Establishing joint decisions in a dyad

Abstract

This study analyzes joint decisions. Drawing on video-recorded planning meetings in a workplace context as data, and on conversation analysis as a method, I investigate what is needed for a proposal to get turned into a joint decision: how do people negotiate the outcome of the decision-making processes in terms of whether they indeed comprise new decisions and whether these decisions are really joint ones? This study identifies three essential components in arriving at joint decisions (access, agreement, commitment), and discusses two other possible outcomes of decision-making processes—non-decisions, and unilateral decisions—as being a direct result of the deployment of the same components. These observations help explain the exact mechanisms involved in approving and rejecting proposals in joint decision-making settings, as well as the ways in which people may negotiate their rights and obligations to participate in decision-making processes.