Beyond Taxonomies of Influence: "Doing" Influence and Making Decisions in Management Team Meetings    

Studies of influence in organizational settings have tended to concentrate on defining categories of influence based on self-reports and questionnaires. This has tended to decontextualize and generalize the findings and therefore overlooks the inevitably temporally and locally situated nature of all social activity. Using conversation analysis as a methodology and videotaped data of naturally occurring talk, this article seeks to go beyond such taxonomies of influence. More specifically, this article seeks to provide a fine-grained analysis of how subordinates, as well as superiors, can influence decision-making episodes of talk. It is also argued that the results of such research can be fed back into practice and ultimately can be of help in allowing better decision-making practices.

Clifton, Jonathan. JBC (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Organizational Communication