2017 Volume 50 Issue 3 Pages 73-88
Existing literatures on negotiation have shown that negotiator’s attitudes are influenced by framing and reciprocity. Although each effect has been investigated separately, there has been little interest in the interaction effect of these factors. In this study, the author conducted a questionnaire experiment to examine how framing and reciprocity norm would jointly affect negotiator’s attitude in distributive bargaining. Specifically, the author hypothesized as follows: (a) individuals framing a negotiation in a gain-framed situation are likely to concede to opponent’s offer under the condition that the opponent makes a concession on ahead, but (b) those who frame a negotiation in a loss-framed situation stick to their original offer strongly whether or not their opponent makes a concession. To verify these predictions, the author developed a scenario that describes a budgetary negotiation held between a business unit and headquarters in a hypothetical firm, and asked participants to determine how much resources they would allocate to the business unit as an HQ staff. The results supported the hypotheses.