Integrative research on avoidant attachment to the negotiating partner: exploring the linguistic/strategic antecedents and economic/relational consequences at intra/intercultural negotiation dyad.

Abstract

Drawing on the psychological and interpersonal perspectives, I examined how some antecedents (expression of negative emotion, negation, uncertainty and use of distributive tac-tic, less integrative tactic) promote the avoidant attachment to the negotiating partner, and how the increase of avoidant attachment to the negotiating partner would demote economic and relational outcomes. I used three studies (Korean intracultural negotiation, US intracultur-al negotiation and Intercultural negotiation) to examine my hypotheses. There are 62 American undergraduate students participated in Study1 (N=31 dyads), 40 Korean undergraduate students participated in Study 2 (N = 20 dyads) and 58 MBA students participated in Study 3 (N=29 dyads). I audio-recorded their negotiating conversations and analyzed the negotiation transcripts. I focused on their use of words, and then coded them by categories and frequencies. Then, I investigated the correlations between their use of word and avoidant attachment to the negotiating partner; relationship between avoidant attachment and outcomes in both intra and intercultural negotiations. Results showed that those antecedents promoted the avoidant attachment to the negotiating partner, and the increased avoidant attachment to negotiating partner has decreased the economic and relational outcomes.