Negotiation and relationships: Insights from adjacent, psychologically-grounded literature

Negotiations often unfold within ongoing relationships, making relationships integral to negotiation processes and outcomes. Yet, despite repeated calls for greater attention to relational dynamics, behavioral negotiation research has largely relied on paradigms that minimize the role of relationships. We review research from adjacent, psychologically-grounded literature (e.g., on close relationships, marketing, strategy, and operations) that conceptualize negotiation as embedded within ongoing relationships. We show that negotiations in relationships unfold under distinct starting conditions that shape negotiators' interpretations, judgments of appropriateness and risk, and the interplay between negotiation processes, outcomes, and the longer-term relationship. As a result, negotiations in relationships often involve managing both objective and relational interests simultaneously, producing beliefs, behaviors, and outcomes that differ from dominant findings in behavioral negotiation research. We conclude by encouraging more dynamic, relationally embedded perspectives and methods that capture how negotiation unfolds across ongoing relationships and repeated interactions.