Based on the assumption that communication skills are a critical component of organizational effectiveness and "promotability," a study was conducted to investigate the perceptions supervisors have of their female employees' communication proficiency. In particular, comparisons were made between evaluations of supervisors on a variety of…

A study was conducted to investigate some basic power communication factors among American male and female executives in middle and top level management. Variables of primary interest were perceptions of personal power and communication effectiveness within the organization, and some power communication techniques employed by the two genders to…

The impact of telecommunications on the development of interpersonal relationships has caused the traditional, centralized industrial management model--a highly rigid, top down, hierarchical communication system--to be replaced by a new decentralized communication model--a highly flexible, interdisciplinary network where people serve one another…

The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant resulted from a communication failure. Following an incident at an Ohio plant a year and a half earlier, B. M. Dunn, manager of Emergency Core Cooling Systems Analysis at Babcock and Wilcox (engineers), wrote a memorandum making specific recommendations on written instructions for nuclear…

Quality circles may be regarded as a form of organizational intervention strategy to enhance productivity and product quality through employee participation. Operationally, small groups of individual employees voluntarily meet regularly to (1) identify problems relating to productivity and product quality, (2) discuss them, (3) identify and…

Facilitating consensual labor-management decision making may require interventions during, after, and before meetings. These interventions--including persuasion and mediation--may affect both the internal and the external processes of decision making. Communicative actions may help both the internal and the external decision making processes of a…

The five case histories presented in this paper discuss the relations of the Mobil Oil Corporation with various news media since 1973, particularly the difficulties that the oil industry has faced in communicating with and through the news media. The case histories deal with the following topics; news stories about tankers allegedly waiting…

The framework for public school social workers offered in this article is based on the systems approach. The ideas presented might also be useful to social workers in general, and to secondary school social workers in particular. The article deals with the idea of a boundary, which is a line forming a circle around selected variables.…

This paper describes a methodology for studying the ideologies of social movements from a rhetorical perspective and tests the methodology by studying the ideology of the feminist movement. The methodology is a three-step approach: first, a descriptive analysis provides an operational definition of the group's ideology--its self-image, central…

The purpose of this paper is to examine the efforts that scholars in a wide variety of disciplines have made to understand the communication dimension of the health care system. Sixty-nine doctoral research studies conducted between 1975 and 1977 were surveyed, highlighting the methodologies they used, the hypotheses they explored, and their…

Because a change in child care center directors is potentially so disruptive to both staff and children, factors which inhibit a smooth transition of leadership should be identified and, where possible, solutions proposed. Therefore, this paper (1) briefly describes (through five case studies) different managerial successions in child care centers…

In recent years, Japanese management techniques have been proclaimed by many as the salvation of American business. It would be dangerous, however, to apply these techniques to American business situations without critically examining them. Whereas Americans regard responsible individuality as a virtue and view lack of autonomy as a constraint,…

This annual volume of organizational communication abstracts presents over 1,100 abstracts of the literature on organizational communication occurring in 1979. An introductory chapter explains the classification systems, provides operational definitions of terms, and concedes the shortcomings of the research effort. An overview chapter comments…

Three group processes--regular face-to-face interacting groups, the nominal group technique (NGT), and Delphi procedures--were compared in terms of their ability to facilitate the quantitative and qualitative productivity of a decision making group. The results unequivocally supported the superiority of the Delphi procedures. Findings also tended…

The booklet contains proceedings of a conference for minority project administrators in the Handicapped Children's Early Education Program (HCEEP), a federal program to develop exemplary services for young handicapped children. Part 1 includes topical presentations reflecting the expressed interests of participants related to model programs.…