Time for a Win-Win Deal: A Social Exchange Process Model for Negotiation

People negotiate every day in a multitude of contexts, yet scholars and practitioners still do not have a clear understanding of the dynamic interpersonal processes that constitute negotiation. Social exchange theory can provide important insights about how negotiators assess and react to their relationship with a counterparty, but this literature is poorly integrated into current negotiation research. We propose that present conceptualizations of negotiation processes can be improved by examining the social exchange contributions and receipts experienced by individual negotiators at different stages of their interaction with counterparties. The pattern of give and take, and negotiators’ evaluations of the exchange quality and reciprocity present, are likely to predict individual perceptions of the relationship and subsequent negotiation outcomes. We argue for the deeper integration of the social exchange perspective in negotiation, and we put forward a process model for examining the ongoing interaction between negotiator exchange contributions and receipts.