ABSTRACT
The easiest way to find out what actually happened, when conducting an investigation, is to get the people who witnessed the conduct to tell the people what they saw and heard. A US public company in the Midwest had acquired a subsidiary in the Northeast. The subsidiary was in the demolition business. All the longtime employees were fiercely loyal to the president. There has been a lot of research done on the effectiveness of witness interview techniques. Relational motives arise in the context of affiliation and interdependence between interviewer and interviewee. Instrumental motives relate to a need to solve a problem. Intense language might include threats, derogatory language, and harsh criticism. Participants in negotiations tend to experience verbal communication convergence as they move toward agreement and divergence as they move away from agreement.
