With increasing demand for accounting professionals, audit firms are banking on universities to provide graduates equipped with technical know-how and critical English skills. This explains heightened employer concern over the business English skills of new hires, prompting questions on adequacy and relevance of English taught in universities. Hence, this study probes into English skills necessary for new accountants in audit firms. Human resource directors of top audit firms in the Philippines describe the relevant skills in the workplace tasks of entry-level employees. Findings present a model of key English skills that provide leverage to accounting graduates in the Philippines.

Written clarity and conciseness are desired by employers and emphasized in business communication courses. We developed and tested the efficacy of a cueing tool—Scribe Bene—to help students reduce their use of imprecise and ambiguous words and wordy phrases. Effectiveness was measured by comparing cue word usage between a treatment group given the tool and a control group without the tool. In written assignments, the treatment group used 16 of 23 cue words significantly less than the control group and this effect persisted over time. Implications for using automated cueing tools in teaching written communication skills are discussed.

Aspects of research and pedagogy from the public relations discipline can benefit the business and professional communication instructor seeking new dimensions for the business and professional communication classroom. Elements of public relations (PR) found in Association for Business Communication articles and journals may be incorporated in the business and professional communication curriculum, but we lack a systematic overview of the overlaps between PR and business communication theory and practice. This article is a practical guide for instructors wanting to add PR content to their curriculum. It presents respective theoretical origins, media reliance similarities, common perspectives, overlaps of academic challenges for legitimacy and respectability, and potential classroom applications.

This article considers how professional writing courses can prepare students in various disciplines for the workforce. Specifically, I argue for Writing in the Disciplines (WID) internships where students learn to write documents relevant for their careers while participating in practical work experiences. In the WID internships I describe, instructors collaborate with coordinators across campus to establish writing-intensive internships that focus on the needs of students and the community partner. This article illustrates the collaborative endeavors of three internships, highlighting the challenges and lessons learned from WID internships.

This study examines previously untested variables that influence social loafing in professional and technical communication group projects by determining the influence of communication quality and task cohesion on social loafing. A set-up factors model, which included group size, peer review, project scope, and method of team formation, was also tested for means of comparison. The results indicated the communication quality and task cohesion model significantly reduced social loafing, explaining 53% of the variance in social loafing. The model of set-up factors only explained about 4% of the variance. The article discusses instructional strategies that foster quality communication to reduce loafing.

PowerPoint is a dominant communication tool in business and education. It allows for creating professional-looking presentations easily, but without understanding its constraining qualities it can be used inappropriately. Therefore we conducted a systematic literature review structuring the literature on PowerPoint in three chronological phases ( Early Criticism, Heated Debate, and Scientific Take-Off) and identifying 18 constraining qualities classified into three categories: cognitive, emotional, and social. This article provides implications for educators’ and practitioners’ use (and nonuse) of PowerPoint through synthesis and description of such constraining qualities. Directions for future research are developed by identifying theoretical gaps in literature on PowerPoint.

Supervisor communication competence and leadership style were used to predict specific employee outcomes. In the study, 276 participants working in various industries completed measures of communication competence and leadership styles about their direct supervisor along with measures of their job satisfaction, motivation, and organizational commitment. As predicted, effective and appropriate communication were both positively related to satisfaction, motivation, and organizational commitment. Furthermore, task- and relations-oriented leadership styles were both positively related to all three employee outcomes as well. Finally, regression analysis determined that effective communication and relations-oriented leadership were the best predictors of satisfaction, motivation, and organizational commitment.

Our assessment research suggests that quantitative business courses that rely primarily on algorithmic problem solving may not produce the deep learning required for addressing real-world business problems. This article illustrates a strategy, supported by recent learning theory, for promoting deep learning by moving students gradually from “well-structured” algorithmic problems with single correct answers to “ill-structured” real-world business problems that may have multiple correct answers and require an argument addressed to a specific audience. We show how these scaffolded communication assignments promote deep learning, and suggest ways that interested faculty can adapt the assignments to their own courses.

PowerPoint has received much criticism regarding excessive use of text and the lack of contact with the audience. Why presenters use PowerPoint in this way has not been studied so far. Our study using interviews with beginning and advanced presenters shows that some use the program as a speaking note and as a means to draw the attention away from themselves. Some even think that PowerPoint can replace rhetorical skills. Slides are mainly designed on the basis of commonsense, instead of guidelines based on human information processing. Implications for the teaching of PowerPoint use in business communication are discussed.

This article, the second of a two-part series, features 11 teaching innovations presented at the 2014 Association for Business Communication annual conference. These 11 assignments included leadership and other-focused communication—detecting communication style, adaptive communication, personality type, delivering feedback, problem solving, and critical thinking—and projects—analytic reports, presentation, slide deck creation, visual tools, ethics, team communication, field observation and reporting, rhetoric, persuasion, advertising messages strategies, delivering bad news, reporting financial data, and cross-cultural and international communication. Additional teaching materials—including instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, grading rubrics, frequently asked questions, and sample student projects—are posted on the Association for Business Communication website http://businesscommunication.org/assignments .

As an alternative approach to web preproduction, I propose the use of concept maps for invention of website projects in business and professional writing courses. This mapping device approximates our students’ initial site plans since rough ideas are formed based on a substantial exploratory technique. Incorporated in various disciplines, the construction of concept maps leads to better flowcharts and more structured wireframes for web development.

This case study examined the extent to which expected Gen Y traits surfaced in a well-managed U.S. company. The results indicate that certain Gen Y traits typically regarded as undesirable in the workplace are especially persistent, even in an optimal organizational setting, but others are not. The findings also reveal both expected and unexpected attitudes on the part of the Gen X and Boomer employees and managers. Such studies can help us move beyond generational stereotyping to more accurate, context-sensitive advice about cross-generational communication.

In this article, we outline a competency-based approach to teaching business communication. At the heart of this approach, classroom instruction, assignments, and evaluation center on a goals-oriented and receiver-centric understanding of communication in which students are taught strategies for meeting five core competencies of business communication: professional, clear, concise, evidence driven, and persuasive. This is not a reinvention of the curriculum but instead a pivot that positions existing disciplinary knowledge and best practices into a clear, memorable, and professionally oriented framework to help students build critical communication skills that can be applied strategically across a range of business situations.

This article, the first of a two-part series, catalogs teaching innovations from the 2014 Association for Business Communication Annual Conference. These 12 assignments debuted during two My Favorite Assignment sessions. Learning experiences included job-seeking skills—résumé writing, writing job applications, sharpening interview skills, interview performance feedback via video, peers, and handheld mirrors and communication tools—creating effective graphs, charts and figures, interactive web-based communication, crafting PowerPoint slides, managing communication anxiety via the web, and corporate social media strategy/tactics. Additional teaching materials—instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, grading rubrics, frequently asked questions, and sample student projects—are posted on http://businesscommunication.org/assignments .

We examined how 106 early-career professionals constructed video change messages involving a ban on remote working. These professionals constructed three types of statements: vision statements, direct change statements, and indirect change statements. Professionals with higher assertive-directing motivational values tended to first construct vision statements and secondly construct direct change statements, whereas professionals higher in analytic-autonomizing motivational values tended to first construct indirect change statements and secondly construct direct change statements. Overall, early-career professionals displayed strong group orientation in their rationale for change and low directness in communicating change.

Hostile challenges to planned organization change are common and challenging to deal with effectively. Little research has explained successful responses to such stakeholder hostility. To address this gap, we use the concept of readiness to characterize the content of hostile challenges. We also use rhetorical strategies based on speech act theory to describe options for responding to those challenges. Because change agents must choose among multiple strategies, we continue a line of research investigating relative preferences among them. Ultimately, our aim is to offer six lessons for change agents who face hostile challenges based on evidence from research.

This article examines the development and implementation of a strategic cultural change program from a case study perspective. Initially, the article describes how the program was developed, including an explanation as to how a communication component was integrated into the program from inception. This integration helped reduce the anxiety that change programs traditionally initiate. Additionally, the article examines preliminary findings captured during the program’s implementation. These findings provide generalized insights about ways communication, strategy, and cultural change programs interact. As such, the findings provide real-world support that communication facilitates organizational change.

This article investigates whether CEOs actually demonstrate the communication strengths and weaknesses they think they have. Videotaped interviews with CEOs in the initial stage of executive coaching were analyzed to identify categories of communication strength and weakness: delivery, content, audience, and character. Next, the interviews and transcriptions were coded to track use of rhetorical formats, delivery stress, disfluencies, and timing. Speakers who identified themselves as having both delivery and content strengths or weaknesses differed significantly from the other CEOs. This has important implications for the study of impromptu communication, executive coaching, and business communication.

This study tests the recognition of errors in context and whether the presence of errors affects the reader’s perception of the writer’s ethos. In an experimental, posttest only design, participants were randomly assigned a memo to read in an online survey: one version with errors and one version without. Of the six intentional errors in version one, on average, readers only noticed two errors, which suggests that readers notice some but not all errors. The ethos ranking for the writer was also statistically significant between the two versions, suggesting that the presence of errors can affect the writer’s ethos.

This study aims to show the effectiveness of a business communication course offered in a business school in India. All students who enrolled for the Master of Business Administration program in the school were considered for the study. The study adapted a pretest and posttest approach to find the effectiveness of the course. It also describes the curriculum offered and methodology followed in the school. The results show that the course was effective in improving the oral communication skills of the students. The study also discusses the implications for business schools, faculty, and students.

In this study, teams in a strategic management classroom were given one of two versions of an assignment related to the development of a team contract: independent individual reflections on desired team behaviors versus team-level reflections on desired behavioral norms. Results of a multivariate analysis of covariance, controlling for gender and individual prior achievement, indicated that teams who engaged in team-level reflection on desired team behavioral norms did not report higher teamwork satisfaction than those who had engaged in individual-level reflection on desired norms, but did report higher team effectiveness, effectiveness of their team member evaluation tool, and higher project scores.

With the widespread popularity of distance learning, there is a need to investigate elements of online courses that continue to pose significant challenges for educators. One of the challenges relates to creating and managing group projects. This study investigated business students’ perceptions of group work in online classes. The constructs of learning and social interaction, process satisfaction, product satisfaction, and use of technology in the virtual learning environment were investigated. The use of social media networks by group participants was also examined. Recommendations are provided for business educators looking to develop or enhance teamwork in virtual learning environments.

The pressing need to bridge the gap between workplace communicative needs and curriculum development of business English courses has been documented in the literature. Through a questionnaire survey of 215 working adults, this study examines (a) the spoken and written needs of professionals in the local Hong Kong workplace, (b) the challenges they meet, (c) what they perceive as the most difficult spoken and written communication means, and (d) professionals’ concerns about the course content to make such courses effective. This article provides insights into what constitutes an effective business English course and facilitates the teaching and learning of business English.

Organizations are increasingly using social media to improve their internal communication. When successfully implemented, such initiatives can have a dramatic impact on internal efficiency, team collaboration, innovation, organizational alignment, and cultural transformation. This article describes a course offered by the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, on the use of social media for internal business communication that can be modified for Bachelor of Business Administration or Master of Business Administration students. The authors describe the pedagogy behind the course design, provide a course description, and discuss social media/communication consulting projects conducted in the class.

The aim of this article is to study employees’ discursive construction of disparate survivor responses. The analysis reveals how employees position themselves simultaneously within different types of categories by use of discursive actions. Drawing on various discourses, the actors reject having one solid core of identity and instead signal the existence of various flexible identities. The article contributes to a greater understanding of the importance of discourse within organizational change. An increased managerial sensitivity toward employee discourse may help to understand why employees obstruct organizational changes and subsequently make it easier to preempt and handle such reactions.

Crisis has affected businesses worldwide. Many international corporations must cope with this turmoil, which affects their economic liability. Firms express their actual financial situation in the annual reports they issue every year. The annual report is a document that combines both promotional and informative features. Our study tries to find out how companies from two different countries (United States and Spain) deal with the issue of crisis in difficult times through their annual report. Additionally, and from a pedagogical perspective, we discuss the benefits of using the annual report in the teaching of writing for our students.

In this article, we describe a project in which undergraduate business seniors at a university in the Arabian Gulf created or evaluated the chapters of an iBook as part of their final course in business communication. Students were surveyed throughout the project, and they also participated in a focus group discussion at the end. The aim was to evaluate their experience with learning from a peer-generated iBook and to identify any motivating factors behind it. The study showed that incorporating mobile learning into the business communication classroom was highly meaningful for the students involved for a range of different reasons.

Employees often perceive periods of change—no matter how warranted or beneficial—as crises, exhibiting both cognitive and emotional reactions including feelings of insecurity and uncertainty, even fear, chaos, stress, betrayal, grief, and anger. Management must have a clear strategy for communicating with employees through change, as employee expectations for open and honest communication are increased in times of shift and uncertainty. Open, honest, and regular communication is essential to keeping employees motivated and productive. Benefits of effective communication in times of change include higher employee satisfaction and engagement, lower turnover, and stronger long-term commitment. Solid internal relationships also strengthen ethics-related outcomes such as fraud reduction and reputation management.

This article explores how rhetorical myth can be used as a tool for persuading employees to accept change and to maintain consensus during the process. It defines rhetorical myth using three concepts: chronographia (a rhetorical interpretation of history), epideictic prediction (defining a present action by assigning praise and blame to both past and future), and communal markers (using Burkean identification and rhetorically defined boundary objects to define a community). The article reports on a 3-year ethnographic study that documents the development of a rhetorical myth at Iowa State University’s Printing Services department as it underwent changes to its central software system.

This article, the second in a two-part series, catalogs teaching innovations presented at the 2013 Association for Business Communication Annual Convention, New Orleans. They were presented during the My Favorite Assignment session. The 11 Favorite Assignments featured here offer the reader a variety of learning experiences, including collaborative teamwork, debate, budgets, cross-cultural communication, report writing, persuasion, not-for-profit organization, client communication, and writing funding proposals. Additional teaching materials—including instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, grading rubrics, frequently asked questions, and sample student projects—are posted on the Association for Business Communication web page http://businesscommunication.org/assignments .

There is universal agreement among educators in the academy and managers in the workplace that critical thinking skills are essential for success at all levels. Over a century ago, the American sociologist William Graham Sumner defined what we now call critical thinking as “the examination and test of propositions of any kind which are offered for acceptance, in order to find out whether they correspond to reality or not.” He further argued that “it is our only guarantee against delusion, deception, superstition, and misapprehension of ourselves and our earthly circumstances,” and education “teaches us to act by judgment” (Sumner, 1906, pp. 632-633). Hiring managers have long recognized how important critical thinking is in their talent searches. Wall Street Journal reporter Marisa Taylor (2010) argued that “while the ability to think critically is, well, critical in the workplace, employers have long complained that many of the young college graduates they hire seem to lack this skill.” Taylor continued by noting that

In this study, we examined 11 workplaces to determine how they handle termination documentation, an empirically unexplored area in technical communication and rhetoric. We found that the use of termination documentation is context dependent while following a basic pattern of infraction, investigation, intervention, and termination. Furthermore, the primary audience of the documentation is typically legal and regulatory bodies, not the employee. We also make observations about genre, collaboration, and authorship in these documents.

This nationwide study of 169 business communication instructors examines the following issues: (a) ideal and actual class sizes in business communication courses, (b) delivery modes of business communication courses, (c) types of written and oral assignments, and (d) topics covered and depth of coverage. Findings suggest that business communication course offerings are growing on the national stage. The vast majority of class sizes have stayed the same or gotten smaller. One significant change over the past 5 years is the increased focus on interpersonal communication and teamwork. While some courses offer significant coverage of social media, the majority does not.

Critical thinking is an essential component of managerial literacy, yet business school graduates struggle to apply critical-thinking skills at work to the level that employers desire. This article argues for a dispositional approach to teaching critical thinking, rooted in cultivating a critical-thinking culture. We suggest a two-pronged approach of (a) clearly defining critical thinking and selecting an accessible model for applying it and (b) integrating critical thinking consistently throughout the business curriculum. We illustrate implementation of this strategy in our revised MBA curriculum and conclude by challenging others to consider adopting a cultural and dispositional approach.

Typical business communication courses provide significantly more opportunities for students to hone their skills in writing compared with speaking. This article outlines an impromptu speech assignment and explains a course-level strategy for providing each student with more than 30 significant speaking opportunities during a term. This approach has proven to be surprisingly popular as students observe a remarkable transformation in their confidence and competence with presentational speaking. Teaching strategies, assignment guidelines, results, and additional resources are presented.

Business, like many other fields in higher education, continues to rely largely on conventional testing methods for assessing student learning. In the current article, another evaluation approach—the oral exam—is examined as a means for building and evaluating the professional communication and oral dialogue skills needed and utilized by business graduates. Prior studies of oral exams in higher education are reviewed, along with the empirical findings from an exploratory investigation of an oral exam in an undergraduate human resource course. Implications for future research and the use of oral exams in business education are also presented.

The intercultural divides in values, perceptions, and interpretations of concepts have been studied extensively by international business and intercultural communication scholars. Consequentially, much effort in university classrooms is spent on focusing on the differences between groups and on finding ways to “manage” cultural diversity. What is often missed is the common ground among cultural groups and the differences within what are presumed to be homogenous groups of students. To negotiate this complexity of diversity, we describe an initiative to foster collaborative student-led analyses of a case study to open up meaningful discussions around diversity.

This case study, an example of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) research, explores student motivations to collaborate with both peer teams and community partners in a service-learning course. Written by one instructor and three undergraduates, the article draws on personal narratives, student reflections, and a postcourse student survey. Our experiences and findings suggest that in courses like these positive extrinsic factors motivate students to collaborate in ways that the extrinsic motivators in typical assignments do not, helping to foster trust and shared goals. We also share our work as an example of how to include student voices in SoTL work.