Comparing public- and private sector negotiators under varying levels of discretion, a laboratory experiment

It is often claimed that more discretion positively impacts performance, increases trust in followers and leads to extra-role behaviors. However, in game theory, the discretion of a negotiator does not change the solution and the performance remains unchanged. On top of this, negotiator discretion levels may be a consequence of organizational contexts. For instance, bureaucrats are thought to have very little discretion.
In this paper, we use a variable sum negotiation experiment to test 1) whether the level of negotiation discretion matters for the negotiation outcomes and 2) whether public and private negotiators perform differently under varying levels of discretion.
We manipulate negotiation discretion - the set of solutions to a negotiation problem to test our hypotheses for public sector and private sector negotiators.
The results contradict the game theoretical prediction as the solution to a negotiation problem varies with the level of discretion, while we found no evidence that students of public- and business administration performed differently.