Tests hypothesized relationships between the media richness model and the symbolic interactionist perspective with data from 94 managers. Finds that managers tend to select the face-to-face medium for highly equivocal communications and written media for clear, objective communications. (MG)

Tests empirically a model of the relationships between social accounts, appraisal of actions (perceptions of fairness and attributions of responsibility) and two reactions to untoward actions (anger and approval). Suggests that the influence of social accounts on employees' anger and disapproval is mediated by perceived fairness and…

Studies how certain types of communication with supervisors and co-workers affects burnout and job satisfaction. Proposes and tests a model relating supportive communication (participation in decision making with supervisors and strength and breadth of communication links with co-workers) to burnout. (SR)

Presents an initial formulation of a dysfunctional group dynamic in which one focal individual creates a dysfunctional group. Identifies habits of individuals and properties of systems that result in the emergence of such an individual. Presents the interactional dynamics which constitute and sustain this group dynamic and discusses three types of…

Advances an "outsider within" perspective describing the ways that traditionally marginalized group members communicate in mainstream organizational settings. Explicates the process by which different cocultural group members come to adopt one or more communication orientations while interacting within dominant organizations. States the…

Studies conflict-handling behavior of employees within organizations in an inductive investigation aimed at overcoming problems of assuming two dimensions of conflict behavior. Develops a descriptive model of conflict-handling behavior which delineates and defines strategy categories based on actor-salient aspects of specific behavior in specific…

Examines the formulation of supervisory feedback messages as a function of attributions regarding poor subordinate performance and feedback goals. Finds that supervisors' goals determine the type of feedback generated and that attributions for poor performance have relatively few effects on the generation of feedback messages. (KEH)

Examines the linear or bureaucratic career models (dominant in career research, metaphors, paradigms, and ideologies) which maintain career myths of flexibility and individualized routes to success in organizations incapable of offering such versatility. Describes nonlinear career models which offer suggestive metaphors for re-visioning careers…

Examines the role of rhetorical strategies in repairing damaged corporate relationships. Demonstrates the utility of an integrated model (multiple-publics concept and strategies of apologia) to corporate public relations through a case study of Union Carbide's justification of the Bhopal gas leak. (KEH)

Offers a case study of a merger of two local theaters. Finds that organizational change causes customers to change vendors; the announcement of a merger fuels efforts by competitors to "steal" market share; and organizational change leads to more organizational change. (SR)

Assesses strategies employees use to express upward dissent within contemporary organizations. Indicates that employees used direct-factual appeal, repetition, solution presentation, circumvention, and threatening-resignation strategies for expressing upward dissent. Provides support for the exit-voice-loyalty model (and subsequent revisions) of…

Links ethical theories to the management of the product recall of the Perrier Group of America. Argues for a nonsituational theory-based eclectic approach to ethics in public relations to enable public relations practitioners, as strategic communication managers, to respond effectively to potentially unethical organizational actions. (SR)