The use of electronic mail has increased in organizations and other areas where computers are used. Researchers report that there are some major effects on the organization and organizational members in group and interpersonal communication. An extensive literature review examined the technology used in computer networks, electronic mail and…

Quality Circle (QC) and Quality of Working Life (QWL) in the United States are similar in that both stress participative decision making, preserve management's prerogative to have the final say, and are voluntary. QC and QWL programs differ, however, in that labor unions are more involved in QWLs; QCs deal only with technical problems related to…

A study examined the communication patterns of the mentor-protege relationship and its impact on the organizational advancement of women. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 women representing two broad job classifications--professional (those in business for themselves) and corporate/organizational (those who were part of some business…

The accumulated evidence argues that a school contemplating curricular innovation will heighten its chances of success if it first gives staff members practice in new norms and skills for the collaboration that will be necessary to the innovation's success. (Author/AM)

Argues that effective administrators judge factors about job performance rather than those related to personality when evaluating management problems. (RB)

One of the most valuable skills in group decision making is the ability to make trustworthy judgments about group performance. It follows from the "inferential model" of social cognition (Pavitt, 1989; Pavitt & Hight, 1986), that there are three types of judgments relevant to the group context: (1) behavioral (what the group did);…

Students readily pick up occupational jargon from their special interests and studies. Nevertheless, the education and culture of teachers of communication typically have stressed the outright rejection of jargon of all kinds in the interests of honesty, directness, clarity, and economy of statement. Supporting the teachers ideologically are the…

A study was conducted to examine the face support and control moves that occur in a manager's communication to a poorly performing subordinate over the sequence of his or her violation. Face support was defined according to the degree of approval (positive face) and the degree of freedom (autonomy) given to the poor performers to define a course…

A study examined the influence of organizational context on professionals' determination of appropriate style and technical content for external correspondence. Subjects were 200 architects and engineers employed by a state government agency whose mission is to provide design and construction management services to state facilities. Data were…

Technical writers involved in an institutional writing project need some way of viewing the raw material globally before writing. In this way they can build a framework which can be used for different types of information. This is accomplished through a task analysis meeting that highlights the following preparatory steps prior to writing: (1)…

A questionnaire was administered to 94 first- and middle-level managers from 19 different state agencies in Texas in an effort to analyze conditions under which managers were most likely to disclose task-relevant confidential information to their subordinates. The open-ended items on the questionnaire investigated the types of confidential…

This paper presents a summary of Murray Brown's family systems theory as it applies to the workplace, lists some indicators of when a system is working well, and cites some other guidelines for gauging and improving one's own functioning in the work system. Major concepts of Bowen's theory include: (1) the family and the workplace are systems; (2)…

Noting that one way to tap into organizational life involves examining the symbolic discourse occurring in the context, a study examined stories and metaphors, forms of symbolic discourse, in two Christian denominations in Southern Appalachia. Transcriptions from audiotapes of sermons and lay talks (e.g., Sunday School lessons) from Church of God…

In the present decade, many management and organizational communication scholars have explored a guiding metaphor--organizational culture. Japanese industry has developed a corporate model that may have provided the concepts involved in organizational culture: ideology, beliefs, rituals, myths, and symbols. Organizational culture is inextricably…

A study attempted to measure the extent to which journalists feel free to express their opinions, the extent to which they perceive their views on issues represent a minority position in the community, and the degree to which memberships in organizations outside the newsroom affect their attitudes or actions. Subjects, 326 respondents from a…