The Role of Informal Controls and a Bargaining Opponent's Emotions on Transfer Pricing Judgments
实验发现，当公司缺乏鼓励合作的非正式控制时，销售经理面对表现出负面情绪的对手会给出更低的转移价格；而在合作环境下，对手的积极情绪反而促使经理让步。
Abstract While accounting research has demonstrated the role of a decision maker's own emotions during judgments, psychology research proposes that others’ emotions provide an informational signal to assess an opponent's limits, cooperativeness, and toughness during bargaining. We examine how a bargaining opponent's emotions provide information signals that can be used by a selling division manager during transfer pricing decisions and whether informal control system choices by corporate management to foster cooperation can create a context that influences how managers react to these signals. In an experiment, when informal controls to encourage cooperation were absent (less collaborative environment), managers’ selling price estimates were more conciliatory when the opponent was described as displaying negative emotions than when described as displaying positive emotions. However, when informal controls to cooperate were present (more collaborative environment), managers’ selling price estimates were more conciliatory when the opponent displayed positive rather than negative emotions. Path analyses suggest that managers’ perception of their opponents’ signals is the mechanism by which opponents’ emotions influence transfer‐price decisions. This study highlights the role of others’ emotions as information signals during accounting bargaining and provides insight into the context dependency of opponents’ emotions under various control system structures.