Talk-in-interaction in Facilitated and Training Workshops in Organizations: A Summary of Findings from Conversation Analysis

This article presents a summary of the findings of a doctoral study (Rixon, 2011) that used the methodology of Conversation Analysis (CA) to explore talk and physical conduct in two different types of workshops in organizations, specifically a facilitated workshop and a training workshop. Very little empirical research on facilitator talk-in-interaction has been conducted, and it is this deficit which the doctoral thesis aimed to start addressing. A one and a half-day facilitated workshop and a one-day training workshop led by independent consultants and involving medium-sized groups were video recorded and audio recorded. The study was an institutional CA study that pursued two main avenues of research enquiry. First, the institutionality of the workshops was investigated by demonstrating an aspect of the workshop conduct that is distinct from ordinary conversation, namely asymmetry in the participation roles between the parties to the interaction. The workshop leader(s) typically performed initiating actions and the workshop participants typically performed responding actions. Second, two particular institutional tasks in the workshops were analyzed, specifically how the workshop leader managed the transitions into and out of activities performed by the participants in sub group participant configurations (i.e., individually, in pairs, in small groups). It is hoped that by drawing attention to the interactional practices that workshop leaders engage in when leading workshops will help practitioners to reflect upon their practice and be more intentional. As the dataset was comprised of only two workshops, future research could seek to investigate additional instances of either or both types of workshops. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]