An Exploration of Business Negotiation Impasses: Conceptualizing the Dual Path Approach

Purpose: An impasse in negotiation could harm relationships, tarnish reputations and jeopardize future opportunities for creating value. The extant literature has focused on how negotiation styles affect successful outcomes, rather than exploring their role in leading to impasses. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to address this gap by exploring how negotiation styles influence the relationship between antecedent factors and the formation of distinct types of negotiation impasses. Design/Methodology: The paper is designed to explore the formation of impasses, with the Dual Path Approach (DPA) with an interdisciplinary methodology, underpinned by the attribution theory. Implications: This paper provides a foundational understanding of how negotiation styles could shape antecedent factors to trigger distinct types of impasses. It offers insights not only to the academia through theoretical implications, but also help practitioners in terms of anticipate, adapt, manage and prevent unwanted or forced impasses across various negotiation contexts, potentially improving business negotiation outcomes and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]