Advances an "outsider within" perspective describing the ways that traditionally marginalized group members communicate in mainstream organizational settings. Explicates the process by which different cocultural group members come to adopt one or more communication orientations while interacting within dominant organizations. States the…

Discusses briefly events (including a 1998 summer conference, a report, and a 1999 Pre-Conference) leading up to this themed issue on public relations teaching. Introduces the seven remaining articles in the issue which represent six different content areas to be covered in a public relations curriculum, and which reflects recommendations for…

Surveys corporate use of voice message systems by interviewing employees in four different companies. Finds that all four companies viewed their voicemail systems as a supplement to personal contact (not a replacement) and provided training, but had no formal method to assess customer satisfaction with their system. Suggests business communication…

Examines volunteer hospital workers' evaluations of the effectiveness of regulative messages constructed by hospital staff in response to four scenarios. States that positive face support was not related to effectiveness ratings for volunteers with lower construct differentiation, but messages lacking face support were criticized. Notes that…

Uses chaos theory to model public relations situations in which the salient feature is volatility of public perceptions. Discusses the premises of chaos theory and applies them to issues management, the evolution of interest groups, crises, and rumors. Concludes that chaos theory is useful as an analogy to structure image problems and to raise…

Discusses the role of research administrators as executive administrators and executive managers of Institutional Review Board (IRB) ethical review programs within biomedical research institutions. Suggests that research administrators who serve as IRB executives can work to transform biomedical research organizations from being only associations…

Explains the concept of dialogue in order to reduce the ambiguity that surrounds the use of the term. Seeks to make the concept of dialogue more accessible for scholars and practitioners interested in relationship building. Traces the roots of dialogue, identifies several over-arching tenets, and provides three ways that organizations can…

Proposes a general analytical framework called centering resonance analysis (CRA), a text analysis method suited to studying communication like reports, letters, memos, emails, and transcribed conversations. Illustrates its validity in analyzing conversations in a meeting, comparison to human readings of interview texts, and uncovering structure…

Considers how public relation's search for a unifying theory may be fulfilled through application of Alasdair MacIntyre's concept of a "practice," a very specific and value-laden concept. Explores what it would mean to be a public relations practice in MacIntyre's concept of the term and argues that such an approach to public relations…

Addresses two key principles for continuous improvement in learning and research in universities, focusing on development of strategies and building a climate of trust and resilience in collegial relations. Analysis of interviews with eight faculty and school leaders identified ways in which key terms associated with academic collegiality operate…

Presents an ethnographic study of one feminist organization's efforts to personalize work relations. Argues feminist critics lend scant attention to findings from feminist practice, and scholars of feminist practice rarely consider implications for mainstream organizations. Reviews how both traditions treat impersonality. (NH)

Provides a framework for discussing public computer systems (PCS) as tools in client-organization communication. Describes a three-level analysis scheme (object, functional, strategic) for client-organization encounters. Concludes that PCSs provide an important new focus for information-systems studies because they can be used to design new social…

Argues that three traditions of theory about organizational communication have special relevance to the ideas of problematic integration theory. Indicates the implications of theoretic currents and notes that the main implication is that problematic integration looks very different in the context of a complex communication system. (SG)

Introduces readers to the literature on post-Fordism by first describing the social and economic phenomena that it seeks to explain and then by introducing the divergent research approaches that contest the scope and effects of post-Fordist phenomena. Suggests that critical organizational communication studies has much to gain, analytically and…

This article proposes that a major problem limiting an organization's ability to develop organizational learning capacity is of organizational amnesia. To understand organizational amnesia, it is necessary to look at the various ways that organizational learning is defined. Organizational learning is not merely the process of acquiring knowledge.…