‘Accounts’ in negotiation discourse: A single-case analysis

Abstract

The pragmatic and discursive functions of accounts have been the subject of considerable scholarly attention in recent decades. In their seminal paper, Scott and Lyman (1968)define ‘accounts’ in a retroactive sense, as “statements made to explain unanticipated or untoward behaviour”, and it is overridingly in this regard that accounts have been approached in the literature. However, by attending to the way accounts are interactionally deployed in a single commodity negotiation, it is shown that accounts may also be used in a proactive, creative sense. Accounts, it will be argued, do substantially more than ‘explain’ behaviour and ‘repair’ fractured social interaction. By providing a vocabulary of (organizational) motives, by revealing putative ‘facts’ pertaining to market conditions, and by justifying actions, accounts establish a basis from which organizationally relevant action may be identified, challenged, and discussed. Furthermore, it will be shown that ‘accounting’ is not only a unilateral act but may, at significant junctures in the negotiation, be undertaken multilaterally. This can be seen in the way negotiators ‘share’ the activity of accounting as a method of intimating agreement. In sum, accounts provide mutually accessible (discourse) resources that allow negotiators to undertake their work effectively, i.e., to reach substantive agreement.