The Communication Contract and Its Ten Ground Clauses

Journal of Business Ethics (2009) 87:415–436DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9929-3The Communication Contractand Its Ten Ground ClausesABSTRACT. Global society issues are putting increasingpressure on both small and large organizations to communicate ethically at all levels. Achieving this requiressocial skills beyond the choice of language or vocabularyand relies above all on individual social responsibility.Arguments from social contract philosophy and speech acttheory lead to consider a communication contract thatidentifies the necessary individual skills for ethical communication on the basis of a limited number of explicitclauses. These latter are pragmatically binding for allpartners involved and help to ensure that the ground rulesof cooperative communication are observed within agroup or an organization. Beyond promoting ethicalcommunication, the communication contract clarifieshow individual discursive behaviour can be constructivelyand ethically monitored by group leaders in businessmeetings. A case study which shows what may happenwhen ground clauses of ethical communication are violated is presented. The conclusions of the study highlightswhy attempting to respect the communication contract isin the best interest of all partners at all levels within anygroup or organization.KEY WORDS: philosophical foundations of businessethics, social contract theory, speech act theory, ethicalcommunication, communication contractPurposeExtensive data published by Huang (2004) in thisjournal have shown some of the advantages of sociallyresponsible, cooperative, and symmetrical, in short,ethical, communication for public relations, marketing, and the economic development of largeorganizations. Apart from being politically correct,ethical communication may, indeed, prove a soundbusiness strategy, because it may allow securing longterm benefits that are more valuable to an organization compared with short-term profits obtainedÓ Springer 2008Birgitta Dresp-Langleythrough communication strategies which do not takeinto account ethical core values.Social responsibility is claimed to define one ofthe general ground conditions of ethical communication in the corporate world (see the review articleby Reinsch, 1990). The present article is concernedwith the essential role of individual social responsibility in the sense of ‘‘individual moral agency’’ as inReid’s essays on the active powers of the humanmind (1843), or ‘‘personal agency’’ as in Bandura’ssocial cognitive theory (2001). The special need forindividual respect of a limited number of groundrules of ethical communication at the interpersonallevel is discussed, with particular emphasis on business meetings. The arguments presented defend theidea that communicating ethically with our nearestneighbours or partners is the conditio sine qua nonto give an institution, corporation, or a smallgroup such as a family a chance to ensure that ethicalcore values may eventually be adhered to at a largerscale.To provide the theoretical concepts for thisexercise, some relevant links between the philosophical foundations of social contract theory,speech act theory, and the hypothesis of a communication contract are introduced. Ten pragmaticground clauses, derived from Reid’s essays on moralagency in communication (1843) and Austin’sfelicity conditions for speech acts (1962), are definedand discussed. It is argued that these clauses defineuniversal ground rules of ethical communicationbetween socially responsible individuals. A casestudy example is discussed to show what may happenwhen ethical ground clauses are violated by individuals in a business meeting, and how suchbehaviour can be ethically monitored by leaders tolimit clause violations and their potentially destructive consequences.416Birgitta Dresp-LangleyFrom social contract to communicationcontractWithout society, we would live in a state of naturewithout positive rights and unlimited natural freedom, where anyone can do what they like, forthemselves and to anyone else. To avoid such a stateof ‘‘bellum omnium contra omnes’’ (Hobbes, 1651),we agree as individuals within society to adhere toan implicit contract, a so-called social contract.Through this social contract, we gain rights bygiving up unlimited freedom and by accepting torespect and defend the rights of others. The idea thatall rational beings would inevitably consent to such asocial contract because it is in their own best interestwas first introduced in theoretical essays by philosophers in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, asin Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651) and Rousseau’s DuContrat Social (1762). This philosophical frameworkis now referred to as social contract theory or‘‘contractarianism’’ (e.g. Stanford Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy). In more recent years, social contracttheory has enjoyed renewed success (see Ankerl,1980), in particular in the business ethics literature.Donaldson and Dunfee’s (1994, 1995, 1999) integrative social contract theory has substantially contributed to this success by providing a freshconceptual framework with a new look on contractarian thinking for ethical business managementand modern economics. The term ‘‘integrative’’places emphasis on the general, all-encompassingnature of the social contract as a basic commitmentwith binding obligations, which imply adhering tocertain ethical core values and respecting certainrules of due process.Ethical core valuesSocial contract theory recognizes a general, collective need for adhering to certain ethical core values.Such core values are, in principle, collectivelyacknowledged though not always explicitly formulated. They are derived from philosophical, politicaland economic norms which can be considereduniversal in the sense that they are detached fromspecific cults, religions or beliefs. Ethical core valuesare seen as beneficial to society in general, and to anyindividual who is part of it in particular. Ethical corevalues are non-negotiable. They are the foundationsof ethical standards in society, and of an organization’s commitment to corporate responsibility. Corevalues explicitly listed in modern codes of businessethics almost invariably include: responsibility,integrity, honesty, respect, trust, openness, fairnessand transparency. Translating ethical core values intoaction requires an explicit system of ethical groundrules and principles of due process to ensure thatthese rules are respected.Ethical communication as a contractCommunication between individuals is the mostessential medium for translating ethical core valuesinto action. According to speech act theory (Austin,1962; Reid, 1843; Searle, 1969), an utterance in itselfis an act, a so-called illocutionary act, with its implications and with its consequences. Like a handbringing down a hammer to close a deal at an auctionor to kill, the spoken word may have an impact withsimilar, more or less dramatic, consequences. TheScottish philosopher Thomas Reid, one of thefounders of the School of Common Sense Philosophy, was the first to explicitly state the nature ofparticular speech acts which involve individual moralresponsibility (moral agency). In his essays on theactive powers of the human mind, Reid points outthat a speaker enters into a social contract, which he isexpected to respect, whenever a speech act consists of:••••asking;testifying;commanding andmaking a promise.Reid’s philosophy clarifies why the notion of acommunication contract, which will be defendedhere, follows directly from that of a social contract.Society and any group or organization that is partof it can, indeed, be defined as a community ofcommunicating individuals who agree to adhere toan implicit communication contract (cf. Ghiglione,1997). Through such a communication contract,individuals gain rights by giving up unlimited freedom of expression or speech and by accepting torespect the needs, freedom and rights of expressionand speech of others. In the global corporateworld, the growing trans-national embedding andThe Communication Contract and Its Ten Ground Clausesinterdependence of complex issues such as lifequality, environmental challenges, economic development and sustainability have increased the needfor individual social responsibility. To address theseissues, contemporary sociological theory (see Bandura, 2001) has taken up Reid’s original concept ofindividual moral agency by placing human agency atthe centre of any future capacity of control over thenature and quality of all forms of human existencewithin society, from families to corporations.Responsible communication between individualshas undeniably become one of the most urgent of allcurrent social needs, worldwide.Austin’s (1962) speech act theory not only offers aconceptual approach to the problem of interpersonalcommunication but also leads the way towards anexplicit definition of ethical core values and principles. Subsequent speech act theories (e.g. Searle,1969) have failed to develop this aspect of Austin’swork. Communication theories in general have notexpressed much concern for the question of ethics,and the fundamental link that exists between Austin’s original speech act theory and the philosophy ofethics needs, indeed, to be re-established. To thisend, the concept of a speech situation and the associated felicity conditions will be re-discussed here toclarify that, beyond offering an analysis of unsuccessful speech acts, Austin’s theory addresses groundconditions of ethical communication.Austin’s felicity conditions andthe psychological speech situationAustin’s felicity conditions define critical and interdependent conditions for a speech situation that aresupposed to cause a given speech act to succeedwhen the conditions are fulfilled, and to fail whenthe conditions are not fulfilled. The felicity conditions are as follows:(A.1) There must be an accepted conventionalprocedure that has a certain conventionaleffect and includes the uttering of certainwords by certain persons under certaincircumstances(A.2) The particular persons and circumstancesmust be appropriate for the particular procedure invoked417(B.1) The accepted conventional proceduremust be followed by all participants, bothcorrectly and(B.2) completely(s. 1) When the accepted conventional procedure invoked is designed for persons withcertain thoughts or feelings or for theinauguration of certain consequentialconduct on the part of any participant,then any person participating in the procedure must indeed have those thoughtsor feelings or indeed intend to conductherself/himself accordingly and(s. 2) actually conduct herself/himself accordingly as a consequence.The felicity conditions thus prescribe that, wheneverwe enter a speech situation, we implicitly agree tofollow certain conventions regarding what is said bywhom and when at a first, strictly procedural level(conventionality), to act in a way that ensures thatthese conventions are actualized as part of the realityof the speech situation (actuality), and at a deeperlevel, which is particularly important to the questionof ethics, to formulate sincere intentions accordingto expectations, and to act subsequently in a mannerthat respects the intentions expressed (intentionality).Austin pointed out the difference in nature betweenthe felicity conditions indicated by roman letters Aand B and the felicity conditions indicated by theGreek letter s: non-fulfilment of the proceduralconventionality conditions stated in A and B wouldreflect what he called misexecution of the felicityconditions, whereas non-fulfilment of the intentionality conditions in s would reflect abuse of thefelicity conditions.From misexecution to abuse: the thin line betweenethical and unethical speech actsMisexecution of the felicity conditions is frequent inthe real world of today. A typical case of misexecution would be incorrectly assuming shared procedural conventions with regard to who is supposedto say what and when (conditions stated in A) when,in reality, all participants do not share these conventions. Deliberately (mischievously, provocatively, etc.) not acting according to actually shared418Birgitta Dresp-Langleyprocedural conventions (conditions stated in B) hasalso become frequent in contemporary society,where speaking up when one is not supposed to maybe a deliberate strategic means to a specific end.Austin’s notion of abuse originally referred toinsincerely expressed intentions, or to a sincereintention that is not followed by the professed act.There can be no doubt that a promise utteredwithout the intention of keeping it, or an intentiondeliberately followed by non-action or an action thatis incompatible with the intention expressed, is acase of abuse. On the other hand, a sincere intentionthat is not followed by the professed act may be theconsequence of factors that are beyond the controlof the speaker. In this case, what is potentially abusebecomes a case of incidental non-performance dueto facts that could not be anticipated. Conversely, anapparent misexecution of an accepted convention atthe procedural level might reflect motivated strategicabuse. In such a case, the abuser would be aware ofthe accepted convention, knows what he/she issupposed to say or not and when, but deliberatelyviolates the convention to an end only he/she maybe aware of. TV footages of G. W. Bush’s address tothe public on Independence Day 2008 feature several such examples, where members of the publicdeliberately interrupt the speaker, thereby violatingthe convention to keep quiet while being addressed.In the light of these considerations, it becomes clearwhy speech situations, especially in the modernworld, refer to a complex psychological space. Thispsychological space exists only through the motivations and intentions which underlie the utterancesmade. Thus, when I speak to you, I am performing aspeech act with underlying psychological motivations and intentions. These motivations or intentionsare not necessarily made clear through the speechact. Whether or not felicity conditions are fulfilled,accidentally misexecuted, or deliberately abused in agiven speech situation requires more than an analysisof the logical structure of speech acts.In his book on existentialism, the French philosopher Sartre (1945) proposed the psychologicalconcept of bonne foi (good faith) as opposed to that ofmauvaise foi (bad faith) to provide a universal definition for fundamentally ethical human acts, particularly speech acts, as opposed to fundamentallyunethical ones: whenever we pretend in speech ordirect action to be what we are not, to think or feelwhat we do not, we are acting in bad faith andtherefore unethically. Conversely, when our speechor action is true to what we genuinely are, think,and feel, we are acting in good faith and thereforeethically.Misexecution of a felicity condition in speech actsmay be accidental, in which case it does not involvebad faith. Accidental misexecution may cause aspeech act to fail its purpose, but is not unethical.Misexecution of a felicity condition may be deliberate, such as deliberately provoking a speaker in amanner that violates an accepted convention.Deliberate misexecution is not necessarily unethical,especially when caused in good faith. When, forexample, a hearer interrupts a speaker against anaccepted convention because he/she perceives thespeaker’s utterances as unacceptable, the hearermisexecutes the accepted convention, but does so ingood faith. While such behaviour has a disruptiveeffect, it is not by definition unethical. On the otherhand, any deliberate misexecution that involves badfaith, such as for example interrupting a speakeragainst the accepted convention with the sole intentto cause trouble is, by definition, unethical.Abuse of a felicity condition in Austin’s senseinvolves bad faith by definition. It is therefore bydefinition unethical. In the light of these considerations, we propose the following general definitionof an unethical speech act: ‘‘any utterance motivatedby psychological forces that involve bad faith andlead to misexecution and/or abuse of at least one ofAustin’s felicity conditions’’.The psychological speech situationHow can we know for sure whether people weinteract with are communicating in good or badfaith? Grice (1975, 1981), among others, describeddevious speech scenarios where a hearer may act inbad faith, by taking for granted that a speaker respects the felicity conditions, to gain the warrant tointerpret the speaker’s utterances accordingly. Aspeaker may act in bad faith by strategically abusingthe felicity conditions to all kinds of ends. This leadsto contaminated speech situations where communication may appear ethical at the surface, but is inreality devious, the felicity conditions being deliberately abused at all levels. This explains why tryingThe Communication Contract and Its Ten Ground Clausesto identify the intentions that motivate utterances orspeech acts by analysing the logical structure ofspeech sequences is, as Haberland and Mey (2002)put it, looking for traces in a petrified product. Anysimple sequence of seemingly straightforward speechacts may reflect a psychologically complex speechsituation, the true nature of which may remain unknown to the outsider listening in. This can beshown through the following scenario, originallygiven in Clark and Brennan (1991) as an example toexplain that common semantic ground needs to bebuilt and updated in a conversation:Alan: now, – um, do you and your husbandhave a – car?Barbara: – have a car?Alan: yeahBarbara: noClark and Brennan (1991) argued that it is obvious from this sequence of utterances that Alan didnot effectively manage to ask Barbara whether sheand her husband have a car because Barbara indicatesby her question ‘‘– have a car?’’ that she has notunderstood Alan. The authors consider this sequenceof utterances as an example for ineffective communication (Clark and Schaefer, 1987; Sacks et al.,1974; Schegloff, 1982; Schegloff et al., 1977);however, without any insight into the psychologicalcontext in which the utterances were produced,such as the kind of relationship between Alan andBarbara and what may have motivated theirrespective utterances, one cannot explain why Alan’sspeech act was unsuccessful.Now, let us consider the same sequence ofutterances in the light of the following (fictive)psychological speech situation. Alan and Barbara arecolleagues who work on the same floor. Barbaraloves her garden and flowers and spends a lot of timetaking care of them. Alan is aware of Barbara’spassion for gardening. His car broke down thismorning and he wants to find someone to give him alift into town. When leaving the office, he bumpsinto Barbara who is having a cup of coffee and isreading a gardening magazine in the lobby. Alanstarts a brief conversation with her about how hergarden is doing and whether she has planted any newflowers yet. After a few exchanges on the gardeningmatter, he suddenly utters:419Alan: now, – um, do you and your husbandhave a – car?Barbara: – have a car?Alan: yeahBarbara: noThis psychological speech situation sheds, indeed,a completely new light on the utterances made and,more importantly, on the motivations behind them.It is now obvious that Alan’s primary motivation totalk to Barbara was to find someone with a car to givehim a lift. To gain Barbara’s attention, Alan used hisknowledge of Barbara’s passion for gardening andinvolved her in a conversation about flowers. Then,without any reason that could possibly have beenclear to Barbara in the context given, he abruptly asksher whether she and her husband have a car. Barbaradelays responding to Alan by asking him to confirmhis question: ‘‘– have a car?’’ In the fictive contextconsidered, it is most likely that she does so not because she has not understood Alan, but because she issurprised and may be even quite shocked about thenature of Alan’s question, or the abrupt manner inwhich he brought it up. In fact, what Barbara doesnot understand is not Alan’s question or the meaningof his utterance. What she does not understand is themotivation behind the question. In fact, Alan has notcommunicated as ethically as he could have. In thecontext given, his incongruous utterance aboutBarbara and her husband having a car is unrelated tothe initial topic of their conversation. Also, it fails tomake clear to Barbara why the utterance should berelevant at all, to either her or himself. Moreover,Alan has not been entirely sincere with Barbara bypretending to be interested in her garden and herflowers while the first thing on his mind was, inreality, to find out whether she and her husband havecar and could maybe give him a lift into town. Alanhas, indeed, spoken in bad faith. He has deliberatelyand in bad faith misexecuted Austin’s first felicitycondition relative to actuality and abused the firstfelicity condition relative to intentionality. Expressedin terms of the model that will now be introduced, hehas violated three ground clauses of his implicitcommunication contract with Barbara: the continuity clause, the relevance clause and, to some extent,the sincerity clause.The communication contract model with tenbinding ground clauses as stipulated is schematized inBirgitta Dresp-Langley420Figure 1. These clauses encompass and extendAustin’s original felicity conditions by adapting themto the communication needs of modern societywith, however, the major aim of exercising controlover any severe form of misexecution and/or abuseof any of the original felicity conditions. It is arguedthat ensuring that respecting these ten simple groundconditions ensures ethical communication at theinterpersonal level, in particular in business meetings, where a moderator may be designed to monitorthe speech situation.The ten ground clausesof the communication contractThe ten ground clauses of the communicationcontract proposed here to ensure ethical communication are as follows:THE COMMUNICATION CONTRACTPartners and expectations at outsetEthical Ground Clausessincerityrelevancecontinuityclarityprudencetoleranceopennessprompt resolutionbalanced speech timesoptimal timingViolation of clausesRespect of clausesDecision making qualitySatisfaction of partners at outcomeFigure 1. The communication contract model is basedon ten ground clauses that are pragmatically binding forall communicating beings. They encompass and extendAustin’s (1962) felicity conditions, as explained in thetext. It is stipulated that non-respect or deliberate violation of any of these clauses incurs an intangible cost.The weight of the latter can be assessed indirectly onthe basis of the level of satisfaction of communicatingpartners at the end of a conversation or a meeting (seethe case study presented here).Sincerity clauseThe sincerity clause stipulates that all partners areto honestly communicate according to the best oftheir knowledge, without deliberately omitting,hiding or falsifying knowledge or intentions thatare relevant to the issue of their interaction. It isthe conditio sine qua non for all of Austin’s felicityconditions relating to intentionality. In his book‘L’homme communiquant’ (1997), the French philosopher, psychologist and linguist Ghiglionedescribed the psychological problem spaceaddressed by the sincerity clause in terms of acomplex domain between inadequate facts andstraightforward lies. Violations of the sincerityclause can engender a heavy cost in communication. They may lead to a total breakdown ofconstructive information exchange and therebyseverely jeopardize the outcome of any relationshipbetween people in the shorter or longer term.Identifying and preventing violations of the sincerity clause in the discursive behaviour of communicating partners is generally difficult, oftenimpossible. Human beings omit communicating, orlie about, facts or intentions for many differentreasons and in many different, often subtle, deviousways. They may sometimes not even be consciousof doing so. The goal here is neither to address thereasons why people may be insincere nor to makejudgemental statements about liars or suggestmeasures that would allow sorting out who tellsthe truth and who does not. The goal of an explicit sincerity clause is to make individuals awarethat it is in their own best interest to be sincereand honest when they communicate. As our fictiveexample above shows, by not being sincere withBarbara about his true motivations, Alan created animmediate grounding problem (Clark and Brennan,1991) in their convers…