Choosing Your Words Carefully: Managing 'Face' During On-Line Dispute Resolution

29 Pages Posted: 30 Mar 2008

See all articles by Ray Friedman

Ray Friedman

Vanderbilt University - Organizational Behavior

Mara Olekalns

University of Melbourne - Melbourne Business School

Se Hyung Oh

Vanderbilt University

Date Written: 2007

Abstract

We use politeness theory to predict how language may affect dispute resolution between sellers and buyers of goods purchased on-line. We expect that negative face threats will have a stronger impact than positive face threats on subjects in individualistic cultures, but that the reverse would be true for subjects in collectivist cultures. We report results of our first study, an experiment conducted through eLab focused on Americans. As predicted, negative face attacks by the seller have a stronger impact than positive face attacks on buyer's willingness to do business again with that seller. Data will also be collected from a collectivistic culture shortly.

Suggested Citation

Friedman, Raymond A. and Olekalns, Mara and Oh, Se Hyung, Choosing Your Words Carefully: Managing 'Face' During On-Line Dispute Resolution (2007). IACM 2007 Meetings Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1111637 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1111637

Raymond A. Friedman (Contact Author)

Vanderbilt University - Organizational Behavior ( email )

401 21st Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203
United States
615-322-3992 (Phone)
615-343-7177 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://mba.vanderbilt.edu/faculty/rfriedman.cfm

Mara Olekalns

University of Melbourne - Melbourne Business School ( email )

200 Leicester Street
Carlton, Victoria 3053 3186
Australia
+61 3 9349 8146 (Phone)
+61 3 9349 8133 (Fax)

Se Hyung Oh

Vanderbilt University ( email )

2301 Vanderbilt Place
Nashville, TN 37240
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
185
Abstract Views
1,520
Rank
294,831
PlumX Metrics