Job interviews require applicants to demonstrate two things: experience with direct value to the company and a fit with the team and company culture. A technique is detailed demonstrating how to develop this argument based on aligning credentials with corporate interests, developing advocacy-based themes, and synthesizing material into a convenient study guide. Designed for instruction in either the college classroom or corporate training center, the approach provides professional communication students with a unique, practical, and personally meaningful learning exercise assessing rhetorical situations, examining rhetorical constructs, and delivering persuasive arguments.

Artificial intelligence assignments lead this article’s 11 teaching innovations selected from the My Favorite Assignments presented at the 2023 Association for Business Communication’s Annual International Conference held in Denver, Colorado. USA. Pedagogy presented here also includes ideas to enhance student engagement and techniques to transform learning via gamification.

Using an evaluative approach within a professional communication service course, we used student documents and instructor feedback to uncover how students and instructors were understanding the rhetoric student learning outcome (SLO). Because rhetoric is central to the course, our driving questions were, Can we locate language that actualizes the rhetoric SLO in student documents? How does faculty feedback articulate the rhetoric SLO to facilitate effective revision? Overall, we found that whether identifying rhetoric in student documents or instructor feedback, the interpretation was varied and opens up room in pedagogical practices. We offer three implications for teaching: enhancing attention to teaching rhetoric, improving assignment design, and focusing on professional development for faculty.

Communication instructors have long insisted on the importance of audience adaptation. But they have said less about (a) the dimensions along which adaptation might proceed or (b) how a student might learn the art of adapting. In this article, I contribute toward addressing these two deficiencies. I suggest a dimension for adaptation—the value frameworks (or value vocabularies) in which people express evaluations of better and worse. And I propose that instructors teach adaptation by imitation. In addition to elaborating on these ideas, I also offer materials for use in classes.

We analyze diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) reports from the top 20 Fortune 500 companies to particularly examine how these companies use visual design and representation to present an aspirational future that valorizes their current DEI efforts. We contend that if large corporations have the ability to affect outcomes among employees, stakeholders, and citizens, then educators have an obligation to prepare students to be well positioned to make change and to participate in conversations about change.

Currently, the analysis of rhetorical moves is extensively applied to business genre conventions. This paper adopts a corpus-assisted genre approach to compare three major rhetorical moves in corpora of students’ and professionals’ project proposal abstracts to elicit evidence-based recommendations for the pedagogy of business communication. The findings indicate that, while overall features in the proposal abstracts written by actual business professionals and those by students of business vary quantitatively but not qualitatively, students focus more on the aim of the project, and professionals tend to evenly highlight all sides of the project and position it within the context.

We gathered data from business practitioners to learn how they describe successful online business presentations. We found that many—but not all—successful examples were described in terms of classical rhetorical concepts (e.g., source credibility and content). We also found that about 20% of the examples were described as successful because of technology deployment, audience interactivity, or both. We conclude that professors of management communication should teach the online presentation, that such instruction should include classical rhetorical concepts (with some appropriate adjustments), and that instruction should be expanded to include technology and interactivity.

Despite management theorists’ decades-long attention to the robust sustainability of complex organizations, adaptive management practices remain undertheorized. Management is evolving from a hierarchically organized effort in pursuit of strategically determined goals into a facilitation of layered, distributed, autonomous agents able to learn from their errors and ensure the entire system’s long-term survivability. A rhetorical perspective on pedagogy allows us to better prepare our students for success in the 21st century’s adaptive organization as well as contribute to theoretical scholarship of effective organizations.

Studies of the grant proposal tend to conflate academic research grant proposals with other kinds of nonprofit grant proposal genres, even though research and nonprofit grant proposals have different audiences and goals. To address this gap, this study draws on the Aristotelian concept of topoi (or typical arguments) and uses corpus analysis, interview, and coding methods to answer the question, what topoi distinguish the academic research and nonprofit grant proposal genres? Findings suggest key differences in the topoi that research and nonprofit proposals use to advocate for problems and outcomes, set goals, and establish credibility.

This essay discusses the need and the value of explicitly integrating rhetoric within the business classroom setting; introduces basic rhetorical structures that enhance the workplace skill set; identifies the significance of topoi in the business and professional communication classroom pedagogy; and provides an example of the practical application of using topoi as a pedagogical construct in the business and professional communication classroom.

Business and professional communication courses hold special opportunities to contribute to students’ development of entrepreneurial mindsets through the use and extension of classical rhetorical theory and praxis. We situate pedagogical activities within the context of the entrepreneurial venture pitch by using Rhetorical Canons of invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery to develop oral discourse while recognizing and developing entrepreneurial mindsets. We utilize elements of entrepreneurial mindset development presented by Kuratko et al. and Daspit et al. to introduce business and professional communication instructors to cognitive, behavioral, and emotional aspects contributing to the establishment of entrepreneurial mindsets.

Accent bias, a type of linguistic bias that is based on a speaker’s pronunciation, is a source of partiality in hiring and retention decisions. This study sought to understand perspectives on linguistic diversity and accent bias among university instructors and students in undergraduate human resource management programs. Results point to a lack of coverage alongside stereotypical views about accents and accent bias among instructors and a desire for accent bias training among all participants. The discussion addresses misconceptions that arose, argues for greater focus on accent bias in business communication, and provides guidance for the development of accent bias training.

As a business communication teacher walks into their classroom ready to introduce a wonderful new teaching object, they are riding on a wave of spiritual joy. They know that they are about to transport their students into new business communication skills. It’s magical. My Favorite Assignment is Association for Business Communication’s (ABC’s) resource of classroom-tested pedagogical innovations. This article offers 10 teaching innovations first presented at the 2022 ABC Annual International Conference held in Tampa, Florida USA. Readers can select from assignments designed to teach email, personal and professional development, and social media.

This study explored potential biases in professional writing evaluation. An experiment was conducted in which individuals with hiring authority or influence at their workplace evaluated an email with multiple grammatical/typographical mistakes requesting that the reader make time to speak with the author. Participants were randomly assigned into one of five conditions, each with a separate profile photo accompanying the email. Data analysis indicates that ethnicity of the author influenced how competent the author was perceived to be and the reader’s attitude about meeting with the author.

Recent scholarship argues for increased attention to students’ linguistic diversity and intercultural communication competence. Our study examined the experiences of 10 working engineers who had graduated from an English-medium international branch campus in the Arabian Gulf. An analysis of their interviews reveals the complex role of English as a business lingua franca (BELF) in workplace communication. Interviewees’ reflections about their university experience indicate that they had not previously understood the full rhetorical and communicative nature of BELF. We provide implications for instructors who wish to provide methods that center intercultural professional communication and decenter English as a standardized, static language.

The work environment has drastically changed in the last 10 years, necessitating a new look at which soft skills are most relevant in today’s workplace. Because of COVID-19, organizations had to rapidly adjust where and how they work. According to the Pew Research Center, 71% of adults, who can perform their work responsibilities from home, are now working remotely. Then, the workplace shifted again during the “Great Resignation” where an all-time record of 24 million employees left their jobs between April and September 2021. This shift is ever more important as research in the last decade indicates that soft skills are being valued more compared to hard skills during the hiring process. The current study replicated Robles’s (2012) study of soft skills to find which soft skills are most relevant to a thriving work environment in 2022. Results indicate that soft skills emphasizing employee initiative and including others in processes are most relevant today, including Adaptable, Agency, Conscientious, Contextual Awareness, Create Clarity, Curiosity, Engage the Mess, Genuine Care, Integrity, Partnership, Play, Positive Energy, Social Skills, and Suppress the Noise.

This research presents a new theoretical framework through assessing readability research based on the linguistics and communication perspectives to determine the obfuscation probabilities and how to mitigate them. Therefore, this systematic literature review analyzed 219 papers using the SCOPUS and Web of Science databases. Findings show that in every language approach, there is an obfuscation level for annual reports, depending on the weakness of a particular component of the text communication process, starting from the use of a complex writing style and ending with the imposition of specific methods of presentation, while suggesting ways to mitigate the obfuscation.

An analysis of surveys ( N = 143) and interviews ( n = 34) with human resources and talent development professionals suggest respondents desired corporate trainers who were competent communicators—who could deliver content effectively in an engaging manner. Nonacademic trainers and subject-matter experts (SMEs) were often perceived as less adept at presenting complex material than academics who were considered SMEs in their fields and in the practice of teaching. Based on these findings, we recommend communication academics who desire to train in organizational settings market their expertise in instructional communication to training managers and SMEs seeking professional development.

Instruction about teaching business communication skills has been a long-established tradition in the communication discipline. Recent trends in teaching communication training and development extend a long-held emphasis on business communication skill instruction. Given the classical roots of the communication discipline and the current focus on communication skill instruction, this article suggests that future communication theory and research should focus greater attention on behavioral learning outcomes—specifically communication training. This review identifies relevant communication theory that informs a renewed research agenda focused on enhancing behavioral learning outcomes. In proposing this research agenda, we discuss opportunities to apply our current knowledge of intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, public, organizational, mediated, and intercultural communication to advance the discipline through theoretically driven research about business communication skills.

Generative AI may significantly disrupt the teaching and practice of business communication. This study of 343 communication instructors revealed a collective view that AI-assisted writing will be widely adopted in the workplace and will require significant changes to instruction. Key perceived challenges include less critical thinking and authenticity in writing. Key perceived benefits include more efficiency and better idea generation in writing. Students will need to develop AI literacy—composed of application, authenticity, accountability, and agency—to succeed in the workplace. Recommendations are provided for instructors and administrators to ensure the benefits of AI-assisted writing can outweigh the challenges.

Business communication teachers navigate a constantly changing pedagogical geography shaped by technology and breakthrough discoveries in linguistics, psychology, and neurobiology. My Favorite Assignment is designed to speed new teaching methods to the classroom. This article gives readers 11 teaching innovations on report writing, intercultural communication, and analysis and critical thinking debuted at the 2022 Association for Business Communication’s (ABC) 87th Annual International Conference in Tampa, Florida, USA. Additional support materials—instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, grading rubrics, frequently asked questions, and sample student projects—are downloadable from the ABC and DePaul University Center for Sales Leadership websites.

Students process information in two modes: cognitive and experiential. Case studies and stories are generally used as tools for experiential information processing. This article uses memes as an instructional tool to deliver information for experiential information processing in a public speaking course. The effectiveness of memes as an instructional tool is assessed through a questionnaire in terms of their overall effectiveness and its memorability, concreteness, and course orientation. The findings suggest that memes can be used effectively as instructional tools like stories to make the students understand, discuss, and engage with course content.

Instructors face myriad competing demands for topical coverage in their courses, while navigating pressure to teach in varied modalities and meet employers’ expectations for graduates. Starting from a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning framework, this article contributes to the bridging-the-gap literature by addressing local employers’ needs and proposing an entrepreneurship-based approach to business communication curriculum.

This study draws from personality psychology and linguistics of written communication to explore the characteristics of self-selected well-written email communications (N=273) solicited from Polish managers who organized and supervised the (remote) work of their units during the COVID-19 period. The focus is on the writing of managers with above-average levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness, as these personality factors are predictors of efficacy in the completion of two work-related goals, Achievement and Communion, according to the Theory of Purposeful Work Behavior. The linguistic patterns responsible for effective email communication are identified through both automated and qualitative textual analyses of the email sample. The study has implications for management training via the assumption that linguistic patterns that a reflexive manager uses in writing are subjected to monitoring and can be modeled and adapted to. Specific recommendations for managerial writing styles concern informational, instructional, explanatory, feedback, and query messages.

The purpose of this study was to gauge the understanding of accessibility related to business communication material among individuals working in corporate America. Participants were asked to define accessibility, then given a definition of accessibility, and then asked to identify how to make a report and a visual accessible. A substantial number of participants were not able to define accessibility, nor identify how to make accessible changes to a report or visual. Those who could define accessibility considered accessibility goals in terms of general access to resources, usability, audience analysis, or disability-related accessibility. Business majors were less likely than other majors to be able to identify disability-related methods of making a report or visual accessible. Implications for business communication education are discussed.

Data-driven decision making has now moved beyond its traditional domains—operations research, business economics, computer sciences, and business statistics—to “softer subjects,” such as human resource management, organization behavior, and business communication. In this context, teaching with technology encourages students to systematically apply domain knowledge to communicate across a wide variety of stakeholders. In the era of multimodal forms of communication and multiple data sources, management students must be analytical when writing compelling reports and giving persuasive presentations. They should be well versed in using both quantitative and qualitative techniques for report writing and presentation. Drawing on authentic user-generated comments on social media, this article presents two case studies on (a) crisis communication by 30 CEOs and (b) culture shock experienced by foreign tourists sojourning in India, China, and the United Arab Emirates, to demonstrate how master’s in business administration (MBA) students could derive insights from the online comments to make strategic decisions for organizational benefit and make reports based on those findings. The article asserts that this could help to cultivate a data-analytic mindset among the students by preparing them to communicate small (and big) data-driven analysis to relevant stakeholders. It attempts to suggest ways to develop MBA students’ ability to analyze their potential audiences as well as to generate meaningful insights from the available information on social media websites. Finally, it hopes to nudge business communication instructors to embrace multidisciplinary perspectives for planning a technology-based business communication assignment involving the social media landscape. Instructors can not only use the two case studies to illustrate ways to integrate technology with teaching but also create their own mini cases to improve the decision-making, report-writing, and business report presentation skills of their students.

This article offers readers 11 classroom teaching innovations presented at the 2022 Association for Business Communication’s (ABC’s) Annual International Conference. Sessions were held online and on-site in Tampa, Florida, USA. Readers will find unique developments in teaching techniques—all designed to enhance students’ communication skill building. The new ideas featured here include personal and professional development, oral communication, analysis, and critical thinking. Additional assignment support materials—instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, grading rubrics, frequently asked questions, and sample student projects—are posted on the ABC and DePaul University Center for Sales Leadership websites: https://www.businesscommunication.org/page/assignments and https://salesleadershipcenter.com/research/business-professional-communication-quarterly-my-favorite-assignment

Workplace learning initiatives are influenced by perceptions, and negative perceptions hinder organizational innovation and productivity. This exploratory study presents an argument that messages shared among trainees regarding their training experiences shape such perceptions. The application of Symbolic Convergence Theory reveals two discursive narratives explaining trainees’ perceptions that are foundational for a desired rhetorical vision of training efforts. The findings reveal practical implications for teaching applied communication and instruction in the workplace training classroom. Further, exploring “backstage” workplace communication such as gossip, opinions, and perceptions sheds light on the intersection of communication, human resource development, and vision construction.

Empathy is an important competence for communication professionals. This article investigates two aspects of empathy in an educational setting: the validity of self versus other assessments and the manifestation of empathy in communicative behaviors. Communication students were given a mediating role in discussions with two clients and their empathy was measured using self-ratings and client assessments. Videos of highest- and lowest-rated students were analyzed to identify empathy-related behaviors. No correlation was found between self-rated empathy and clients’ assessments. Several verbal and nonverbal behaviors corresponded to empathy: body language, an other-orientation in asking questions, paraphrasing, and a solution orientation.

Digital communication and digital oratory have become an integral part of today’s workplace. This research discusses an innovative assessment tool that uses digital oratory and digital video along with YouTube to create opportunities for the students to develop self-efficacy in digital oratory and public speaking. The measurement of the effectiveness through a survey questionnaire displays that the assessment tool met its learning objectives. The assessment tool fostered self-efficacy in digital oratory and improved digital communication knowledge and skills. The article also discusses the challenges and recommendations for implementing this assessment tool in various contexts.

This article presents a curated collection of 10 teaching innovations debued at the Association for Business Communication’s 87th annual meeting held in Tampa, Florida, USA, and online October 2022. This My Favorite Assignment 27th edition introduces readers to classroom-ready ideas to help students gain personal and professional development, and a host of fresh assignment topics designed to inviggorate both classic and new assignments. Teaching support materials—instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, grading rubrics, frequently asked questions, Internet links, and sample student projects—are downloadable from the Association for Business Communication and DePaul University Center for Sales Leadership websites.

This article discusses the work of Professor Andrew S. Rancer and his contributions to theory-building and application efforts of argumentative and aggressive communication. Germinal training efforts in constructive and destructive communication are presented, empirical efficacy and learning outcomes highlighted, and implications for training professionals are discussed. Finally, insights into argumentative and aggressive communication training are offered.

Communication apprehension can lead to professional challenges for individuals, teams, and organizations. This is the first study of communication apprehension that involved a randomized national survey of working adults in the United States and captured broad representation in terms of age, gender, race/ethnicity, managerial status, and other factors. The study showed that communication apprehension is common, including in group discussions, meetings, interpersonal situations, and public speaking. It is significantly more common among early-career professionals, women, introverted professionals, and professionals with anxiety. Interpersonal situations appear to be the situations in which contemporary professionals are most likely to experience high communication apprehension. This study suggests more attention is needed to address communication apprehension in interpersonal and group situations. It also frames communication apprehension as a matter of inclusion and team performance.

Slide decks are a ubiquitous form of communication in both academia and business, and business communication instructors must be able to model and teach multimedia design principles. The literature regarding multimedia design has traditionally fallen into two camps: the cognitive school, focused on designing multimedia messages that accommodate human cognitive architecture, and the graphic design school, focused on using visual appeal as a tool for conceptual organization. I synthesize representative models from each school to provide theoretically derived and empirically supported principles for designing slide decks that are both well-organized and visually appealing.

Institutions rely on career-ready competencies developed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) to understand the nationwide job outlook and labor market trends. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to inform a course redesign process in the business curriculum at a Midwestern university in the United States. Using an adapted NACE survey, we found that while Midwestern employers and alumni valued NACE core competencies and employability attributes similarly, there were certain elements that were overlooked in the previous curriculum. Thus, identification of the locally relevant top competencies and attributes was a leading factor in the course redesign process.

Previous studies compare quantitative feedback ratings of student peers and instructors, but new presentation-feedback technologies enable qualitative-feedback comparison. This study extends previous research by comparing qualitative feedback and business professionals’ feedback. Compared to the professionals, the instructors provided similar feedback types and sentiment; students, however, de-emphasized message delivery and made fewer suggestions for improvement. The results suggest that students may need additional practice in critiquing message delivery and in suggesting needed improvements in their peers’ oral presentations. The study also provides a methodology using the new technologies for instructors to calibrate their own and their students’ feedback with professionals’ feedback.

Despite organizations increasingly seeking talent to identify data to make better business decisions, many assignments provide the data for the students. This article encourages curriculum to introduce data and information request dimensions, identify data sources, write data and information requests, and reflect on data request examples. We propose a three-step writing exercise with a data and information request rubric. A pilot study for an operations management data and information request revealed that participants struggled to specify four data request dimensions: an appropriate recipient, adequate data, a data format, and an information security level.

Marginalization in decision-making discourse results in disempowerment of the marginalized and detracts from the efficacy of participatory decision making. In ESL contexts, it is usually associated with English proficiency. But this view ignores the influence of preferences for different participation styles, an understanding of which is essential for the development of effective pedagogical remedies to the problem of marginalization. The present study addresses this gap by investigating discourse participation and marginalization from a participation styles perspective. Findings reveal that marginalization resulted from a failure to adopt turn-taking strategies associated with dominant participation styles. Implications for pedagogy are discussed.

Although several studies have demonstrated the importance of listening skills in the classroom and in the workplace, business administration college programs seldom include teaching listening as part of their curriculum because of content saturation and credit hours constraints. In this pilot study, we describe how integrating simple listening activities in the classroom, without making major modifications to the curriculum, improves students’ comprehension and test performance. The study demonstrates how exercising critical listening skills while taking a test has a positive effect on students’ retention of information and test scores.

Using social media communication (SMC) for personal and professional use represents two different skill sets. Though students often use SMC on a personal basis for fun and connecting with friends, they often fail to understand how SMC can be used effectively as a professional organizational/corporate communication tool. A service-learning project was conceptualized in a business and professional communication (BPC) course, where students ( n = 93) used professional SMC skills to design social media campaigns for fulfilling nongovernmental organizations’ needs of manpower, material, and/or money. Students’ attitudes and efficacy toward SMC were recorded using a survey questionnaire. The need and obstacles in including SMC in BPC are also discussed in the article.