The Effect of Negotiator Creativity on Negotiation Outcomes in a Bilateral Negotiation

The potential implication of creativity upon negotiation remains to date ill researched. The aim of this study is to fill this gap by examining if creative negotiators are able to achieve more successful outcomes in a negotiation context with integrative potential. As such we want to contribute to the unlocking of the ‘black box’ of bargaining behaviours. We obtained creativity scores from 70 participants, who performed a two-party, multi-issue negotiation in 35 dyads. This negotiation lead to economic and relational negotiation outcomes. The use of creative skills by negotiators was hypothesized to positively affect economic and relational negotiation outcomes. Results indicate a positive relationship between negotiators’ creativity score and economic negotiation outcomes. We observe a negative effect of negotiators’ creativity on relational negotiation outcome for the buyer, whereby creativity of the seller adds significantly more to the variance in relational outcome than the creativity of the buyer. For the relational negotiation outcome of the seller, we find the same negative tendency, though no significant effect of negotiators’ joint creativity. These findings extend our understanding of the relationship between negotiators’ creativity and negotiation outcomes and highlight the need for further research