Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

Sweet Little Lies: Social Context And The Use Of Deception In Negotiation, Mara Olekalns, Carol T. Kulik, Lin Chew

Mara Olekalns

Social context shapes negotiators’ actions, including their willingness to act unethically. In this research, we test how three dimensions of social context – dyadic gender composition, negotiation strategy, and trust – interact to influence one micro-ethical decision, the use of deception, in a simulated negotiation. To create an opportunity for deception, we incorporated an indifference issue – an issue that had no value for one of the two parties – into the negotiation. Deception about this issue was least likely to be affected by trust or negotiation strategy in all-male dyads, suggesting that dyads with at least one female negotiator …