• Generative AI can help multilingual communicators in professional writing. • Generative AI supports email/report writing and meeting summary. • Practical, ethical and legal concerns remain. • Students’ AI use at workplace informs academic writing teaching and learning. Because multilingual students’ languaging practices are not limited to academic settings, it is important to explore their lived experiences communicating in real-world situations to shed light on how to prepare them in college classrooms in the era of generative AI. Drawing upon writing samples, artifacts and interview data, this case study brings attention to the potential and challenges a multilingual international student face in implementing generative AI-assisted written communication during her 5-month internship in the workplace. The findings indicate that generative AI tools, especially ChatGPT, have the potential to help multilingual communicators meet their written linguistic demands in professional contexts, especially in email writing, report drafting and meeting summary. Generative AI-assisted writing tools could assist multilingual students with idea expression and boost their confidence and agency in communication. Yet, despite its many advantages, practical, ethical and legal concerns remain. This study contributes to the scarce yet budding literature exploring multilingual international students’ AI engagement in professional settings and offers concrete pedagogical implications and directions for future research.

This study examines how diversity and inclusion are communicated in LinkedIn job advertisements as workplace communication texts. Using qualitative, discourse-oriented analysis of job advertisements from global hotel brands, the study identifies recurring discursive frames through which organisations construct inclusivity, including belonging-oriented language, celebration of diversity, formal equal opportunity claims, and well-being–focussed narratives. These discourses are realised through specific communicative signals such as non-discrimination statements, values-based cultural cues, identity-affirming language, and references to inclusive policies. The study proposes the Inclusive Recruitment Communication Process conceptual framework, explaining inclusive recruitment communication as a platform-mediated process linking discourse, signalling, and conceptualised applicant sensemaking.

This article’s author situates late 19th-century essays by Andrew Carnegie within the rhetorical history of business and professional communication (BPC). A close analysis of the essays reveals that Carnegie relied on rhetoric to shape his public image as a benevolent business leader during a period characterized by significant socioeconomic divisions in the United States. Three primary themes— wealth , labor , and democracy —emerge, which the author argues animated Carnegie’s reasoning and arguments throughout the essays. The author concludes by recommending greater attention to the rhetorical history of BPC in future research and teaching.

The disaggregation of data around human identities can act as a rich method, providing researchers with new ways of understanding community and workplace writing. However, demographic analysis can unknowingly perpetuate harmful stereotypes and constructions of human identity. This article examines common issues with disaggregation of identity-based data in research and details an empirical research project that drove the research team to reconsider new approaches to desegregated data. In response, I propose a participant self-identification method and offer a heuristic guiding researchers to critically interrogate demographic data collection, enabling more equitable, participant-centered approaches to understanding identity in writing research.

This study addresses the persistent misalignment between Arabic language curricula in Chinese universities and the communicative demands of Arabic-mediated business work. Adopting an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, we surveyed 105 Chinese graduates who use Arabic in professional settings and conducted follow-up interviews with three lecturers responsible for Arabic for Business Purposes (ABP) courses. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed three reliable constructs: teaching methodology, workplace ability, and future training needs, while regression analyses showed that learner-centered, task-based teaching methodologies significantly predict graduates’ perceived workplace ability and heighten their awareness of ongoing training needs. The qualitative findings illuminated high-stakes communicative events such as negotiations, client correspondence, and intercultural meetings, and revealed systematic gaps between academic instruction and workplace discourse practices. Integrating quantitative and qualitative strands, the study proposes a dual-layer instructional model consisting of eight developmental stages and five interrelated competence domains that link classroom tasks to authentic business communication events. The model offers a contextualized pathway for redesigning ABP curricula in China and contributes to wider debates on how language-for-specific-purposes programmes can better support employability and professional communication readiness.

Teacher communication influences students’ cognitive and emotional well-being, yet mechanisms linking communication behaviors to learning outcomes remain underexplored. Grounded in the conservation of resources framework, this study tested an ecological model in which teacher clarity and rapport indirectly reduced writing apprehension through perceived immediacy, self-efficacy, and burnout. Undergraduate students ( N  = 389) in Business and Professional Communication courses completed validated measures. Structural equation modeling supported a serial mediation: clarity and rapport predicted immediacy and self-efficacy, which reduced burnout and, in turn, writing apprehension. Findings highlight burnout as a psychological conduit linking instructional communication to student anxiety.

To address students’ challenges in business writing and bridge the gap between workplace demands and the skills of new professionals, this quasi-experimental study examined the effects of flipped-ARCS and face-to-face ARCS instruction on Pakistani undergraduate English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ business writing achievement and motivation in a business communication course. The findings indicated that the flipped-ARCS model was more effective in improving business writing, while face-to-face ARCS instruction better boosted students’ motivation, supporting the potential of innovative teaching strategies and providing valuable insights for educators and policymakers on integrating technology-based instructional methods into business writing education.

This article presents a curated collection of six teaching innovations presented at the Association for Business Communication 90th conference in Long Beach, California, as well as online, in October 2025. These MFA presenters demonstrated activities in helping students understand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and social media in business communication. This My Favorite Assignment 34th edition introduces readers to a variety of classroom-ready ideas that integrate tasks involving social media and AI. 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.

This study examined how lecture background type influences student learning experiences in business and professional communication contexts. An online experiment was conducted with undergraduate students in the United States. Participants viewed a lecture on one-way interviews presented with either a digitally created background (university-branded PowerPoint slide) or authentic-appearing background (image of a physical office wall). The results revealed an indirect effect of lecture background type on students’ perceptions, mediated by the perceived social presence of the instructor: specifically, a lecture delivered with an authentic-appearing background fostered social presence, which in turn, enhanced students’ perceptions of the instructor’s credibility and their affective learning.

The hybrid exchange project described here aims to facilitate intercultural learning and cultural awareness by promoting meaningful virtual and cultural interactions among students from universities in Kenya, Ireland, and Germany. We collected qualitative data from former participants, who engaged in virtual and in-person exchanges. Our study indicates that hybrid exchange programs effectively promote intercultural understanding, and personal and professional development in technical communication. The program's design, which includes structured activities and social exchanges, contributed to the successful achievement of these goals. Such approaches can serve as a model for improving virtual team dynamics in various sectors, applicable beyond educational contexts.

This corpus-based study investigates the grammatical stance constructions in CEO statements within the annual reports of U.S. and Vietnamese banks from 2020 to 2022. The findings indicate that modality is the dominant stance type followed by attitudinal and epistemic stance markers. Both groups of bank leaders favor desire/intention/decision verbs with infinitive complement clauses, certainty/likelihood verbs controlling complement clauses, and volition/prediction modality. But variations exist in the specific stance devices employed to shape corporate image and engage with stakeholders. These findings provide insights into cross-cultural corporate discourse in the banking sector and have valuable implications for business writing and professional communication.

This article offers multiple strategies for instructors who are implementing intercultural communication (IC) projects in their classrooms for the first time. The strategies—referred to as UNITE—are based on five main stages that collaborative projects can follow: understanding and learning about IC collaborations, navigating the project prior to the classroom collaboration, introducing the project to students, tending the project throughout its duration, and ending the project. Using their years of experience in participating in the Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Project (TAPP), the authors provide examples and explanations of moves and activities that have worked in facilitating successful IC collaboration projects for students in their technical and professional communication courses.

This study explores how truth-default theory (TDT) and relevance theory apply to public speaking and business communication. Two hundred eight college students watched one of four speech introductions varying by topic relevance and the presence of an explicit credibility statement. Participants rated speaker trustworthiness and credibility. Results showed that topic relevance had a greater influence on audience perceptions than explicit credibility statements. Highly relevant topics reduced suspicion and supported TDT’s claim that deception detection requires a trigger. These findings illustrate how speakers can build credibility and how audiences evaluate messages in educational and business public speaking contexts.

How should academics who work in the field of business communication (or management, professional, or technical communication) think of their work? I propose that business communication should be understood as a sentinel discipline and a designer discipline. By sentinel discipline I mean a community that continually monitors (and responds to) changes in business practice. By designer discipline I mean a community that understands the instructional task as shaping the ways in which graduates will shape (and reshape) business organizations through their communicative behavior.

Business communication courses play a key role in preparing students for job market challenges, such as matching resume skills to the job ad. This article presents a classroom activity where students analyze a job description, create a t-chart listing the criteria on one side and experience/skills on the other, and develop an action plan for filling the gaps between the skills and experience the student has and what the ideal candidate would bring to the job. Through this experience, students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses while creating actionable strategies to become the ideal candidate for their post-graduation employment.

Community health practitioners face a common challenge of communicating the value of their work because it is intentionally designed to prevent health issues from happening. This case study examines how impact storytelling—a four-question framework developed by a community health manager at a nonprofit health system—mediates between technical expertise and executive's understanding. Through interviews with four Community Health practitioners, this research explains how the framework addresses specific technical communication challenges. This research brings together theory with practice by offering both a transferable framework for nonprofit organizations as well as theoretical insights into how workplace communication tools emerge from workplace practices.

This study investigates collaborative interdisciplinary research writing at a large public Western U.S. university through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and textual analyses. While 75% of faculty at this institution supported campuswide interdisciplinary initiatives, only 31% believed current institutional structures enhanced such work—a 44-percentage-point gap that our analysis suggests stemmed from five key obstacles to successful interdisciplinary writing: structural barriers, career concerns (particularly for pre-tenure faculty), disciplinary cultural differences, terminological conflicts, and divergent goals between faculty and administrators. Faculty in this study focused on immediate practical challenges and professional development, while administrators prioritize institutional transformation and structural change. The study concludes with recommendations relevant for universities with comparable resources and commitment to Writing Studies informed approaches, including revised tenure guidelines that explicitly value interdisciplinary contributions, dedicated funding mechanisms, facilitated networking opportunities, and targeted writing support programs. By addressing faculty’s practical needs and administrators’ strategic vision, institutions can create environments where collaborative boundary-crossing becomes not just possible but sustainable and rewarding.

Introduction: This case study's purpose is to make visible the skills and knowledge necessary for the instant localization of screen readers. About the case: The case study examines the work of localization experts at a nonprofit organization in Hungary, who localize the proprietary Job Access with Speech (JAWS) screen reader software and support its target users. Situating the case: The study was informed by research in translation studies and localization-focused literature within the field of technical and professional communication. Research on accessible usability and software design was also consulted. Methods/approach: Participant observations and interviews with employees of the nonprofit organization and with the software's users were conducted. Data were transcribed, then coded using qualitative data-analysis methods. Codes that emerged from the data were grouped into themes to create a narrative interwoven with quotes about the activities of localization experts. Results/discussion: The findings from this study show that the instant localization process used by localization experts of this software requires a specific set of skills in addition to those used in project-based approaches to localization. Additional language and communication skills, as well as programming knowledge to develop additional program features and training materials, were found to be essential for addressing all users’ needs. Conclusion: Technical and professional communication practitioners can contribute to the localization of adaptive technologies through their strong usability, user experience, and communication skills.

Background: Best practices for undergraduate technical and professional communication internships ensure that student experiences align with educational and professional goals. However, it is unclear whether internship programs attempt best practices to fulfill obligations to students, students’ workplaces, and employers. Literature review: Prior work has called on technical and professional communication on (TPC) faculty to lead internship programs in their academic departments. The scholarship imagines faculty who have access to workplace discourse, who are situated in internship courses or professional advising positions, and direct programs to build relationships, assess, and coordinate across academic-industry boundaries. However, it is unclear how these ideals match current institutional practices. Research question: What are the current practices of TPC internship programs? Methodology: A cross-institutional comparative content analysis examined 47 institutions’ TPC internship program and course descriptions and supporting documents that are publicly available on university websites. These were coded for themes related to internship best practices outlined by the literature. Results: The analysis found: 1. Programs give faculty supervisory titles but retain them and orient internships in academic contexts rather than orient practices toward employers, 2. Programs value their responsibility towards students over employers, and 3. The public-facing documentation does not obligate best practices as idealized in the literature. Conclusion: Current TPC internship practices do not fulfill all of the ideals imagined in the literature, but do maintain a humanist student focus.

Background: Hospital educators are designated individuals who provide hospitalized K-12 children with their schooling during the time of their stay. They play a vital role in maintaining educational continuity for hospitalized children, yet their professional information and communication practices remain understudied in US settings. Literature review: We build on literature within technical and professional communication (TPC), specifically scholars who have studied technology and health in understanding US hospital educators' unique technological needs and communication practices within highly regulated healthcare environments. Research questions: How do hospital educators navigate professional communication, adapt teaching practices to meet diverse student needs, and utilize technology in hospital settings? What opportunities exist for artificial-intelligence (AI) integration? Research method: We conducted semistructured interviews with four hospital educators across US hospitals, applying reflexive thematic analysis, informed by Participatory Communication Theory, Sociotechnical Systems Perspectives, and Knowledge Justice. Analysis employed iterative open coding followed by theory-informed thematic development, where communication theory guided the identification of dialogical patterns, systems theory directed attention to sociotechnical interactions, and knowledge justice sensitized us to power dynamics affecting professional knowledge access and sharing. Results/discussion: Findings reveal characteristics of US hospital education contexts in our study: short patient stays, strict security requirements, institutional variability across hospital settings, and emphasis on engagement over assessment. Educators demonstrate remarkable adaptability in coordinating among stakeholders while navigating institutional constraints and developing strategies for rapid assessment and flexible instruction. While educational technologies offer benefits, implementation faces significant challenges regarding security, practical limitations, and offline functionality needs. Conclusion: We propose guideline themes for developing information and communication technologies–including some that use AI–that support hospital educators' professional needs while respecting hospital setting constraints. This research contributes to understanding how technologies can enhance hospital education while highlighting the importance of context-specific design that empowers rather than replaces educator expertise.

Background: Both technical professional communication (TPC) and translation training call for a closer academia-industry link to cultivate students’ professional competence and enhance employability. Among the collaborative efforts, the internship serves as a key part in bridging the gap and enhancing students’ work-readiness. Their effectiveness, however, depends on the alignment of expectations among the internship stakeholders. Literature review: While prior studies have examined translation internships, they typically center around either students or language service providers (LSP) in isolation. A significant gap exists in quantitatively comparing the perceptions of these two key stakeholder groups. Research questions: How do students and LSPs differ in their perceptions of internships? What factors contribute to the misalignment in stakeholders’ perceptions from the perspective of university educators and administrators? Methods: This study employed a mixed-methods approach. A survey was administered to translation students and LSP representatives to identify their perception differences across four key dimensions of internships, followed by interviews with university educators and administrators to explore the causes. Results: Quantitative analysis revealed statistically significant discrepancies in 18 of the 44 items. The subsequent qualitative interviews identified four primary factors contributing to these discrepancies: inadequate internship management, curriculum misalignment due to the lack of qualified faculty, emphasis on hard skills over soft skills in evaluation, and pragmatic concerns from both students and employers. Implication: The findings provided recommendations for students, employers, and institutions to improve the effectiveness of internships, which are relevant not only for translation but also for other practice-oriented disciplines like TPC.

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.

In this article I explain how the ecological perspective, posthumanism, and rhetorical genre studies all coalesce into a theoretical framework from which to approach business communication theory and practice. I use the United States National Security Strategy as a research object to demonstrate this theoretical approach.

This case, developed for the 2025 ABC Case Writing Competition and sponsored by the ABC Student Competition Committee, asks students to apply persuasive communication strategies to a real-world crisis in public service. Following a violent incident at the Worcester (Massachusetts) Public Library, students step into the role of Board President to advocate for staff safety and resources before the City Council. The case highlights the challenges of community advocacy, secondary traumatic stress, and organizational resilience while offering students practice in crafting persuasive, high-stakes messages.

This study examines the role of positive communication in AI-generated recruitment messaging and its influence on Generation Z job seekers. Drawing on positive communication scholarship (Mirivel & Fuller, 2024) and the Human Needs Approach (Socha & Beck, 2015), we explore how AI-generated job descriptions shape anticipatory socialization and perceptions of workplace culture. Using qualitative focus groups, we identify key themes related to authenticity, engagement, and the fulfillment of fundamental psychological needs. Findings indicate that although positive communication enhances job attractiveness, job seekers remain skeptical of AI-generated content unless it aligns with real-world workplace values. Organizations must balance AI efficiency with human oversight to maintain trust and ensure transparency in recruitment messaging. This study contributes to business communication research by offering practical and pedagogical implications for AI-integrated hiring strategies and ethical recruitment communication.

This article presents a curated collection of nine teaching innovations presented at the Association for Business Communication 90th conference in Long Beach, California, as well as online, in October 2025. These My Favorite Assignment (MFA) presenters demonstrated various activities in helping students prepare for their careers and develop their professional skills. This My Favorite Assignment 33rd edition introduces readers to a wide variety of classroom-ready ideas that integrate career readiness tasks. 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.

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.

This article looks at how I successfully redesigned a business communication course to support the development of students’ interpersonal and team communication as well as negotiation skills through a strong focus on positive communication and improvisation. The article demonstrates that building a course around Mirivel’s (2014) positive communication model and using improvisational techniques in learning activities can effectively support students’ business communication skills development. The article provides instructors with concrete course modules and activities that can be used in similar courses.

This study evaluates a “feedback-only,” constrained-generative AI tool designed to support revision without generating or rewriting student text. StoryCoach was developed for a business communication elective and grounded in cognitive apprenticeship with principles of feedback literacy. The tool generated structured feedback: one strength, one opportunity, and one reflective question per submission. Analysis of 57 paired drafts showed significant gains in feature-specific rhetorical execution, with vividness as the primary quantitative indicator (Cohen’s d  = 1.39), supported by independent reader judgments and student reflections. Findings demonstrate that constrained-generative AI can function as a pedagogical partner that strengthens rhetorical awareness and preserves authorship integrity.

This paper highlights the reflective experiences of five graduate students who emerged as practitioner-scholars in the field of technical and professional communication (TPC) through their participation in the Spring 2025 graduate course, Writing Grants and Proposals, at Sam Houston State University. The semi-simulated, Better Sam Program assignment, grounded in a community-engaged and social justice framework, required students to develop unsolicited full proposals addressing local issues or opportunities within SHSU or the Huntsville community. This assignment challenged students to align their proposals with community needs while engaging in ethical, research-driven practices. Drawing on extensive community engagement, students developed proposals that were not only realistic and contextually grounded but also reflective of broader social justice concerns. The reflective process, guided by structured questions, encouraged students to critically analyze their proposal development experiences and consider the broader implications of their work for community advocacy and social responsibility. This paper presents these reflections, offering insights into how grant writing can be a transformative educational experience that fosters critical thinking, ethical engagement, and social impact.

This special issue of the Journal of Writing Research brings together seven empirical studies of the relationship between writing and generative AI, examining what can be systematically observed and measured about the functioning of generative AI in educational and professional writing contexts. Collectively, the studies demonstrate the necessity and value of methodological pluralism for investigating a complex, rapidly evolving phenomenon. In their contributions, the researchers use experimental comparisons, mixed-methods intervention designs, corpus-based analyses, computational linguistic techniques, and qualitative interpretive approaches. Taken together, these methods enable lines of inquiry that no single approach could sustain: comparisons of AI and human performance in professional writing tasks; analyses of how writers at different ages and levels of expertise engage AI tools; examinations of how assessment systems register and respond to AI-generated prose; and investigations of how human readers interpret texts with ambiguous authorship. By foregrounding both the affordances and limitations of different methodological traditions, the articles present a multifaceted approach to the study of writing and generative AI.

Since the launch of ChatGPT, the use of and debate around generative AI has grown rapidly. Professionals whose work depends on writing have expressed concern about the potential impact of such tools on their roles. But are these concerns justified? Can ChatGPT truly take on the responsibilities of a professional writer? This study investigates that question by comparing the performance of ChatGPT with that of professional editors tasked with optimizing business communication. We conducted two studies, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. In the first, three experienced editors were asked to rewrite four business letters. Their editing processes were recorded using the Microsoft Snipping Tool, and immediately afterward, we conducted retrospective interviews using stimulated recall. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Insights from the observations and interviews informed the design of the prompt instructions used in the second study. In the second study, we asked ChatGPT to revise the same four letters using three different prompt types. The Simple prompt instructed the model to “make this text reader-focused.” The B1 prompt referred explicitly to the CEFR B1 language level, requiring ChatGPT to tailor the text for intermediate readers. Finally, the Process prompt simulated the editing steps observed in the professional editors’ workflows. To evaluate outcomes, we conducted both a qualitative comparison of the revised texts and a quantitative readability analysis using LiNT, a validated tool developed for Dutch texts. Our results show that the human editors substantially improved the readability of the original letters, reducing the use of unfamiliar words, shortening complex sentences, and increasing personal engagement through pronoun use. Among the AI outputs, ChatGPT B1 achieved results most comparable to the editors, both in readability and accuracy. In contrast, ChatGPT Simple fell short in terms of clarity and introduced errors through faulty inferences. Surprisingly, ChatGPT Process also underperformed compared to ChatGPT B1 and the human editors. Only the editors' and ChatGPT B1versions were free from errors. In the discussion, we reflect on how generative AI is reshaping the concept of writing within organizations, the skills required to produce effective written communication and the impact on writing pedagogy. Rather than replacing human editors, we argue that generative AI can play a valuable role as a collaborative tool in the organizational writing process.

This article is a case study dealing with virtual communication experiences of the Indian executives engaged in remote work using online media during the pandemic phase. The author employs qualitative research methodology of ethnography by using a questionnaire circulated online to garner descriptive data regarding virtual communication from Indian executives in various corporate roles who had to take recourse to full-time virtual communication channels to continue their work. The data obtained from a longitudinal study of 12 months spanning from March 2021 to March 2022 was coded with an objective to plot the experiential spectrum of corporate managers using media richness theory and a psychobiological model, as online communication became a singular medium to process all kinds of conversations ranging from routine to negative and persuasive. It became the only tool for leadership execution as well as leadership enhancement compelling corporate heads to improvise media customization methods expeditiously to overcome the limiting constraints of its intrinsic lean outlet. After analyzing the data, the author concludes that virtual communication has now become an integral part of contemporary corporate communication ecosystem owing to the ‘best practices’ that managers invented during their ‘remote work only’ period when they were thrown into the virtual space with its insular gamut of applicability. Remote work also coerced executives to discover the latent potential of this communication channel, which was not apparent when this medium existed only as an elective channel in the ‘plurally channelled’ pre-pandemic work environments. The study provides a comprehensive repository of virtual communication techniques not just for the consumption of management classroom embedding industry inputs into the theoretical curriculum but also for corporate executives who began their careers in an environment of ‘channel sovereignty’ in the post-pandemic setups. The case study, thus, acts as a communication lab presenting online communication pathology and its incubation in industry environments. The author posits that the communication experimentation done during the remote work phase of the pandemic has changed the status of this medium in the realm of management communication from debilitating to dynamic irreversibly.

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.

This article describes a gamified technical writing assignment inspired by the Hunt a Killer board games. Students solve a fictional mystery by analyzing AI-generated technical documents as an introduction to the most common deliverables and genres in the field and practice of Technical and Professional Communication. Grounded in research on gamification and AI, this activity fosters experiential learning by situating technical writing genres as both structured and dynamic tools. By combining genre analysis with collaborative problem-solving, the assignment offers a novel approach to teaching genre in technical writing, emphasizing flexibility and critical thinking.

This article examines a multi-year study of a client-based, critical service-learning project embedded in a Professional Writing course at a Jesuit Catholic university. Drawing on surveys and interviews with students across six course sections, the study explores how students perceived service learning, which aspects of the project most shaped their learning, and how the university's mission informed their understanding of service and professionalism. Findings reveal that while students often entered the course with conventional assumptions about service as charity and professionalism as formality, many came to adopt a more relational, justice-oriented view of professional communication. By engaging with real clients—many of whom face structural inequities—students encountered the human realities behind workplace writing and began to see professionalism as a flexible, context-responsive ethic grounded in care and reciprocity. This article proposes the concept of justice-oriented professionalism as a reimagined model for technical and professional communication, one aligned with critical pedagogy, social justice, and relational responsiveness.

This article explores factors influencing classroom assessment approaches by analyzing survey data from 326 U.S. college instructors teaching business, communication, and composition. Business and communication instructors adopt nontraditional grading methods far less than composition instructors. Departmental culture and disciplinary norms are major influences, along with constraints like class size, time, and technology. The article argues that instructors can and should question departmental grading norms to develop assessment methods that enhance learning in interdisciplinary courses like business communication.

This article proposes a sensemaking methodology to enhance human-in-the-loop technical and professional communication (TPC) practices when working with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) output, which is often ambiguous and not always accurate. Sensemaking describes actions and cognitive strategies humans use to make sense of new/ambiguous information. We argue that sensemaking can help TPC students navigate making sense of GenAI output for better judgment in evaluating AI output. Particularly, we leverage sensemaking's Situation-Gap-Bridge-Outcome framework as a heuristic to identify situational contexts outside of GenAI, gaps in knowledge, create bridges for those gaps, and evaluate outcomes and connect this to extant TPC literature and discuss its implications.

This mixed-methods study investigates the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) among Bangladeshi university students through the creation of online advertisements for products like tea, kettles, and mango drinks. Grounded in the frameworks of Ertay and Gilanlioglu’s multidimensional ICC scale, Kress and van Leeuwen’s social semiotics, and Dooly’s asynchronous interculturality, the research examines how student-made ads serve as cultural texts that manifest evolving ICC. Quantitative results from 90 participants revealed significant disparities in self-assessed ICC, with Attitude scoring highest (71%) and Awareness lowest (54%). Longitudinal analysis of 60 students showed Language Appropriateness improved most (37%, p  < 0.01), while Visual Cultural Cues showed minimal gains (18%, p  = 0.08), indicating a cultural bias in visual literacy development. Pedagogically, advertisement creation supported by a structured ICC rubric yielded significantly higher competence gains (29%) than case studies or ad creation alone. Qualitative findings illuminated the challenges students faced in negotiating “glocal” identities and the emotional labor of cultural mediation. The study concludes that student-generated advertisements are potent pedagogical artifacts for ICC development but require tailored, critically reflective scaffolding to address contextual biases and effectively prepare students for the demands of global digital business communication.

This study investigates how the linguistic style of CEO digital communication influences audience engagement. Using an NLP pipeline with a panel regression model on a data set of 19,566 tweets from CEOs, this study reveals that linguistic clarity and an on-platform focus are the most robust predictors of engagement; syntactic complexity and the inclusion of external URLs consistently deter engagement metrics. The effects of stylistic choices like emojis and hashtags are less consistent and depend on the type of engagement being measured. These results offer an expanded understanding of digital communication for CEOs and provide direct implications for business communication pedagogy.

International professional writers must consider cultural and linguistic differences in their rhetorical choices. Yet limited studies have explored the practice of international and multilingual professional communication. This article reports on a corpus-based contrastive study of wine-tasting notes (TNs) produced in North America and Spain. The findings reveal that the Spanish TNs focus on sensory attributes whereas the North American TNs focus on narrative elements about wineries and food pairing. The authors conclude by positing the importance of a context-centered rather than a language-centered approach to international professional communication.

Request emails are vital in workplace communication. This study uses a three-round Delphi method to investigate the types, frequencies, and perceived burdens of request emails in Korean organizations. Fifty workers from large corporations identified and evaluated 32 common email scenarios, revealing that the most frequent requests are sent to superiors asking for approval, feedback, and document reviews whereas the most burdensome requests are sent to colleagues asking them to perform tasks. Highlighting the hierarchical dynamics of Korean workplaces and the importance of culturally appropriate communication strategies, the findings from this study can inform global training programs and curricula on workplace communication.