3.1 Methodology
We conducted a large-scale negotiation experiment with student groups in order to analyze the impact of team satisfaction on individual and joint negotiation outcomes and to identify team satisfaction’s determinants. Our sample consisted of 230 students who participated voluntarily in our business-to-business negotiation experiment.
Team size ranged from two to three persons and the teams were either assigned to the role of the buyer or the role of the seller. The 90-minute negotiations took place in a closed online chat room. At the end of the negotiations, the student teams may or may not have reached agreement on six negotiation issues.
Furthermore, we developed a short survey that was sent via email to every participant on the day of the negotiation experiment. The students had to answer the questionnaire individually. The survey consisted of six questions relating to the participant’s satisfaction with the negotiation team, the participant’s evaluation of friendship, as well as questions concerning team size and gender. A total of 204
Team satisfaction
Individual outcome Joint outcome Gender
Friendship Team size
Determinants Negotiation
performance H1a
H1b
H4
H3
H2
Gladstein’s [24] scale was used to measure the team satisfaction. We adapted the items, which were based on a 5-point Likert scale, to the negotiation context. Even though we measured team satisfaction on the individual level, it could be aggregated to the group level since the intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC(1) = .068; ICC(2)
= .699) achieved good results [45]. Therefore, we could denote our team satisfaction construct as a “shared-unit property” [28]. As the Cronbach’s Alpha and the factor reliability were higher than .80, the construct was considered valid and reliable. The team satisfaction’s determinants (friendship, team size, and gender) were measured directly. Regarding friendship, participants had to indicate whether they had “friends”
or “no friends” within the team, team size had to be specified as either “2 members”
or “3 members” and the gender options were either “male team,” “female team,” or
“mixed team.” We created dummy variables in order to integrate these variables into our conceptual model. A value of 1 was assigned to the “friends” option and 0 otherwise, a value of 1 was assigned to “2 members” and 0 otherwise, and a value of 1 was assigned to “homogenous teams” (comprising “male team” and “female team”) and 0 otherwise.
3.2 Results
We tested our hypotheses with structural equation modeling using SPSS AMOS 21.
As dummy variables were used to determine team satisfaction’s determinants, we first estimated a measurement model without dummy variables to assure external consistency. Thereby, we achieved satisfactory fit indices (X2/d.f. = 1.79; GFI = .982;
AGFI = .945). We then estimated the model using one dummy variable at a time to further assure external consistency.
As hypothesized, our results showed that team satisfaction has a negative impact on the individual negotiation outcome (-.143, p = .091), but no significant impact on the joint negotiation outcome. Following Hildebrandt [46], we considered a significance level of .10 acceptable. Therefore, H1a is supported, whereas H1b is rejected. Furthermore, we found that team size has a significant impact on team satisfaction (p = .05). The standardized coefficients showed a positive significant impact (.174) of the dummy variable “2 members”, whereas the corresponding variable “3 members” had a negative significant impact (-.174) on team satisfaction.
We could not find any significant effects for the team satisfaction determinants gender and friendship. Thus, H4 is supported, whereas H2 and H3 are rejected.
4 Discussion
The objective of our study was to analyze the impact of team satisfaction on a negotiation team’s performance. Considering team satisfaction a group-level construct and referring to existing conflict research, we hypothesized that team satisfaction has a negative impact on the individual and joint outcomes of a negotiation team.
Furthermore, we wanted to identify determinants of team satisfaction. Therefore, we included group diversity variables, such as friendship, gender, and team size in our analysis.
Our results confirm the negative impact of team satisfaction on the individual negotiation outcome. However, it did not have a significant impact on the joint negotiation outcome. Furthermore, we found team size to be a determinant of team satisfaction. More concretely, our results indicate that a team size of two members positively impacts team satisfaction, while teams of three negatively impact it. No significant results were found for friendship and gender.
Since our study is the first to analyze team satisfaction in a team negotiation context, our results have important implications for the negotiation practice and future research. In general, we learned that practitioners should consider team satisfaction when composing a negotiation team. It is important for practitioners to know that a lack of team satisfaction positively influences negotiation team’s performance, since a higher level of conflict leads to contradictory opinions of team members as well as to a more open-minded problem solving by keeping other positions in mind. However, our results do not implicate that team members should be at odds with each other.
Instead, it suggests that team members should be changed from time to time to prevent too much habit and sympathy from forming in the team. Moreover, as our results indicate that team satisfaction is higher in teams with two members, practitioners should rather use teams of three.
Although our study offers first insights into the analysis of team satisfaction in team negotiations, it also has some limitations. First, we only considered three diversity variables as possible team satisfaction determinants. It would be interesting for future research to take further team composition variables, such as hierarchy, education or cultural aspects, into account. Second, we measured friendship directly and included it as a dummy variable in our conceptual model. Future research could analyze friendship more comprehensively by adapting, for example, Nielsen et al.’s [47] friendship scale to the negotiation context. Third, our teams consisted of only two or three members. It would be also interesting to analyze larger teams.
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