CULTURE AND NEGOTIATION STRATEGY: RESOLVING TWO PUZZLES BY UNDERSTANDING TRUST, TIGHTNESS-LOOSENESS, AND MINDSET

The culture and negotiation strategy research has uncovered two puzzles: 1) Why do people from different cultures rely on different negotiation strategies, and 2) why do people from different cultures achieve similar outcomes using different strategies? With more and more evidence of systematic differences in the way negotiators from different cultures use negotiation strategy, compelling answers to these questions remain elusive. The current research develops theory to address the two puzzles, proposing that cultural differences in trust and tightness-looseness combine to explain the relationship between culture and negotiation strategy, while cultural differences in holistic versus analytic mindset help to explain the relationship between strategy and outcomes. We propose that cultural tightness-looseness moderates the link between trust and strategy, while mindset, holistic versus analytic interacts with strategy to produce insight. Our propositions integrate inconsistent empirical results within the culture and negotiation literature, an advance theory about the influence of culture on negotiation strategy.