THE BUSINESS OF TALK: MEETINGS AS OCCASIONED ORGANIZATIONAL EVENTS (SOCIOLOGY, SOCIOLINGUISTICS, ETHNOMETHODOLOGY)

This study examines the reflexive relationship between talk in organizational settings and the accomplishment of that organization. Organizational talk is seen as both embedded in and reflexive of the occasioned event of which it is a part (Garfinkel, 1967) It is, therefore, both the topic of this research and a resource for gaining insight into everyday interaction in organizational settings (Zimmerman and Pollner, 1970).; The point of departure for this project is Gidden's (1979) observation that social structure itself is both a resource for and product of social interaction, coupled with Maynard and Wilson's (1980) proposal that this reflexive interplay is located in the turn-by-turn development of interaction.; Using the methods of conversation analysis, I explore the organization of sequentially-accomplished structural and interactional features of talk in organizations by examining routine meetings. The materials used are audio-recordings in three organizational settings: a university administration, a local radio station, and the Oval Office of the White House during the Kennedy Administration. The interaction order of meetings is seen to be reflexively tied to the organization at the level of turn-by-turn talk (Goffman, 1983a). Meetings are occasioned organizational events in the sense that, whether formal or informal, they and their interdepartmental members move along organizationally-relevant agendas in an "enacted environment" (Weick, 1969). Conversational coalitions, as well as debates, are accomplished sequentially and incrementally across time and space.; Rigorous analysis of transcripts uncovers the recurring and recursive properties of everyday talk, through which organizational members do the work (Gronn, 1983; Giddens, 1984). It is through and with these everyday structures of social action, achieved interactionally, the organization itself is produced and reproduced (Giddens, 1979). Context-embedded procedures of conversation, such as questions and answers, providing reports, taking positions, querying action and so forth, will be demonstrated, in this study, to be both structurally-located and interactionally-managed by meeting members along organizationally-relevant lines. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)...