Explains that when organizations face crises, their rhetorical response often follows two steps: assessment of causes leading to the crisis, and a search for potential solutions and preventive measures for the future. States that epideictic rhetoric designed to sustain or regain the organization's reputation is effective in both steps. Examines…

Assesses two versions of a content-based metric for coding and calculating composite verbal intensity values for naturalistic discourse. Demonstrates initial support for both face validity and concurrent validity of the metric, as measured via raters' perceptions of language intensity. (SR)

Finds that power exerted a substantial impact on the messages persons used during a negotiation game; message behavior moderated the effect of power on outcomes, so that negotiators were differentially effective in any given power condition depending upon the messages employed; and participants' message behavior was often maximizing outcomes. (SR)

Presents a critical-interpretive case study of an organization that illustrates the communicative accomplishment of organizational power. Details how the managing ownership espoused a rhetoric of self-directive management which obscured conflicting political interests and relations of power. Demonstrates the difficulties organizational members…