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 led to economic and relational negotiation outcomes. The use of creative skills by negotiators was hypothesised to positively affect both classes of negotiation outcomes. Results indicated no significant effect of negotiators’ creativity on economic negotiation outcomes. We observed a negative effect of negotiators’ creativity on relational negotiation outcome for the buyer, whereby creativity of the seller added significantly more to the variance in relational outcome than creativity of the buyer. For the relational negotiation outcome of the seller, we found the same negative tendency, though no significant effect of negotiators’ creativity. Our findings extend the understanding of the relationship between negotiators’ creativity and negotiation outcomes, which is highly underemphasized in current research. Further research should identify which aspects of creativity are crucial to negotiators and determine how they can be adequately measured. The issue of interaction between negotiator’s creativity and situational variables should also be addressed, as it likely determines the effect of creativity on negotiation outcomes.