Getting Off on the Right Foot: The Effects of Initial Email Messages on Negotiation Process and Outcome

This paper examines the role that initial exchanges play in determining subsequent process and outcome in email-based negotiations, an increasingly popular means of conducting domestic and international negotiations. The results of the study suggest considerable symmetry between parties in terms of the quantity (words) and quality of initial messages. However, informal greetings, introductions, and proposal surfacing in these early exchanges played little role in determining the likelihood of an agreement or an integrative (win-win) outcome. In contrast, the parties' stated intentions of pursuing a mutually beneficial outcome and their exaggeration of initial offers significantly related to the likelihood of reaching an agreement. The implications of these findings for practitioners and future research are discussed.