal/physical
harm threats’). The existence of sub-types is an issue for future development of the
HAATTIN inventory.
To test this idea that there are sub-types would require addition of more items
and an analysis of the spread of ratings of appropriateness. Because the inventory
may become unwieldy if it is extended further, the best way of going about such an
exercise may be to generate a large pool of, say, threats and administer the
instrument as a stand-alone.
The clustering presented in the graph above also suggests that there is a
relative ranking of appropriateness of types of EANTs. Again, this ranking is going
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to be context sensitive, because some items and types may become more appropriate
as the context changes. However, based on the data here, it is worth noting that the
items within the types ‘withhold information from the other party’ and ‘use positive
feelings toward the other party’ were rated consistently higher than the other types of
EANT.
‘Making promises that are not sincere’ was rated relatively low by the
Australian sample as were ‘using or saying untruthful information but not as a threat
or promise’. One of the EANTs within the ‘threaten the other party’ type was rated
lowest of all the items.
This rank order of appropriateness requires more investigation before
generalisations can be made. Collecting data sets from different countries and for
different contexts would allow assessment of whether there is consistency in the rank
order of types of EANTs.
10.6 Exploring the Dimensions Beneath Ratings of Appropriateness
Having discussed the integrity of the HAATTIN inventory as a tool to collect
data on perceived appropriateness of EANTs, attention here turns to the dimensions
that underlie the rating of an EANT. In order to identify these dimensions, a
multidimensional scaling exercise was undertaken. As noted in the previous chapter,
multi-dimensional scaling offers a very flexible technique to investigate the
relationship between the ratings of EANTs. The identification of the dimensions
informs future research directions and scale development efforts. This section first
presents details of the analysis, describes the four dimensions identified and then
discusses the clustering of the eight types of EANTs on the dimensions.
Data Analysis and Results
In order to identify the underlying dimensions of the ratings of
appropriateness of the EANTs, data obtained from the administration of the
HAATTIN inventory were submitted to multidimensional (MDS) analysis. The
computer program ALSCAL (SPSS, 2002) was used to obtain MDS solutions.
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Two-, three-, four-, five- and six-dimensional solutions of the 24 HAATTIN
items were explored. A four-dimensional solution was deemed most appropriate
based on goodness of fit measures: Kruskal’s stress values, with values closer to zero
indicating a better fit with the solution and the squared correlations coefficient (R2)
with values closer to 1.00 indicating a better fit with the solution (Kruskal & Wish,
1978). The following diagram shows a plot of the stress values for both scenarios
across the different dimensional solutions. The four-dimensional solution yielded the
following fits: scenario 1: Stress = .10439, R2 = .91884 and scenario 2: Stress =
.11436, R2 = .88739. Interpretability was also an important consideration in
determining the number of appropriate dimensions in an MDS analysis (Kruskal &
Wish, 1978).
Figure 8: Stress Plot of Different Dimensional Solutions
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
1 2 3 4 5
Number of Dimensions in Solution
Stre
ss
Scenario 1 Scenario 2
Interpretation of Dimensions and Discussion
To interpret dimensions, the location of each EANT relative to the other
EANTs was examined. First, EANT groupings at each extreme of the dimension
were examined and the extreme groupings were contrasted with each other to
hypothesise a dimension. The EANTs sitting in the middle of each dimension were
studied to see if their position fit the hypothesised dimension.
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The dimensions were labelled 1) immediacy; 2) impression management; 3)
emotional commitment; and, 4) signal strength. The distributions of EANTs on these
dimensions are shown in two figures following. Although these two figures are the
distribution of EANTs for scenario 2, the dimensions were also apparent for scenario
1. These two figures were chosen for presentation because they provide the best
demonstration of the dimensions. The other plots for scenario 2 are given in
appendix V. The figures shown below also include some clusters of the eight
HAATTIN types identified a priori. The HAATTIN types are discussed following
the presentation of dimensions.
The first MDS dimension (D1) is labelled ‘immediacy’. EANTs are arrayed
across a continuum according to how quickly the impact of the EANT is felt by the
other party. At the negative end of the continuum are EANTs that would be felt in
the future, such as ‘promises to reward the other party at a future date’ and ‘say you
will use negative personal information to the other party’s detriment’. At the
positive end of the continuum are EANTs that are either executed immediately or
have an immediate impact. For example, ‘pretend you are delighted’, ‘send two
demands with deadlines’ and ‘change negotiators’.
Figure 9: MDS Map of EANTs Dimension 1 (Immediacy) Versus Dimension 2 (Impression Management)
(11) Keep negative information to myself
(3) Say will use negativepersonal information to OPdetriment
(4) Tell OP something havemade up
(19) Provide statistical mis-information
(2) Say will give future concessions for current concessions
(17) Do not tell OP info that would be helpful to them
(20) Express sympathy with OP (13) Respond with
enthusiasm
(5) Pretend am delighted about something OP said
(1) Say things that emphasise only positives
(14) Change negotiators
(16) Act very dissapointed with progress
(7) Pretend to be disgusted at OP comment
(23) Send two demands with deadlines
(18) Say good things willhappen to OP
(10) Leave untrue information that supports my position about
(9) Promise future reward
(21) Tell OP will never do business with them again if do not answer by deadline
(24) Give the OP lots of detailed information
(15) Introduce imaginary issues
(12) Threaten to leave negotiation permanently
(22) Act angry
(6) Keep repeating demands over and over
(8) Appear to move in one diirection to divert attention
Dimension 1: Immediacy
Positive impressions
Impact of EANT is immediate or soon
Dimension 2: Impression Management
Negative impressions
Impact of EANT is in future
Type 2 Type 4
Type 5
Type 7 Type 6
Type 8
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The second MDS dimension (D2) is labelled ‘impression management’.
EANTs are arrayed according to whether they give a good impression of the
negotiator to the other party or a negative impression. At the positive end of the
continuum are EANTs that give the impression the negotiator is ‘nice’ such as
‘emphasizing only the positives’, ‘keep negative information to yourself’ and the
positive emotion tactics such as ‘pretend I am delighted’ and ‘express sympathy with
the other party’. At the negative end of the impression management dimension are
EANTs that use negative emotions such as ‘pretend to be disgusted at a comment
from the other party’, ‘act angry’ and the EANT ‘tell the other party that you will
never do business with them again’.
Figure 10: MDS Map of EANTs Dimension 3 (Emotional Investment) Versus Dimension 4 (Signal Strength)
The third MDS dimension (D3) is labelled ‘emotional investment’. At the
positive end of the scale are EANTs that require emotional commitment to deliver
them convincingly. At the negative end of the scale, EANTs that require less
commitment or are acts of omission. For example, at the positive end of the
continuum are EANTs such as ‘pretend I am delighted about something the other
party said’, ‘tell them that you will never do business again if they do not provide an
answer’. These tactics require a negotiator to show a level of passion or the tactic
(23) Send two demands with deadlines
(13) Respond with enthusiasm
(21) Tell OP will never do business with them again if do not answer by deadline
(20) Express sympathy with OP
(18) Say good things will happen to OP
(5) Pretend am delighted about something OP said
(6) Keep repeating demands over and over
(4) Tell OP something have made up
(7) Pretend to be disgusted at OP comment
(17) Do not tell OP info thatwould be helpful to them
(14) Change negotiators
(11) Keep negative information to myself
(1) Say things that emphasise only positives
(3) Say will use negative personal information to OP detriment
(12) Threaten to leave negotiation permanently
(10) Leave untrue information that supports my position about
(8) Appear to move in one diirection to divert attention
(24) Give the OP lots ofdetailed information
(19) Provide statistical mis-information
(15) Introduce imaginary issues
(16) Act very dissapointed with progress
(9) Promise future reward
(2) Say will give future concessions for current concessions
(22) Act angry
Dimension 3: Emotional Investment
Strong Emotional Investment
Low or Withholding Emotional Investment
Strong signal
Dimension 4: Signal Strength
Weak signal
Type 2
Type 5
Type 1
Type 3
Type 8
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will not seem convincing. At the negative end of the continuum, EANTs that do not
require emotional commitment from the negotiator are located. For example,
‘change negotiators’, ‘keep negative information to self’ and ‘threaten to leave
permanently’. It can be envisaged that these tactics can be delivered in a
disinterested or uncommitted way.
The fourth MDS dimension (D4) is labelled ‘signal strength’ according to
how easy it is for the other party to read the intent of the message. EANTs are
arrayed according to whether the message in the EANT is explicit and strongly
communicated or whether the message is implicit and indirectly communicated. At
the positive end of the continuum are EANTs that are easy to understand their
meaning, such as ‘send two demands with deadlines’ and ‘respond with enthusiasm’.
At the other end of the continuum are EANTs where the meaning is less clear, such
as ‘keep repeating demands over and over’ and ‘do not tell the other party
information that would be helpful to them’.
Based on this interpretation, it is hypothesised that four dimensions underlie
this data set. Negotiator’s decision to rate an EANT as appropriate or not in the
context presented to them, include consideration of:
• the immediacy of impact of an EANT;
• the impression using an EANT gives to the other party;
• the level of emotional commitment that is required to execute an EANT; and
• how clearly the intended signal will be communicated to the other party.
These dimensions suggest a number of interesting avenues for future research
in ethical decision making in negotiation.
Firstly, the nature of the first two dimensions suggests that the consequence of using
EANTs is a prime consideration for negotiators. Both dimension 1 and 2 are related
to the consequence on the other party. It is worth noting that consequences form part
of Lewicki et al.’s (1999) model of ethical decision making (reproduced below for
ease of reference). In the Lewicki et al. model, consequences are secondary to the
decision to use an EANT and form a feedback loop for thinking about subsequent
use of EANTs. However, the interpretation of the data here suggests that
consequences are considered in the evaluation of the appropriateness of EANTs and
not only after an EANT has been executed.
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Figure 11: Lewicki et al.’s Model of Ethical Decision Making in Negotiation
This Figure is not available online. Please consult the hardcopy thesis
available at the QUT Library. Source: Lewicki et al., (1999)
This interpretation raises some interesting issues for future research to
consider. For example, how much do negotiators think about the consequences
before they act? What consequences (or type of consequences) have the most impact
on the use of EANTs? How do contextual variables influence the assessment of
consequences? How does culture influence the assessment of consequences? How
does the timing of the consequence influence the willingness to use / perceived
appropriateness of EANTs?
A number of questions and issues also arise from the identification of
impression management as a dimension considered in the rating of EANTs. How
much do negotiators think about the impression they are giving when selecting or
rating the appropriateness of EANTs? Do EANTs that provide a positive impression
get used more than EANTs that give a negative impression? How does impression
relate to the contextual variables reputation and the relationship with the other party?
Do negotiators modify their use of negative impression-giving EANTs according to
how close they are to the other party, or how well established their reputation is?
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How does culture influence the importance of impression management in ethical
decision making in negotiation?
Dimensions 3 and 4 were both concerned with the communication aspects of
the EANT – how much emotional energy is required to use the EANT and whether
the EANT will be understood by the other party.
Numerous questions for future research arise from the identification of these
dimensions. How do concerns about emotional commitment influence the choice or
rating of appropriateness of EANTs? Does variation in levels of energy influence the
perceptions of EANTs? How do contextual variables such as the relationship with
the other party influence or interact with emotional commitment in the perceived
appropriateness of EANTs? Do negotiators in different cultures also consider
emotional commitment?
Considering D4, signal strength, it is noteworthy that researchers have linked
the strength and accuracy of receiving a signal to beliefs about the sender’s
reputation (Prahbu & Stewart, 2001). This link points to another avenue of future
research that investigates how well-communicated EANTs influence understanding
of reputation. Do negotiators’ reputations influence how clearly EANTs are
understood? How do other contextual variables such as the perception of the other
party influence how clearly EANTs are understood? Are there cultural differences in
how well signals are received?
The identification of the four dimensions that underlie ratings of
appropriateness has identified numerous avenues for future research. Because the
current study is the first pilot study of the HATTIN inventory, it is necessary first to
confirm the existence of these dimensions in other groups, using other scenarios and
across cultures.
The distribution of the EANTs in multi-dimensional space can also be
analysed to complement understanding of the HAATTIN typology. This distribution
is discussed below.
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Distribution of EANT Types on the Dimensions and Discussion
Eight types of EANTs were identified in the development of the HAATTIN
inventory. These were:
1. Withhold information from the other party,
2. Make promises that are not sincere,
3. Threaten the other party,
4. Use or say untruthful information but not as a threat or as a promise,
5. Use positive feelings toward the other party,
6. Use negative emotions / feelings toward the other party,
7. Intentionally unsettle or wear the other party down but not by threats
or by lying, and
8. Divert attention of the other party away from the current negotiation.
This section describes how the items of each type are distributed in multi-
dimensional space. Examination of the clustering informed interpretation of the
dimensions and provided an insight into whether there may be sub-types within the
types. For each type the description will first state whether the cluster is drawn on
either or both of the plots above and then discuss how it is distributed on each
dimension in order from dimension 1 to 4.
Type 1, withholding information clusters most tightly on the plot of
dimensions 3 and 4 and is shown on figure 9 above. On D1, immediacy, and D2,
impression management, the items are all in the quadrant of immediate / soon impact
and a positive impression. On D3, emotional investment, the items are at the lower
end and require little emotional investment. The three items cover a range on D4,
signal strength from a moderately weak signal with item 17 (do not tell the OP info
that would be helpful to them) to a moderate strong signal with item 1 (say things
that emphasise only the positives).
The distribution of the items is supportive of the interpretation of the
dimensions. Intuitively, it makes sense that EANTs that withhold information are
tactics that influence the other party in the near term and give a positive rather than
negative impression to the other party because the other party will not necessarily
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know the EANT was used. The emotional investment required to execute such
tactics would be low because these are often EANTs that are ‘sins of omission’
rather than commission. Lastly, the distribution on the signal strength dimension is
intuitively appealing as not telling the OP information (item 17) is a much weaker
signal to the OP than item 1 where statements about positive aspects are made to the
OP.
Items in type 2, making promises that are not sincere, cluster tightly on
both plots and are shown on both. On the first plot of dimensions 1 and 2, the items
cluster at the future end of the immediacy dimension and around the middle of the
impression management dimension. On the plot of dimensions 2 and 3, the items are
clustering tightly in the quadrant that represents strong emotional investments and a
strong signal, although the cluster is at near the mid-point of both dimensions.
The location of these two clusters is supportive of the interpretation of the
dimensions because promises are usually something that occur in the future and are
by their promissory nature, a positive rather than negative thing to say to the other
party and so should give a positive impression. The characteristics of the EANTs
accord with their position on these two dimensions. Similarly, false promises require
a moderate to strong level of emotional commitment to execute and it might be
anticipated that they would be received as a strong rather than weak signal by the
other party. Thus the positioning of the EANTs on these dimensions supports the
interpretation of the dimensions.
The tightness of the clusters suggests that the three EANTs are considered
similarly by the respondents. However, the items may not cluster as tightly in
different cultures or with different contextual scenarios.
Items in type 3, threaten the other party, are distributed widely across D1
(immediacy) and D3 (level of emotional investment). All three of the EANTs are in
the negative quadrants of D2, representing negative impressions and are distributed
around the middle of D4 which suggests they are viewed as neither a strong or weak
signal. The distribution of the type is plotted on figure 9.
The wide distribution of threats across two of dimensions suggests that there
is potential to identify sub-classifications of threats according to these dimensions.
For example, the distribution across the immediacy dimension (D1) suggests that
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threats could be sub-categorised according to whether they will have an immediate
impact or a future impact. Similarly, the distribution of threats across the emotional
investment dimension (D3) suggests that some threats are easier to deliver than
others and that sub-categories could be derived by asking negotiators about ease of
delivery of threats.
The three EANTs in this type were also scattered on the plot of perceived
appropriateness discussed in the previous section. It would be worth investigating if
there is a relationship between the immediacy dimension and the emotional
investment dimension to ratings of appropriateness.
The three EANTs in type 4, use or say untruthful information but not as a
threat or promise, cluster tightly on the plot of dimension 1 and 2 as shown in
figure 8. On these dimensions they are located in the quadrant of future impact and
positive impressions. On the plot of dimensions 3 and 4 they are widely distributed
across both emotional investment dimension and the strength of signal dimension.
The distribution of the three EANTs on D4 (signal strength) are counter-
intuitive with item 4, telling the other party something that I have made up falling at
the weaker signal strength end compared with items 19 (provide statistical
misinformation) and 10 (leave untrue information that supports my position in a
place where the other party could find it) which are both stronger signals. A possible
explanation is that written words carry more ‘clout’ and the element of discovery (i.e.
the belief by the other party that they have ‘found’ information that they were not
meant to find) make the untruth more believable for the receiver. Future research
could examine whether the way and EANT is relayed to the other party influences
how believable the tactic is to the other party.
The spread of items on the dimension 3 and 4 also points to the possibility
that there be sub-categories of untruthful information. These could be identified by
research that surveys negotiators about how much emotional investment is required
to execute an EANT or by asking them about how strongly the message is received
think they are received.
Type 5 is use positive feeling toward the other party. As shown in figure
8, the three items in this type (items 5, 13 and 20) cluster tightly on the plot of D1
and D2 in the quadrant of immediate impact and positive impressions. The three
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types are more widely distributed on the plot of D3 and D4 but still falling mostly in
the quadrant representing the need to invest a strong emotional investment and are a
strong signal to the other party. The distribution of these items along the dimensions
makes intuitive sense and supports the labelling of the dimensions. Using a positive
emotion is generally intended to have an immediate impact, make a positive
impression on the other party, would require a level of emotion to come across as
convincing and would probably be sent with the belief that it was a strong signal.
The distribution of the three items in type 6, use negative emotions / feeling
towards the other party, also clusters tightly on the plot of D1 and D2 and is shown
in figure 8. Like the positive emotion tactics above, these items are at the
‘immediate impact’ end of D1 but at the negative impression end of the D2
distribution. This distribution is consistent with the negative nature of the EANTs.
On the plot of D3 and D4, the items are clustering around the middle of the
emotional investment dimension (D3) and range from moderately strong signal (item
22, act angry) to a weak signal (item 7, pretend to be disgusted at a comment from
the other party). The perceived strength of EANTs that use negative emotions /
feelings may be a way of discriminating between sub-groups of this type if future
research moves in this direction.
Type 7, intentionally unsettle or wear the other party down but not by
threats or lying, are also shown on the plot of D1 versus D2 (figure 8). All these
EANTs have high immediacy and are at the positive end of D1. Although at the
negative impression end of D2, the items cover a range of degrees of negative
impressions which suggests that there may be sub-categories of this type. These
three items are widely distributed on D3 and D4 which also suggests there may be
different sub-categories within this type. Interestingly, the existence of sub-
categories was not apparent from the distribution of the ratings of appropriateness as
shown in figure 7 in the previous section. Future research could investigate the
existence of sub-categories by asking negotiators to rate the levels of signal strength
or how much emotional investment is required to execute the EANTs.
The clusters of the final type of EANT, type 8: divert attention of the other
party away from the current negotiation is shown on both figures. The
distribution of EANTs on D1 (immediacy) supports the interpretation of the
dimension with item 15, introduce imaginary issues as less immediate than item 8,
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appear to move in one direction to divert the other party’s attention. The EANTs fall
in the middle to negative impression part of D2. The distribution of items on the plot
of D1 versus D2 suggests that there may be sub-categories of this type which may be
identified by asking negotiators to rate whether they consider the items create a
negative impression or not or investigating their immediacy. The items cluster more
tightly on the D3 versus D4 plot and are close to other EANTs types. The items
cluster around the low or withholding end of the emotional investment dimension
(D3) and around the middle of the signal strength dimension.
Further support for the idea that there are sub-categories of EANTs in this
type is from the range of appropriateness ratings in the data set as shown in figure 7
previously. Further research could investigate a possible relationship between the
ratings of appropriateness and how immediate the impact of the EANT is, or how
negative an impression it creates.
In summary, the analysis of how the types were distributed in multi-
dimensional space has provided an additional insight into which of the types may
need to be expanded to include sub-types. A number of the types showed a spread
over one or more dimensions. These were type 3, threaten the other party, 4, use or
say untruthful information, type 6, use negative emotions / feelings towards the other
party, type 7, intentionally unsettle or wear the other party down but not by threats or
lying and type 8, divert attention of the other party away from the current
negotiation.
Conclusions
In this section, the interpretation of a multi-dimensional scaling analysis
resulted in the identification of four dimensions that underlie negotiators’ perception
of perceived appropriateness of EANTs. These dimensions are representative of the
time component of an EANT (immediate or future impact), the impression that the
EANT gives to the other party (positive or negative) about the perpetrator, the
emotional investment that is required by the perpetrator and how strong or weak the
message in the EANT is. Although this interpretation needs to be tested with
different samples, across different cultures and with other contextual variables, the
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identification of the dimensions provides a number of interesting ideas for future
research in ethical decision making in negotiation.
The MDS exercise also provided another perspective on the types that were
identified a priori in the development of the HAATTIN inventory. A number of the
types were widely scattered across some of the dimension which suggests that there
may be distinct sub-categories of these types. The dimensions can be used as a
method of differentiating the sub-categories within the types.
10.7 Future Development of the HAATTIN inventory
Like the previous chapter, the final section in this chapter is a discussion
about the future development of the HAATTIN inventory, using the data collected in
the pilot study.
The data in this pilot suggests that Australians do perceive differences
between the EANTs as demonstrated by the difference in ratings of appropriateness
of the EANTs. The clarity of the items needs to be further tested with a number of
other studies in Australia and in other cultures. Such studies should only be done
after the coding exercise has been repeated in other cultures, as recommended in the
previous chapter.
It would be interesting to test the relative ranking of the types that was
indicated in this pilot study. Further, tests on Australians with different scenarios
and tests of different cultures will provide data to compare with the data set
presented here. Once sufficient data is collected, it will be possible to see if there is
consistency within cultures and between cultures in the relative ranking of types of
EANTs.
The dimensions that were identified from the multi-dimensional scaling
exercise open various avenues for future investigation. As far as the author is aware,
this study is the first time MDS has been applied to ratings of appropriateness of
EANTs and it is worth investigating how the dimensions influence ratings of
appropriateness. First, it will be necessary to confirm the dimensions appear in other
data sets in Australia and in other cultures.
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The analysis of the way the HAATTIN types were distributed on the
dimensions indicated there may be sub-categories. Although the issue of how many
items can be included in a scale needs to be balanced against creating a
comprehensive inventory, future research can use the dimensionality of data sets to
identify sub-types.
As indicated throughout this chapter, the process of cross-cultural validation
and testing is a long-term one. However, the studies presented in this chapter have
provided some interesting ideas for the work that is to follow.
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PART 6 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Chapter 11 Summary of Findings
11.1 Overview
This thesis has considered the broad question: how does culture influence
ethical decision making in negotiation, based on a number of studies with Chinese
and Australian negotiators. This research project considered ‘culture in context’
arguing both that contextual variables are intrinsic in ethical decisions and that there
are cultural differences in the way that contextual variables are understood. The two
cultures chosen for investigation offered the opportunity to explore the influence of
culture in two countries with differing moral philosophies: China has a Confucian
moral philosophic foundation and Australia has a Greco-Western moral philosophic
foundation.
The studies presented in this thesis have made six contributions to the
understanding both of how culture influences understanding of contextual variables
in ethical decision making in negotiation and in the broader field of negotiation
ethics. These contributions are:
1. It has extended the current model of ethical decision making in negotiation
by:
▪ proposing an interaction between culture and contextual variables;
▪ integrating the business ethics literature with the formative body of
negotiation ethics research and identifying that corporate codes of ethics
and the legal environment are important contextual variables for
negotiators;
▪ exploring how negotiators in China and Australia understand and
consider contextual variables in ethical decision making – namely
corporate codes of ethics, the legal environment and the perception of the
other party;
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▪ identifying that negotiators, like other ethical decision makers consider
their personal values in the ethical decision making process;
▪ identifying that negotiators consider both their organisational goals and
their personal and business reputation in the evaluation of tactics to be
used in a negotiation; and,
▪ proposing a decision tree for negotiators in Australia and China that
posits the relative ranking of the contextual variables in ethical decision
making.
2. In testing the relationship between culture, closeness of the relationship with
the other party and ethical decision making has provided further empirical
support for the idea that there are cultural differences in perceived
appropriateness of EANTs. It has also provided empirical support for the
idea that there are cultural differences in how the closeness of the relationship
with the other party influences perceived appropriateness of EANTs.
3. It has identified that the factor structure of the SINS scale, the current
instrument used in testing appropriateness of EANTs is not appropriate for
cross-cultural research because the factor structure is not generalisable across
groups. In light of this conclusion, this research project has investigated the
content adequacy of the SINS typology by comparing it to other typologies of
deceptive behaviour in the workplace deviance and deceptive communication
literature;
4. This comparison led to the proposal of a new typology of eight theoretically
distinct types of EANTs and developed the HAATTIN (how appropriate are
these tactics in negotiation) inventory which has been pilot tested in
Australia.
5. In pilot testing the HAATTIN inventory, it has found some support for the
idea that organisational goals influence negotiators’ ethical decision making.
6. A multi-dimensional scaling exercise indicated that there are four dimensions
underlying ratings of appropriateness of EANTs. These are the immediacy of
impact of an EANT, the impression it gives to the other party, the level of
emotional commitment that is required to execute it and how clearly the
signal will be received by the other party.
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In this final chapter of the thesis, the ‘so what?’ questions are addressed: what
is the significance of findings made here; how do they contribute to theory and how
can they inform practice? In section 11.2, the contributions are discussed in terms of
how they have extended theory and empirical investigation of negotiators’ ethical
decision making. In section 11.3, the contribution to practice is discussed.
Section 11.4 contains a discussion of the limitations of the research before
section 11.5 discusses the future research direction that has been suggested by the
findings presented in the studies in this thesis.
The final section of this thesis is a summary statement.
11.2 Theoretical and Empirical Contributions
The research presented in this thesis has addressed a gap in the literature and
extended understanding on two fronts – how negotiators consider contextual
variables in ethical decision making; and, how culture influences the consideration of
contextual variables.
Although Lewicki et al.’s (1999) model of ethical decision making proposed
the influence of both contextual variables such as relationship with the other party,
relative power, acting as an agent, group and organisational norms and culture
norms; the model did not propose a relationship between culture and other contextual
variables. By responding to recent calls in the literature to investigate culture in
context (notably Gelfand & Dyer, 2000), this thesis has explored both the influence
of contextual variables on ethical decisions and the influence of culture on ethical
decisions, and how negotiators differently understand and consider contextual
variables.
Lewicki et al. (1999) had few empirical studies to draw on in the formulation
of their model and the selection of contextual variables. This research project faced
the same restriction in the selection of contextual variables and, so, integrated the
findings of the business ethics literature with the negotiation literature to facilitate
the choice of variables for investigation. As far as the author is aware, this study is
the first time the two bodies of literature have been combined to identify important
contextual variables that are important to negotiators.
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Integrating the findings from the business ethics literature led to a slight shift
in emphasis away from negotiation-specific contextual variables, such as ‘relative
power’ to more generic variables that many businessmen consider, such as the
corporate code of ethics and the legal environment. By exploring how negotiators
consider such variables, this research has broadened the group of contextual
variables beyond negotiation-specific contextual variables.
Three variables were identified for investigation: perception of the other
party; corporate codes of ethics; and, the legal environment. An interpretative
approach was selected to investigate the three variables in contrast to previous
research into negotiation ethical decision making which has used deductive
techniques such as surveys. By adopting an interpretive approach, this research has
enabled an exploration of why there are differences in how negotiators consider
contextual variables. For example, one of the interpretations of the interview data in
Study 1 was that there is a relationship between the familiarity with codes of ethics
and how much they are considered in the ethical decision making process. By
exploring how the Chinese understood ‘codes of ethics’, it was concluded that they
did not know the intent of codes and, therefore, did not place much emphasis on
codes of ethics in their decision making. A deductive study may have also found that
Chinese did not place emphasis on codes of ethics in their decision making, but
would not have allowed an interpretation of why, as this study has done. The
interpretations and conclusions offered in Study 1 have led to the proposal of eight
hypotheses that are grounded in the interpretation of interview data.
The interpretative perspective adopted for Study 1 also led to the
identification of other variables that are important to negotiators. These were the
personal values; the personal and business reputation; and, organisational goals. The
first two variables have been previously acknowledged in the negotiation ethics
literature. This thesis has introduced the last variable, organisational goals, into the
negotiation ethics field. Organisational goals were chosen as the subject for the
hypothesis test in the pilot-study of the new inventory. The results of this study
provided some empirical support for the idea that the importance of organisational
goals is influential in perceived ethicality of EANTs, at least for Australian
negotiators.
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The findings of study 1 were combined into an expanded model of how
culture and contextual variables interact in the ethical decision making process of
negotiators. This model extends Lewicki et al.’s model of ethical decision making in
negotiation.
In this thesis, it was argued that it is appropriate to consider the underlying
moral philosophy of the cultures in selecting cultures for investigation.
Acknowledging that cultures can be divergent on cultural value dimensions, but
share a foundational moral philosophy, has brought a new perspective to the
selection of cultures in cross-cultural research.
A further contribution of this research was made in Study 2 with empirical
testing of one of the relationships between culture and a component of the contextual
variable: perception of the other party. By showing that the Chinese differentiated
more than the Australians when the relationship with the other party was altered, this
study provided empirical evidence that there are cultural differences in how the
contextual variables influence perceived appropriateness of EANTs. Although this is
just the first step in testing the model proposed as a result of Study 1, it lends weight
to the relationships proposed in the model.
In addition to this finding, a significant contribution that came from study 2
was the identification that the SINS scale (by Robinson et al. 2000) used by
negotiation ethics researchers was not appropriate for comparative work across
groups unless analysis was conducted at the item level. In the test for metric
equivalence, the research here found that the factors identified by the developers of
the SINS scale (Robinson et.al. 2000) do not hold across groups. This finding led to
the conceptualisation of a typology of EANTs and a new inventory of EANTs (the
HAATTIN inventory). Unlike the previous typology, the typology presented in this
thesis has been developed theoretically and not empirically from weightings of
perceived appropriateness.
The typology was developed from an analysis and integration of the
negotiation literature, the workplace deviance literature, and the deceptive
communication literature. This study links these literatures for the first time. By
incorporating the perspectives of these other literatures, the typology proposed in this
study offers a conceptual split between verbal and action tactics that has not been
previously articulated in the negotiation ethics literature.
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Although the typology and HAATTIN inventory requires further testing, in
Australia and in other cultures, it represents a considerable empirical step forward
because it offers improved content adequacy of the field of EANTs and improved
clarity in the tactic description. Eight theoretically distinct types of EANT are
included in the inventory. The HAATTIN inventory incorporates important recent
work by Barry et al. (2003) on the use of emotional tactic and offers a cleaner
version of some of the tactics included in the SINS scale – that is they do not
incorporate the motive for the tactic.
The HAATTIN inventory can be used to test for differences in perceptions of
appropriateness using item-level analysis. It was anticipated and shown in the pilot
study of the HAATTIN inventory that negotiators do not rate tactics that are
theoretically similar at the same rating of perceived appropriateness.
A multi-dimensional scaling analysis of the data from the pilot study
suggested there were four dimensions underlying the ratings of EANTs. Although
these dimensions need to be confirmed in other data sets, they suggest that the
development of a scalar measure is possible in negotiation ethics research.
In a field where there are few studies, this research contributes to theory and
empirical investigation of theory by extending understanding of how culture
influences understanding of contextual variables and in the types of ethically
ambiguous negotiation tactics that exist.
11.3 Informing Practice
The ultimate test of the negotiation theory presented in this thesis is, perhaps,
whether it makes any sense, and is of any use to, practitioners who have to craft deals
across cultures.
A raft of cross-cultural research has succeeded in identifying cultural
differences in behaviours and tactics in the negotiation context, yet few of these
studies have been able to explain to practitioners why there are differences. By
adopting a culture in context perspective, this research has sought to do just that.
In practice, an Australian negotiator might find that a Chinese counterpart is
unmoved by the Australian’s expression of concern about an agreement violating the
194
company policy. The findings of this research can be used to advise the Australian
negotiator that he/she will have to explain what the company policy means to
him/her and the implications if it is violated, because the Chinese counterpart is
probably not familiar with corporate codes of ethics.
Similarly, practitioners may not be aware that there are differences in how
relationships with the other party are understood and acted upon in different cultures.
A Chinese negotiator may not realise that a Western counterpart does not understand
or share his/her view of guanxi obligations to those on the other side in the
negotiation. The Chinese negotiator may be perplexed to be labelled ‘unethical’
when he/she is acting honourably within his/her ethical principles to look after a
friend on the other side. The findings in this research can be used to explain to
negotiators that there are differences in how friendship is understood in different
cultures and that there are emic components of this understanding – such as guanxi
for the Chinese.
Mislabelling actions as unethical is a potentially dangerous mistake for
practitioners to make. As discussed in the introduction of this thesis, ‘unethical’
behaviours elicit potent and negative responses. Because this research project has
explained, at least in part, why there are cultural differences in what is deemed
ethical, the findings can be used to better equip practitioners to accurately label and
understand actions they may otherwise be deemed as unethical.
As an explanatory tool for practitioners, two decision trees were proposed to
help explain the differences between the priority of contextual variables for Chinese
and Australian negotiators. Both decision trees are tentative and require testing
before any claims of validity can be made. However, once tested, they are an
appealing way to explain to practitioners what a culturally different other party
considers and emphasises in his or her ethical decision making. If the validation
shows, as proposed, that reputation is considered ahead of the relationship with the
other party for Australians, practitioners who negotiate with Australians can be
mindful not to choose tactics that are potentially damaging to the Australian’s
reputation.
The new typology of types of EANT also offers a useful tool for
practitioners. Negotiation academics and teachers will identify with the common
request for the provision of advice on ‘which tactics to use’. Yet when tactic lists are
195
provided, it is often difficult for negotiators to remember them. The typology
presented in this thesis offers a categorisation tool of EANTs for practitioners.
Typologies are useful memorisation tools. For example, in having eight categories
of EANTs, practitioners can think about whether their situation might be better
served by a threat or a tactic that will divert the attention of the other party away
from the current topic, rather than having to recall an entire list of possible tactics.
11.4 Limitations
The limitations of the studies have been discussed in the relevant discussions
on research design preceding each presentation of results. However, it is important
to reiterate the two main limitations of this research: the number of cultures
investigated; and, the Western bias of the researcher. It is desirable in cross-cultural
research to explore the influence of culture in as many countries as possible and to
have a multi-cultural team of researchers to help administer the study and to interpret
the data. This research looked at just two cultures, and relied predominantly on the
author, with her Western perspective to draw conclusions.
This project has identified differences in how Chinese and Australian
negotiators think about contextual variables. Before confidently attributing these
differences to the influence of ‘culture’, it is necessary to explore the issues in other
cultures and see if there are further similarities or differences. Nonetheless, it is
always necessary to take a first step, regardless of the limitations, and that is what
this two-country project has done. The countries were chosen with reference to
theoretical differences and the data from Australia and China provides interesting
findings that can be attributed to cultural differences.
Western bias is identified as a major limitation in this study. However,
because it is difficult (if not impossible) to identify where it has influenced the
collection and interpretation of the data, it remains something of an enigma to be
acknowledged. Although it is certain that a Chinese researcher would have
interpreted the data with at least a different emphasis than the interpretation
presented here, the interpretation remains a contribution to Western understanding of
differences in ethical decision making in negotiation.
196
The aim of reducing or eliminating these two limitations that have occurred
in this research, leads nicely into a discussion of future research.
11.5 Future Research
This project has raised a number of interesting questions for future research.
Firstly, following the discussion above, it is necessary to test the proposed
relationships between culture and contextual variables in more cultures. It would be
interesting to look at this in other cultures with Western moral philosophy, cultures
with Confucian moral philosophy and in cultures with distinct moral philosophies
such as India where the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism is strong.
A compelling alternative to this option is to continue testing the new model of
how culture influence understanding of contextual variables. Empirical tests of how
culture interacts with codes of ethics; the legal environment; organisational goals;
and, negotiator reputation would enhance understanding of ethical decision making
in negotiation. Of course it is first necessary to validate the HAATTIN inventory in
other cultures, and possibly go down the route of developing a scalar measure. Once
this has been done, the other hypotheses that were proposed in study 1 can be tested.
Ideally, both of these steps, the validation of the HAATTIN inventory (or
development of a scalar measure) and the collection of data about different
contextual variables from different countries, will be undertaken with a team of
researchers based in the different countries. This will help reduce the Western bias
that exists in this study.
Finally, this research has shown that contextual variables are important to
negotiators in their ethical decision making. This conclusion draws attention to the
need to explore and test the influence of contextual variables on negotiators more
generally, not just in their ethical decision making, but in how they influence other
(non-ethically ambiguous) strategy choices and how they influence outcomes.
197
11.6 Summary Statement
As noted in the introduction to this dissertation, when negotiators have
different rule books about what is appropriate in a negotiation, it is likely that
sometimes they will violate the other party’s idea of what is ethical. The results of
doing so can be damaging to the feelings of the other party, the relationship with
them, and ultimately, the outcome of the negotiation. Because ethical dilemmas are
an inescapable component of negotiation (Barry & Robinson, 2002), it is important
for negotiators to be aware of differences in what is perceived as ethically
appropriate. This is particularly important when negotiation is occurring across
cultures because of the increased costs of such negotiations and the increased
potential for negotiators to misunderstand each other.
In seeking to extend understanding of the ethical decision making process in
negotiation, this research has explored how culture influences understanding of
contextual variables. It has identified similarities and differences across the two
cultures of China and Australia and has provided an extended model of the
relationships between culture and contextual variables.
In the process of testing the relationship, it has provided a new typology of
ethically ambiguous negotiation tactics that extends current typologies.
It has provided further evidence that there are differences in the way that
negotiators in different cultures understand negotiation ethics in a field where there
are few studies and has provided explanations of some of these differences. It is
hoped that it as will serve as a basis for future research into differences of
negotiators’ ethical decision making.
The End
198
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APPENDIX I SINS Scale Distributed to Australians in Study 2
In this questionnaire, you are asked to place yourself in two business scenarios. In completing this questionnaire, please try to be as candid as you can about what you think is appropriate and acceptable to do. You are being asked about tactics that may be considered controversial. You will be asked to complete a series of questions twice, once for each business scenario. In each case, you will be asked to consider a list of tactics that negotiators sometimes use. For each tactic please indicate how appropriate the tactic would be to use in the scenario. If you need to explain your rating on a tactic, please do so in the margin or at the end / back of the questionnaire. Please complete the following demographic data. Age Gender 1 male 1
female Highest level of education attained (eg. high school, degree or diploma, postgraduate qualification)
Country of birth Country/ies you lived in to the end of high school Country/ies where you attended undergraduate university Country/ies where you have worked (and length of time in each) Country your father was born in Country your mother was born in Language(s) you speak at home Other languages and level spoken (eg. tourist level, fluent) Number of years experience in the workforce Your current profession or job Negotiation training you have participated in (type and duration)
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Scenario One You are the lead negotiator for Company X and are engaged in developing a joint venture project with a local company, Company B. You have just discovered that the lead negotiator for Company B is someone you know: someone who was in your class at school. Your classmate has a reputation of being a good negotiator. Your company wants the majority share of equity in the joint venture project. You believe that Company B will not be happy about this.
How appropriate would it be to use the tactic in this situation?
1 -------- 2 -------- 3 -------- 4 -------- 5 -------- 6 -------- 7 Not at all appropriate
Somewhat appropriate
Very appropriate
Rating
1. Promise that good things will happen to Company B’s lead negotiator if he/she gives you what you want, even if you know that you can’t (or won’t) deliver these things when the other’s cooperation is obtained.
_____
2. Intentionally misrepresent information to Company B’s lead negotiator in order to strengthen your negotiating arguments or position.
_____
3. Attempt to get the lead negotiator from Company B fired from his/her position so that a new person will take his/her place
_____
4. Intentionally misrepresent the nature of negotiation to your constituency in order to protect delicate discussions that have occurred.
_____
5. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by paying your friends, associate and contacts to get this information for you.
_____
6. Make an opening demand that is far greater than what you really hope to settle for. _____
7. Convey a false impression that you are in absolutely no hurry to come to a negotiated agreement, thereby trying to put time pressure on Company B’s lead negotiator to concede quickly.
_____
8. In return for concessions from Company B’s lead negotiator now, offer to make future concessions that you know you will not follow through on.
_____
9. Threaten to make Company B’s lead negotiator look weak or foolish in front of a boss or others to whom he/she is accountable, even if you know that you won’t actually carry out the threat.
_____
10. Deny the validity of information which Company B’s lead negotiator has that weakens your negotiating position, even though that information is true and valid.
_____
11. Intentionally misrepresent the progress of negotiations to your constituency in order to make your own position appear stronger.
_____
12. Talk directly to the people to who Company B’s lead negotiator reports to, or is accountable to, and tell them things that will undermine their confidence in him/her as a negotiator.
_____
13. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by cultivating his/her friendship through expensive gifts, entertaining or personal favours.
_____
14. Make an opening demand so high that it seriously undermines Company B’s lead negotiator’s confidence in his/her ability to negotiate a satisfactory agreement.
_____
15. Guarantee that your constituency will uphold the settlement reached, although you know that they will likely violate the agreement later.
_____
16. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by trying to recruit one of his/her team members (on the condition that the team member brings confidential information with him/her).
_____
215
Scenario Two You are the lead negotiator for Company X and are engaged in developing a joint venture project with a company from overseas, Company B. You have not met the negotiator from Company B before, but you have heard that the lead negotiator has the reputation of being a good negotiator. Your company wants the majority share of equity in the joint venture project. You believe that Company B will not be happy about this.
How appropriate would it be to use the tactic in this situation?
1 -------- 2 -------- 3 -------- 4 -------- 5 -------- 6 -------- 7 Not at all appropriate
Somewhat appropriate
Very appropriate
Rating
1. Promise that good things will happen to Company B’s lead negotiator if he/she gives you what you want, even if you know that you can’t (or won’t) deliver these things when the other’s cooperation is obtained.
_____
2. Intentionally misrepresent information to Company B’s lead negotiator in order to strengthen your negotiating arguments or position.
_____
3. Attempt to get the lead negotiator from Company B fired from his/her position so that a new person will take his/her place
_____
4. Intentionally misrepresent the nature of negotiation to your constituency in order to protect delicate discussions that have occurred.
_____
5. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by paying your friends, associate and contacts to get this information for you.
_____
6. Make an opening demand that is far greater than what you really hope to settle for. _____
7. Convey a false impression that you are in absolutely no hurry to come to a negotiated agreement, thereby trying to put time pressure on Company B’s lead negotiator to concede quickly.
_____
8. In return for concessions from Company B’s lead negotiator now, offer to make future concessions that you know you will not follow through on.
_____
9. Threaten to make Company B’s lead negotiator look weak or foolish in front of a boss or others to whom he/she is accountable, even if you know that you won’t actually carry out the threat.
_____
10. Deny the validity of information which Company B’s lead negotiator has that weakens your negotiating position, even though that information is true and valid.
_____
11. Intentionally misrepresent the progress of negotiations to your constituency in order to make your own position appear stronger.
_____
12. Talk directly to the people to who Company B’s lead negotiator reports to, or is accountable to, and tell them things that will undermine their confidence in him/her as a negotiator.
_____
13. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by cultivating his/her friendship through expensive gifts, entertaining or personal favours.
_____
14. Make an opening demand so high that it seriously undermines Company B’s lead negotiator’s confidence in his/her ability to negotiate a satisfactory agreement.
_____
15. Guarantee that your constituency will uphold the settlement reached, although you know that they will likely violate the agreement later.
_____
16. Gain information about Company B’s lead negotiator’s position by trying to recruit one of his/her team members (on the condition that the team member brings confidential information with him/her).
_____
216
APPENDIX II Results of Exploratory Factor Analysis
This appendix contains the maximum likelihood estimates of the oblique
(oblimin) factor loadings for the 16-item SINS scale (Robinson et al., 2000) for five
sample sets referred to in Study 2. First, the results of exploratory factor analysis of
one of Robinson et al.'s (2000) original data sets is given. Then: Australian Scenario
1, Australia Scenario 2, China Scenario 1 and China Scenario 2. For these four data
sets, the 5 factor solution is shown and then the four factor solution, which was
considered more parsimonious.
Data from Robinson’s et al.’s (2000) Study
Table A: Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale - Harvard University data set.
Items Factor 1 Traditional Competitive Bargaining
Factor 2 Attacking
Opponent’s Network
Factor 3 False Promises
Factor 4 Mis-
representation
Factor 5 Inappropriate information gathering
SINS6 .844 -.104 .048 -.041 .039 SINS7 .801 -.017 -.024 .054 -.023 SINS14 .576 .120 -.011 .015 .040 SINS9 .069 .787 .177 -.004 -.103 SINS3 -.067 .638 -.103 .008 .114 SINS12 .034 .609 .123 .039 .083 SINS8 .028 .196 .759 .046 .021 SINS1 .001 -.003 .689 .015 .079 SINS15 .040 .027 .533 .159 .070 SINS2 -.114 -.067 .105 .712 .040 SINS4 .052 .076 -.121 .545 .044 SINS10 .065 .035 .206 .539 -.053 SINS11 .107 .004 .012 .470 -.003 SINS16 -.010 -.053 .172 -.067 .670 SINS13 .099 .069 -.012 .127 .466 SINS5 .060 .151 -.097 .080 .454
The data above is a sub-set from Robinson et al., (2000) of Harvard
University Students that were U.S. born respondents, census category 6 (n=311).
217
The raw data was graciously supplied for this study by Rob Robinson, Roy Lewicki
and Eileen Donohue.
The matrix of factor loadings above replicates the five factor solution
proposed by Robinson et al., (2000) although they arrived at their five ‘factor’
solution using principal component analysis. This solution provided good reproduced
correlations with just 8% non-redundant residuals greater than 0.0522.
This table can be used as a basis for comparison with subsequent tables
because it shows which items belong in each of the factors.
22 When the aim is to draw meaningful distinction between factors, the fit between reproduced and observed correlations is arguably the more important measure, than how much variance is accounted for in a principal component analysis (Graetz, 1991).
218
Australian Data – Scenario 1
Here is the five factor solution for Australian data set negotiating with a
classmate. The table shows two of the factors from the SINS scale: traditional
competitive bargaining (items 6, 7, 14) and Inappropriate Information Gathering
(items 5,13,16). The other three factors are mixed up. Reproduced correlations were
good with only 6% non-redundant residuals greater than 0.05.
Table B: Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale (five factors requested) – Australian Scenario 1 Data Set
Items Factor 1 Traditional Competitive Bargaining
Factor 2 Attacking
Opponent’s Network
Factor 3 False Promises
Factor 4 Mis-
representation
Factor 5 Inappropriate information gathering
SINS6 .858 -.039 .075 .005 -.037 SINS7 .855 -.067 .034 .031 .034 SINS14 .637 .233 -.150 .009 .086 SINS9 -.011 .733 .009 .000 .036 SINS3 -.018 .153 .237 .307 .196 SINS12 .095 .620 -.059 .068 .073 SINS8 .173 .300 .518 -.067 -.074 SINS1 .022 -.032 .776 .085 .008 SINS15 -.015 .609 .220 -.073 -.049 SINS2 -.019 .092 .646 -.072 .005 SINS4 .103 -.004 .412 -.341 .096 SINS10 .264 .405 -.053 -.311 .124 SINS11 -.027 .190 .213 -.554 .212 SINS16 .055 -.014 .020 -.100 .738 SINS13 .007 .014 -.106 -.084 .729 SINS5 .013 .006 .052 .120 .511
The reproduced correlations were good with this factor structure: 6% non-
redundant residuals greater than 0.05.
Comparing the above factor matrix with the one from Robinson et al. (2000)
shows that the factor structure does not match. Only two of Robinson et al.'s (2000)
five factors are apparent: factor 1 and 5.
219
A four-factor solution offered a less complex solution. The factor loadings
for this solution are shown below. The fit between reproduced and observed
correlations was not as good with 17% non-redundant residuals greater than 0.05.
Table C – Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale (four factors requested) – Australian Scenario 1 Data Set
Items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 SINS 6 -.837 -.054 .043 .034 SINS 7 -.851 -.036 .092 -.035 SINS 14 -.624 .249 -.146 .095 SINS 9 .023 .722 .023 .035 SINS 15 .027 .621 .232 -.054 SINS 12 -.083 .614 -.063 .056 SINS 10 -.289 .421 .004 .150 SINS 1 .008 -.062 .764 -.014 SINS 2 .021 .056 .687 -.013 SINS 8 -.165 .278 .551 -.081 SINS 4 -.127 .015 .464 .108 SINS 16 -.051 -.021 .037 .764 SINS 13 -.013 .025 -.097 .726 SINS 5 .007 -.013 .047 .491 SINS 11 -.043 .224 .282 .221 SINS 3 .054 .103 .204 .159
220
Australian Data – Scenario 2
Table D – Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale (five factors requested) - Australian Scenario 2 Data Set
Items Factor 1 Traditional Competitive Bargaining
Factor 2 Attacking
Opponent’s Network
Factor 3 False Promises
Factor 4 Mis-
representation
Factor 5 Inappropriate information gathering
SINS 6 .742 -.023 -.004 -.017 .025 SINS 7 .264 .177 .116 .114 .027 SINS 14 .937 -.055 -.016 -.029 .011 SINS 9 -.057 .997 .006 -.029 .040 SINS 3 .059 -.036 .364 .099 .296 SINS 12 .084 .244 .178 -.132 .294 SINS 8 .151 .115 .688 -.028 -.089 SINS 1 -.093 -.012 .893 -.025 -.009 SINS 15 .137 .220 .431 -.031 .035 SINS 2 .009 .020 .700 -.080 .005 SINS 4 .003 .003 .479 -.282 .122 SINS 10 .352 .279 .004 -.215 .147 SINS 11 .032 .047 .162 -.893 .041 SINS 16 .153 -.046 -.017 -.098 .624 SINS 13 .043 .034 -.099 -.065 .765 SINS 5 -.093 .087 .094 .076 .780
The factor solution achieved when five factors were requested did not match
the five-factor model proposed by Robinson et al. (2000). Only one of Robinson et
al.'s (2000) five factors was replicated here- inappropriate information gathering
factor with items 16, 13 and 5. Reproduced correlations were satisfactory with 9%
non-redundant residuals greater than 0.05.
As with the Australian data for negotiating with a classmate, the less complex
solution was achieved with four factors as shown below. Reproduced correlations
were satisfactory with 15% non-redundant residuals greater than 0.05.
221
Table E – Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale (four factors requested) – Australian Scenario 2 Data Set
Items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 SINS14 .895 .005 -.047 .007 SINS6 .790 -.079 .082 -.008 SINS10 .405 .194 .066 .210 SINS7 .291 .161 .016 .018 SINS9 .090 .516 -.016 .196 SINS3 .002 .335 .008 .267 SINS12 .085 .448 -.119 .357 SINS8 .119 .802 .006 -.108 SINS1 -.135 .798 .163 -.040 SINS15 .129 .602 -.017 .055 SINS2 -.018 .642 .205 -.027 SINS4 .055 .036 .940 .071 SINS11 .109 .272 .338 .127 SINS16 .157 -.047 .070 .610 SINS13 .045 -.067 .004 .799 SINS5 -.084 .073 .080 .748
Chinese Data – Scenario 1
Table F – Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale (five factors requested) – Chinese Scenario 1 Data Set
Items Factor 1 Traditional Competitive Bargaining
Factor 2 Attacking
Opponent’s Network
Factor 3 False Promises
Factor 4 Mis-
representation
Factor 5 Inappropriate information gathering
SINS 6 .339 .090 .110 .045 .233 SINS 7 1.030 -.123 -.142 -.090 -.032 SINS 14 .315 .212 .230 .133 .096 SINS 9 -.040 .361 -.057 -.061 -.015 SINS 3 -.052 .200 -.048 .238 .234 SINS 12 .029 .341 -.008 .300 -.091 SINS 8 .246 .072 -.345 .228 -.071 SINS 1 .044 .114 -.548 .029 .103 SINS 15 .004 -.172 -.148 .636 .017 SINS 2 -.042 .029 .013 .530 .058 SINS 4 .047 -.002 .010 .375 .069 SINS 10 .159 .628 .001 -.013 .109 SINS 11 -.076 .345 -.326 .202 .064 SINS 16 .123 .185 .162 .304 .222 SINS 13 .120 .120 -.009 .119 .410 SINS 5 -.037 -.143 -.091 -.010 1.047
222
The matrix above shows that the data did not fit the five factor model
proposed by Robinson et al. (2000) nor do the factor loadings match. Reproduced
correlations were satisfactory with 11% non-redundant residuals greater than 0.05.
Only one of Robinson et al.'s (2000) five factors was achieved in this factor solution,
that is the traditional bargaining factor with items 6,7, 14
As with the Australian data, a less complex solution was achieved with four
factors. The four factor solution is shown on the next page. The fit between
reproduced and observed correlations was not as good with 20% non-redundant
residuals greater than 0.05.
Table G – Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale (four factors requested) – Chinese Scenario 1 Data Set
Items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 SINS7 -.919 .218 .110 -.049 SINS6 -.343 -.064 -.052 .333 SINS14 -.324 -.129 -.199 .278 SINS8 -.218 .544 -.083 -.092 SINS15 .026 .481 .116 .260 SINS1 -.012 .454 -.097 -.005 SINS11 .108 .371 -.325 .104 SINS10 -.157 -.052 -.650 .143 SINS12 -.019 .209 -.358 .044 SINS9 .049 .008 -.352 -.044 SINS5 .018 -.024 .128 .859 SINS13 -.086 .021 -.046 .565 SINS16 -.098 .002 -.158 .482 SINS3 .075 .139 -.184 .364 SINS2 .065 .276 -.042 .329 SINS4 -.022 .213 -.008 .262
223
Chinese Data – Scenario 2
Table H – Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale (five factors requested) – Chinese Scenario 2 Data Set
Items Factor 1 Traditional Competitive Bargaining
Factor 2 Attacking
Opponent’s Network
Factor 3 False Promises
Factor 4 Mis-
representation
Factor 5 Inappropriate information gathering
SINS 6 .804 .079 .086 -.072 .000 SINS 7 .603 -.166 -.295 -.002 .054 SINS 14 .497 -.045 -.076 .170 -.020 SINS 9 -.052 .455 -.059 -.137 .226 SINS 3 .049 .124 -.123 .012 .569 SINS 12 .097 .304 -.068 .200 .197 SINS 8 .047 -.011 -.781 .017 -.069 SINS 1 .047 .385 -.414 .013 -.103 SINS 15 -.018 .029 -.572 .041 .144 SINS 2 .039 .100 -.412 .076 .264 SINS 4 -.101 .593 -.051 .098 .161 SINS 10 .247 .414 -.005 .039 .111 SINS 11 .025 .836 -.046 .072 -.183 SINS 16 .120 -.086 -.058 .281 .445 SINS 13 -.035 .040 -.046 .993 -.012 SINS 5 .346 .166 .064 .272 .280
The matrix above shows that the data did not fit the five factor model
proposed by Robinson et al. (2000) nor do the factor loadings match. Reproduced
correlations were satisfactory with 6% non-redundant residuals greater than 0.05.
Only one of Robinson et al.'s (2000) five factors was achieved in this factor solution,
traditional competitive bargaining factor with items 6, 7, 14.
As with the previous data sets, the four factor solution was most
parsimonious and this solution is shown below. Reproduced correlations were
satisfactory at 14% non redundant residuals.
224
Table I – Maximum Likelihood Estimates of the Oblique (direct oblimin) Factor Loadings for the 16 items SINS scale (four factors requested) – Chinese Scenario 2 Data Set
Items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 SINS6 .801 .080 .079 -.046 SINS7 .564 -.172 -.298 .110 SINS14 .471 -.073 -.089 .176 SINS11 .042 .775 -.049 -.109 SINS4 -.095 .654 -.017 .145 SINS9 -.070 .526 -.025 .029 SINS10 .236 .441 .007 .098 SINS1 .072 .403 -.391 -.095 SINS12 .075 .324 -.056 .316 SINS8 .071 .004 -.787 -.057 SINS15 -.050 .060 -.538 .197 SINS2 .008 .150 -.369 .299 SINS16 .009 -.082 -.021 .723 SINS13 .069 .022 -.095 .610 SINS5 .289 .181 .098 .520 SINS3 .014 .233 -.084 .415
225
APPENDIX III 75 EANTs Used In Coding Exercise 1 in HAATTIN
inventory Development
1. Emphasize only the positive aspects of my position. 2. Pretend to be disgusted at a comment from the other party. 3. Tell the other party they can only get what they want from me, even if I know they
can go elsewhere. 4. Say I will harm the other party if he/she doesn't give me what I want now, even if I
will not harm them. 5. Appeal to the other party to help me because they are wealthier and in a position to
help me. 6. Convey astonishment at an offer by the other party even if the offer was predictable. 7. Tell the other party something that I have made up to make my position appear
stronger. 8. Keep negative information to myself. 9. Make an opening demand far greater/lower than where I want to settle. 10. Imply that I have plenty of time to come to a negotiated agreement even if I do not. 11. In return for concessions from the other party now, say I will give them a concession
in the future, even if I won’t give them that concession. 12. Sit completely still and put on a passive front even if I am agitated. 13. Say information that the other party has is not valid, even if it is. 14. Say that I will use negative personal information about the other party to their
detriment, although I will not do that. 15. Cultivate the other party’s friendship with the aim of benefiting the negotiation. 16. Exaggerate how my proposal will benefit the other party’s position. 17. Say I will leave the negotiation permanently unless the other party offers me some
concessions now, even though I will stay. 18. Engineer it so the other party has access to untrue information that supports my
position. 19. Do not tell the other party information that would help his/her position. 20. Act as though I am nervous about how the negotiation will go. 21. Feign a melancholy (sad) mood so its looks like I having a bad day. 22. Hide my real bottom line. 23. Act like I care about the other party’s personal welfare even when I do not. 24. Pretend to be furious at the other party. 25. Act as though I am very disappointed with how things are going. 26. Act as though I am delighted about something the other party said, even if I’m not. 27. Respond with enthusiasm to a remark from the other party even if I am not
enthusiastic. 28. Act surprised at a statement by the other party even if I expected the statement. 29. Express sympathy with the other party’s plight although I do not care. 30. Use a convincing display of anger to suggest that you regard the situation as most
serious. 31. Act in a way that is irrational. 32. Act inscrutably - remain poker-faced, hide non-verbal reactions, remain silent or
avoid excessive talking. 33. Express an intention to behave detrimentally to the other party or their interests. 34. Promise to reward the other party at some future date, although I will not follow
through on the promise. 35. Keep repeating my demands over and over.
226
36. Pretend to be unemotional even if I am agitated. 37. Appear to settle the negotiation and then ask for just one little extra. 38. Pretend to be bored and tired of the encounter to look like I am losing interest. 39. Appear to move in one direction to divert the other party’s attention from my real
goal. 40. Say that I definitely do not want the other party to do something. 41. Select a favourable sample that supports my case. 42. Simulate fear so that I look tense. 43. Introduce imaginary issues into the negotiation to disguise my real intentions. 44. Give the impression that I know more than I actually do. 45. Trade issues that I made up as ‘concessions’ to the other party. 46. Present the other party with facts that might mislead them 47. Pretend to have withdrawn but maintain control of my team behind the scenes. 48. Create time pressure by setting a deadline. 49. Give an ultimatum to the other party – tell them they can ‘take it or leave it’ even
when I am willing to negotiate further. 50. Tell the other party about an imaginary stronger third party. 51. Cite an imaginary authority that supports my case. 52. Act shocked if the other party does not believe me when I tell them about my
excellent past achievements. 53. Associate other party or aspects of their case with some unsavoury connection. 54. Make negative comments about the other party’s position, condition, operations or
approach. 55. Surprise the other party by making a sudden shift in my argument, method or
approach. 56. Change negotiators to throw the other party off balance. 57. Act the opposite of expected. Be contrary. 58. Send two demands with time deadlines. 59. Argue to the other party that this negotiation is a ‘special case’ and so deserves a
more favourable response from them. 60. Inundate the other party with a huge amount of detail covering a wide area. 61. Provide statistical misinformation that supports my case. 62. Act ill-informed about something that I do not want to talk about. 63. Pretend that I do not understand what the other side is asking me to do. 64. Feign an internal dispute on my team (good guy /bad guy) 65. Back track and raise additional demands 66. Reopen supposedly settled issues. 67. Make a very attractive offer to lure/entice the other party and then apparently
‘change my mind’ at the last moment. 68. Deliberately misinterpret the other party and then act as if that misinterpretation is a
fact. 69. Take unilateral action. 70. Make a minor concession and then tell the other party that they lack goodwill /
sincerity unless they reciprocate. 71. Continue to drive one point continuously to wear the other party down. 72. Ask for lots more information about an issue even if I have no interest in it. 73. Ask the other party to renegotiate what I had previously agreed with them. 74. Get the other party to think that I like him/her personally even if I do not. 75. Say with commitment that good things will happen to the other party if he/she gives
me what I want now.
227
APPENDIX IV HAATTIN Inventory Distributed for Pilot-Study
This appendix contains copies of the two questionnaires distributed in the
pilot-study of the HAATTIN inventory. This pilot-study was study 3 in the thesis.
In this questionnaire, you are asked to place yourself in a business scenario. You are being asked about negotiation tactics that may be considered controversial. In completing this questionnaire, please try to be as candid as you can about what you think is appropriate and acceptable to do. For each tactic please indicate how appropriate the tactic would be to use in the scenario. If you need to explain your rating on a tactic, please do so in the margin or at the end / back of the questionnaire. At the end of the survey there are questions about you so the effect of demographics can be analysed. Please note there is no record of who you are and you cannot be identified.
228
Scenario One You are the lead negotiator for Company X and are engaged in a negotiation to sell an expensive turbine system to Company B. It is vital for your company that you secure the sale because the market has been very competitive lately and your company has not met its targets and will make losses unless this sale is secured.
How appropriate would it be to use the tactic in this negotiation situation?
1 -------- 2 -------- 3 -------- 4 -------- 5 -------- 6 -------- 7 Not at all appropriate
Somewhat appropriate
Very appropriate
Rating 1. Say things to the other party that emphasise only the positive aspects of my position and
don't mention negatives. _____
2. Say I will give concessions in the future, in return for concessions from the other party now, even if I will not follow through.
_____
3. Say that I will use negative personal information about the other party to their detriment, although I am just bluffing.
_____
4. Tell the other party something that I have made up to make my position appear stronger. _____
5. Pretend that I am delighted about something the other party said. _____
6. Keep repeating my demands over and over. _____
7. Pretend to be disgusted at a comment from the other party. _____
8. Appear to move in one direction to divert the other party’s attention from my real goal. _____
9. Promise to reward the other party at some future date, although I will not follow through on the promise.
_____
10. Leave untrue information that supports my position in a place where the other party could find it.
_____
11. Keep negative information to myself. _____
12. Threaten to leave the negotiation permanently unless the other party offers me some concessions now, even though I will stay.
_____
13. Respond with enthusiasm to a remark from the other party even if I am not enthusiastic. _____
14. Change negotiators to throw the other party off balance. _____
15. Introduce imaginary issues into the negotiation to disguise my real intentions _____
16. Act as though I am very disappointed with how things are going. _____
17. Do not tell the other party information that would help his/her position. _____
18. Say good things will happen to the other party if he/she gives me what I want now, even if I won't deliver it.
_____
19. Provide statistical misinformation that supports my case. _____
20. Express sympathy with the other party’s plight although I do not care. _____
21. Tell the other party that if they do not answer my request by a deadline that I will never do business with them again
_____
22. Act as though I am very angry about the situation. _____
23. Send two demands with time deadlines.
24. Give the other party lots of detailed information to overwhelm them. _____
229
Please complete the following demographic data. Age in years Gender 1
male
1 female
Country of birth Language you speak at home
Number of years experience in the workforce Your current profession or job Negotiation training you have participated in (type and duration)
230
In this questionnaire, you are asked to place yourself in a business scenario. You are being asked about negotiation tactics that may be considered controversial. In completing this questionnaire, please try to be as candid as you can about what you think is appropriate and acceptable to do. For each tactic please indicate how appropriate the tactic would be to use in the scenario. If you need to explain your rating on a tactic, please do so in the margin or at the end / back of the questionnaire. At the end of the survey there are questions about you so the effect of demographics can be analysed. Please note there is no record of who you are and you cannot be identified.
231
Scenario Two You are the lead negotiator for Company X and are engaged in a negotiation to sell an expensive turbine system to Company B. Although your company is hopeful about this negotiation, this year has been very profitable for the company and has met all its sales targets.
How appropriate would it be to use the tactic in this negotiation situation?
1 -------- 2 -------- 3 -------- 4 -------- 5 -------- 6 -------- 7 Not at all appropriate
Somewhat appropriate
Very appropriate
Rating 1. Say things to the other party that emphasise only the positive aspects of my position and
don't mention negatives. _____
2. Say I will give concessions in the future, in return for concessions from the other party now, even if I will not follow through.
_____
3. Say that I will use negative personal information about the other party to their detriment, although I am just bluffing.
_____
4. Tell the other party something that I have made up to make my position appear stronger. _____
5. Pretend that I am delighted about something the other party said. _____
6. Keep repeating my demands over and over. _____
7. Pretend to be disgusted at a comment from the other party. _____
8. Appear to move in one direction to divert the other party’s attention from my real goal. _____
9. Promise to reward the other party at some future date, although I will not follow through on the promise.
_____
10. Leave untrue information that supports my position in a place where the other party could find it.
_____
11. Keep negative information to myself. _____
12. Threaten to leave the negotiation permanently unless the other party offers me some concessions now, even though I will stay.
_____
13. Respond with enthusiasm to a remark from the other party even if I am not enthusiastic. _____
14. Change negotiators to throw the other party off balance. _____
15. Introduce imaginary issues into the negotiation to disguise my real intentions _____
16. Act as though I am very disappointed with how things are going. _____
17. Do not tell the other party information that would help his/her position. _____
18. Say good things will happen to the other party if he/she gives me what I want now, even if I won't deliver it.
_____
19. Provide statistical misinformation that supports my case. _____
20. Express sympathy with the other party’s plight although I do not care. _____
21. Tell the other party that if they do not answer my request by a deadline that I will never do business with them again
_____
22. Act as though I am very angry about the situation. _____
23. Send two demands with time deadlines.
24. Give the other party lots of detailed information to overwhelm them. _____
232
Please complete the following demographic data. Age in years Gender 1
male
1 female
Country of birth Language you speak at home
Number of years experience in the workforce Your current profession or job Negotiation training you have participated in (type and duration)
233
APPENDIX V MDS Maps of EANTs
This appendix contains MDS maps of the four dimensional solution for
scenario 2 not presented in the text. These are D1-D3, D1-D4, D2-D3 and D2-D4.
MDS Map of EANTs Dimension 1 (Immediacy) Versus Dimension 3 (Emotional Investment)
Dimension 1: Immediacy Impact of EANT is immediate or soon
Impact of EANT is in future
Dimension 3: Emotional Investment
Strong Emotional Investment
Low or Withholding Emotional Investment
(11) Keep negative information to myself
(1) Say things that emphasise only positives
(5) Pretend am delighted about something OP said
(20) Express sympathywith OP
(13) Respond with enthusiasm
(17) Do not tell OP info that would be helpful to them
(8) Appear to move in one diirection to divert attention
(12) Threaten to leave negotiation permanently
(6) Keep repeating demands over and over
(14) Change negotiators
(16) Act very dissapointed with progress
(7) Pretend to be disgusted at OP comment
(23) Send two demands with deadlines
(21) Tell OP will never do business with them again if do not answer by deadline
(24) Give the OP lots of detailed information
(15) Introduce imaginery issues
(22) Act angry(3) Say will use negative personal information to OP detriment
(4) Tell OP something have made up
(19) Provide statistical mis- information
(2) Say will give future concessions forcurrent concessions
(18) Say good things will happen to OP
(10) Leave untrue information thatsupports my position about
(9) Promise future reward
234
MDS Map of EANTs Dimension 1 (Immediacy) Versus Dimension 4 (Strength of Signal)
(11) Keep negative information to myself
(1) Say things that emphasise only positives
(5) Pretend am delighted about something OP said
(20) Express sympathy with OP
(13) Respond with enthusiasm
(17) Do not tell OP info that would be helpful to them
(8) Appear to move in one diirection to divert attention
(12) Threaten to leave negotiation permanently
(6) Keep repeating demands over and over
(14) Change negotiators
(16) Act very dissapointed with progress
(7) Pretend to be disgusted at OP comment
(23) Send two demands with deadlines
(21) Tell OP will never do business with them again if do not answer by deadline
(24) Give the OP lots of detailed information
(15) Introduce imaginery issues
(22) Act angry
(3) Say will use negative personal information to OPdetriment
(4) Tell OP something have made up
(19) Provide statistical mis-information
(2) Say will give future concessions for current concessions
(18) Say good things will happen to OP
(10) Leave untrue information thatsupports my position about
(9) Promise future reward
Dimension 1: Immediacy Impact of EANT is immediate or soon
Impact of EANT is in future
Strong signal
Dimension 4: Strength of Signal
Weak signal
235
MDS Map of EANTs Dimension 2 (Impression mediacy) Versus Dimension 3 (Emotional Investment)
Positive impressions
Dimension 2: Impression Management
Negative impressions
Dimension 3: Emotional Investment
Strong Emotional Investment
Low or Withholding Emotional Investment
(5) Pretend am delighted about something OP said
(6) Keep repeating demands over and over
(4) Tell OP something have made up
(17) Do not tell OP info that would be helpful to them
(11) Keep negative information to myself
(8) Appear to move in one diirection to divert attention (19) Provide statistical mis-
information
(13) Respond with enthusiasm
(20) Express sympathywith OP
(18) Say good things will happen to OP
(1) Say things that emphasise only positives
(10) Leave untrue information that supports my position about
(2) Say will give future concessions for current concessions
(23) Send two demands with deadlines
(21) Tell OP will never do business with them again ifdo not answer by deadline
(7) Pretend to be disgusted at OP comment
(14) Change negotiators
(3) Say will use negative personal information to OP detriment
(12) Threaten to leave negotiation permanently
(24) Give the OP lots ofdetailed information
(15) Introduce imagineryissues
(16) Act very dissapointed with progress
(9) Promise future reward
(22) Act angry
236
MDS Map of EANTs Dimension 2 (Impression mediacy) Versus Dimension 4 (Strength of Signal)
Strong signal
Dimension 4: Strength of Signal
Weak signal
Positive impressions
Dimension 2: Impression Management
Negative impressions
(23) Send two demands withdeadlines
(13) Respond with enthusiasm
(21) Tell OP will never do business with them again if do not answer by deadline
(20) Express sympathy with OP
(18) Say good things will happen to OP
(5) Pretend am delighted about something OP said
(6) Keep repeating demands over and over
(4) Tell OP something have made up
(7) Pretend to be disgusted atOP comment
(17) Do not tell OP info that would be helpful to them
(14) Change negotiators
(11) Keep negativeinformation to myself
(1) Say things that emphasise only positives
(3) Say will use negative personal information to OP detriment
(12) Threaten to leave negotiation permanently
(10) Leave untrue information that supports my position about
(8) Appear to move in one diirection to divert attention
(24) Give the OP lots ofdetailed information
(19) Provide statistical mis- information
(15) Introduce imaginery issues
(16) Act very dissapointed with progress
(9) Promise future reward
(2) Say will give future concessions for current concessions
(22) Act angry