Contingent use of negotiators' tactics in construction dispute negotiation

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.