Chief negotiators are uniquely positioned to affect the level of collective bargaining conflict because of their roles as external representatives and information processors during negotiations. The nature of these effects should be of special interest to government administrators who are concerned about improving their self-resolution track record in collective bargaining. In this article, the authors use a unique 1992 survey of municipal chief negotiators to examine the impact of various chief negotiator characteristics on the likelihood of impasses occurring in negotiations with municipal police unions. The findings support two major conclusions. First, chief negotiators who are positioned higher in the management hierarchy experience fewer collective bargaining impasses than do those who are lower in the organization. Second, negotiators' strategies and personality characteristics significantly influence the likelihood of an impasse but, in general, demographic characteristics of negotiators and environmental factors do not.
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