States that recent developments in critical organization studies suggest that feminist theory and research provide an additional domain of inquiry. Explores the intersection of feminism and postmodernism and its potential value for organizational communication studies. Suggests the concept of gendered rationality as a useful way of framing this…

Describes procedures for constructing story-based causal diagrams. Discusses the cognitive and pragmatic constraints that govern the tendency to attribute events to incomplete causes. Uses causal diagrams to analyze major disagreements about the 1987 stock market crash. Explores how causal diagrams may mitigate the constraints on causal…

Finds limited usefulness of the demographic variables in explaining communication satisfaction reaffirms for the importance of viewing organizational communication within the contingency framework finds the communication satisfaction framework provided a useful tool for explaining end-product variables and was more effective in explaining job…

Discusses how communication researchers should use evidence. Shows the similarities between legal and scholarly evidence using illustrations from the O. J. Simpson case. Identifies similarities between the use of evidence in legal and in communication research forums; delineates parallels between the genres of evidence used in the two contexts;…

Investigates the impact of format and source on attitudes and behavioral intentions of an audience receiving a corporation's advocacy message. Suggests that news stories may be more effective than ads, and that a CEO (chief executive officer) appears more persuasive than an outside authority because the CEO can generate more interest among the…

States that recent studies on first-date expectations and enactments indicated that men evaluate female-initiated first dates in more sexual ways than do females. Cautions that results also indicate that participants reported less intimacy on such dates. Uses expectancy violation theory to investigate the conflicting results. Finds that…

Presents a three-part narrative about ethnography. Describes an incident instrumental in bringing about the author's personal interest in ethnographic research; conveys a partial sense of the experience of the doing of ethnography; and discusses autoethnography as a response to some of the late 20th-century dilemmas of ethnographic inquiry. (SR)

States that arousal has become a central variable within much of communication research from deception to emotional communication. Describes a two-part study that explored the application of the "orienting response" to these interpersonal communication theories explaining violations of expectancies. Concludes that the orientation…

States that although Internet "gurus" advocate that users refrain from "flaming," in fact, flaming permeates the Internet. Explores the nature of flaming in its characteristics and forms as seen in academic discussion groups. Argues that flaming educates the ignorant, tames the uncouth, and promotes effective communication. (PA)

Examines family members' use of conflict styles within family triads in the launching stage of the family life cycle. Compares use of conflict style across family members. Indicates that most families use symmetrically integrative conflict styles--use of distributive or passive-indirect styles saw less openness of communication. Suggests an…

Finds that college-aged grandchildren used face-to-face and telephone communication more frequently with a grandparent than written media, but that all were used fairly frequently; communication using all media was more frequent when the grandparent or the grandchild initiated interaction as opposed to the parent; grandparent-initiated contact…

Explores the potential of complexity theory as a unifying theory in public relations, where scholars have recently raised problems involving flux, uncertainty, adaptiveness, and loss of control. Describes specific complexity-based methodologies and their potential for public relations studies. Offers an account of complexity theory, its…

Provides a contrastive test of three immediacy-exchange theories: expectancy violations theory; discrepancy arousal theory; and cognitive valence theory. States findings from opposite-sex friend dyads (one of whom was an undergraduate student) failed to find unequivocal support for a single theory. Suggests existing immediacy-exchange theories…

Examines several factors that are hypothesized to influence the perceptual congruence of organization members (extent to which members agree on their perceptions of the organization's social structure). Proposes that employees' congruence on the organization's social structure is influenced by similarities in formal structure, demographic…

Explores the discourse on working knowledge that subject matter experts use with technical communicators to represent work in organizations. Focuses on the narrative authority of speakers in the discourse process because participants constructing task representations bring distinct viewpoints to the documentation process. Studies imperative…