Short Note—Revisiting Formality in Contemporary Business Interaction: A Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Formality is better than its reputation. Formality may accomplish and sustain shared attention, execute events in an orderly and fair manner and secure broad and relevant participation. Formality is moreover not rigid and binary. It is relative, dynamic, co-constructed, and locally negotiated. It may provide proactive solutions to complexities in contemporary institutional interactions and may support participants’ orientation toward specific goals. This paper presents a conceptual framework for the concept of formality in social interaction. The paper proposes that formality is analyzed according to six dimensions: structural–episodic; preemptive–remedial; stipulated–taken-for-granted; instructed–questioned; scripted–negotiated; and excessive–granular. It takes a conversation analytic approach to video or audio recordings of real-life contemporary business interaction, both co-located and mediated via information and communication technology. As a wide-ranging and multifaceted set of instruments, formality may be used beyond institutional goal-orientation to include and exclude, to create transparency or lack thereof, and to promote or block (un)just powers. The practical implication is therefore to encourage a reflexive practice that promotes transparency by allowing for the participants to negotiate the formality of a situation. To formulate and explain formality may serve to include lay people in institutional procedures and place the participants on a more equal footing. Being aware of how to increase and decrease formality, episodically as well as structurally, makes it possible to question and redesign layers of formality in institutional processes, procedures, and encounters.