International Negotiation 15 (2010) 485509

brill.nl/iner

Innovative Research
Capturing Attitudes and Behavior in International
Negotiations: Lessons from the European Union
Enlargement Negotiations

Remigiusz Smolinski*
IESEG School of Management, 3, rue de la Digue, 59000 Lille, France
(E-mail: r.smolinski@ieseg.fr)
Received 12 March 2009; accepted 23 May 2009

Abstract
An alternative method of capturing negotiating attitudes and behavior in international negotiation
employs the concept of negotiating profiles and a way of measuring and mapping it. We apply this
method in a survey of politicians and diplomats who participated in the EU enlargement negotiations.
From the survey results, we selected and analyzed negotiating profiles of Malta, the Czech Republic,
Poland, Estonia and Slovenia. The results of our analysis allow us to draw cautious conclusions concerning the most and the least favorable attitudes and behaviors in international negotiations on the highest
levels.
Keywords
European Union enlargement; EU accession negotiation; perception; negotiating style; cross-cultural
negotiation

It is commonly believed that negotiators cultures are expressed in the patterns of

their negotiating behavior and attitudes. Therefore, to capture cross-cultural differences in negotiating behavior, researchers usually use the concept of negotiating style (Salacuse 1999: 222). To identify negotiating styles, certain aspects of
behavior are selected and measured by surveying the target groups. Despite its
practicality, the concept of negotiating style has many caveats. It ignores, for
instance, differences in negotiators personalities even within analyzed cultures;
it disregards a variety of situational factors which sometimes significantly influence negotiating behavior; it is also heavily affected by respondents subjectivity.
*) Remigiusz Smolinski is Assistant Professor at IESEG School of Management. He was a visiting scholar
at Harvard Universitys Program on Negotiation and Tufts Universitys Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. In his research he focusses on the theory and practice of negotiation, particularly in international
settings, as well as on the theory and applications of decision making routines in management science.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010

DOI: 10.1163/157180610X529645

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To address these issues, this article offers an alternative method of capturing

negotiating attitudes and behavior, namely by introducing the concept of negotiating profiles. We apply this concept in our research on European Union
enlargement negotiations and, based on the results of our survey, we try to identify the most favorable attitudes and behaviors in international negotiations.
We will begin this article by describing our research methodology, particularly
focusing on explaining and motivating the notion of negotiating profiles as well
as describing the structure of our online survey. Subsequently, we will present
and analyze selected results of our research project concentrating on ten selected
traits and highlighting the profiles of the countries that managed to achieve the
highest number of transitional agreements.

Attitudes and Behavior in International Negotiation: Negotiating Traits and

Team Profiles
The word culture comes from the Latin cultura stemming from colere with its
root meaning to cultivate, to inhabit or to honor. There are numerous definitions of culture in the literature. Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1963), for instance,
have collected more than 200 of them. Despite the fact that some researchers
consider the concept of culture not well defined,1 most of the definitions share
the following three features:
Culture is a group-level phenomenon Although each group essentially
consists of individuals and despite the fact that culture is manifested through
individuals, culture itself is a phenomenon that can only be observed once it is
shared by the vast majority of the individuals belonging to a certain group.
Culture is acquired by individuals from the group they belong to, either through
socialization or acculturation This implies that culture not only has to be
shared by the individuals belonging to a certain group, but also that it has to
be preserved in time and transmitted from one generation to another.2
Culture is a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional
features typical for a society or a social group These features can possess
intangible or tangible characteristics. The first group, for instance, includes
values, norms, beliefs, etc. The second group includes their expressions such
as institutions, patterns of behavior and artifacts.3
1)

Zartman (1993), for example, claims that culture is tautological, vague and epiphenomenal. Weiss
(1994) points out that culture is neither consistently nor well defined. Similar critique was also expressed
by Moran and Stripp (1991) and Usunier (2003).
2)
It does not necessarily mean that culture is static and remains invariant over time. On the contrary,
Faure and Sjstedt (1993: 5) argue that in a short-term perspective culture should be seen as a structure
influencing human behavior, whereas in the long-term it is a dynamic social phenomenon.
3)
UNESCO (2002), Hoult (1969: 93), Cohen (2004: 11), and Lewicki, Saunders, Minton, and Barry
(2006: 413).

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For the purpose of this article, culture is defined as the socially transmitted norms,
beliefs, and values influencing the behavior of individuals in a given community.
This definition is based on the work of Salacuse (1991: 45) and Faure and Sjstedt (1993: 3). It possesses all three features listed above and creates a firm foundation for our further research. Although our study will focus mostly on national
cultures, there are also many other kinds of cultures (e.g. corporate, family and
professional cultures) which can influence negotiating behavior.4 It is important
to note that some of them exist within countries whereas others extend across the
borders.
Much has been written about the meaning of culture in international and
cross-cultural negotiation, both from a theoretical as well as from practical perspective.5 There is a noticeable consensus and substantial evidence in the literature that negotiators from different cultures tend to behave differently. Brett
(2001) developed a simple conceptual model illustrating the influence culture
may have on negotiators. According to this model, cultural values have a noticeable influence on negotiation interests and priorities, while cultural norms affect
negotiation strategies and patterns of interactions. The fundamental methodological conclusion that can be drawn from this model is quite discouraging for
empirical studies. If culture affects such basic elements of negotiation as interests, priorities or strategy selection, and also given that the influence of culture is
mostly subconscious, all differences in any observable aspects of cross-cultural
negotiation can always be attributed to cultural differences between the negotiators. Each individual is immerged in many cultures which influence his negotiating behavior. At the same time, there are many other variables beside culture
that also have similar effects. These include individual variables such as negotiators personalities, as well as structural or process variables. As pointed out by
Elgstrm (1994), it is very difficult to assess correctly the relative influence of
each variable, and it is inappropriate to treat culture as the unique explanatory
variable of the negotiation process and outcomes. Therefore, empirical studies
using culture as the only independent variable explaining the differences in any
aspects of negotiation are of limited use and, in some cases, can even be tautological, allowing the researchers to demonstrate what they established at the outset of their premise.6
4)
Faure and Sjstedt (1993: 5). A detailed discussion on the role of professional cultures in international
negotiation can be found in Sjstedt (2003).
5)
A complete list of reference would exceed the limitations of this document. The most important positions which should not be omitted include: Binnendijk (1987), Brett (2001), Cohen (2004), Faure and
Rubin (1993), Fisher, Schneider, Borgwardt and Ganson (1997), Foster (1992), Gelfand and Dyer
(2000), Habeeb (1988), Hendon and Hendon (1990), Mautner-Markhof (1989), Reynolds, Siminitiras
and Vlachou (2003), Salacuse (1998; 1999), and Weiss (1994).
6)
This is precisely the case in studies attempting to separate structural and cultural effects in international
negotiations. It is quite easy to find support for a given structural or cultural hypothesis by appropriately
selecting the object of the study. A more detailed discussion on this topic can be found in Faure and
Rubin (1993: 22224).

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Moreover, as pointed out by Avruch (2000) and Sebenius (2002), not every
member of a culturally homogeneous group equally shares all characteristics of
this culture. Rubin and Sander (1991) emphasized that the variety of behavioral
differences within cultures can be as wide as in cross-cultural comparisons. All
these and other difficulties have led Zartman and Berman (1982: 224) to label
the linkage between culture and negotiation a most troublesome question
especially in international negotiation research. Although cultural factors
undoubtedly play an important role, it is essential not to overestimate their
influence on international negotiation.7 This suggestion becomes especially vital
in the context of the research result obtained by Dialdin, Kopelman, Adair,
Brett, Okumura and Lytle (1999), who claimed that there is a general tendency
to ignore the importance of situational factors in favor of cultural explanations,
which they called cultural attribution error.
Usually, the expression of the negotiators cultures is their negotiating style.
The definition of the negotiating style, however, also poses some difficulties in
the context of our research. Generally, negotiating style is defined as the way
persons from different cultures behave in negotiations (Salacuse 1999: 222). This
definition implies the following:
There is a strong link between a persons culture and his negotiating style.
A negotiating style of a certain person can only be evaluated through an
analysis of that persons behavior in several negotiation settings.
Despite its many advantages, the concept of negotiating style is of limited use
for the researchers willing to focus on a particular negotiation setting (e.g. the
negotiations of the fifth EU enlargement round with one clear underlying objective and a relatively stable set of participants).8 Moreover, this concept might be
quite confusing in the case of skilled negotiators who are able to adapt their
negotiating behavior to the situations they face and use it as an element of their
comprehensive negotiation strategy.9 Additionally, in some cases it might be
much more interesting or even appropriate to examine how negotiators from different cultural backgrounds behave in particular negotiation situations, rather
than make general claims about national and/or personal negotiating styles.

7)

This topic is discussed in more detail in Rubin and Sander (1991), Sebenius (2002), Weiss (2003).
In some candidate countries, the negotiating teams were partially or completely replaced during the
enlargement negotiations. Most of these changes were caused by the parliamentary elections occurring
during that time and the following personnel changes in the governments.
9)
Although some researchers (e.g. Brett 2001) claim that nearly all aspects of negotiators behavior are
influenced by cultural factors, we believe that it is often a result of deliberate training. This is particularly
evident in negotiations conducted by professional negotiators and diplomats.
8)

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Table 1. Research framework for determining negotiating profiles

Trait

Range of Responses

Attitude
Pursuing Own Interests
Power
Climate
Team Organization
Communication
Concern with Protocol
Flexibility
Emotionalism
Time Sensitivity

Win/lose Win/win
Tough Lenient
Dominant Bending
Hostile Friendly
Authoritative Consensual
Indirect Direct
Informal Formal
Repetitive Exploring
High Low
High Low

Sources: Developed by the author based on Foster (1992), Hendon and Hendon (1990),
Moran and Stripp (1991), Salacuse (1998), and Mastenbroek (2002).

Therefore, bearing all this in mind, we would like to suggest a somewhat different
approach, namely to introduce the notion of negotiating profiles defined as the set
of traits characterizing negotiators behavior. This general definition allows us to
overcome the difficulties we had with negotiating styles, to focus our attention on
a particular negotiation setting, and to include additional non-cultural factors in
the analysis. Negotiating profiles can be identified for individuals as well as for
teams. It is also possible to evaluate them in the context of one negotiation as well
as holistically based on the available data from various negotiations conducted by
a particular person or a team in the past. Most importantly, the analysis of negotiating profiles does not necessarily have to cover all traits describing the negotiators behavior. On the contrary, it allows selecting and concentrating on the traits
which are relevant with respect to the goals of a specific research project. Because
our study of EU enlargement negotiations referred to the differences and similarities among the negotiators representing ten candidate countries, for further
analysis we selected the traits that could potentially capture these differences. All
of them have been used by various scholars in their research either on identifying
the influence of culture on negotiation or on measuring negotiating styles. In particular, we are referring to the work of Foster (1992), Hendon and Hendon (1990),
Moran and Stripp (1991), Salacuse (1998) and Mastenbroek (2002). The final
selection of the traits we decided to consider in the analysis of the negotiating profiles is presented in Table 1.
Based on the traits listed above, we asked the respondents to evaluate both
their own negotiating profile as well as the profile of the party or parties they
negotiated with. By doing so we intended to obtain the data allowing us to compare their perceptions of the negotiating behavior of all involved parties.

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Perception is generally defined as the process of screening, selecting, and interpreting stimuli so that they gain meaning to the individual (Steers 1984: 98).
Although the beginnings of perception research date back to the 1950s,10 it was
only in the late 1990s that this topic drew the attention and interest of the negotiation theorists and practitioners who concentrated mostly on perceptual distortions.11 Fig. 1 illustrates a general model of the perceptual process in bilateral
negotiation. According to this model, the behavior of one negotiator serves as a
stimulus for the other negotiator who then screens it, selects its key elements
and tries to interpret them. In international negotiation, the complexity of this
process is significantly greater than in other cases. Culturally influenced behavior
of Negotiator A is perceived through the cultural lens of Negotiator B, who then
acts based on his interpretation of that behavior, which then is perceived by
Negotiator A and the whole process repeats. As a consequence, the cultural differences can lead to the misinterpretation of the actual negotiators behavior and
their underlying motivation such as interests and objectives. This misinterpretation
in turn may result in inappropriately adjusted reactions and, given the interactive
and repetitive character of this process, the final solution to the negotiated problem
may in fact be based on incorrect inferences and therefore prove suboptimal.
The point we will try to demonstrate later in this article is that the perception
of even fundamental traits of negotiating profiles in the EU enlargement negotiations very often differed largely depending on the perceivers. Accepting this
statement raises a speculative question whether the outcomes of this process
could not have been improved had the parties been able to better understand
each others culture and negotiating behavior. Although it is difficult to give a
well-justified answer and clear normative advice for the negotiators of further
enlargements, we will attempt to address this issue based on some of the results
quoted later in this article.
Concluding, we would like to emphasize that we are not intending to ascribe
all potential differences in the negotiating profiles solely to differences in the
national cultures of the negotiation participants. Although most probably cultural factors played an important role in this process, they were certainly not the
only ones.12 It is not our aspiration to determine the exact influence of each
potential independent variable that might have influenced the outcome. Such
task would be very difficult if not impossible to complete. The primary goal
of our research project was to apply our method of capturing negotiating profiles
in the context of the fifth EU enlargement negotiations. By doing so, we gained
valuable insights into the behavioral aspects of these negotiations. In particular,
10)

The most influential pioneers in this field were Gibson (1950), Bruner and Tagiuri (1954), and Broadbent (1958).
11)
One of the precursors in this field was Thompson (1995).
12)
Next to the cultural factors, what certainly influenced the process and the outcome of the enlargement
negotiations was a combination of the personalities of negotiators and situational and strategic factors.

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491

Fig. 1. Perceptual process in bilateral negotiation.

Source: Author.

we focus on the perception of negotiating profiles and the differences between

self-evaluations and the evaluations done by the partners. Finally, based on our
results, we analyze the profiles of the selected candidate countries.

Capturing Negotiating Profiles: Online Survey

Due to the relatively large number, geographic dispersion and inaccessibility of
our target group members, we decided to use an online survey questionnaire as
the primary method of data collection. The ability to deal with the above mentioned characteristics of our target group completely compensated for the major
drawbacks of this method: the lack of interactivity and personal contact. In the
context of our research, the lack of personal contact with the respondents is not
necessarily disadvantageous. It is possible that the evaluations obtained through
an online survey in the absence of the researcher are less biased than those gathered through personal or telephone interviews.
Although officially each of the EU15 countries was an independent party
to the accession negotiations, they regularly spoke with one voice acting as a
collective negotiator.13 Therefore, to reduce the complexity of our research we
decided to adapt a similar approach and represent all old EU members as one
entity and labeled it the EU15. By pursuing this approach we noticeably decreased
the number of studied countries. By doing so, however, we also gained valuable
information concerning their collective negotiating profile and did not lose

13)

Government Plenipotentiary for Polands Accession Negotiations to the European Union (2000: 29).

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the possibility of relating it to the outcomes of the enlargement negotiations.

Throughout our research the candidate countries were treated separately.
Prior to the start of our project, we formulated the following hypotheses and
research questions:
Differences in the national negotiating profiles Each of the participants
entered the enlargement negotiations with the same strategic objective, but
with different cultural luggage and with different interests and strategy.
Although some researchers argue that the diplomats share a common professional culture often referred to as international diplomatic culture,14 we
supposed that it is repeatedly dominated by the cultures of the nations they
represent. We believed that this was also the case in the EU enlargement
negotiations. We suspected that the differences in the negotiators national
cultures combined with the differences in their personalities and variety of
situational factors were important reasons for distinct differences in some
traits of the negotiating profiles among the analyzed countries. Moreover,
we believe that despite what some researchers claim,15 the EUs negotiating
profile was not perceived uniformly by the candidate countries.
Differences in the perception of the negotiating profiles One of the fundamental difficulties in negotiation lies in the fact that frequently statements
and actions are interpreted by the negotiation partners differently than they
were intended. We believed that this was also the case in the enlargement
negotiations. The comparison between the self-evaluations of the negotiating
profiles and the evaluations submitted by the negotiation partner is a rather
novel aspect in our research. Even in the wider context of research on negotiating styles, the scholars very rarely decide to measure and compare each
partys perceptions of analyzed styles. Usually the research is focused on a
selected party representing a particular culture (e.g. Salacuse 1998; 1999).
Profiles of the teams that negotiated the highest number of transitional
agreements The statistical analysis of a simple relationship between the
candidate countries economic sizes measured by their GDP and the number of negotiated transitional agreements reveal a moderate and positive
correlation. This analysis also showed that Malta was a distinct outlier, the
smallest country with the second highest number of transitional agreements
after Poland and the biggest among the EU10 countries. Can we find a
potential source of this anomaly by analyzing the Maltese negotiating profile?
Is the Polish negotiating profile similar to the Maltese one? If so, in terms
of which traits?
14)

Glenn, Witmeyer, and Stevenson (1977: 59), as well as Zartman and Berman (1982: 22429). An
interesting discussion on this topic can be found in Cohen (2004: 2023).
15)
Sjstedt (1994) as well as Kolb and Faure (1994) quoted by Faure (2002: 393, 397) and also Lang
(199: 38).

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To verify our hypotheses and to answer research questions, we decided to gather

primary data by conducting an online survey. In general, our survey structure
consisted of the following five steps:
1. Identification of the party represented by the respondent in the enlargement negotiations The representatives of the candidate countries were
asked to specify the country they represented, whereas all agents negotiating on behalf of the EU were treated as a collective negotiator even though
some of them might have simultaneously represented the interests of their
countries governments.
2. Selection of the negotiation partner(s) This question was asked to the EU
representatives as some of them negotiated with multiple candidate countries. The negotiation partner of each candidate country was always the EU.
3. Evaluation of partners negotiating profiles The EU representatives were
asked to evaluate all countries selected in step 2. The representatives of the
candidate countries always evaluated the EU.
4. Self-evaluation Evaluation of own negotiating profiles.
5. Thank you page We offered our respondents a possibility to leave their
contact details in case they would like to receive the report concluding our
study. The final page displayed our contact details and included an invitation to get in touch with us with any questions, comments or concerns.
Having developed the structure of our survey, we translated our research framework (presented in Table 1) into the survey questions. Following the approach
of Salacuse (1998), we decided to list all the traits of the negotiating profiles
without defining them and ask the respondents to conduct their evaluations.
The biggest advantage of this approach is the minimization of potential influence of our interpretations on the answers given by the respondents. The disadvantage is the risk of having the trait names misinterpreted, which could then
result in inappropriate evaluations and inadequate research results. We assumed,
however, that all participants of the enlargement negotiations had an excellent
command of English, which created the basis for correct understanding of all
notions used in our survey. The respondents were asked to evaluate each trait of
the negotiating profile on a five-point scale with clearly described extreme ends
(as in Table 1), also called semantic differential.
During the remaining stages of our research project, we attempted to contact
as many participants of the enlargement negotiations as possible and convince
them to fill out the questionnaire. The list of our potential respondents included
the following:
On behalf of the European Union The politicians and diplomats representing
the governments of the EU15 countries in the enlargement negotiations,

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especially prime ministers and ministers of foreign affairs, as well as the

officials coordinating the negotiations on behalf of the European Commission.
On behalf of the candidate countries The members of the negotiation
teams, the government officials involved in the enlargement negotiations,
especially prime ministers and ministers of foreign affairs.
We managed to identify current whereabouts of 310 politicians who took part
in the enlargement negotiations. Initially, we distributed the link to our website
in an official letter of request sent out per post. However, as expected the
response rates were unsatisfactorily low. Therefore, we followed up with an
e-mail including the same link and reminding about our request. Our survey
was available online at: www.negotiations.de.

Results
Surprisingly, the final number of responses to our survey was rather high. To
increase the precision and relevance of the result instead of counting the number
of unique visitors on the survey website we decided to count the number of submitted negotiating profile evaluations. As mentioned earlier, some of the negotiators representing the EU negotiated with all candidate countries (the Council of
the European Union) whereas some of them dealt with smaller subsets of the candidate countries (the European Commission). Due to the fact that in our survey
the EU negotiators could evaluate any country or a group of countries they negotiated with, the exact number of survey participants can only be estimated. This
means that if, for example, a member of the Council submitted an evaluation of
five countries, we would see five additional evaluations in our database, but would
not be able to track that all of them came from the same person. Based on the
most restrictive assumption that the smallest number of the EU representatives
who took part in our survey equals the highest number of evaluations submitted
for one country, the response rate would be about 57%. Most likely this number
was even higher, as altogether we have collected 296 evaluations and contacted
310 persons. This sets the upper bound for the response rate at 95%. EU negotiators submitted 52% of the evaluations, and the remaining 48% came from the
respondents representing the candidate countries. Fig. 2 illustrates the percentages
of the respondents from each candidate country in the total number of respondents from the candidate countries. This data can be compared with Fig. 3, which
demonstrates the geographical distribution of the evaluations submitted by the EU
negotiators. In particular, it shows the percentages of each candidate countrys
evaluations in the total number of evaluations. With minor exceptions (Poland),
the EU evaluations seem to be relatively evenly distributed whereas there is a slight
underrepresentation of some countries (Cyprus, Malta, Lithuania) in the data
from the candidate countries.

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Fig. 2. Geographical distribution of the evaluations submitted by the

negotiators representing the acceding countries.
Source: Author

Fig. 3. Geographical distribution of the evaluations submitted by the

EU negotiators.
Source: Author

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In the following sections, we will proceed with the evaluation of our survey. We
will first conduct a comparative analysis of trait evaluations, which will then be
followed by the investigation of selected negotiating profiles.
Analysis of Selected Negotiating Profiles
In our further analysis, we will concentrate on the negotiating profiles of those
candidate countries which we found the most intriguing. These profiles illustrate
the negotiating behavior and attitudes of the representatives of Malta, Poland,
the Czech Republic, Estonia and Slovenia.
Malta
Maltese negotiators represented the smallest of all candidate countries, and the
support for the EU enlargement process when the negotiations commenced was
the third lowest (after Estonia and Latvia). They realized very well that they were
dealing with a situation in which their negotiation power was relatively low (the
lowest self-evaluations among the candidate countries). This was also the impression conveyed by the negotiators representing the EU (the second lowest evaluation after Cyprus). Despite these clearly unfavorable facts, Malta was granted the
second highest number of transitional agreements after Poland. We will now
have a look at the negotiating profile of the Maltese negotiators visualized in Fig.
4 and try to find out its most interesting characteristics. Based on the results of
our survey we would like to point out the following three characteristics:
1. Predominant win-win attitude The highest self-evaluation and the third
highest evaluation submitted by the respondents who had represented the
interests of the EU.
2. High flexibility Both in terms of the self-evaluations and the evaluations
submitted by the EU counterparts, Malta scores highest.
3. Toughness in pursuing own interests Both in terms of the self-evaluations
and the evaluations submitted by the EU counterparts, Malta scores highest.
We believe that these results are excellent examples of the behavioral patterns that
are generally very helpful in the value creation and value distribution phases of
integrative negotiation.16 In particular, win-win attitude and high flexibility are
necessary in the value creation phase of the negotiation, whereas toughness in pursuing own interests becomes especially important in the value-claiming phase. The
Maltese negotiators seem to have performed exceptionally well in both of them.
Van Boven and Thompson (2003) have studied how negotiators mental models affect their performance. Among other points, this paper demonstrates that:

16)
As mentioned earlier, we follow here the approach of Lax and Sebenius (1986), according to which
there are two stages in integrative negotiations value creation and value claiming.

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Negotiators who reach optimal outcomes have mental models that are more
accurate about the other partys underlying interest compared to negotiators who fail to reach optimal outcomes.
The analysis of the negotiators who reach optimal outcomes reveal that they
have mental models that are more similar to one another than negotiators
who fail to reach optimal outcomes.
In short, negotiators who craft optimal outcomes are thinking along the same lines
or know exactly along what lines their counterparts think, and are able to address it.
Although there are some differences between the concepts of mental model
and negotiating profile, it is interesting to observe that our study yields similar
results.17 The analysis of the Maltese and the EU15s negotiating profiles demonstrate the following:
Relatively high similarity between the Maltese self-evaluation and the evaluations submitted by the EU respondents Fig. 4 illustrates the Maltese
negotiating profile as it was seen by the Maltese negotiators themselves (the
shaded area) compared to its perception by their EU counterparts (bold
black line). The similarity between the evaluations of both parties is demonstrated by the distances between the angles of the shaded area and the
bold black line. Comparing among all candidate countries, in the case of
Malta, the sum of these distances is the lowest. The only elements of the
negotiating profile where these two are somewhat more distant from each
other are power and climate. The EU respondents thought that Maltese
negotiating power was lower and the climate was even friendlier than the
values in the Maltese self-evaluation.
Similarity between the Maltese and the EU15s negotiating profiles Fig. 5
illustrates the negotiating profile of the negotiators representing the EU15
countries as it was seen by the EU negotiators themselves (the shaded area)
compared to its perception by their Maltese counterparts (bold black line).
The similarity between the negotiating profiles of both groups is manifested
by the similarity in the shapes of the shaded areas in Figs. 5 and 6.
Some similarity between the EU15s self-evaluation and the evaluations submitted by the Maltese respondents The similarity between the evaluations of
both parties is demonstrated by the distances between the angles of the shaded
area and the bold black line in Fig. 5. The shape of both figures is quite similar,
and the distances are the fourth lowest among the candidate countries.18
17)
The main difference between these concepts is that mental models refer to the causal relationships
within the negotiation situation that guide negotiators behavior, whereas negotiating profiles capture the
attitudes and behavior demonstrated in a particular setting or settings.
18)
It must be mentioned, however, that the aggregated self-evaluations of the negotiators representing the
EU15 include the self-evaluations of all EU15 negotiators who filled out our questionnaire, not only
those who negotiated with Malta. Our underlying assumption was that the EU15s negotiating profile
would be uniform in all bilateral negotiations with the candidate countries.

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Fig. 4. Negotiating profile of Malta.

Source: Author.

Fig. 5. Negotiating profile of the EU15 with its evaluation submitted by the
Maltese respondents.
Source: Author.

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Table 2. Support for the EU Enlargement in the Candidate Countries

Country

Czech Republic
Estonia
Cyprus
Hungary
Poland
Slovenia
Malta
Latvia
Lithuania
Slovakia

Average support Average support after Difference

during the accession signing the Accession between two
negotiations
Treaty
periods
19992002
20032005
46%
31%
49%
59%
51%
45%

44%
33%
58%
55%
52%
49%

20012002

20032005

41%
33%
44%
59%

52%
39%
57%
54%

2%
2%
9%
4%
1%
4%
11%
5%
14%
5%

Source: Author based on Eurobarometer.

Concluding this section, we would like to discuss briefly the negotiating strategy
pursued by Malta in the EU enlargement negotiations. As mentioned at the
beginning of this section, the support for the EU accession in Malta measured
shortly after the opening of negotiations was the third lowest after Estonia and
Latvia. However, as the negotiation progressed, the support rose, and right
before the official accession, was the second highest after Lithuania. This may be
an indication that the Maltese negotiating strategy combined with its outcomes
well reflected the interest of the Maltese people. Table 2 presents the development of support for the EU enlargement in the candidate countries.
Generally, we think that the countries whose negotiating strategy reflected the
interest of their constituencies observed an increase in support for EU enlargement after the final accession conditions were set in the Treaty. Malta is among
the countries that achieved the highest number of transitional agreements and at
the same time noted the highest increase in support for EU enlargement.
The Czech Republic and Poland
The survey data suggests that two candidate countries stand out from the rest of
the group in terms of some characteristics of their negotiating profile that we
believe indicate the attitude and behavior of hard bargainers. These countries are

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the Czech Republic and Poland. Selected aspects of their negotiating profiles will
be explored in more detail below.
Let us first have a look at the negotiating profile of the Czech negotiators
visualized in Fig. 6. Based on the results of our survey, we would like to point
out three of them:
1. Highest win-lose attitude The respondents who represented the interests
of the EU in the enlargement negotiations considered the win-lose attitude
of the Czech negotiators the highest of all candidate countries.
2. Toughness in pursuing own interests Both in terms of the self-evaluations
and the evaluations submitted by the EU counterparts, the Czech Republic
scores third highest.
3. Highly dominant in terms of power the EU respondents evaluated the
Czech negotiators as the most dominant.
Additionally, a very interesting phenomenon can be observed in the differences
between both parties evaluations of each others negotiating profiles. The distances between the angles of the shaded area and the angles of the figure formed
by the bold black line illustrating the Czech negotiating profile in Fig. 6 are the
third longest in comparison to the negotiating profiles of other candidate countries. This indicates that there are high differences between the interpretations of
the negotiating attitudes and behavior demonstrated by the Czech negotiators.
However, when we consider the negotiating profile of the EU15 presented in
Fig. 7, the distances between the evaluations submitted by the respondents representing each party are the shortest. This means that the negotiating profile of
the EU15 was interpreted by the Czech negotiators very similarly to the intentions of their counterparts, but the EU negotiators did not reciprocate with the
same understanding of the Czech negotiating profile.
Let us compare these findings with a brief analysis of Polish negotiating profile visualized in Fig. 8. Based on the results of our survey we would like to point
out two characteristics:
1. Relatively high win-lose attitude The EU respondents considered the
win-lose attitude of the Polish negotiators the second highest among all
candidate countries.
2. Very low flexibility Both in terms of the self-evaluations and the evaluations submitted by the EU counterparts, Poland is evaluated as the most
repetitive candidate country.

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Fig. 6. Negotiating profile of Czech Republic.

Source: Author.

Fig. 7. Negotiating profile of the EU15 including the evaluation submitted by

the Czech respondents.
Source: Author.

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These characteristics are also generally typical for hard (positional) bargainers who
are commonly considered less effective than principled negotiators.19 Despite
this fact, Poland ended up with the highest number of transitional agreements.
There is, however, a fundamental difference in the survey results concerning Poland
and the Czech Republic that can at least partially explain this phenomenon.
Although the negotiating profiles of the Polish negotiators and their EU counterparts differ substantially, in both cases they were well understood by each party. As
we can observe in Figs. 8 and 9, the distances between the areas illustrating the
perceptions of Polish and EU 15 negotiating profiles are very short. In fact, in both
cases they are the second shortest distances when compared with all other evaluations of the EU enlargement negotiation participants. This seems to be another
example supporting the results of Van Boven and Thompson (2003) stating that
negotiators who have mental models that are more accurate about the other partys
underlying interest reach better outcomes than the ones who do not. This would
mean that despite the differences between the negotiating profiles of the negotiating
partners, mutual understanding will allow them to close better deals.
Estonia and Slovenia
We conclude our analysis of the candidate countries negotiating profiles with
Estonia and Slovenia, whose profiles are illustrated in Figs. 10 and 12 respectively.
In both cases, we can observe large differences between the candidate countries
self-evaluations illustrated by the shaded areas and their perceptions reflected by
the evaluations submitted by the EU respondents depicted by the bold black
lines. In the case of Slovenia (Fig. 12), the distance between both areas is the
longest, and in the case of Estonia (Fig. 10), the second longest among all candidate countries. In both Figures, the aggregated evaluations submitted by the EU
respondents are generally much more generous than the aggregated self-evaluations of the negotiators representing each country. Additionally, this observation
can be combined with the fact that Estonia and Slovenia ended up with the lowest number of transitional agreements. We believe that there may be at least four
explanations for these phenomena:
1. Estonia and Slovenia did not need many transitional agreements and did
not insist on them in the accession negotiation.
2. Estonia and Slovenia needed transitional agreements but did not insist as
hard as the other countries.
19)
The distinction between hard (positional) bargainers and principled negotiators was introduced by
Roger Fisher and William Ury in Getting to Yes, first published in 1981. Principled negotiation is the
name given to the interest-based approach guided by four fundamental principles: 1) separate the people
from the problem, 2) focus on interests, not positions, 3) invent options for mutual gain, and 4) insist on
objective criteria. Hard (positional) bargainers focus on articulating and defending their positions rather
than on exploring mutual interests and searching for value creating solutions.

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Fig. 8. Negotiating profile of Poland.

Source: Author.

Fig. 9. Negotiating profile of the EU15 with its evaluation submitted by the
Polish respondents.
Source: Author.

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Fig. 10. Negotiating profile of Estonia.

Source: Author.

Fig. 11. Negotiating profile of the EU15 with its evaluation submitted by the
Estonian respondents.
Source: Author.

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505

3. Estonia and Slovenia needed transitional agreements and insisted on them,

but their negotiating attitude and behavior was to a large extent positively
misinterpreted by their counterparts.
4. Estonia and Slovenia needed transitional agreements and insisted on them,
but their demands were denied by the EU negotiators.
If we compare these results with each countrys evaluations of the EU15s negotiating profile depicted in Figs. 11 and 13, we may arrive at the conclusion that the
explanations may be different in each case. The evaluations of the Estonian negotiators are relatively close to the self-evaluations of their EU counterparts. The
sum of distances between the angles of both polygons in Fig. 11 is the third lowest of all candidate countries. The sum of the distances in Fig. 13 illustrating the
same values from the evaluations of the Slovenian negotiators is the second highest. Moreover, these values lie mostly within the shaded area illustrating the selfevaluation of the EU negotiators, which implies that the Slovenian respondents
perceived them as tougher, more dominant, formal, repetitive, etc. than they perceived themselves. Based on this, we can presume that Estonia probably did not
need many transitional agreements and did not insist on them in the accession
negotiation, whereas Slovenia, who most likely needed transitional agreements,
insisted on them, but its efforts were positively misinterpreted and some of the
demands were denied.
In concluding this section, let us discuss the outlines of the Estonian negotiation strategy that can be deduced from the survey data. At the beginning of the
accession negotiation, Estonia was the candidate country with the lowest support for the EU enlargement. However, contrary to Malta, Estonia decided not
to insist on many transitional agreements. This strategy cannot be considered
successful in terms of gaining public support for the enlargement, which
throughout the whole negotiation process and until the official accession date
did not grow substantially and remained the lowest of all candidate countries. A
speculative question that can be raised here is whether this situation could not
have been improved had Estonia implemented a strategy similar to the Maltese
one. We tend to believe that the answer is positive and that additional transitional agreements would have sent an important signal to the Estonian people
that the EU acknowledges their interests, cares about their concerns, and is willing to compromise to ensure a smooth accession process.

Concluding Remarks
The goal of this article was to present and discuss the key findings from our
study of negotiating behavior and attitudes conducted among the politicians and
diplomats representing the parties in the EU accession negotiations. Our main

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Fig. 12. Negotiating profile of Slovenia.

Source: Author.

Fig. 13. Negotiating profile of the EU15 with its evaluation submitted by the
Slovenian respondents.
Source: Author.

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507

contributions can be divided into two groups. First, this research presents an
alternative method of capturing negotiating attitudes and behavior, namely by
introducing the concept of negotiating profiles together with a way of measuring
and mapping them. This method might be especially useful in research on international and/or cross-cultural negotiation where it could be used for identifying
the profiles of negotiation participants, measuring and comparing the differences
between them, as well as for comparing parties perceptions of their profiles.
Second, this study applied this method to the case of the fifth round of European Union enlargement negotiations. The results show clearly the differences
(and similarities) in negotiating behavior and attitudes among negotiation participants. They also identify the dimensions of negotiating profiles in which the
differences between self-evaluations and the evaluation of the negotiating partner were most significant. Based on these results, we observed that the profile
characteristics of the countries that managed to achieve the best outcomes in the
enlargement negotiations seem to support the findings of Van Boven and
Thompson (2003). This means that either the profiles of negotiating parties are
similar to each other or at least one party has a perception of the other partys
negotiating profile that is similar to that partys self-evaluation.
Our study of the negotiating profiles of the EU enlargement negotiation participants certainly has many caveats.20 These caveats are connected with:
The form of our study- online survey with all its disadvantages
The subjectivity in the selection of traits
The size and the uneven geographical distribution of the respondent
groups21
The static character of the result despite dynamic negotiations
We believe that the method introduced and applied in this paper may still need
some refinements preceded by its tests it in various laboratory experiments and/
or field studies. More research is also needed to check the relevance of our models dimensions and their measurements. Once perfected, however, this method
may become a valuable tool in research on international and cross-cultural
negotiations.

20)

A more detailed discussion can be found in Smolinski (2008).

Because the biggest part of survey respondents negotiating on behalf of the EU15 countries decided to
evaluate the Polish negotiating profile (23%), it is possible that their aggregated self-evaluations were to a
large extent influenced by the behavior and attitudes they demonstrated in negotiations with Poland.
21)

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