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.

This article reviews literature on emotions within communication settings and proposes that emotions serve as motivations to accomplish social action; these motivations also serve as opportunities to negotiate agency within unfamiliar workplace settings. To exemplify the way this process develops, the author presents a case study of a technical communication intern as she works full-time for a German sales and distribution company. Through reflective self-narratives, the intern describes specific emotions she experiences as she adjusts to this German workplace. These emotions connect directly to decisions the student makes that help her negotiate agency from a “powerless” position, resulting in effective workplace relationships and a competent persona.

This article applies identity construction concepts to a professional and technical communication student intern’s use of agency as she negotiates a unique identity for herself within a state legislature. Following a literature review, the author highlights several of the intern’s key efforts to become part of this new governmental and legal discourse community, including learning legislature-specific genres, combatting the “totem-pole” hierarchy, making choices about appropriate professional behavior, socializing by creating an “entire family dynamic,” and making an effort to learn the culture of the legislature. These efforts are documented through the intern’s reflective, self-narratives and documents produced during the internship. Through this discussion, the author suggests practical implications for aiding students and newcomers as they transition to unfamiliar workplace communication environments.

This article explores different types of emotion a student experiences as she interns at a public defender’s office and proposes several emotion rules based on her experience. After a literature review that locates emotions within the identity-construction process, the author analyzes data from reflective questionnaires to identify various emotions this student experienced that serve as a basis for inductively formulating the rules. Following a discussion of the rules, the article concludes with implications of this research for educators and newcomers to workplace communication environments.