Negotiations in organizational context are a fertile field for the occurrence of actions that may be considered ethical inappropriate. recent research indicates that several organizational context factors influence the way negotiators judge the ethical quality of negotiation behaviors. In this presentation, we discuss the effects of some social-organizational factors on the acceptability of main negotiation tactics . In the first study, a validation of Robinson et al.(200) model is attempted. Results from a sample of 198 Portuguese professional negotiators allowed us to propose an alternative factorial structure close to the original model. Moreover, The hypothesis of the existence of significant differences in the self-perceive acceptability of tactics associated to the negotiator social role ( buyer vs, seller) is explored. results confirm the existence of significant differences in ethical acceptability of two categories of tactics. The second study (N=320) examines the influence of hetero-perception of power asymmetry between negotiators on the ethical acceptability of the most used negotiation tactics . There is some evidence That the use of unethical tactics is judged more acceptable when negotiators are in a situation of negative power asymmetry than when they are in a neutral or positive power asymmetry. This judgement orientation seems to be independent of the participants? level of negotiation experience , age or gender, thus suggesting that it may be an extension of a generic social norm applied to the negotiation specific context.

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ethics,negotiation,power asymmetry,social role,tactics