Issues of Validity in Intercultural Professional Communication Research    

This article explores three ways to design US empirical methods to be more valid and ethical in cross-cultural studies. First, intercultural researchers need to distinguish broad rhetorical and cultural patterns from regional, organizational, and personal patterns, a process that requires balancing the fact of difference with the need for generalization. Second, US researchers need to distinguish not only the differences in rhetorical patterns in a form of communication but also in the ways that form is used rhetorically. Third, researchers need to construct researcher-participant relationships that are sensitive to the values of organizational relationships in both cultures.

Thatcher, Barry L. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>Research>Methods>International

Writing Policies and Procedures in a U.S./South American Context      

This study explores two cases of professional communication among U.S. and South American personnel in one multinational organizaton in Quito, Ecuador.  The results suggest that implicit in U.S. rhetorics of professional communication are valorizations of writing as a mechanism of regulating behavior; of universalism and individual reference points as rhetorical strategies; and of common-law or precedent-setting logic as compositional and interpretive strategies.  However, many South American personnel seem predisposed to think of personal interactions as a mechanism of regulating behavior; of particular and collective reference points as rhetorical strategies; and of civil law logic as compositional and interpretive strategies.  Thus, widespread claims about the roles of writing to construct, mediate, or regulate organizational behavior need to be contextualized in the predominant rhetorical values of the organizational context.

Thatcher, Barry L. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Writing>Policies and Procedures>Ecuador