This article explores the problems with most business communication courses today—the general lack of real-world applicability in the textbooks and approaches used to teach the subject. Based on many employers' concerns that students are not getting the kind of real-world preparation they need in the area of business communication, the article suggests some practical solutions and effective pedagogical techniques that will make the course more real-world oriented and, therefore, more useful for today's business graduate. It also suggests ways to prepare students more realistically and specifically for the kinds of communication tasks they will be expected to do in a corporate setting in their first jobs after graduation.

This article describes a study of journal keeping to focus business students' attention on their listening behaviors and the need for improvement. Guided by an instructor, 42 students wrote daily observations of their listening behaviors for 10 weeks. These observations were arranged into 10 prescribed general listening categories. Using content analysis procedures, two trained decoders identified content themes that were observed by more than half the students in 7 of the 10 general categories. The results demonstrated that the journal, combined with content analysis procedures, can be used successfully to identify students' listening behavior problems so that a targeted training regimen can be designed to address these deficiencies.

An MA student in professional writing and editing undertook ethnographic research on ghostwriting in the military headquarters where he has worked as a civilian writer for 18 years. He investigated the ways in which the military's review process (or “chop chain”) influences writer psychology and the final written product. His findings shed light on writer psychology and on bureaucratese as a cultural discursive product and lead him to propose changes in local writing and reviewing practices. To suggest innovations in teaching and curriculum, this article traces the MA student's academic authorship as he drew on the disciplines of ethnography, folklore, social psychology, and composition and as he used cultural theory from Foucault and textual theory from narratology.

Few, if any, studies on collaboration examine interactions between software manual writers and graphic designers. This study analyzes these collaborations, inquiring into the ways in which writers' and designers' processes of collaboration directly affect the form and substance of a finished manual. We argue that when these developers have dialogue, draft iteratively, and jointly make decisions, they produce manuals that could not possibly be developed through linear, assembly-line collaborative processes. We characterize three possible models of collaboration—assembly line (linear drafting), swap meet (iterative drafting and joint problem solving), and symphony (codevelopment in every aspect)—and use as a case study our own collaboration in developing a manual, detailing the concerns that writers and designers bring to a manual project. Analyzing our collaboration as an example of a swap-meet model, we examine four design problems that we faced and explain the ways in which our collaborative processes uniquely shaped our solutions to these problems.

Scholars in professional communication have called for a reexamination of pedagogy, asking that it instruct students not simply in the forms of workplace discourse but also in the connections between that discourse and socially responsible communicative action. This article posits that narrative can provide a basis for a pedagogy of social action—for a pedagogy, that is, that enables students to understand the workings of power and cultural reproduction in professional settings and that fosters reflection, critique, and dialogue. The article first reviews narrative theory supporting this claim, then discusses ways that teachers can use narrative to help students critique examples of professional discourse and their own composing choices. The article closes by discussing both the concerns about and the possibilities for such a pedagogy.

Improving communication between tax practitioners and IRS agents requires identification of specific barriers that impede effective communication. This study extends prior research on communication barriers to the tax practitioner-IRS agent relationship. Survey responses of 98 experienced national and international tax practitioners revealed that the barriers perceived to be the most serious relate to behavioral and personality concerns, personal conditions, inflexible thinking, physical concerns, technical competence, and closed-minded attitudes. Although these perceptions generally were invariant to gender and age, some differences were observed by the level of work experience of the respondents. The results of this study may be used by the IRS to develop outreach and education programs consistent with Compliance 2000, a philosophy of tax administration that aims to improve communication channels between the practitioner community and IRS agents. In addition, practitioners may use the results to devise ways to deal with communication problems during interactions with the IRS.

This study compares the effectiveness of five leading grammar/style analysis software packages in analyzing business students' writing. The software exhibited considerable differences in the following areas: correctly identifying various mechanical and style errors, avoiding annoying and misleading false error messages, and providing helpful remedial advice. No prior research study has empirically compared grammar/style analysis software along all these important dimensions. PowerEdit was found to be the overall superior package, demonsrating proficiency in detecting errors in punctuation, sentence structure, passive voice, and weak wording. The results have significant implications for utilizing grammar/style analysis software to improve students' writing.

Instructors of business and technical communication courses continually search for ways to improve their classroom and professional training exercises. Toward that end, this investigation examines two methods of conducting an employment interviewing training exercise for interviewees. Specifically, instructor-facilitated and peer-facilitated interviewing exercises are compared. Data collected from interviewing classes show that students preferred the instructor-facilitated over the peer-facilitated training exercise. Advantages and disadvantages of the instructor-facilitated exercise are discussed, and suggestions for further examination are offered.

The report for decision making shares some common ground with the proposal, the report of scientific experiment, and even the persuasive essay, yet these genres differ. Recognizing these differences is necessary for effective inquiry, pedagogy, and decision making. The genres are means of solving different types of problems: practical, empirical, and theoretical. They serve different aims: action, demonstration, and conviction. The proposal, like the report, may solve practical problems, but the proposal advocates, whereas the report inquires. These genres all embody assumptions about problem solving and inquiry in their forms. Applying the problem-solving goals and methods of the proposal, experimental report, or essay to the report for decision making compromises the quality of the inquiry and of the resulting decision. Complex problems for decision making require a rhetorical method of inquiry based on Aristotle's special topics. The report genre reflects the invention heuristics and analysis in its form.

As more and more companies use videoconferencing to conduct business, training students to communicate through this medium becomes increasingly important. With the rapid development of videoconferencing, business schools should investigate equipment purchase, for it may be within their budgets. Focusing on student learning aspects, this article presents six aspects of business school videoconferencing: (a) a rationale for using videoconferencing in the business curriculum, (b) a description of the Videoconferencing Center in the Texas Christian University business school, (c) budgetary considerations and resources, (d) learning objectives for student videoconferencing, (e) sample business videoconferences for class purposes, and (f) essentials for successful student videoconferences.

In teaching a technical communication course, I introduced document design principles before discussing traditional verbal rhetoric. A comparison of the writing of two students—a competent writer and a weak one—before and after the design discussion indicates that a basic understanding of design principles helped them improve document macrostructure. They saw the need to involve the audience, to provide an introduction and a forecast, and to organize and highlight information using headings. The design discussion, however, appears to have had little effect on document microstructure. Although more research needs to be conducted to better understand the relationship between verbal and visual rhetoric in technical communication, integrating document design principles early appears to be a promising pedagogical technique.

This article describes German correspondence styles in order to assist American managers. In the coming years, more and more American managers will find that they must correspond with their German counterparts either as colleagues within international organizations or as associates representing collaborative and competing businesses. The article explains typical conventions of both memo and letter formats, emphasizing the need to appreciate differences between formal and informal modes of communication. American managers who know and respect these differences can communicate more clearly and persuasively with their German contacts.

This study describes the roles and responsibilities of three editors employed in the publications unit of a large government agency. Along with the story of each editor, the article presents generalizations about the editing process in this particular organization. The description suggests that editing is a complex, meaning-making process. The three editors seem to make changes in the documents they edit based on their expert knowledge of writing, their empathy for readers, and their assumption of authority over a document. Although they all make rule-based changes that rely on external authorities, such as style manuals, they vary greatly in their readiness to use their personal authority in interpreting the needs of an audience. The editors gain the authority they need to make reader-based changes by assuming the role of language specialists and by enhancing the teaching role important in their organization.

Formal classroom instruction and literature in the field never replace the learning that occurs from actual experience in the workplace. Recognizing this, the authors—two senior technical communicators—identify several typical, but not predictable, organizational problems that involve technical communicators and present them in a how-to, anecdotal fashion.

This article explores the relationship between current theoretical definitions of risk communication, the unique national role that EPA plays in defining health and environmental risks, and possible explanations for EPA's inability to persuade the city of Aspen, Colorado, to accept its plan for a massive cleanup of toxic lead mine wastes. Many explanations for the reversal of EPA's cleanup plan at Aspen could be advanced, but we concentrate on the definition of risk communication upon which EPA's internal risk communication guidelines are based—guidelines that its field representatives are invited to follow. In particular, we now explore ownership messages conveyed through metacommunication conflict with EPA's risk communication guidelines.

To find out more about the communication needs of people in business, the author sent questionnaires to 2,200 chief executive officers (CEOs) and directors of personnel or training. I received 207 answers. Respondents believe that oral communication before a small group is important and that principles of communication should be stressed over formats for letters and memos. They believe reading and editing, as well as grammar skills, are very important. In many respects, the results of this survey are similar to those of others done across the country in the past 20 years, but there are some comments on reading, editing, and writing letters with bad news that were not part of earlier surveys.

Workers at a Canadian industrial site read a vignette asking them to send a message to a co-worker and then rated their preferences for available message channels. We explored the respondents' preferences for either a word-processed or a handwritten message. The results indicate that (a) main effects and interactions involving hierarchical level, message length, message complexity, anticipated reaction, communication task, need for documentation, and communication across work shifts affect preferences for wordprocessed versus handwritten messages; (b) the cost control perspective can explain preferences for word-processed versus handwritten messages; and (c) scholars should distinguish between various types of written messages rather than grouping all written messages together in a single category.

This study investigates the effects of case and traditional assignments on the writing products and processes of community college students. Specifically, each of 57 first-year business students in three sections of a business composition course wrote in response to either (a) two traditional assignments, (b) two short case scenario assignments, or (c) two lengthy, elaborated case assignments. Participants' letters were scored using a performance criteria rating scale for determining both overall quality and specific trait quality. Results indicate that the case assignments generally produced more effective writing products than did traditional paradigm assignments. Results also indicate that the elaborated case assignments generally produced better writing products than did the short case scenarios. However, results also suggest that the writing of participants who already possess business-related experience was not as affected by assignment type as the writing of inexperienced participants. Finally, qualitative measures suggest that the writing processes and attitudes of participants. completing the case assignments were highly sensitive to audience and context, whereas the processes and attitudes of participants completing the traditional assignments were highly sensitive to organization, format, and correctness.

The major problem with report writing is not primarily due to poor grammar or mechanics—often blamed by the technical community. The real problems stem from lack of, or poorly developed, point and audience awareness. Such problems can render reports useless for the audience and for the author. These major deficiencies and many lesser deficiencies, however, can be avoided effectively and painlessly if authors follow a simple outlining approach in writing their reports.

The recent addition of a writing performance assessment to the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) means that many students now enter business school with a writing assessment score and perhaps even a heightened awareness that writing matters in some way to the successful completion of an MBA degree. This situation presents teachers of business and managerial writing with a new opportunity and pressure to provide students with writing tools that are directly relevant to their business studies and professional careers. The Analysis of Argument Measure and the Persuasive Adaptiveness Measure introduced here are assessment tools that may be used to explain holistic assessment scores (which students receive on the GMAT writing component) and may assist students in understanding and evaluating their writing, both in school and in the workplace. Designed to evaluate managerial documents that are persuasive and directorial in nature, these measures were developed through a series of pilots and used to assess a selected sample of managerial memorandums that were also scored holistically. Correlating the holistic and analytic scores revealed a positive association, and interrater reliability achieved good agreement beyond chance. These results suggest that the measures may be reliably employed to assess characteristics valued in managerial writing. Examples of how these analytic measures may be employed for teaching and research are also described.

This article describes a team-based project developed for undergraduate students in both business communication and business statistics classes in a small, midwestern college. More than 94% of the students endorsed the usefulness of the project, which was designed to help them develop communication competencies in multiple areas: working in teams, writing collaboratively, participating in meetings, and giving and receiving constructive criticism. The project presents a model of collaboration between instructors in business departments.

The value of formal writing conventions has been diminished in mainstream composition scholarship; although research on occupational writing suggests that formal conventions are important, these findings are hard to generalize. This study, a content analysis of 12 professional style manuals, achieves generalizability by elucidating the institutional norms of disciplinary writing (a subset of occupational writing to which much scientific and technical writing belongs). Formal conventions prove to be highly valued. More important, the use of formal conventions often is justified on rhetorical grounds, suggesting that the dichotomy between formalist and rhetorical axiologies posited in composition scholarship is false.

U.S. and Mexican managerial attitudes concerning the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) process on the United States are explored. Over 1,500 managers, professionals, and upper-division business students in the United States and Mexico responded to a survey developed in both countries. Issues examined include general knowledge concerning NAFTA and perceived effect on a number of socioeconomic concerns. Differences in Mexican and U.S. attitudes concerning the issues are discussed.

We surveyed 1,152 employees of a midwestern telephone company to test the effects of gender and employee classification level on work outcomes. To determine whether gender differences in this organization were stable or context dependent, competing hypotheses were established from both structural and socialization perspectives. Significant main effects of gender and employee classification level were predicted and found by structuralist theory. Women reported lower job satisfaction and interaction as less desirable than men, whereas hourly workers reported lower supervisory support, teamwork, communication satisfaction, and accuracy of information than salaried workers. Structuralist theory also predicted and found significant interaction effects for satisfaction with communication, supervisory support, teamwork, and desire for interaction. However, both theories operated for employees' perceptions of information accuracy.

This study shows that race/ethnicity significantly explained differences in attitudes toward human resource policies fostering diversity held by faculty at a large public university in the midwestern United States. Overall, whites' attitudes were less positive regarding diversity programs and other human resource policies relevant to women and minorities than Black's, Hispanic's, and Asian's attitudes were. We also found that individual race and ethnicity significantly explained differences in attitudes toward diversity programs to a greater extent than the demography of the organizational work unit.

Research in business disciplines about work-force diversity has been inadequate in terms of precise conceptualization and theoretical grounding. Two psychological paradigms from training literature (cognitive and affective) are examined here, but, because of their inability to explain the sources and significance of organization-level change, sociological paradigms about dominance and intergroup dynamics are presented as viable theoretical supplements. Substantive sharing of power with diverse or nontraditional employees hitherto marginalized in U.S. organizations is proposed as one potentially effective response to managing work-force diversity. Systemwide structural changes in U.S. organizations of today are recommended for optimizing diversity.

What impact will a greater increase in the diversity level of an organization's work force have on its productivity? Practicing managers' desire to have this question answered has been the stimulus for much of the diversity-related research currently in print. However, the narrow focus on providing an answer to this particular question appears to have diverted researchers' attention away from a number of perhaps more fundamental issues. A major issue that has been neglected in previous research studies is the impact that greater increases in work-force diversity might have on communication processes within organizations—specifically, communication processes that are associated with organizational productivity. As a contribution toward helping to fill in this research gap, this article proposes a typology of impacts that greater increases in work-force diversity might have on communication effectiveness in organizations.

When a vehicle maintenance unit of a public transit agency underwent extensive demographic diversification of its work force, original workers escalated the symbolic actions and language patterns traditionally used to establish and maintain hierarchy in that workplace. Taken literally and seen as malicious by new workers, the shoptalk and horseplay became vehicles for internal power struggles that led the organization toward dysfunction and even violence. Management responded by stepping up structural control and punishment. The managers failed to acknowledge and provide for the need of newly diverse discourse communities in this workplace to negotiate a new order in which sufficient shared meaning and agreed-upon language and behaviors could be constructed.

Stories, often dismissed as irrelevant in traditional research interviews, can provide valuable insights into the culture or cultures that pervade the setting within which the research is conducted. Studies of conversational storytelling have demonstrated that narrators not only relate events and conditions but also indicate the significance of their stories by means of story evaluations; that is, they highlight the points of their stories in various ways, such as suspending the story, making overt comments about the importance of an event, and repeating certain key words or phrases. This article demonstrates how story evaluations can reveal a story's significance within an organizational setting by examining two narratives from research interviews that form part of the data in a study of readers' responses to writing in a marketing organization.

The argument is presented that managerial writing is performed within a unique context; consequently, it is important to review the extant research within that context to understand managerial writing. The literature is reviewed within the framework of writing context, process, and outcome. The paucity of research and the heavy emphasis on survey methodology expose the need for extensive research on managerial writing. Six general research questions are presented to guide future research efforts.