Does Age Influence Contracting Negotiation Styles? by Jon Hansen

This post is from the Contracting Intelligence Blog

As part of my research for the October 26th Interview with expert author Bill McAneny on generational learning and communication, I came across this paper that discusses as the title indicates “Negotiation Styles Among American Purchasing Managers In The 21st Century.” Amongst the factors examined was that of Age, as well as many others.

This of course led to the following questions that I will pose to Bill McAneny during the interview. What are your thoughts?

Link to on-demand broadcast: Generational Learning: What is the Impact on the Purchasing Profession?

In a paper which appeared in the Journal of Business and Economic Research titled “Negotiating Styles Among American Purchasing Managers In The 21^st Century: Revisited” the authors provide the following abstract:

“This study addresses whether the collaborative negotiation style is the most prevalent among American purchasing managers in the 21st century’s landscape created by the global economy. It also examines whether there are relationships between the purchasing manager’s negotiation styles and selected personal and organizational characteristics that may affect negotiation styles. The results of the study reveal that the collaborative style is predominant. There are also significant relationships between the purchasing manager’s negotiation styles and personal and organizational characteristics.

 

This leads to a number of questions as it relates to our discussion today re generational communication and learning:

• To start, the study concluded that The collaborative negotiating style will be the most dominant among American purchasing managers. Given the generational parameters highlighted above what is the impact of this finding both within each generation, as well as between generations. RE how will Generation X negotiate with Generation X versus how they will negotiate with someone from the Baby Boomer generation?

• The study then indicates that The competitive negotiating style will be the second dominant among American purchasing managers – re competitive behavior directed toward self-gain at the expense of the other party. In line with the previous question, what is the impact of this finding both within each generation, as well as between generations?

For those who would like to read the actual paper on negotiating styles, here it is:

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