Contributes to scholarship on the relationship between workplace documents and workplace practices by examining the history and practice associated with one volunteer ambulance squad's preprinted report forms. Argues that preprinted forms that enable workers to reflect on their actions play a crucial role in their development as professionals and…

Finds that favorable attitudes toward innovation and change, computer self-efficacy, and computer experience directly and positively influence e-mail use; and that attitudes toward innovation and change influence (moderate) the relationship between social context and e-mail selection and use. Points to the need for a more comprehensive and complex…

Shows that relationship duration (in a vignette describing a manager and an employee) significantly affected whether respondents thought the employee should telecommute; and that managerial reaction to criticism and managerial loyalty significantly affected forecasts of the worker's and manager's working together successfully. Suggests that…

Finds that (1) some editors chose several individuals from their own department to be on the editorial boards; (2) board members' experiences in publishing varied considerably; (3) some members had not published in the journals they reviewed for; and (4) most editorial boards achieved some sort of gender balance. (SC)

Contributes to scholarship on family communication, finding that fathers' perceptions of the appropriateness and effectiveness of tactics with oppositional sons was largely a function of their level of trait verbal aggressiveness, which was (1) negatively related to perceptions of appropriateness and effectiveness of supportive tactics, and (2)…

Finds that when undergraduate student interactants had prior information about each other, state-receiver apprehension was positively related to uncertainty and both were negatively related to information-seeking and confirmation of relational predictions. Suggests that state-receiver apprehension may possibly lead to uncertainty. Develops a…

Examines how metadiscourse is used to create a positive corporate image in 137 CEOs' letters, showing how CEOs use nonpropositional material to realize rational, credible, and affective appeals. Reveals the essentially rhetorical nature of CEOs' letters by comparing the frequency and distribution of metadiscourse in their letters and directors'…

Finds that managers were more likely to recommend that environmental remediation proposals receive priority for funding when they read proposals written in candid language than when they read proposals written in legally defensible language. Shows that threats and a negative tone are highly persuasive in internal environmental compliance reports.…

Proposes that empirical disposition toward the dialog of informal discourse (the Vernacular Rhetoric model) provides a deeper understanding of public opinion than either the Rational Deliberation or the Opinion Poll models. Discusses an outsider's experience witnessing vernacular discourse, the rhetorical locus of public opinion in vernacular…

Finds that communication modality moderates effects of power of language style on attitudes toward speaker's recommendation but not on evaluations of the speaker. Indicates that systematic information processing is used to form attitudes toward a recommendation when arguments are represented in writing, whereas audio and audio-visual modes…

Contends that communication apprehension represents individuals' expression of inborn, biological functioning, antecedent to social experience and therefore independent of social learning processes. Presents a temperament-based conceptualization of communication apprehension; integrates neurologically-based temperament functions into three…

Contributes to scholarship on organizational communication by tracing how voluntary cooperative standards were developed for the semiconductor industry through reflexive communication processes initiated by the SEMATECH consortium. Analyzes seven pivotal incidents that show how increased communication produced new provinces of meaning, actions,…

Discusses how the validity and reliability of business communication research can be improved by using both quantitative and qualitative methods and studying both real life and simulations. Suggests that studies should build on both American research on strategy and innovation and European research on psycholinguistics and perception. (SC)

Examines nonvoluntary relationships with disliked partners (NR/D). Hypothesizes that the subjects (undergraduate students) would try to attenuate this discomfort by increasing psychological distance between themselves and their disliked partners. Shows that people use distance to attenuate the discomfort created by an NR/D. Finds 36 distancing…

Presents research to support the argument that patterns of interaction deeply entrenched within a patriarchal system cannot be undermined simply by offering access to a new medium such as computer-mediated communication. Claims that, in moving away from traditional discourse forms that oppress and marginalize women, scholars run the risk of those…