Examines Exxon's communication efforts in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster. Identifies communication practices that damaged the corporation's credibility, antagonized the public, and contributed to the public perception of its corporate arrogance. Notes that the Valdez spill makes a good case for classroom study. (PRA)

Extends prior research on communication barriers to the tax practitioner-IRS agent relationship. Provides survey responses from 98 tax practitioners pinpointing serious behavioral and personality barriers, inflexible thinking, technical competence, and close-minded attitudes of IRS agents. Suggests that the Internal Revenue Service might use…

Investigates causes of ambiguities in the discourse resulting in the decision to launch the space shuttle "Challenger." Maintains that the source of that ambiguity was: (1) a social context with great pressure to launch; and (2) inappropriate conversational politeness strategies used to cope with that pressure. Discusses the lessons of…

States that in addition to reflecting the social and power relationships between the writer and the reader, politeness strategies in administrative writing reflect the values of the organization. Offers a context-based approach to analyzing administrative writing, an approach that can be used to uncover discourse strategies in other organizational…

Combines the ideas of Erasmus, the Renaissance humanist, and Bakhtin, the twentieth-century Russian philosopher, into a unified theory of business correspondence. Presents both a set of guidelines and a model for the practice of dialogical correspondence. (SR)

Proposes a model of organizational change by describing organizational change as a discursive process, sparked by a rhetorical conflict in an organization's narratives and images. Examines the educational assumptions and theories that structured a training course used by a company that was restructuring and reorganizing. (SG)

Uses a systems approach to organizational theory to argue that technical communicators function as "boundary spanners," who make sense of and disseminate information required for coordination between organizational groups, and for effective responses to the environment. (JAD)

Reports on Social Sciences Citation Index citations of six periodicals, three that cover business communication explicitly and three that address related areas. Finds that business communication articles are cited by many different journals, but with low frequency, and that business communication periodicals compare favorably on several indices of…

Assesses reader reactions to a broad range of lexical, syntactical, and text layout conditions, both in isolation and interactively. Finds that, although the role of these elements in affecting readers' perceptions is not as critical as was presumed, certain perceptions are significantly affected by specific lexical, syntactical, and layout…

Asserts that earlier investigations of the organizational communication failures that led to the space shuttle Challenger explosion asked the wrong question. Notes an erroneous focus on why the shuttle was launched despite widespread knowledge of technical problems. Concludes that sociology of technology and new rhetoricians can help form better…

Explores preferences for word-processed versus handwritten messages in an organizational setting. Identifies variables that affect preferences for written media: hierarchical level, message length, message complexity, anticipated reaction, communication task, need for documentation, and communication across work shifts. Shows that the cost control…

Surveys people in business to find out about their communication needs. Finds that respondents believe that oral communication before a small group is important; principles of communication should be stressed over formats for letters and memos; and reading and editing, as well as grammar skills, are very important. (SR)

Describes, in a study of an insurance company's communication department, how three written products served as parts of larger messages in multiple media campaigns; an attempt to combine composing processes for print and video failed; and conflicting generic and stylistic properties of other media caused an intermedial graft to fail. (SR)

Summarizes the scholarly discussion about negative messages and reports the results of two pretests and two experiments using negative letters. Shows that buffers did not significantly affect college students' responses to simulated letters refusing credit and denying admission to graduate school and that strong "resale" was…

Suggests that applicant impression management (AIM) is more harmful to employment interviewing than is currently suspected. Offers a conceptual model of AIM that is consistent with employment interviewing practice. Presents and critiques three arguments used to defend AIM. Examines a model for helping employers conduct interviews that minimize the…