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Mind the Medium: A Qualitative Analysis of Email Negotiation

Group Decision and Negotiation volume 24, pages 359–381 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Using qualitative analysis of email transcripts, this research investigated the behavioral differences in more or less successful email negotiations. We hypothesized that proactive and reactive medium management, relationship building, positive and negative emotion transmission along with integrative and distributive behaviors would influence joint gain and subjective value in email negotiation dyads. The hypotheses were tested on simulated buyer-seller email negotiations (n = 52 dyads) from a US and a German university. Ordinary least squares regression revealed that value creating behaviors and the total amount of communication increased joint gain while reactive medium management decreased joint gain. Controlling for individual gain and individual target profit, negotiators’ global subjective value of the negotiation was negatively impacted by distributive negotiation behaviors and reactive medium management, as revealed by hierarchical linear modeling. Practical implications and future research are discussed.

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Notes

  1. It is important to note that for multicollinearity reasons we did not include claim value and positive emotion transmission in the regression equation for joint gain. Thus, a strict formal test for these is missing. However, because those two variables’ correlations with joint gain are also insignificant (see Table 3), we are confident that they do not predict joint gain in our data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Management, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton Street, San Francisco, CA , 94117, USA

    Jennifer D. Parlamis

  2. Marketing Department, School of Business and Economics, Freie Universität Berlin, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 13, 14195 , Berlin, Germany

    Ingmar Geiger

Authors
  1. Jennifer D. Parlamis
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  2. Ingmar Geiger
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Correspondence to Jennifer D. Parlamis.

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Parlamis, J.D., Geiger, I. Mind the Medium: A Qualitative Analysis of Email Negotiation. Group Decis Negot 24, 359–381 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-014-9393-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10726-014-9393-7

Keywords

  • E-negotiation
  • Joint gain
  • Subjective value
  • Communication mode
  • Content analysis