Interaction Analysis: A Tool for Understanding Negotiations

This paper explains how interaction analysis, a methodology from the communication literature in which oral messages are systematically coded and analyzed, can extend existing methods of analyzing negotiations. Previous applications of this technique to bargaining interaction have focused principally on the frequency distribution of various messages, but recent statistical developments have made possible the analysis of sequences or patterns of messages. This paper explains the procedures of interaction analysis and how certain economic bargaining theories can be examined with this technique. The authors code the transcript of a labor-management negotiation, using two coding schemes, and analyze the results with Markov chain analysis. The results illustrate how interaction analysis can provide supplementary data for examining questions about the negotiation process that have been difficult to address in traditional industrial relations research.