In this essay we foreground the value of engaging meaningfully with practitioners in our work. We review research by scholars whose work cuts across topics and contexts to gain insight into the power and practice of human communication as it shapes the world in which we live-highlighting work that is at its best because of its co-creation with…

Knowing is an enacted, communicated process that is difficult to observe, let alone manage, in organizations. Communities of practice (CoPs) offer a productive solution for improving knowledge and knowledge management, but the communicative processes that enact CoPs have not been explored, leaving CoPs as an organizational black box. This research…

Explains the nature of organizational rhetoric. Examines ways in which organizational rhetoric may be analyzed. Locates the study of organizational rhetoric vis-a-vis organizational communication and rhetorical studies. Urges both critic and practitioner to apprehend the many and varied ways in which contemporary persuasion is organizationally…

Indicates that mission statement developers in both corporate and university settings need to improve the readability and the tone of their written statements in order to maximize their organizational image. (NKA)

Examines how consumers, corporate bodies, and employees communicate about quality. Presents eight summary statements about quality based on descriptions, derived definitions, and interpretations given by consumers, corporate histories, and personnel employed in a variety of corporate settings. (MM)

Examines city government managers' metaphorical language, documenting differences in number, type, intensity, and imagery of metaphors used. Identifies several organizational metaphor categories. Suggests that members of an organization share metaphorical meanings, and that there is an association between managers' metaphor use and subordinates'…

Describes a training program evaluation instrument--the Training Impact Questionnaire--which assesses the application of a specific skill to work tasks. Suggests ways of using the questionnaire in communication training programs. (MM)

Explores four topics: (1) organizational rhetoric as a fourth great system of rhetoric; (2) the modeling of organizational rhetoric; (3) representational magic in organizational rhetoric; and (4) the research and pragmatic implications of the fourth system. (MG)

Presents thoughts on organizational rhetoric from the point of view of social scientists, progressives, practitioners, rationalists, and polemicists representing useful touchstones for understanding, analyzing, and critiquing the rhetorical products of today's organizations. (MG)

Demonstrates how corporate culture stifled adaptive efforts of strategic planners, operations managers, industrial hygienists, and issue monitors in the asbestos industry thereby leading it to the brink of bankruptcy. (MG)

The 2004 recipient of NCA's Gerald M. Phillips Award for Distinguish Applied Scholarship, Brent Ruben's professional record spans more than three decades and has focused in four major areas: organizational development, communication/information systems, medical/health communication, and intercultural communication. In this commentary, Ruben…

Examines the effects of communication distortion on the task perceptions of subordinates working in goal-setting programs. Concludes that (1) effective superiors who communicate openly, supportively, and with little distortion are better able to clarify their subordinates' work environment, and (2) distortion negates a goal-setting program. (PD)

Defines dispersion as the degree to which the membership of an organization is spatially distributed and contends that employees' attitudes within an organization are affected by their employment level and the relative level of dispersion of their work location. (Available from the Journal of Applied Communications Research, Ed., Drawer NJ,…

Investigates the communication behavior of professionals performing linking roles in the research dissemination process and the relationship of such professionals' behavior to effectiveness in facilitating research dissemination. (MH)