#30277
Imposing Order On The Chaos Of Marketing Materials Development 
A good relationship with internal clients, accompanied by well-defined procedures, makes the creative process of developing marketing materials as smooth as possible.
Kruell, Christopher P. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing
#29016
Two separate studies, conducted among a total sample of 147 adults, explored the communicative effectiveness of imprecise frequency descriptors within the context of direct to consumer prescription drug advertising. Study One used imprecise frequency descriptors to describe level of side effect occurrence and then asked consumers to numerically estimate the frequency of side effect occurrence. A comparison of consumers estimated to actual level of incidence indicated that they are unable to accurately estimate level of side effect occurrence when those levels are described by an imprecise frequency descriptor. Study Two presented consumers with a list of side effects preceded by an imprecise frequency descriptor. Consumers were then asked to estimate the relative likelihood of side effect occurrence. The results indicated that consumers are unable to accurately estimate the relative likelihood of side effect occurrence when a list of side effects are preceded by an imprecise frequency descriptor. The pattern of consumer response across both studies indicates that when imprecise frequency descriptors are used to describe the incidence of side effects within the context of direct to consumer prescription drug advertising, consumers estimate likelihood of side effect occurrence on the basis of an intuitive judgment of the side effect s commonness/severity within the general population.
Davis, Joel J. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>Scientific Communication>Biomedical>Marketing
#29823
Improved Student Writing in Business Communication Classes: Strategies For Teaching And Evaluation 
Students in business communication classes are expected to write various types of documents. Research has illustrated that undergraduate student writing skills have not improved even though most states have begun writing proficiency tests at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. By the time students enroll in college, students are expected to be proficient writers. In some cases, this is true. In far too many cases, students continue to need writing development. In business communication classes, these weaknesses cannot be ignored. This article's purpose is to give guidance to instructors to motivate their students to produce better written products. The difficulty is how to do this most effectively. The authors present some ideas on how to improve student writing through some creative teaching and evaluation strategies.
Stowers, Robert H. and Randolph T. Barker. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Writing
#31860
Improving Financial Analysis and Reporting Using XBRL and the Microsoft Office System
The process of financial reporting and analysis can represent a huge cost for many companies. For example, the preparation of quarterly statements for publicly traded companies consumes the majority of a finance department’s resources during the reporting period. Likewise, it is not uncommon for equity analysts to spend up to one-third of their time entering data into spreadsheet models and verifying that data for accuracy.
#26607
This paper describes the progress of an original pilot program that used surveys and reported results from students and faculty concerning student improvement in writing and presentation skills from a convenience sample of courses. Based on the responses to these surveys a pre-test writing instrument and a presentation assessment instrument were designed for and administered to incoming students during their MBA orientation session. Also included in the orientation session were two modules that focused on plagiarism issues and the use of web-based technology for research. This program will be expanded to include post-writing critiques and portfolio communication evaluations.
Alpern, Barbara E., David C. Odett and Richard Pietila. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Education>Business Communication
#20065
All business writing uses some kind of process to create final copy. Many processes, especially in small organizations, are not formalized into regularly used procedures. This casual approach to development methodology makes it particularly difficult to measure and then analyze the efficiency of these processes. Simple surveying techniques can be used to capture process data before Statistical Process Control (SPC) analysis reveals resource consuming process elements.
Miller, John. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Business Communication>Methods
#31552
In Search of (Corporate Communication) Excellence
Buoyed by commercial expansion and the entrepreneurial renaissance of recent years, corporate public relations has come a long way towards becoming an essential tool in the chief executive's armoury. That said, the scope for further advancement of PR consultants at the boardroom table will remain restricted until the profession gives senior management what they want — a measure of return on their investment.
Dempsey, Conor. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Public Relations
#31977
What is the role of contradiction in organizational rhetoric? This article argues that existing research tends to focus on contradiction at an institutional level and then develop a distinct but complementary perspective that views contradictory rhetoric at an interactional level and as a practical concern, especially when routine is disrupted and repair tactics are required. Drawing on data from a study of a quality improvement initiative in the United Kingdom, the authors examine the contradictions that were constructed when a 'change champion' attempted to deal with resistance to change. They conclude by depicting how contradiction can emerge when actors reflexively shift their identifications to portray themselves and their actions in a contextually appropriate manner.
Whittle, Andrea, Frank Mueller and Anita Mangan. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Management>Organizational Communication>Rhetoric
#28054
Incompetent Email Marketing = Lost Future Opportunities
Lack of personalization made an email newsletter completely useless to the recipient, damaging long-term customer relationship efforts.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Correspondence>Marketing
#26628
Incompetent Email Marketing = Lost Future Opportunities
Lack of personalization made an email newsletter completely useless to the recipient, damaging long-term customer relationship efforts.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Business Communication>Email>Marketing
#30704
This study examines the processes by which workers in a particular Indian call center located in Kolkata expanded on, negotiated, and chose among an array of possible, especially new, identities and identifications and the ways that these choices affected changing social discourses. Our case study depicted a workplace that was simultaneously casual and urgent, temporal and spatially free and constrained, situated in both Indian and U.S. cultures, and oriented toward business and night-club ambiances. Within this particular workplace, call center employees (re)constructed and negotiated among an array of discourses that bracketed opportunities for particular identities and identifications. Through these negotiation processes, they (a) engaged in strategic identity(ies) invocations and (b) reframed work, career, and family discourses and practices.
Pal, Mahuya and Patrice Buzzanell. JBC (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Workplace>India
#29029
The Influence of the Purpose of a Business Document on Its Syntax and Rhetorical Schemes
This study attempts to show how the purpose of three types of business and technical documents (instructions, annual reports, and sales promotional letters) affects the syntactical and rhetorical choices authors make in writing these documents. While the results of the examination rendered some predictable results, there were some surprises in the absence of many rhetorical schemes in sales promotional letters. Another value of this study is that it provides partial syntactical and rhetorical "fingerprints" of three important documents in business and technical writing to offer students norms they can go by in constructing such documents.
Myers, Marshall. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>Business Communication>Rhetoric
#31521
Inspiring Change Through Research
Organizational communication is centered on inspiring and managing change, so it makes sense that communication professionals are seeing a more critical role for research in understanding and reaching their most important stakeholder relationships (employees, customers, suppliers, dealers, etc.). When a company is undergoing significant changes (i.e., a merger, acquisition, slumping sales, a product launch), research can pinpoint exactly where the issues and communication needs are. Oftentimes, such information is considered and then only used in limited ways. So how does a company proceed in bringing research results to life? It’s important to review how the research and tactical elements of communication vehicles are matched up.
Powell, Nancy. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Organizational Communication>Research
#22446
Institutionally Mapping Professional Writing
We think it is critically important-especially in a time of declining budgets-for professional writing programs to position themselves in a vital and robust location in the university, and probably outside it as well. What institutional location(s) can best guarantee that professional writing thrive, and also provide it an opportunity to have significant impact?
Grabill, Jeffrey T. and James E. Porter. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Business Communication
#30695
Integrating Business Core Knowledge Through Upper Division Report Composition
The most ambitious project of many undergraduate business communication courses is the formal report. This assignment typically requires the use of many writing skills nurtured throughout the course. Skills such as proper style, tone, organization, flow, and mechanics are enhanced through the writing of memos and various types of letters (persuasive, bad news, etc.). While these skills are all evident in a report, it is a much different kind of document. This synthesis of writing skills can be complemented by the integration of fundamental business subject knowledge. Both skill sets can be concurrently developed through business simulation report assignments, particularly in upper division business communication courses. Such courses are often required in business programs where students have already completed courses in business law, management, basic business statistics, and computer applications. Choosing an appropriate topic and scope for such a report writing assignment can be challenging. As offered in Business Communication Quarterly, many good assignments lend themselves to adoption, each with varying degrees of flexibility, coverage of current topics, and data analysis requirements. The following formal report assignment provides the opportunity to present a wide enough scope to integrate several business disciplines.
Roach, Joy, Daniel Tracy and Kay Durden. Business Communication Quarterly (2007). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Reports
#32012
An integrated approach to teaching résumé construction in the business communication classroom focuses on simultaneously (a) emphasizing writing-related proficiencies and (b) encouraging ethical and moral orientations to this task. This article provides a résumé construction exemplar that operationalizes these two pedagogical goals. The techniques and exercises used in the exemplar are presented as a way to make ethics education accessible for both business communication instructors and students.
Conn, Cynthia E. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Education>Resumes
#13929
To provide modest insight into whether or not reading literature helps medical students communicate more effectively in the physician-patient encounter, I conducted an ethnographic study of medical students taking a required three-hour literature and medicine course. This article will demonstrate that although these medical students were embedded in the discourse of medicine, reflective writing enabled them to conceive medicine as an interpretive, personal, and idiosyncratic activity rather than as a stagnant diagnosis-based process.
Welch, Kathleen E. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Education>Biomedical>Scientific Communication
#31246
Intergenerational Communication Made Simple
In my office is a large box full of articles pertaining to the complex issue of intergenerational communication. Since my life's work is exploring communication and how it affects the workplace, part of my job is to diligently research and design ways to communicate these issues to you, the reader. In this article I've provided some basic profiles of the generations working in the U.S. today and what communicators' concerns for the future should be.
Condon, Kathy. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Business Communication
#31690
This article argues for the theoretical and practical incorporation of aesthetic sensibilities into the communicative management of hybrid organizing. Using Dewey's Art as Experience as a conceptual framework, it explores imaginative and aesthetic practices as knowledge-producing resources for organizing and social change. The analysis centers on the complex and contradictory ways that artful capacities and instrumental rationalities interweave to achieve the organizational order of a collaborative art studio. Using discourses from multiple stakeholders, this article examines in detail three themes: art as creation and vocation, art as ephemeral integration, and art as survival and social change. Findings are discussed in the context of other scholarship committed to recovering and fostering alternative logics for organizing.
Harter, Lynn M., Mark Leeman, Stephanie Norander, Stephanie L. Young and William K. Rawlins. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Organizational Communication>Collaboration
#31336
Internal and External Brand: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Internal branding is alive and well, and continues to evolve as more people realize how powerful it is as a business tool. You may hear it called by different names, such as employer branding, employee branding or employee value propositioning, but whatever the term, it is an important and useful concept.
Covill, Simon. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Workplace
#31326
Internal Blogging and the Rules of Disclosure: An IR-Reconciliable Difference?
We are hearing and reading a lot these days about the new age of transparency, in which organizations must go beyond traditional, tightly controlled communication and engage in a "naked conversation" with their customers, communities, employees and other stakeholders.
Shewchuk, Ron. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Workplace>Blogging
#31334
Internal Branding: Communicating and Measuring the Impact
A recent Gallup poll showed that 69 percent of employees are disengaged at work. A survey of human resources managers by PricewaterhouseCoopers in the U.K. found that only 26 percent of employees demonstrated brand values in their day-to-day behavior. These figures suggest that internal branding efforts are perhaps not producing the desired effect. "Living the brand" initiatives cannot work when the majority of employees are not tuned in at work. Great brands are built by consistently delivering on the brand promise, which requires employee engagement with that brand.
Venkat, Ramesh. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Workplace
#31251
Internal Communication: Let's Be Clear
Internal communication isn't generally seen as a direct, short-term contributor to the bottom line, and therefore it is not considered "hot." More to the point though, people's understanding of what communication is and how it can work is extremely varied and often plain wrong. It seems that what makes internal communication "hot" is still mainly understood only in professional communication circles.
Bogaard, Lindsay. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Business Communication>Rhetoric
#31335
Internal Marketing vs. Internal Branding: It's All About Connections
Employee engagement, getting employees to "live the brand," gaining employee buy-in—today's managers are trying to wrap their minds around these critical practices through internal marketing and internal branding. But not everyone understands these concepts. You even hear people use the terms interchangeably, even though there are a number of differences between these concepts.
Stershic, Sybil F. and Debra Semans. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Marketing>Workplace
#31556
Internet Public Relations and Messaging Can Drive Visibility and Sales
Today it’s harder than ever for companies to get above the noise and get their messages heard. Many consumers are so overwhelmed with advertisements about new products and marginally improved releases that they automatically tune out anything that sounds promotional. While it may seem like there’s no time to learn new tools and technologies, there are many sites that offer useful guides, quick tips and case studies on how to achieve measurable results.
Woods McNamara, Julie. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Public Relations>Online
