Discusses the employee newsletter as a medium of managerial communication, and details the newsletter's usual contents and functions. Illustrates how managers can use newsletters to communicate information, as well as motivate employees and unify an organization. Describes the newsletter editor's role and typical problems editors encounter. (MM)

Examines the extent to which postbureaucratic principles (dialog, workplace democracy, and transformational leadership) are currently reflected in the employment interview. Discusses the nature of the postbureaucratic organization. Examines current employment interviewing norms and practices to determine if they reflect three guiding principles of…

Discusses ways to make the professional consulting experience successful and to understand an organization's communication problems. States that consultants should be aware of how the organization's culture may affect its members' communication practices, and should learn to read various signs of organizational culture. Emphasizes that effective…

Analyzes as to style 200 samples of electronic mail memorandums gathered from 4 organizations. Counts systematically textual features such as sentence and paragraph length, grammatical sentence types, sentence openers, and diction to examine patterns of rhetorical choice common to electronic mail. Finds that writers combined elements 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…

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)

Posits that narrative can provide a basis for a pedagogy of social action--one that enables students to understand the workings of power and cultural reproduction in professional settings and that fosters reflection, critique, and dialogue. Reviews narrative theory that supports this claim. Concludes by discussing the concerns about and the…

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…

Identifies several typical, but not predictable, organizational problems that involve technical communicators. Presents them in a how-to, anecdotal fashion that focuses on actual experience in the workplace. (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)

Suggests that thinking about international communication within a framework that aligns an organization's global management strategies with international communication practices enhances not only consulting practice but teaching as well. Describes the framework, and argues it introduces ways of thinking about global management strategies and their…

Presents six aspects of business school videoconferencing: (1) a rationale for using videoconferencing in the business curriculum; (2) a description of the Videoconferencing Center in the Texas Christian University business school; (3) budgetary considerations and resources; (4) learning objectives for student videoconferencing; (5) sample…

Describes the experiences of a master of arts student in professional writing and editing who undertook ethnographic research to explore ghostwriting in a military headquarters. Investigates the ways in which the military's review process influences writer psychology and the final written product. Discusses changes in local writing and reviewing…

Examines gender differences in how 800 organizationally experienced and work-oriented women and men rated the importance of 8 characteristics of effective work teams. Finds that women rated the importance of (1) team members' job knowledge; (2) competent, respected, and fair leadership; and (3) team members' liking, trusting and helping each other…