Attitudes towards questionable negotiation tactics in Turkey

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of individualism-collectivism, trust, and ethical ideology on ethically questionable negotiation tactics, such as pretending, deceiving and lying, in Turkey. Design/methodology/approach: Survey questionnaires translated from English to Turkish were administered to 400 respondents, of whom 379 fully completed the questionnaires. Findings: The research empirically corroborated a classification of three groups of negotiation tactics, namely, pretending, deceiving and lying. Turkish negotiators who scored high on horizontal individualism tended to score highly on pretending and deceiving and less on lying, and presented an inverse relationship between scores on those tactics and score on idealism. Trust was not found to be related to any of the negotiation tactics. Research limitations/implications: The study investigated the respondents' perceptions rather than their actual negotiation behavior. The sample size, though large and inclusive of public and private sector employees, provided limited ability to generalize Turkish negotiator conduct. Practical implications: The study provides hints to managers negotiating in Turkey of the extent to which Turkish managers would employ ethically questionable negotiation tactics. Originality/value: This empirical field research is the first to present a model of the antecedents of negotiation tactics in Turkey, a country where negotiation studies are limited and are mostly conducted within the safe controls of the laboratory.