Presents thoughts on organizational rhetoric from the point of view of social scientists, progressives, practitioners, rationalists, and polemicists representing useful touchstones for understanding, analyzing, and critiquing the rhetorical products of today's organizations. (MG)

Networking as a goal of training can increase communication, problem solving, and flexibility. Necessary steps are selecting participants to support the network, including provisions for trust and relationship building, ensuring the transfer of training, and encouraging followup and accountability for transfer. (SK)

Discusses three guidelines that can help managers through the maze of communication planning and execution: (1) be honest, open and accessible; (2) be prepared; and (3) be flexible. Outlines three communication "challenges" involving BFGoodrich that illustrate these guidelines. (RS)

Explicates Michel Foucault's perspective on "discipline," and demonstrates its usefulness for organizational analysis in a case study of the corporate specification of an employee value system. Articulates four aspects of discipline in contemporary organizational life. (SR)

Investigates the impression management strategies embedded in the external discourse of an organization in crisis. Shows ingratiation to be the primary strategy. Finds that intimidation was used with special interest groups and that denouncement strategies were embedded in messages to competitors, special interest groups, and suppliers. (SR)

Calls for increased emphasis on certain lines of research on language and social interaction, basically arguing for greater attention to "horizontal" (cross-cultural, cross-language) and "vertical" (developmental) comparative research. Considers the balance between research on ordinary conversation and talk in institutional settings. (Author/VWL)

Argues that newly developed theory in crisis public relations suggests a shift is necessary in the way practitioners view crises. Notes that the new paradigm defines excellent crisis public relations very differently from the literature of the past 20 years. (RS)

Clearly established procedures for sending, receiving, and responding to e-mail begin with planning and scheduling its use. Administrators should make appropriate choices of communication methods; use the address-book feature for individual and group e-mail addresses; use word-processing software to prepare lengthy documents and the attachment…

Contributes to scholarship on sexual harassment. Finds that men's "power over" standpoint and the related fear of marginalization clash with women's "power with" standpoint and the related fear of physical harm. Argues that managers and researchers need to understand both standpoints to better understand the dynamics of sexual harassment and how…

Discusses a step-by-step process for building a cleaning services mission statement that can help guarantee that the service performance meets an organization's expectations and needs. The importance of communicating what quality level is expected, developing standards and corresponding labor models and work assignments, and validating the process…

Examines the relationship between argumentativeness and women's supervisory level in organizations. Finds no simple relationship between supervisory level and argumentativeness for women, but indicates that moderation in argumentativeness increases with supervisory level. Notes implications for pedagogy: would-be female executives should be…

Identifies key elements in a Florida university's year-long search and selection process for a provost. Highlights three narrative views of the process as integrated, differentiated, and fragmented. Concludes that search-committee members used differing interpretations as rhetorical resources for performing arguments to various audiences. (SR)

Suggests that investigating the play of texts in the organizations where professionals do their work should further knowledge about professional communication. Examines the development of communicative practices at a national production company that relied on texts to mediate its organizational activities across geographically dispersed locations…

Uses A. Giddens' theory of structuration as a framework for studying the deeply layered social interactions within the world's largest and most successful group of Alcoholics Anonymous. Finds the organization to be a "disembedding mechanism," in which structures from the global organization are disembedded by the founder, transformed,…

Develops a measure for operationalizing how employees verbally express their contradictory opinions and disagreements about organizational phenomena. Tests the Organizational Dissent Scale (ODS) in a series of studies designed to generate evidence of validity/reliability for the measure. Indicates that the scale measures how employees express…