Disentangling complexity: how negotiators identify and handle issue-based complexity in business-to-business negotiation

Research regarding the complex content and issues in business-to-business (B2B) negotiation is sparse. Although negotiation issues are ubiquitous in experimental negotiation studies, descriptions of what constitutes a complex issue are set in an abstract context. Therefore, this study investigates the characteristics of real-world negotiation issues and their associated complexity drivers. Data from 29 in-depth interviews of managers in the B2B field provide the research material, analyzed according to the Gioia methodology. Eleven issue-based complexity facets emerge that fall into the object-, context- and subject-level of complexity. Eight strategies for handling complex negotiation issues also result from the analysis. The findings provide a detailed description of issue-based complexity, which can be used to create more realistic negotiation experiments, as well as help negotiators disentangle and manage complex content in their own B2B negotiations. By answering the call from research for a more detailed description of complex negotiations, and by linking handling strategies with specific situations, this study provides further insights for negotiation theory.