The advent of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce market has created needs and opportunities for firms to negotiate deals online. Most negotiation support systems (NSS) in past research are text-based and the related findings could not be generalized to negotiating situations utilizing advanced electronic communication technology. This paper investigates the impact of NSS and conflict level on negotiation outcomes where participants communicated through a videoconferencing channel. Findings suggested that dyads with videoconferencing NSS support achieved higher joint outcome, but spent more time in reaching agreements - in low but not high conflict negotiation situation. Conclusion and implications were drawn.

A substantial portion of this manuscript was written while the first author was a Visiting Scholar at the Dispute Resolution Research Center, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University. We thank Jeanne Brett and the DRRC for their support during this visit; and we thank Debra Shapiro for her comments on earlier drafts of