Positive communication and its importance to organizations has become a popular topic of research among organizational scholars. However, there remains a paucity of work exploring nonlinearities in the role of positivity in communication effectiveness, with little research examining whether there can be too much of a good thing when it comes to communication positivity. To address these gaps in the literature on positive communication, I tested the hypothesis that work-related workplace communication will exhibit an inverted U-shaped curvilinear relationship with positive emotion. This relationship is hypothesized to result from a tradeoff between total workplace communication and the proportion of total workplace communication that is explicitly work-related as communication positivity increases. The results of this study generally support the hypothesized relationship and, save for some minor caveats, the hypothesized mechanisms underlying it. Enclosed are discussions on these caveats and the implications of this study’s findings for both organizational researchers and practitioners.

Purpose: Writing has been identified as an important skill. Business writing refers to the form of writing that is used to communicate in formal settings in various corporations and organizations. A number of research studies have identified writing as a crucial skill that needs to be developed by students. The purpose of the study is therefore to understand how an experiential learning module on business writing can improve the email-writing and report-writing skills of management postgraduates. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study uses an experimental research methodology based on experiential learning pedagogy to obtain the results of the intervention on the business writing skills of the management postgraduate students. The module was developed by the researcher and then was taught to the students through the online platform Zoom. Pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest analysis was conducted to find the impact of the intervention. The students were evaluated by an industry expert to avoid bias as they were trained by the researcher. Findings: The results of the study indicated that the intervention had a significant impact on the business writing skills of the participants. The results of the component analysis also indicated a large effect on the content, persuasive abilities, lateral thinking abilities, and the interpersonal skills of the participants in written communication. The analysis of the test scores revealed that an initial training based on the experiential learning methods can have a long-term impact on the improvement of the skills of the students, as the delayed posttest results were more than the posttest results. Originality/value: The study will be beneficial to educators, trainers, as well as students in understanding how experiential learning can impact the business writing skills of the students.

This article presents critical positive communication pedagogy (CPCP), which synthesizes the fields of critical pedagogy and positive communication pedagogy to promote positive communication practices that develop a social justice sensibility among students. We argue that CPCP contributes to the creation of learner-centered classrooms that promote interpersonal connection, foster feelings of inclusion and belonging, and aid students in achieving sustainable happiness. We provide examples of CPCP in business and professional communication classrooms to promote diversity and inclusion, specifically related to issues of gender and sexuality, race, disability, and class.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have ignited discourse within the Technical and Professional Communications (TPC) community in relation to authorship and accountability. This article employs a qualitative synthesis of current and theoretical scholarship regarding authorship theory and LLMs. This analysis argues that while LLMs provide assistance to improve human-generated text, LLMs are unable to participate in authorship, as they cannot be held accountable for their outputs, participate in reciprocity, or demonstrate rhetorical awareness regarding audience and context. The analysis urges professors and professionals to consider concrete guidelines surrounding LLM usage to create transparency in the classroom and workplace.

With ChatGPT’s public release, artificial intelligence (AI) has had a profound effect on professional communication. Although clearly beneficial in manipulating large volumes of information, AI cannot provide the insights into each company’s uniqueness—its culture, organizational dynamics, and operational controls—factors defining the character, precision, and tailoring demanded in professional communications. Those attributes depend on the creativity, reasoning, and theory-based causal logic of human cognition. By reexamining the process of developing professional communications, from discovering embedded purposes through final product, we can demonstrate to students how AI can be applied to encourage creativity and promote the powers of human intellect.

This review analyzes 59 studies from 2014 to 2024 examining design thinking integration in professional communication pedagogy across eight disciplinary journals. Design thinking has evolved from experimental use to systematic pedagogical approaches, with assignment-level integration proving most viable for educators. Empathy interviews and user research bridge design thinking principles with communication pedagogy’s audience awareness focus. Students show enhanced empathy, improved collaboration, and increased creative confidence with high motivation levels. Implementation challenges include time constraints, student resistance to ambiguity, and assessment difficulties. The study recommends scaffolded introduction, integration with existing content, and institutional support for desirable implementation in business and professional communication pedagogy.

Communication scholars have done an excellent work in creating business simulations to engage the students in learning communication concepts. However, more can be done to foster interactive business and professional communication pedagogy. Instructors must continue to devise new ways to enable the students to apply business communication concepts. In response to these calls, this article presents an example of a simulation based within the Harry Potter universe that emphasizes the ways team communication and proposal presentation manifest themselves in business speaking practices. This simulation enables students to engage with team communication issues by understanding persuasion and influence as an essential part of business and professional communication.

Using eye-tracking and interview methods, this study investigates how business communication students and editing students attend to and evaluate writing. Participants reviewed blog posts embedded with errors and judged publication readiness. While both groups visually fixated longer on errors than non-errors, business communication students were more likely to approve error-containing texts for publication. Qualitative data revealed that business communication students prioritized content while editing students prioritized surface-level issues. These findings suggest that disciplinary background informs evaluative standards, even when error-detection behavior is similar. The results carry implications for instruction in business writing and editing, especially concerning collaborative, cross-disciplinary workplace writing.

We conduct a close reading and micro-level analysis of a market update released by Restaurant Group Plc, a UK leisure firm, during the COVID-19 pandemic to examine its communication functions. While the market update aligns with communicative action theory by enhancing information transparency, it also deploys various rhetorical strategies, including impersonalization, positive self-evaluation, and metaphors consistent with impression management. The overly optimistic tone bears no relation to subsequent corporate outcomes. This study provides valuable insights for business and professional communication practitioners and students, enabling them to interpret the linguistic characteristics of market updates as a distinct genre of corporate communication.

Managers who are seen as approachable by their employees are the key drivers of building an excellent organizational workplace where supportive communication is available for the employees, especially during difficult situations. Regrettably, not all managers are approachable and communicate supportively. In such situations, the result can be a dysfunctional work environment that demoralizes employees’ attitudes, causing organizational work productivity to deteriorate. Our study explores the factors related to unapproachable organizational managers who do not use supportive communication. We employed a qualitative statistical approach to interview 155 professional employees from various industries representing different countries

English professional communication competence is crucial for fresh graduates to succeed in the workplace and has been identified as a national priority in Malaysia to enhance employability. This study explores key attributes of that competence based on interviews with 12 employers and 9 graduates. Using a basic interpretive qualitative approach, 26 attributes were identified across four areas: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. The findings highlight the importance of aligning educational outcomes with workplace demands and offer insights that support curriculum development, targeted instruction, and assessment—informing policy and future research to enhance graduate readiness.

This study presents a dual bibliometric analysis of business communication research. Study 1 analyzes 135 publications from the Web of Science (1993-2024) to map global trends in communication and pedagogy within business education. Study 2 focuses on 328 articles from Business and Professional Communication Quarterly , offering journal-specific insights. Key themes include soft skills, AI literacy, digital communication, and experiential learning. The study highlights how global trends are reflected and extended within a leading journal. Findings offer valuable implications for educators, researchers, and curriculum developers seeking to align communication instruction with evolving academic and professional demands.

This study assesses the potential use of artificial intelligence-programmed managers in the workplace through two experiments that manipulated source cues and time cues. Data were collected before the Novel Coronavirus pandemic and then 3 years after the pandemic’s outbreak when many businesses had returned to normal operations and ChatGPT had been released. Results held across the two experiments. Neither time nor source automation cues had an impact on the affective impressions participants formed of the simulated email exchange. Attention check data further suggests time cues may no longer be a relevant predictor of impression formation in workplace communication.

The purpose of this article is to share teaching strategies within business and professional communication that assisted students in developing a job portfolio, potentially enhancing students’ ability to secure an internship or job after course completion. This article details the application of these strategies over the course of three semesters in 2018 and 2019 at Monmouth University. Student comments suggested these strategies enhanced their chances of employment success. Using course curriculum to put students in position to secure employment should be a goal of the course and curriculum should be adjusted periodically to meet this goal.

This study presents a systematic review of the last decade of research published in Business and Professional Communication Quarterly , using PRISMA guidelines and bibliometric analysis. The review analyzes publication and citation trends, key contributors, and emerging themes. The research highlights how the field has evolved in response to global crises, technological advancements, and shifts in social dynamics. By exploring key themes such as virtual team communication, social presence in online learning, and the integration of emerging technologies, the study provides a comprehensive assessment of the journal’s contributions from 2014 to 2024. It also identifies future research directions.

This article presents a curated collection of eight teaching innovations presented at the Association for Business Communication 89th conference Tulsa, Oklahoma, as well as online, in October 2024. These MFA presenters demonstrated teaching ideas specifically on improving students’ writing skills, and this My Favorite Assignment 32nd edition introduces readers to these classroom approaches in teaching business writing. Teaching support materials—instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, rubrics, frequently asked questions, links, and sample student projects—are downloadable from the Association for Business Communication website.

As businesses begin utilizing generative AI to assist with written communications, professionals will need to have the skills to get the results employers demand. A working strategy to assist students on how to best collaborate with generative AI to create traditional business writing pieces is essential as we move to this new integrated workplace.

This study compares AI-generated (ChatGPT and Gemini) and human-written business refusal texts. A genre analysis found that AI-generated texts are formulaic and less nuanced than human-written texts. Applying a rating of professional writing quality, inferential statistics revealed no significant difference in scores between Gemini and human-written texts, but revealed ChatGPT as lower. Human assessors identified authorship of AI-generated texts with an accuracy rate of 68.1%, and human-written texts with 86% accuracy. Key concerns for assessors were tone, relationship, language choice, content, and structure. The findings inform four key areas of focus for teaching business writing in the AI age.

This ethnographic case study provides authentic insights into the intertextual negotiation processes for a particular merger-and-acquisition (M&A) transaction in the context of international legal practice, involving interdisciplinary legal and business professionals. Using genre and discourse analytical methodology, this study focuses on the interactional discourse practices and textual products used for negotiation of the primary sale and purchase agreement. By providing sociolinguistic insights into the M&A negotiation process, these research findings can promote a better understanding of the professional discourse activities and interactional role behaviors for this very important area of international business law practice.

The purpose of this article is to review over three decades of research supporting the organizational communication management theory known as the Theory of Independent-Mindedness. The theory is especially productive in assessing superior-subordinate communication for organizations located within individualistic cultures. The article synthesizes extant research on the Theory of Independent-Mindedness. The research reviewed in this article provides empirical support for the theory’s premises in that cultural congruity must be present between the macro-culture (larger culture within which the organization operates) and the micro-culture (the culture developed within the specific organization). Several studies clearly indicate that independent-minded employees report being more satisfied and committed to their organization, and advocate communication skills training for organizational members at all levels.

The public release of ChatGPT in 2022 ushered in a new era, affirming the present reality of AI-assisted writing and the critical role business instructors play in preparing students. This study presents the results of a pedagogical experiment. Specifically, it evaluates strategies for integrating and teaching about AI in the business communication classroom, focusing on the impact of generative AI on students’ understanding of business writing principles and how different levels of engagement with AI influence students’ critical AI literacy and attitudes toward AI-assisted writing in the workplace.

This article presents a conceptual framework for enhancing business writing skills through social media integration in business communication education. By embedding platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, the framework promotes essential competencies such as clarity, audience awareness, and professional tone. Five core principles—constructivist learning, digital literacy, ethical writing practices, real-time feedback, and collaborative writing—underpin this framework, emphasizing experiential learning that bridges informal and formal communication styles. This approach offers educators a structured method for developing students’ adaptability and writing proficiency, aligning pedagogical practices with the evolving needs of modern business communication.

I recommend that teachers of professional communication (e.g., business communication) incorporate into their courses the Giving Voice to Values (GVV) curriculum developed by Mary Gentile. Adding GVV materials to a course in professional communication would add an ethical emphasis to the course or supplement an existing one. GVV materials also provide communication teachers with excellent opportunities to introduce (or expand) attention to rhetorical decision making. Furthermore, GVV materials provide an opportunity for cross-disciplinary cooperation among teachers of business communication and other business disciplines.

In this article, I study how a Deaf-owned company, Convo Communications, builds on accessibility as the baseline from which members contribute to more inclusive workspaces through innovative technologies and communication practices. I analyze the company’s website, blog posts, and videos to demonstrate how this organization embodies the value of accessible communication and a collective vision, how the members design more accessible ways to connect and use their expertise to educate other businesses and professionals, and the organizational commitment to communication diversity and accessible conversations. The findings lead to implications for even more inclusive business and professional communication practices.

Generative AI could disrupt professional writing instruction, but banning AI tools seems unproductive. This article outlines a rhetorical approach for adapting business writing instruction for the AI age: It suggests AI use cases that align with the rhetorical canons, illustrates each with real-world business examples, and ends with suggestions for using AI to build students’ critical genre awareness. This approach should prove useful for business writing instructors who want to ground their AI-related instruction in enduring pedagogical theory.

In a case study involving three asynchronous online professional writing courses, this research investigates students’ abilities to establish a social presence and build team cohesion via collaborative, team-based writing projects. Using the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework, this study is situated in the understanding that teaching and learning in higher education are not about the mere transmission of knowledge but that “teaching and learning are inherently interactive” as the terms of “community” and “inquiry” used in the framework suggest. Prior researchers have also established a clear connection between one element of the COI framework— social presence and student satisfaction in online courses. Findings from this study indicate participation in collaborative team assignments contributes to team cohesion and positively affects students’ ability to establish their social presence within online environments as well as transfer their knowledge to other contexts.

First-aid personnel who engage in initial dialogues with injured combatants on the front lines become participants in interprofessional communication and need training courses that address their requirements for effective communication and dialogic interaction in combat environments. The primary objective of this research is to integrate emotional co-construction strategies into the training curriculum for First Aid Services (FAS). The study explores various emotional language devices and communication strategies that impact the trauma resolution process. The practical aim of this research is to offer insights for the development of workplace communication courses for FAS, fostering dialogues that contribute to personal stabilization, resilience, resistance, and relief for the combatant.

This study captured the perspectives of 887 working adults to explore views of professionalism, authenticity, and effectiveness of AI-generated messages. With a 3 (message type) × 2 (disclosed vs. undisclosed) × 2 (ChatGPT-generated vs. Google-generated AI messages) design, professionals generally view AI-generated content favorably in all conditions. Across all messages, professionals consistently rated the AI-generated messages as professional, effective, efficient, confident, and direct. They rate sincerity and caring slightly lower in some disclosed conditions, particularly for ChatGPT-generated messages, suggesting the importance of tool selection when using generative AI for workplace writing. Those professionals who use AI more frequently for work are more likely to view AI-assisted writing as authentic, effective, and confidence-building. Implications for teaching business communication, including the need to address AI literacy, and suggestions for future research are provided.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Business writing has been a desired skill in managers. The existing traditional business writing assessment tools like written examination and hand-in assignments based on genre-specific instructions do not create a workplace writing environment. The business management students (n = 98) engage with an innovative Web 2.0–based business writing tool using blogging and LinkedIn. The findings show that the tool created a workplace-like context, a meaningful purpose, and a real audience for the students. The students make and build relationships in the professional community using their business writing. The challenges and recommendations for BPC faculty are discussed.

Understanding the expectations of employers contributes to the relevancy of business and professional communication (BPC) courses. Studies that bridge the gap between course content and workplace expectations support this process. This article presents findings from a scale development procedure to analyze BPC skills using a multimodal perspective. Employers ( N = 260) were asked what skills they perceive to be communication and how proficient they expect a recent college graduate to be to better understand the expectations that graduates face when entering the job market. The findings have implications for course design, curriculum selection, and program organization.

This article offers readers 12 teaching innovations introduced at the Association for Business Communication’s 86th annual meeting held online in October 2021. This My Favorite Assignment 22nd edition introduces readers to classroom-ready ideas in analysis, critical thinking, and business writing. Assignment 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 study examines how and why 20 instructors (17 tenure-line and 3 nontenure-line) in introductory service courses enact their pedagogical values and address current concerns (e.g., personal branding, LinkedIn, and applicant tracking systems) when teaching résumés and cover letters. Research methods included a demographics survey, qualitative interviews, and critical discourse analysis of assignment sheets and deidentified student examples. Results provide an opportunity to renegotiate gaps between Business and Professional Communication’s research and pedagogical methods, shifting from overemphasizing formatting and checklists and toward understanding job applications as workplace genre ecologies to encourage deeper learning.

This study examined student perceptions of an online case study development experience where students wrote their own case studies about workplace communication processes and created accompanying pedagogical materials. Students then shared their cases in small groups and engaged in dialogue. Students from organizational communication classes at four universities completed preevaluations ( n = 77) and postevaluations ( n = 67), providing quantitative and qualitative data. Analyses suggested that students perceived that the experience enhanced their understanding of course materials, aided them in connecting course materials to the real world, and enabled them to reflect on their own and their classmates’ organizational experiences.

To prepare students for the workforce, instructors of business, technical, and professional communication must incorporate team projects in their curriculum. However, both instructors and students have negative perceptions of team projects due to a variety of factors including team dysfunctions like social loafing. No prior study has examined the relationship between leader rapport management (LRM) and social loafing. LRM refers to the use of linguistic strategies to manage relationships between leaders and members. Therefore, we built and tested a model that examines the relationship between LRM and social loafing that is mediated by leader-member exchange and communication quality.

This article presents an observational case study of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Resource Manager working with community members through a contested project. Using the Aristotelian concepts of ethos, credibility, and character development, I examine ethos appeals the Resource Manager used to align Corps’s sustainability values with the community’s values. Transcribed interviews with community members reveal this alignment evolved through a coconstructed ethos negotiation process between the Resource Manager and the community. The article concludes with rhetorical and pedagogical insights gained from the case study that apply to conflict resolution in organizational communication.

Because few studies of disciplinary business writing have examined whether language features play a role in instructor assessment of student writing, this study explored the relationship between student language use and instructor essay scores. Undergraduate business students wrote a case study critique as part of their final exam, and their critiques were evaluated by their instructors for theory integration and essay structure. Student language use was analyzed in terms of error rate, lexical sophistication, lexical diversity, and phrasal complexity. Whereas lexical sophistication positively predicted instructor scores, error rate was a negative predictor of their assessment of business student writing.

The instructor developed an assessment tool based on Service-Learning (S-L) for developing business and professional communication (BPC) skills in business school students in India ( N = 117). The students practiced their organizational, leadership, and interpersonal communication skills in an authentic, contextual, and workplace atmosphere during this S-L assessment project. The effectiveness of the assessment tool has been studied with a posttest and then pretest. The need for an innovative and holistic BPC skills assessment tool is discussed. The article also presents implications of the project for students and pedagogy along with the challenges in using the assessment project.