Important meeting coming up? Forget the boardroom...book a table at your local Chinese!
Might be time to make a quick call to see if your local Chinese restaurant has any tables available for that 2pm meeting tomorrow.
Because a new study has revealed that business meetings that take place at restaurants where food is shared are more likely to reach deals faster.
So we guess Indian, Tapas and Japanese restaurants also get the nod.
In the study, researchers from the University of Chicago looked at whether a meal is consumed can boost cooperation.
Here's how they came to their conclusion:
Researchers asked pairs of participants to negotiate a topic while eating chips and salsa.
Half the pairs received one bowl of chips and one bowl of salsa, while the other half had their own bowls.
Next, one person in each pair was assigned as management, and the other as a union representative.
The goal was to arrive at an acceptable wage for the union within 22 rounds of negotiation, with strikes starting on the third round.
And the results?
The teams who had shared bowls took an average of nine strike days to reach a deal.
The ones who didn't? Thirteen days.
Professor Ayelet Fishbach, co-author of the study, said: “Basically, every meal that you're eating alone is a missed opportunity to connect to someone.
“And every meal that involves food sharing fully utilises the opportunity to create that social bond."
