Cultural effects on relationality in negotiations: an experimental study

This paper empirically examines the role of relationality in negotiations and how it varies in different cultural settings. Using a two-session buyer-seller negotiation simulation, this research shows that negotiators' relational self-construal (RSC) enhances their relational commitment to the on-going negotiations, which leads to a higher level of relational capital accumulated at the end of negotiations. The impact of RSC on relational commitment as well as the impact of relational commitment on counterparts' relational capital is stronger for negotiators with a high (as opposed to low) relational cultural background. At the dyadic level, intercultural context reduces the impact of relational commitment on relational capital when compared with intracultural context. The findings offer important theoretical and practical implications regarding how relationality, when interacting with cultural factors, functions in negotiations.