Contingent Use of Negotiators’ Tactics in Construction Dispute Negotiation
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 135, Issue 6
Abstract
In the course of negotiation, negotiators’ tactics should be responsive to the situational factors. This is commonly described as the contingent use of negotiators’ tactics. This study examines this concept in construction dispute negotiation and has three stages of work. Stage 1 develops taxonomies of the three construction dispute negotiation dimensions: dispute sources, negotiators’ tactics, and negotiation outcomes by exploratory factor analysis. A structural equation modeling is also used to confirm the taxonomies. Stage 2 examines the contingent use of negotiators’ tactics on outcomes respective to the dispute sources through the use of moderated multiple regression (MMR). Stage 3 discusses the findings. The dispute source, “Delay” is found to be a universal moderator in the MMR analysis of the tactic-outcome relationships. That means when the dispute source is delay, a wide range of negotiators’ tactics can be used, respective to outcome intended. It is also found that the most versatile tactics are those that seek progress. This group of tactics is effective in almost every group of dispute source and, in general, positive results can be expected. However, aggressive and assertive tactics should be used restrictively, as they will only be useful against a compromising negotiation counterpart.
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Acknowledgments
The writers would like to express their appreciation to the constructive comments of the editor and the reviewers. The work described in the paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. UNSPECIFIEDCityU-111606).
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Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 135 • Issue 6 • June 2009
Pages: 466 - 476
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 7, 2007
Accepted: Jan 14, 2009
Published online: May 15, 2009
Published in print: Jun 2009
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