Studies of bargaining behaviors have drawn largely on a content analysis approach to describe the messages conveyed during negotiations. This article examines this approach to bargaining behaviors and suggests that content analysis cannot account for important aspects of bargaining behavior. Conversation structure provides essential information in the analysis of bargaining behaviors. A total of 30 buyer-seller negotiations were taped, transcribed, and coded, and an exploratory factor analysis was run on the data. The results of the factor analysis suggest that the use of conversation structure to interpret communication in negotiations yields important information inaccessible through content analysis alone.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Angelmar, R. , & Stern, L. W. (1978). Development of a content analytic system for analysis of bargaining communication in marketing. Journal of Marketing Research, 15(1), 93-102.
2.
Berelson, B. (1952). Content analysis in communication research. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
3.
Biber, D. E. (1984). A model of textual relations within the written and spoken modes. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California.
4.
Carney, T. F. (1972). Content analysis. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.
5.
Ericson, F. (1982). Money tree, lasagna bush, salt and pepper: Social construction of topical cohesion in a conversation among Italian-Americans. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing discourse: Text and talk (pp. 43-70). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
6.
Ferrara, A. (1980a). Appropriateness conditions for entire sequences of speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics, 4(4), 321-340.
7.
Ferrara, A. (1980b). An extended theory of speech acts: Appropriateness conditions for subordinate acts in sequences. Journal of Pragmatics, 4(3), 233-252.
8.
Giles, H. , & Smith, P. (1979). Accommodation theory: Optimal levels of convergence. In H. Giles & R. St. Clair (Eds.), Language and social psychology (pp. 45-65). Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.
9.
Goffman, E. (1969a). Strategic interaction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
10.
Goffman, E. (1969b). On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. In A. Lindesmith & A. Strauss (Eds.), Readings in social psychology (pp. 262-281). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
11.
Gorsuch, R. L. (1983). Factor analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
12.
Grabe, W. (1984). Towards defining expository prose within a theory of text construction. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California.
13.
Graham, J. L. (1980). Cross-cultural sales negotiations: A multilevel analysis. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
14.
Graham, J. L. (1985a). The influence of culture on the process of business negotiations: An exploratory study. Journal of International Business Studies, 16(1), 79-94.
15.
Graham, J. L. (1985b). Cross-cultural sales negotiations: A laboratory experiment. Marketing Science, 4(2), 130-146.
16.
Labov, W. , & Fanshel, D. (1977). Therapeutic discourse. New York: Academic Press.
17.
Lederman, L. C. , & Stewart, L. P. (1986). The Marble Company: The design and implementation of a simulation board game. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Communication, Rutgers University.
18.
McLaughlin, M. (1984). Conversation: How talk is organized. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
19.
Neu, J. (1985). A multivariate sociolinguistic analysis of the speech event negotiation. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California.
20.
Neu, J. , Graham, J. L., & Gilly, M. C. (1988). The influence of gender on behaviors and outcomes in a retail buyer-seller negotiation simulation. Working paper, Department of Marketing, School of Business Administration, University of Southern California.
21.
Ochs, E. (1979a). Planned and unplanned discourse. In T. Givon (Ed.), Syntax and semantics: Vol. 12. Discourse and syntax (pp. 51-80). New York: Academic Press.
22.
Ochs, E. (1979b). Transcription as theory. In E. Ochs & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Development pragmatics (pp. 43-72). New York: Academic Press.
23.
Pennington, A. L. (1968). Customer-salesman bargaining behavior in retail transactions. Journal of Marketing Research, 5(August), 255-262.
24.
Prince, E. , Frader, J., & Bosk, C. (1982). On hedging in physician-physician discourse. In J. di Pietro (Ed.), Linguistics and the professions (pp. 83-97). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
25.
Ragan, S. (1983). Alignment and conversational coherence. In R. Craig & K. Tracy (Eds.), Conversational coherence: Form, structure and strategy (pp. 157-171). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
26.
Sacks, H. , Schegloff, E., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696-735.
27.
Schegloff, E. (1982). Discourse as an interactional achievement: Some uses of (uh huh) and other things that come between sentences. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing discourse: Text and talk (pp. 71-93). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
28.
Schegloff, E. , Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53, 361-382.
29.
Schenkein, J. (1978). Transcription notation. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 57-78). New York: Academic Press.
30.
Scherer, K. R. (1979). Personality markers in speech. In K. Scherer & H. Giles (Eds.), Social markers in speech (pp. 147-209). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
31.
Scherer, K. R. , & Giles, H. (1979). Social markers in speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
32.
Schiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
33.
Schurr, P. H. , & Ozanne, J. L. (1985). Influences on exchange processes: Buyers' preconceptions of a seller's trustworthiness and bargaining toughness. Journal of Consumer Research, 11(4), 939-953.
34.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
35.
Shimanoff, S. B. , & Brunak, J. C. (1977). Repairs in planned and unplanned discourse, in E. Ochs-Keenan & T. Bennett (Eds.), Discourse across time and space (Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics, No. 5, pp. 123-167). Los Angeles: University of Southern California, Linguistics Department.
36.
Soldow, G. F. , & Thomas, G. P. (1984). Relational communication: Form versus content in the sales interaction. Journal of Marketing, 48(Winter), 84-93.
37.
Tannen, D. (1982a). Analyzing discourse: Text and talk. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
38.
Tannen, D. (1982b). Oral and literate strategies in spoken and written narratives. Language, 58(1), 1-21.
39.
Tannen, D. (1988). Introduction. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Linguistics in context: Connecting observation and understanding (pp. 1-14). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
40.
Thakerar, J. H. , Giles, H., & Cheshire. J. (1982). Psychological and linguistic parameters of speech accommodation theory. In C. Fraser & K. R. Scherer (Eds.), Advances in the social psychology of language (pp. 205-255). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
41.
van Dijk, T. A. (1977). Text and context, London: Longman.
42.
van Dijk, T. A. (1980). Macrostructures. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
43.
van Dijk, T. A. (1982). Episodes as units of discourse analysis. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Analyzing discourse: Text and talk (pp. 177-195). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
44.
Walker, A. G. (1982). Patterns and implications of cospeech in a legal setting. In J. di Pietro (Ed.), Linguistics and the professions (101-112). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
45.
Wiemann, J. A. (1985). Interpersonal control and regulation in conversation. In R. L. Street & J. N. Cappella (Eds.), Sequence and pattern in communicative behavior (pp. 85-102). London: Edward Arnold.
46.
Wolfson, N. (1976). Speech events and natural speech: Some implications for sociolinguistic methodology. Language in Society, 5, 189-209.
47.
Zimmerman, D. H. , & West, C. (1975). Sex roles, interruptions and silences in conversation. In B. Thorne & N. Henley (Eds.), Language and sex (pp. 105-129). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
