Negotiators’ emotion perception and value-claiming under different incentives

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how negotiators’ self-evaluated emotion perception is related to value claiming under two incentive schemes. Adopting an ability-motivation interaction perspective, the authors hypothesize that the relationship will be stronger in the contingent (upon value-claiming performance) versus fixed (non-contingent upon value-claiming performance) pay condition. Design/methodology/approach – Multi-level analysis of data (120 participants, 60 dyads) from a laboratory study provided evidence supporting the hypothesis proposed in this paper. Findings – Emotional perception was indeed more strongly related to value claiming in the contingent pay condition than in the fixed pay condition. Negotiators’ emotion perception also had a direct, positive linkage with relationship satisfaction, regardless of the incentive scheme. Research limitations/implications – The limitations of the current paper include self-report measures of emotion perception, a US student sample and a focus on value claiming as the instrumental outcome. The authors urge future research to address these limitations in replicating and extending the current findings. Originality/value – The present paper is the first to explicitly test the moderating role of incentive schemes on the linkage between negotiators’ emotion perception and performance. The findings not only show the context-dependent predictive value of negotiators’ emotion perception but also shed light on both negotiation and emotional intelligence (EI) research.