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Article History

Received: 7 August 2024

Accepted: 20 November 2025

First Online: 29 December 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: This study was approved by the Reichman University [at the time the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya] IRB (approval number: YM191223, approval date: 23.12.2019). All research procedures were conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and applicable national and institutional guidelines for research involving human participants. The ethics approval covered the following: recruitment of adult expert practitioners from diverse professional fields (including lawyers, real estate agents, salespersons, purchasing managers, shop owners, importers, and investors) with extensive negotiation experience; examining practitioners’ attitudes toward negotiation strategies and specific situations requiring strategic decision-making; analysis methodology integrating practitioner perspectives with psychological theory; informed consent procedures; participant anonymization through aliases assignment; confidentiality protections including restricted access data; data security measures; participant rights to withdraw or request removal of content; and dissemination of anonymized findings in academic publications. All participants provided electronic consent prior to participation and verbal informed consent at the beginning of the interview. Participant anonymity was maintained through multiple safeguards. First, each interviewee was assigned a random alias used throughout all research processes, including transcription and publication. Second, while demographic characteristics (age, gender, years of experience, and professional field) were reported for the sample, these attributes were presented only in aggregated form and never combined for individual participants, to prevent potential identification through unique demographic profiles. Third, access to complete interview transcripts was restricted exclusively to members of the research team, as these documents contain contextual details (such as specific work histories) that could enable identification by external parties despite the use of aliases.

: Before participation, potential participants (contributors) were contacted via email with initial information about the study, including an introduction to the interviewer, assurances of anonymity, an estimated time commitment (one interview of about 20 to 40 minutes), and a general description of the interview subject matter (expert practitioners’ attitudes toward negotiation). After agreeing to participate and scheduling an interview time, participants provided verbal informed consent at the start of each interview (see the Consent Script in Supplementary materials). Each interview began with the interviewer verbally describing the study and obtaining informed consent using the Consent Script (this interaction was recorded). The interviews, and therefore also the informed consent, were conducted between February 2020 and February 2021. All participants were fully informed that the data would be published in a journal article, and they agreed to the publication of their anonymized data. Participants were assured that their anonymity would be maintained throughout the study, including anonymized reporting of quotes. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, places of employment, and the specific negotiations described) of the participants (contributors) were omitted from all published materials. Participants were also informed that Verbal consent was chosen because interviews were conducted orally via Zoom or telephone, and written consent procedures were deemed unnecessarily burdensome for this interview-based study. Verbal consent was audio-recorded during the interview. No vulnerable populations were involved in this study. Participants were expert practitioners capable of providing informed consent. No apparent risks or discomfort were anticipated from participation in interviews about professional negotiation practices. Participant consent covered participation in the interview study, recording of the interview session, data use for research analysis and academic publication, publication of anonymized findings, including direct quotes without identifying information. Participants were explicitly informed of their right to decline to answer any question, their right to request removal of specific content from the record, the opportunity for checking (reviewing researcher interpretations), anonymization procedures (including use of aliases and protection of identifying details), and confidentiality limits regarding data access (restricted to the research team). Full informed consent scripts and dates of consent for each participant are available in the supplementary materials on OSF.