The Ethical Challenges of Global Business-to-Business Negotiations: An Empirical Investigation of Developing Countries’ Marketing Managers

Abstract

The present study examines the impact of idealism, relativism and Machiavellianism on the perceived appropriateness of five opportunistic negotiation tactics (Le., traditional competitive bargaining, attacking opponent’s network, making false promises, misrepresentation of information, and inappropriate information gathering) using a sample from the United Arab Emirates (DAB). Results indicate that idealism and Machiavellianism are strong predictors of managers’ perceptions of the ethical appropriateness of negotiating tactics. Implications of these results for global firms and marketing executives are discussed and directions for future research are provided.