Job-Searching Expectations, Expectancy Violations, and Communication Strategies of Recent College Graduates

Business and Professional Communication Quarterly Sep 2017

Job-Searching Expectations, Expectancy Violations, and Communication Strategies of Recent College Graduates

Stephanie A. Smith

Abstract

Expectancy violations theory, a communicative framework, is applied in this study to understand how recent college graduates form, evaluate, and respond to violated job-searching expectations. In-depth interviews of college seniors ( N = 20) who were currently job searching helped answer the three research questions posed. Using a thematic analysis, the findings indicate that young job seekers evaluate some negative information positively because it reduces their uncertainty and that expectations and responses to expectancy violations change over time and are not stagnant, as the theory originally predicted. Other contributions, limitations, and teaching implications are discussed.

Journal: Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
Published: 2017-09-01
DOI: 10.1177/2329490617723116
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Topics: qualitative research

Citation Context

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Cites in this index (2)

Clokie et al. (2016)

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Moshiri et al. (2014)

The State of Business Communication Classes

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