Gender Impact on e-Negotiation Strategic Behavior:Individual, Dyadic and Interactive Perspectives

• Main Authors: Wan-Jung Lin, 林宛蓉
• Other Authors: Hsiangchu Lai
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/18845346635006313546

博士 === 國立中山大學 === 資訊管理學系研究所 === 98 === Due to the emerging importance of e-negotiation and women position in business, it is important to understand the gender difference in online negotiation context. We designed four researches to examine the impact of gender difference on e-negotiation from three perspectives: (1) individual perspective; (2) dyadic perspective; and (3) interactive perspective. From the individual perspective, the individual negotiator’s self gender background was taken into consideration. We examined the individual negotiator’s self gender difference in negotiation strategic behavior and final performance (Research 1). From the dyadic perspective, the gender composition of a negotiation dyad was considered. We examined its impact on negotiation strategic behavior and final performance (Research 2). Finally, from the interactive perspective, we examined the impact of gender composition on strategic response (Research 3) and negotiation strategy in different negotiation phases (Research 4). All subjects were collected from Inspire e-negotiation system based on their gender backgrounds. Inspire is a web-based system which has been operated since 1996. From the countless samples, 60 pairs of negotiation (120 subjects) from 4 representative Western countries (American, Austria, Canada and Germany) were selected. All subjects dealt with the same purchasing negotiation scenario in which they have to negotiate four issues. We applied content analysis methodology to the collected complete transcripts of negotiations done by the selected subjects. Content analysis is superior to the questionnaire in terms of qualitative criteria. Totally, the collected 612 messages were divided into 6227 units, which serve as the data source of analysis. Overall, based on the results of this study, females and males still maintain gender stereotypical behavior in virtual environment. Negotiators’ strategic behaviors are influenced by counterparts’ gender backgrounds. In other words, from individual and dyadic perspectives, gender plays an influential factor. However, in investigating the impact of gender, dyadic perspective provides more precise findings. Further, our results also found that genders behaved differently in the strategic response and the strategy performing during different negotiation phases. However, honestly, the overall differences seem to be not as strong as expected since the gender difference might be less salient in the virtual negotiation situation. We hope this series of gender researches could contribute to comprehensive understanding of gender behavior in the online negotiation.