Organizational communication, broadly speaking, is: people working together to achieve individual or collective goals. The field traces its lineage through business information, business communication, and early mass communication studies published in the 1930s through the 1950s.
#21073
Email usability can be dramatically increased or decreased by how URLs are designed and placed in messages. An example of one problem is described in detail in this article. Also, a couple of simple tips are provided to help you improve the URLs in your email messages.
Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2002). Articles>Business Communication>Correspondence>Email
#31224
I Have People for That: Outsourcing Corporate Communication
Outsourcing is not new to the corporate communication department. The breadth and complexity of communication technology and the widely varied skills needed to communicate effectively to all audiences make it nearly impossible for a corporate communication department to do it all. Every organization handles communication outsourcing differently. However, there are two basic models of outsourcing currently in use.
Collura, Kathy. Communication World Bulletin (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Outsourcing
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The African regional chapter for the International Association of Business Communicators.
IABC Africa. Organizations>Business Communication>Regional>Africa
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The IABC Job Centre is resource for the communication profession, serving job seekers and employers in all industries and communication functions.
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Scientific communication differs from technical communication in several ways. One is that scientific communicators work with ideas rather than with a product. They present data and the inferences and conclusions drawn from those data. The information or the idea is the message. Scientific editors facilitate the transfer of knowledge from authors to readers.
Burgan, Murrie W. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Scientific Communication>Writing
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IEEE Professional Communication Society
Formed in 1957, the IEEE Professional Communication Society was concerned with the art of clear writing and speaking. Now our interests extend to distance learning, web design and hypertext, document usability, video, team writing, visual communication, information design, communication and publication management and production, user interface design, and information dissemination, retrieval, and use.
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Campbell discusses the role technical communicators can play in developing IM (instant messaging) bots--programs that correspond with IM users--for customer support purposes.
Campbell, Walter. Intercom (2003). Articles>Information Design>Communication>Instant Messaging
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The Impact of EQ Training on Collaborative Professional Writing 
Over the course of each semester, students in 300-level business communication courses can expect to produce a number of various types of messages and reports with emphasis on the psychological development of the message. Although education has traditionally demanded an individual approach to most writing tasks in order to assess student performance, most practitioners in the field of business communication recognize the importance of collaborative writing as a necessary skill in preparing students to enter the job market where teams rather than individuals are the primary work unit.
Sigmar, Lucia S., Tab W. Cooper, Geraldine E. Hynes and Kathy L. Hill. Association for Business Communication (2008). Articles>Writing>Education>Business Communication
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Medical personnel in hospital intensive care units routinely rely on protocols to deliver some types of patient care. These protocol documents are developed by hospital physicians and staff to ensure that standards of care are followed. Thus, the protocol document becomes a _de facto_ standing order, standing in for the physician's judgment in routine situations. This article reports findings from Phase I of an ongoing study exploring how insulin protocols are designed and used in intensive care units to transfer medical research findings into patient care 'best practices.' We developed a taxonomy of document design elements and analyzed 29 insulin protocols to determine their use of these elements. We found that 93% of the protocols used tables to communicate procedures for measuring glucose levels and administering insulin. We further found that the protocols did not adhere well to principles for designing instructions and hypothesized that this finding reflected different purposes for instructions (training) and protocols (standardizing practice).
Longo, Bernadette, Craig Weinert and T. Kenny Fountain. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2007). Articles>Document Design>Scientific Communication>Biomedical
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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Improving Managerial-Employee Communication: A Case Study
Technical communicators can use their professional skills to help industry improve managerial-employee communication, an area that directly affects productivity. This case study investigates upward and downward communication at an aerospace company. Beginning with a survey that indicated a number of statistically significant differences between the attitudes of managers and other employees, the researcher then attended a randomly selected series of meetings. As she followed the flow of information within the company, she observed omissions and inaccuracies. The company devised a new process for information deployment as a result of this study.
Horowitz, Renee B. STC Proceedings (1994). Careers>Business Communication>Workplace
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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
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Technological risk and the process of explaining risks to the public have become major public issues. The mention of Bhopal or Love Canal can provoke emotional arguments--not only about the hazards themselves but also about how they were explained to the public. As new laws, the threat of AIDS, and other factors make risk communication more crucial, officials in government and industry are seeking guidelines on how to communicate effectively and responsibly. This volume offers an approach to better quality in risk communication. The combined insight of experts from government, business, and universities, Improving Risk Communication draws on the most current academic and practical information and analysis. Issues addressed include why risk communication has become more difficult in recent decades, what the major problems are, and how common misconceptions often hamper communication campaigns. Aimed especially at top decisionmakers in government and industry, the book emphasizes that solving the problems of risk communication is as much about improving procedures as improving the content of risk messages. Specific recommendations for change include a Risk Message Checklist and a call for developing a consumer's guide to risk. Appendixes provide additional details.
National Research Council Committee on Risk Perception and Communication. National Academies Press (1989). Books>Risk Communication>Assessment>Civic
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Information Technology and Organizational Change
The profession of technical communication is in transition. While a few might argue that we are in danger of being swallowed up by large, institutional realignments, it seems more likely that the future workplace (as characterized by Senge, among others) will put communication, culture, and collaboration at the center of work. However, in order for the profession to exploit these opportunities, we must understand the impact of integrated information technology (IT) on organizations. I summarize the interaction of corporate culture, leadership/management, human resources, and advanced networking and web-based applications (more commonly called an Intranet) for the successful integration of new IT products into an established and well-defined organization. Background research for this paper was conducted as part of an Army Summer Faculty Research and Engineering grant.
Carlson, Patricia A. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Careers>Business Communication>Technology>Collaboration
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There are crucial behaviors important people, successful executives, and true leaders use to move processes and people forward. These behaviors are the key ingredients of leadership. The more of these ingredients leaders take to heart, teach, and expect of others, the more power they will have to achieve their objectives.
Lukaszewski, James E. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Careers>Management>Business Communication
