Describes strategies for conducting a successful superintendent search. Outlines issues for the school board to consider, including 10 questions about the nature of the school board and 10 questions to ask the prospective superintendents. Contains tips for identifying the board's and superintendent's operating and communication styles. (LMI)

Camp directors who do not seek feedback from staff, campers, and parents waste valuable resources, need to develop their leadership skills, and could obstruct camp growth. Combined with satisfaction surveys and goal setting, ongoing feedback will contribute to a more accurate camp program evaluation than one based on the camp director's memory.…

Electronic communication can either facilitate or sabotage decision-making contexts. This article formulates recommendations about when and how to use electronic communication to enhance decision making and describes various decision contexts. Solutions to communication problems such as groupthink, social deadlock, bureaucratic isolation from…

Examines the effects of using organizational spokespersons of ethnic backgrounds similar to or different from possible stakeholders of a multinational organization. Finds that the degree to which undergraduate students identified with his or her own ethnic group affected spokesperson similarity ratings. Discusses implications for multinational…

It is important for college presidents, through public relations staff, to know what constituent groups are thinking, anticipate issues before they become problems, and predict reactions to decisions. Strategies for access to the president include learning his style, keeping a formalized meeting schedule, networking, and volunteering him for…

Explores organizational trust through psychological/sociological avenues. Argues that trust is a critical factor in overcoming communication barriers that are context-related (communication environment or setting) and content-related (the message itself or the participants). Suggests that trust can be improved by applying identified strategies.…

Step by step, the designer of this employee-based recruiting tool, a campus speaker's bureau, details its rationale, planning, and implementation at American Telephone and Telegraph. Concludes a speaker program is an invaluable link between a company and students. (Author/TE)

Applies rhetorical theory to newsletters produced by two political-activist organizations. Illustrates applications of schema theory, social construction, and theories about audience to newsletters with sample passages. (KEH)

Examines in-house documentation situations in which software manual writers and project managers intersect the manual writing project with ongoing organizational dynamics. Analyses two strategies that in-house writers need for project management: conducting contextual audience analyses and acting as liaisons in their workplaces. (KEH)

Argues that current models of group leadership fail to illuminate the relationship between leadership and group performance. Presents an alternative model of leadership based on communication competencies, which are influenced by task complexity, group climate, and role relationships. A series of heuristic propositions are offered linking…

Examines the process of information transmission in adaptive, viable organizational systems. Beer's viable system model is used to explain a system's information requirement at each time of the adaptation process, the source of this information, and the effect of information transmission on a system's cohesion. Four hypotheses are stated and…

Surveys 12 recent textbooks from organizational and business communication perspectives to identify the link between what is taught in organizational communication classes and what is valued and effective in the workplace. (MM)

Managers can improve their decision making skills through training in organizational communication which emphasizes the intuitive processes. The article describes the role of intuitive processes in executive decision making and outlines the four levels of a taxonomy for developing intuition as it relates to creative thinking and problem solving.…

Investigates the relationship between communicator competence and employee productivity with new technology. Finds that employee communicator competence significantly affects employee performance with new technology; that employees receiving communicator competence training perform at significantly higher levels; and that past productivity also…

Investigates subordinates' communication styles and superiors' satisfaction with subordinates from the perspective of the superior. Finds that when superiors were very satisfied with subordinates they perceived them as (1) friendly, relaxed, and attentive communicators; (2) lacking in verbal aggressiveness; and (3) high in argumentativeness. (MS)