Accounting for the right to assign a task in meeting interaction

Abstract

This article analyzes how meeting participants account for their right to assign a work-related task to a colleague in meeting interaction. It focuses on accounts which appeal to benefactive effect, that is, the benefits of the proposed action to the operation of the organization. Such accounts are often formulated as general strategies or policies for action. They are shown to be related to the deontic rights of the participants in that subordinates engage in more extensive accounting practices than do managers. Accounts that evoke other interests than benefits to the organization are shown to be vulnerable to being questioned or rejected. The study thus contributes to understanding how benefactive stance is used for legitimizing requests for institutionally relevant actions.

Spelling out consequences: Conditional constructions as a means to resist proposals in organisational planning process

“…More importantly, the accounts employed tend to bring the benefits of the proposed action for the successful operation of the company into the spotlight, making this the main resource for legitimating. In this regard, Svennevig and Djordjilovic (2015) connect their findings to some earlier studies showing that the composition of requests may vary according to whether the requested action is seen as a part of some common project (Rossi, 2012) and that requests may generally be accounted for by explicating their beneficial effects (Clayman and Heritage, 2014; see also Houtkoop, 1990). …”

“…Svennevig and Djordjilovic, 2015). All in all, the conditional constructions allow the participants to express their negative attitudes towards the proposal without taking an overtly rejecting stance (cf.…”

“…In addition to this, the speakers may explicitly voice the organisational policies in their turns (cf. Svennevig and Djordjilovic, 2015). Looking back on extract 1, for instance, it can be seen how the speaker refers to the 'one encounter principle' (line 4).…”

“…Some other studies have, for their part, investigated decision making and organisational planning, concentrating on actions -such as directives -occurring regularly in workplace meeting interaction (e.g. Asmuß and Oshima, 2012;Stevanovic, 2012;Svennevig and Djordjilovic, 2015; see also Bolander and Sandberg, 2013). Nonetheless, they have largely focused on single conversations where the activities at hand are completed then and there.…”

Social deontics: A nano‐level approach to human power play

“…This is what happens, for example, when a conditional declarative utterance about the speaker's own inclinations, such as “I would do X" (see West, , p. 96), is treated as an order when produced by a highly authoritative person. In this vein, in their study on interaction in organizational meetings, Svennevig and Djordjilovic () described managers' ways of giving their work task assignments for their employees in a form that highlighted the desirability of some action merely from the manager's subjective perspective, instead of emphasizing the necessity of that action from the objective perspective of the company. However, the managers did not seem to risk the employee compliance in any way.…”