Doing disagreement in the decision-making process of formal meetings

: a conversation-analytic study of interactions between colleagues in a medical laboratory

Abstract

This thesis investigates the decision-making process in formal meetings at a medical laboratory in Hong Kong. It first identifies and describes the phases in decisionmaking sequences in order to provide a general picture of the paths from raising an issue to its solution at the meetings under investigation. It then zooms in to examine how disagreements are expressed during the decision-making process. The analysis focuses on the design features and the sequential placement of the upward and downward disagreement turns produced by the meeting participants and the chair respectively. The analysis is based on eleven meetings, amounting to about twelve hours of audiorecordings. The major methodology for analysis is Conversation Analysis. In addition, interviews and field study are also conducted to collect ethnographic information necessary for the interpretation of the meeting data. The findings show that a decision-making sequence goes through three phases: the proposal phase, the negotiation phase and the decision phase. The process begins with a proposal put forward by the meeting chair or a meeting participant. Then, a lengthy discussion often takes place during the negotiation phase before a decision is reached. During this phase, the colleagues may either give opinions to the proposal or request information about the proposal. The chair will then announce the decision or ratify it if it is tacitly made by another meeting participant. However, a decision may be postponed if no consensus can be reached due to divergent opinions on the proposal, or insufficient information for judging the soundness of the proposal. The ways of doing disagreement are analysed in two directions: upward disagreements are those made towards the chair's proposal, and downward disagreements are those made by the chair towards a meeting participant's proposal. Four sequential positions are identified for upward disagreement: 1) after the chair's proposal; 2) after the chair's pursuit of response to her proposal; 3) after an initial upward disagreement from another participant and 4) after an agreement from another participant. The analysis of the features of the upward disagreement turns reveals that: 1) the meeting participant's disagreements are usually tacitly expressed through turns that either state a fact, ask a question or propose a counter-suggestion in order to let the chair and other participants infer a possible disagreement ; 2) explicit upward disagreement turns with a disagreeing component are the least frequent, and are often produced after delay and with mitigating devices; and 3) the disagreeing component in the disagreement turn is often delayed by other components in the turn. Downward disagreements, on the other hand, are found in two sequential positions: 1) after a proposal by a meeting participant and 2) after a meeting participant's defense of the proposal. In contrast to upward disagreement, the most frequent downward disagreement turns contain an explicit disagreeing component and are often produced without delay although with mitigating devices. The downward disagreement may be also tacitly expressed through stating a fact or giving a possible scenario which leave the meeting participants to infer a possible disagreement from the chair. The institutional role of the meeting chair is argued to be the factor contributing to the differences between upward and downward disagreement. The expectation of having a clear indication of what to do from the head of the laboratory and the duty of regulating the flow of discussion within a time constraint during meetings entitle the chair to make disagreement explicitly without delay.

Date of Award	3 Oct 2012
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Wei ZHANG (Supervisor)