Browsing by Author "Chow PT"

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    Contingent use of negotiators' tactics in construction dispute negotiation
    (1/06/2009) Cheung SO; Chow PT; Yiu TW
    In the course of negotiation, negotiators' tactics should be responsive to the situational factors. This is commonly described as the contingent use of negotiators' tactics. This study examines this concept in construction dispute negotiation and has three stages of work. Stage 1 develops taxonomies of the three construction dispute negotiation dimensions: dispute sources, negotiators' tactics, and negotiation outcomes by exploratory factor analysis. A structural equation modeling is also used to confirm the taxonomies. Stage 2 examines the contingent use of negotiators' tactics on outcomes respective to the dispute sources through the use of moderated multiple regression (MMR). Stage 3 discusses the findings. The dispute source, "Delay" is found to be a universal moderator in the MMR analysis of the tactic-outcome relationships. That means when the dispute source is delay, a wide range of negotiators' tactics can be used, respective to outcome intended. It is also found that the most versatile tactics are those that seek progress. This group of tactics is effective in almost every group of dispute source and, in general, positive results can be expected. However, aggressive and assertive tactics should be used restrictively, as they will only be useful against a compromising negotiation counterpart. © 2009 ASCE.
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    Logistic regression modeling of construction negotiation outcomes
    (15/08/2008) Yiu TW; Cheung SO; Chow PT
    Construction disputes are always negotiated before other resolution methods are considered. When it comes to negotiation, the tactics used by a negotiator is central in deriving desired outcomes. This paper reports a research that employs logistic regression (LR) to predict the probabilistic relationship between negotiator tactics and negotiation outcomes. To achieve this, three main stages of work were involved. Negotiator tactics and negotiation outcomes were first identified from literature. Then, four LR prediction models with negotiation outcomes as the dependent variable and negotiator tactics as the independent variables were constructed. Finally, these models were validated with an independent set of testing data. These models collectively suggested that: 1) increasing time pressure, taking threats, or subjecting the opponent to reality testing are inductive to "deterioration" negotiation outcomes; 2) providing various options and increasing flexibility would achieve "substantial improvement" in negotiation; 3) relationships between parties could be maintained by fair play; and 4) focusing on information exchange, giving middiscussion summaries, and offering counterproposal could clarify a party's position. Despite the skepticism over frank and open discussion of the issues and the existence of game plan, the findings of this research do support some well-established negotiation principles-focus on the issue and play down behavioral factors. © 2008 IEEE.