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Working Paper
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Management Communication: History, Distinctiveness, and

Core Content
Priscilla S. Rogers
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan

Ross School of Business Working Paper

Working Paper No. 1186
April 2013

This work cannot be used without the author's permission.

This paper can be downloaded without charge from the
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Management Communication:
History, Distinctiveness, and Core Content
Priscilla S. Rogers
Associate Professor of Business Communication
psr@umich.edu

University of Michigan Ross School of Business

Department of Law, History, & Communication
22 April 2013
A version of this paper is forthcoming in The Handbook of Professional Communication,
edited by Vijay Bhatia and Stephen Bremmer

Abstract
Management communication is the study of managers stewardship of writing and
speaking to get work done with and through people. This paper overviews the field of
management communication, its history, distinctiveness from other professional
communication fields, and its content. The diversity of management communication
training across the Financial Times top twenty MBA schools and of the theories
influencing award-winning researchers work prompted a search for fundamental
constructs. These training and researcher data, coupled with a review of the fields most
read journals and literature on the nature of managerial work, suggested a place to begin.
Five core management communication activities are proposed: predicting audience
response, selecting workplace language, seeing and shaping organizational genres,
diagnosing communication effectiveness, and using discourse interaction.
Key words: management communication; workplace language; organizational genres;
communication effectiveness

Management Communication:
History, Distinctiveness, and Core Content
Priscilla S. Rogers
University of Michigan Ross School of Business
Management communication is the study of managers stewardship of writing and
speaking to get work done with and through people (Hill, 2003; Suchan & Dulek, 1998;
Dulek & Fielden, 1990; Kotter, 1982). A major objective of the field is to develop and
disseminate knowledge that increases the effectiveness and efficiency of managers
(Smeltzer, 1996, p. 22). As Smeltzer, Galb, and Golen (1983) noted: Management views
communication as a means to an end, something to be exploited in the service of
organizational objectives after weighing the cost-benefit considerations (p. 74).
Academics in management communication have sought to facilitate this goal from a
social constructionist perspective that does not ignore the fundamental responsibility to
treat each other and the planet respectfully.
Managers are individuals with decision-making responsibilities for an
organization or its subunits (Hill, 2003; Reinsch, 1991). They spend most of their time
interacting with others, diagnosing unstructured problems, developing and implementing
plans, managing information, and relaying decisions about strategic goals, financial
support, and assigned tasks (Kotter, 1982). Success involves developing, motivating, and
retaining outstanding employees (ORourke, 2010; Mintzberg, 1973). Managers also
need to access the impact of oral and written messages in recurring situations and to
implement modifications to achieve organizational goals (e.g., Suchan, 2006). Academics
in management communication have originated and appropriated frameworks and tools to
assist managers with these activities, although much more developmental work remains
to be done.
This chapter describes: (1) the historical development of management
communication, (2) its unique focus relative to other professional communication fields,
and (3) its core content related to managers communication activities. Sources used for
this overview included: journals focusing on communication enactment that are most
read by academics in professional communication fields; the publications of Association
for Business Communication Outstanding Researcher Award (ORA) recipients who are
known for their work on management communication; and the descriptions and syllabi on
the websites of the Financial Times top business schools. Also contributing were
publications on the nature of managerial work and discussions with ORA researchers
over many years including recent emails and phone calls.1 A descriptive rather than an
empirical piece, this chapter was also influenced by a personal commitment over three
decades to develop frameworks and tools that help managers see, shape, and evaluate
workplace communications.
Management communication is a widely dispersed, interdisciplinary field.
Academics, who have invested in its development, must persevere to crystalize the fields
theoretical propositions and paradigms, like the devotees of organizational
communication have done since the formative work of Charles Redding and Karl Weick.
This chapter is offered as another step toward formalizing this specialized field.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
Management communication emerged with the development of graduate business
education, particularly the Masters of Business Administration (MBA). Although
universities formed business schools and departments to train managers, beginning with
the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School in 1881, and although the study of
business communication has been around for over a century (Russell, 1991, p. 126), the
academic area of management communication is relatively new (Knight, 1999).2
Impetus to develop management communication in academe came with the
American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation standard
stipulating that business programs provide graduate training in written and oral
communication.
C.I.3.C Standard: Basic skills in written and oral communication,
quantitative analysis, and computer usage should be achieved either by
prior experience and education, or as part of the MBA curriculum
(AACSB, 1991, p. 20 quoted in Smeltzer, 1996).3
Shortly thereafter, in 1979, instructors from top-ranked U.S. business schools who were
charged with teaching management communication convened at Yale University to share
syllabi, discuss teaching methods, and identify target areas for research. The group
adopted the name Managerial Communication Association or MCA. (Munter, 1989).
In 1984, MCA members voted by a small margin to retain their by-invitation
only membership, which some viewed as an impediment to the growth of the field. But
individual MCA members have not been isolationists. Members Paul Feingold, Christine
Kelly, and JoAnne Yates played a critical role in founding and editing the Management
Communication Quarterly (MCQ). Others published two of the few textbooks in the
field: Mary Munters (2012) popular Guide to Managerial Communication and James
ORourkes (2010) Management Communication: A Case-Analysis Approach fourth
edition, which won the Association for Business Communication Distinguished
Publication Award. MCA members have shared their research and pedagogical materials
by lecturing in a wide variety of business schools around the world and by participating
in the Association for Business Communication.
An international organization in existence for some time, the Association for
Business Communication (ABC) has been another forum for developing management
communication. Within ABC, the MBA Consortium spearheads regular conference
sessions on management communication pedagogy. The ABCs research journal, the
Journal of Business Communication along with the Journal of Business and Technical
Communication (originated at Iowa State University in 1987) are primary publication
sites for management communication research and are two of the most read journals by
academics in professional communication fields (Rogers, Campbell, Louhiala-Salminen,
Rentz, & Suchan, 2007; Lowry, Humphreys, Malwitz, & Nix, 2006). Also, since the
ABC began giving the Outstanding Researcher Award in 1990, over half of its recipients
have been well known for their scholarship on management communication.

While most of the business schools offering MBA or MBA-type degrees remain in
the United States (see Table 1) graduate business degrees have mushroomed globally and
with them a wide variety of management communication and related courses (Knight,
2005). Consider the following examples from the Financial Times top ten programs
(whose websites were reviewed in October 2012):

Stanford Graduate School of Business offers an extensive and varied collection of

communication courses including Strategic Communication, Interpersonal
Dynamics at Work, Negotiations, and How to Make Ideas Stick.
University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business has diverse offerings
Management Communication, Negotiations, Advanced Persuasive Speaking,
Advance Persuasion and Data Display, and Communication Challenges for
Entrepreneurs: Pitching Your Business. Wharton also has a Writing Center for
MBAs.
MIT Sloan Business School covers writing and speaking skills for management in
a course titled Communication for Leaders and offers an Advanced Managerial
Communication course emphasizing interpersonal skills and how to run meetings.
INSEADs communication course called The Art of Communication, focuses on
individual and group presentation, including the production of effective visual
aids.
IE (Instituto de Empresa) Business School has a Communication Skills course in
which students learn a range of communication techniques, such as structuring a
message for high impact and developing an authentic communicative style.
IESE (Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa) Business School has two
courses covering many topics associated with organizational communication:
Managing People in Organizations (which teaches management styles, sources of
authority, hierarchical communication, and organizational cultures) and
Communication and Interpersonal Relations (which looks at relations with
superiors, group dynamics, and group decision-making).
Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (UST) Business School offers a
management communication core course to help graduate business students
improve their ability to communicate efficiently and effectively as managers, and
has relevant electives, including Maximizing Your Leadership Potential.

Some MBA programs, like the University of Michigan Ross Business School, require
MBAs to complete consulting projects for organizations (domestic, international,
corporate, entrepreneurial, or nonprofit). These real-world projects give MBAs the
opportunity apply critical thinking and analytical tools they have learned in core courses,
to develop teamwork skills, and to improve their communication skills by preparing
project proposals, status reports, final written reports, and final oral presentations (Pawlik,
Rogers, & Shwom, 2013).

Table 1: Financial Times Top 51 Global MBA Programs Shows Growth in

Programs Outside the United States
25 US

16 Europe
04 China
03 Singapore
02 India
02 Australia
01 Brazil
01 Canada

Stanford; Harvard; Wharton; Columbia; MIT; Chicago;

Berkeley; Duke; Northwestern; NYU; Dartmouth; Yale;
Cornell; Michigan; UCLA; Carnegie; Darden; Emory;
Georgetown; Rice; Indiana; Penn State; Rochester, Texas A&M,
University of Texas at Austin
London; Insead; IE; Iese; IMD; HEC; Oxford; Rotterdam, SDA;
Cambridge; Warwick; Manchester; Esade; Cranfield; Cass;
Imperial
Hong Kong UST; Ceibs; CuHK; Uni of Hong Kong
Insead; NUS; NTU
Ahmedabad; Indian School
AGSM; Melbourne
Coppead
Toronto

Source: Global MBA rankings 2012. (2012). Retrieved 10/28/12, from

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-rankings-2012

Although graduate business schools around the world have not yet settled on a standard
way to deliver management communication training, interest in graduates who are skilled
communicators has not waned. The Graduate Management Admission Councils survey
of 2,825 representatives from over 2,000 companies in 63 countries worldwide found that
employers seek good oral and written communication skills as their highest criterion
(89%) when hiring MBA graduates, even to a greater degree than proven ability to
perform (73%), strategic skills (69%), and core business knowledge (69%) (Murray,
2009).
FOCUS OF MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
In 1996 Smeltzer wrote that management communication had no solid focus, definition,
or distinctive content. He concluded that:
communication scholars who would like to identify themselves as
specialists in management communication have an ambiguous
professional self-construct. They do not know what is central, distinctive,
and enduring about their profession (p. 7).
Management communication is interdisciplinary, drawing from rhetoric, composition,
linguistics, and social science generally. This complicates the task of identifying
theoretical constructs that are foundational. In 1988, Shelby described management
communication as a patchwork discipline that picks content on the basis of what is
intuitive, convenient, or practical rather than on the basis of well-articulated rationale (see
5

also Feingold, 1987). Not long thereafter, Suchan (1991) characterized management
communication as still a fledgling area (p. 1).
One can argue that management communication remains fledgling. No Ph.D.
programs have emerged to train future faculty who continue to be sourced from diverse
fields. Management Communication Quarterly, the research journal named for the field
and initiated by its devotees, has through a succession of editors become the flagship
and defining journal for organizational communication (Putnam, 2012, pp. 510 & 511).
Management communication courses are delivered under diverse names with less
standardization of content than one finds in business and corporate communication. For
example, only four of the 25 top non-U.S. programs that Knight (2005) investigated used
management communication as the course title. Globally, course content incorporates a
wide range of topics, such as corporate communication, cross-cultural management,
interpersonal skills, and leadership. Methods of delivery do not seem to follow any
particular model (Knight, 2005, p. 139). Despite this, Knight (1999) concluded that
management communication training of some sort appears to have a permanent home in
professional graduate management education (p. 22)
Although management communication is less developed than other professional
communication fields, a review of research and teaching content suggests a definitional
perspective:
Management communication focuses on the manager and the enactment of
communication related to management activities in organizational contexts.
Of particular interest are oral and written texts that the managers originate and receive
from multiple groups: co-workers, suppliers, and customers (Shelby, 1988). As ORourke
(2010) wrote in his textbook for managers: An understanding of language and its
inherent powers, combined with the skill to speak, write, listen, and form interpersonal
relationships, will determine whether you will succeed as a manager (p. 1).
Management communication has been distinguished from other professional
communication fields for some time (Shelby, 1993). For example, we know that business
communication shares a keen interest in oral and written texts, including language issues,
content development, structure and format. But management communication looks at
these textual concerns for business more broadly. Business communication is largely tied
to undergraduate education in business schools; management communication to the MBA.
Corporate communication concerns the corporations voice and the images it
projects of itself on a world stage populated by various . . . constituencies (Argenti &
Forman, 2002, p. 4). It is an arm of upper-management. Involving public investor
relations, crisis communication, corporate image, and corporate social responsibility. It
has an underlying marketing function. Specialists, like the PhDs trained in corporate
communication at the Aalto University School of Business, learn how to produce external
communications, like annual reports, CEO blogs, and scripts for CEO presentations to the
investment community. By contrast, management communication is interested in the dayto-day communications of middle managers.
Organizational communication is closely aligned with organizational behavior
and communication studies generally, giving far less attention to the enactment of oral
and written communications. Sometimes organizational and management

communication are used interchangeably, and there have been efforts to create a shared
space for organizational communication and communication fields focusing on
enactment (Aritz & Walker, 2012, p. 5). However, at present, theres not much crossfertilization. For example, Hartelius and Browning (2008) published a literature review
on the application of rhetorical theory in managerial research, but cited none of the
most-read journals noted earlier, journals which focus on language, writing, speaking,
and genre. What Munter (1989) wrote years ago remains representative of how
organizational communication differs from professional communication fields concerned
with enactment:
[I]f you see the word organizational in the title, the course taught at
either the graduate or undergraduate levels will emphasize the effects of
the organization on communication: communication networks,
information flow and direction, hierarchies, motivation, and so on. The
communication skills, if any, tend to be interpersonal and small group
communication, rather than writing and speaking (p. 270).
Management communications interest in writing and speaking distinguishes it from
organizational communication. Its focus on the textual life of the manager differentiates it
from the broader field of business communication and the more specialized corporate
communication.
MANAGERS CORE COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES
If management communication is the study of the written and oral textual life of the
manager who must get work done through people, then what is its content? What
communication activities do managers engage in? What does research and pedagogical
literature tell us about these activities?
The following five core communication activities were derived from literature on
the nature of managerial work, a review of most-read journals by academics in the field,
publications of award-winning researchers, course descriptions, and the authors own
experience in the field.

Predicting audience response

Selecting workplace language
Seeing and shaping organizational genres
Diagnosing communication effectiveness
Using discourse interaction

These activities are offered as a preliminary rather than comprehensive list. They could
comprise the topics in a primer on management communication, much like those taught
in core courses in accounting, finance, marketing, and operations. These activities appear
in some form or fashion in research and pedagogical materials, although they have not
been pulled together like this. All require more research attention.

Predicting Audience Response

Predicting how audiences will respond to messages is a critical aspect of managing
communication to get work done through people. Management skills are responsive,
observed McKnight (1991, p. 205). Clampitt (1991) compared a managers
communicative task to dancing. The better you know your partner, the more effective
your communication will be. As Munter (2012) wrote:
You not only need to know where you want the audience to be as a result
of your communication, you also need to figure out where they are right
now. . . . The more you can learn about your audiencewho they are,
what they know, what they feel, and how they can be persuadedthe
more likely you will be to achieve your desired outcome (p. 10).
The audiences that managers communicate with to achieve desired outcomes are many
and diverse, however. Managers oversee various employee groups, report to upper
management and board members, negotiate with different suppliers and labor union
leaders, serve customers and investors, interact with local communities and government
officials, respond to reporters interested in their successes or failures, and more. These
audiences have unique needs, views, and interests that may converge or conflict and that
change over time. Their work responsibilities, language skills, and communication habits
also differ.
But workplace audiences are also interdependent. They form informal and formal
networks independent of management. They are known to gossip, become Facebook
friends, meet for social events, become upset with each other, and rail against
management. Effective managers also build networks of their own including hundreds of
individuals both inside and outside their organizations (Ibarra & Hunter, 2007; Cross &
Parker, 2004; Watts, 2003; Cross, Borgatti, & Parker, 2002). These networks intersect
forming a web of relationships that shifts over time as circumstances change. For
example, during employee contract negotiations, labor union leaders and employees
coalesce; management and their backers retrench, while reporters and their constituent
readers clamor for information from both sides.
In this complex communicative environment is not possible for managers to
determine fully who is talking to whom and what their audiences know, do not know, or
need to know. Nor can managers dictate how their messages will be received. Whether a
message gets read, heard, interpreted, or acted upon as intended, depends on many
situational and personal factors beyond a managers control. At best, managers guess how
audiences will respond. Communicating to achieve desired work outcomes with multiple
audiences is a predictive activity not a prescriptive one.
Bases for Predictive Analysis
Predicting how audiences will respond to messages in management contexts is not as
simple as seeking answers to demographic questions about age, sex, education, social
position, cultural background, and the like. Managers need to focus their questions
around the needs of workplace participants. Considered individually, these needs are

many, varied, and difficult to coral. Looking at shared needs is less unruly and
potentially fruitful for predictive analysis.
Two needs relevant to most workplace participants are: (1) the need for work
productivity and (2) the need for cooperative relationships. Absent productivity and
cooperative relationships, organizations have difficulty remaining viable and participants
pay, promotions, or jobs may be jeopardized. These potentialities are no secret and bring
workplace participants together when times are tough, such as when management and
unions need to reach agreement so that an automotive company can survive an economic
downturn. Using these shared needs as a framework for predicative analysis seems like a
sensible point of departure.
Work Productivity
Seeing that work gets done productively is a critical aspect of a managers job. Clear,
concise, and relevant workplace messages contribute to this. Predictive analysis to
increase productivity examines message relevance:

Will this message waste receivers time?

Will receivers fail to understand how this message is relevant to them?
Is there some probability that receivers will trash or ignore this message?

A yes answer to any one of these questions suggests that a message is faulty in its
structure and content, unnecessary, or directed to the wrong audience. Related to this,
Mathas and Stevenson (1976) provided a helpful way to select receivers. They divided
receivers into three groups:

Primary receivers must reach a decision or act upon the message.

Secondary receivers are likely to be affected by the action or decision.
Intermediate receivers are gatekeepers who determine if and when others receive
the message.

Shaping messages for primary receivers is a key consideration. Sometimes it is also

necessary to engender goodwill or demonstrate message urgency with intermediate
receivers (like secretaries or deputy assistants) as they may prevent successful delivery.
Reaching primary receivers also involves analyzing media preferences and timing. These
considerations suggest questions like these:

What communication media is likely to reach primary receivers expediently?

What are receivers media preferences?
When are primary receivers most available to receive this message?
Will any intermediate receivers stop this message from being delivered? If so,
how might these intermediate receivers bebpersuaded to deliver the message or
how might they be sidestepped?
Should this message be directed to any secondary receivers?

Cooperative Relationships
To do their job, managers must build cooperative relationships with a large number of
people--subordinates, peers, superiors, and a variety of organizational outsiders (Hill,
2003; Stewart, 1988; Kotter, 1982; Mintzberg, 1973). Workplace relationships are tied to
organizational roles, responsibilities, and situations that carry with them various
expectations for communication. Managers are often expected to mentor employees, to
assign work tasks that are reasonable, and to appraise their performance with
thoughtfulness and objectivity. Managers need employees to be receptive, to learn, to
complete assigned tasks, and to preform those tasks well. Managers must devise plans,
persuade superiors to support those plans, and get employees to enact them. Managerial
success depends upon cooperation. When a manager has good communication skills,
these relationships may evolve into highly functional partnerships (Clampitt, 1991).
Key to relationship building is communicative civility and polite concern for the
feelings or face needs of others (Holmes & Stubbe, 2003; Brown & Levinson, 1987).
This expectation persists, even in contentious situations, including when individuals and
groups disagree or become belligerent. A manager is a professional after all and, as
such, must subjugate personal feelings to bigger organizational goals.
There are also issues related to the political environment and the organizations
reporting relationships and reward systems. In a hierarchical environment, it is fair to
predict that relationships may be hurt if messages skip the queue, for example. Observing
the chain of command may also have negative consequences for a reporting manager,
however. That manager may go unrecognized for an original idea by those who have
reward power, for example. This makes the question of who should and should not
receive messages enormously complexShould I cc or bcc upper management or
would they find this a waste of their time? If I cc upper management, will my direct
boss be upset? What are the trade-offs?
All in all, the need to build cooperative relationships can guide predication,
raising targeted questions, such as these:

Who should and should not receive this message?

How are receivers likely to react to this message? Will it surprise them? Are they
likely to ignore it, dismiss it, consider it, or accept it?
What face issues may come into play? Could this message embarrass or hurt
receivers? How might these face issues be mitigated?
Am I the best person to deliver this message? Will receivers expect this message
to come from me? Will they see it as important, affirming, or threatening?
Is this the best time to deliver this message? Are work pressures or relational
tensions too great to relay this message now? It this a religious holiday for them?
Should the message be delayed?
Should this message be delivered face-to-face or in some other oral or written
format?
If this message were leaked, would it damage our relationship? Should this
message be oral, private, and undocumented at present?
Should this message invite receivers to express their views or is it wise to wait
and see how they respond first?
10

Finally, a comprehensive resource on predictive audience analysis in organizational

contexts is Youngs (2011) book titled How Audiences Decide. Young identifies the
types of decisions that audiences are asked to make in professional contexts, for example,
whether to comply, staff, employ, invest, or provide financial support. He then describes
the criteria that audiences use to make such decisions and provides examples to illustrate
how these criteria can help managers formulate messages that get read, understood, and
acted upon. Youngs analysis is relevant to the productivity and relational concerns of
managers. For example, consider the decision criteria employees may use when
responding to a managers request for cost-cutting measures or longer working hours:

Are the circumstances significant enough to merit my managers request?

Will my sacrifice be appreciated?
Will my manager do his/her part?
Does my manager share my values?

By identifying decision criteria that audiences use and examples of textual options that
may address these criteria, Young (2011) provides a wonderful resource for management
communication research and teaching.
Selecting Workplace Language
Eccles and Nohria (1992) noted that to see management in its proper light, managers
need first to take language seriously (p. 205). Without the right words, used in the right
way, they continued, it is unlikely that the right actions will occur. Words do matter
they matter very much (p. 209). This conclusion raises a basic question: What are the
right words used in the right way? Across management contexts, the answer is it
depends. Managers workplace environments are both idiosyncratic and interactively
complex. Formulaic approaches may be irrelevant. Communicating effectively is not a
repetitive process that can be applied straightaway in different situations (Kent, 1993).
Thus managers need to develop a repertoire of options from which to choose and to
follow the protocols of Business English Lingua Franca (BELF) when interacting with
non-native speakers of English in some contexts.
Developing a Repertoire of Options
What does mean for managers to take language seriously as Eccles and Nohira (1992)
suggest? It means developing a repertoire of linguistic and rhetorical options from which
to choose and observing the relative effectiveness of those options in the workplace.
Research has elaborated options that are highly useful for managers to know. Three
examples are: (1) direct and indirect structuring, (2) narratives, and (3) sentence-level
tools.
Direct (high-impact) or indirect (low-impact) structuring are both useful
depending upon the nature of the workplace situation and the managers goals (Suchan &
Colucci, 1989; Fielden & Dulek, 1984). For example, research on advance organizers
(subject lines, introductions, headings, and meeting agendas), which introduce the

11

specific topic at the onset of the message, are shown to help users more efficiently
comprehend a message (Rogers, 1990). Advance organizers work well for informational
messages, particularly when receivers are suffering from information overload (Hemp, P.
2009; Fann-Thomas & King, 2006). But an indirect structure may have a better chance of
success if receivers are in the habit of using it for a particular task, or if they are likely to
dismiss the message outright without explanation or proof first, or if the news is bad or
face threatening (Suchan & Dulek, 1990).
Narratives (or stories) are another option that should not be dismissed in
preference for probative statistics. Jameson (2001) described narratives as having an
internal logic strong enough to link the component events into a unified whole with a
point that is more than the sum of the parts (p. 478). She found that narratives were a
means for managing conflicts involving incompatible demands, that they could soften
receiver resistance to arguments based on statistical evidence or theory, and that they
impacted a managers power to inform and influence (see also Forman, 2013; Jameson,
2000; Bal, 1997; Suchan, 1995). Storybuilding, the collective group activity of
organizing disparate facts and experiences into a sequence that implied cause and effect,
helped managers challenge corporate policies, advocate change, and influence important
constituencies (Jameson, 2001, p. 477; see also Stutts, N. & Barker, R. T., 1999).
Sentence-level choices that managers need to know include constructions that
have been dismissed as ineffective in some business communication textbooks, such as
passives, nominalizations, expletive constructions, and hedging particles. But research
shows that such constructions are expedient choices for some management situations. For
example, Hagge & Kostelnick (1989) found that suggestion letters written by auditors
in a Big Eight accounting firm consistently employed both the mandative subjunctive
and the modals could, should, might, may, and would . . . to convey the sense of
uncertainty inherent in the auditing process and to mitigate the impositive force of
directive [r]ecommendations (p. 321). They also found that extensive use of agentless
passives (such as are not documented and have been returned) in sections of letters
that defined a problem in a clients organization. These constructions effectively removed
references to the individual or organization that caused the problem. As Brown and
Levinson (1987) observed in Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, the
passive coupled with a rule of agent deletion is perhaps the means par excellence in
English of avoiding reference to persons involved in FTAs [Face Threatening Acts] (p.
194; see also Rogers, Ho, Thomas, Wong, & Cheng, 2004; Rogers & Lee-Wong, 2003).
In summary, managers need to develop repertoire of linguistic and rhetorical
alternatives from which to choose.
Using Business English Lingua Franca (BELF)
For managers who work across cultures with non-native speakers of English, using the
right words in the right way involves learning the protocols of Business English Lingua
Franca (BELF). BELF is a simplified English without complex sentences, idiomatic
expressions, jargon, or unusual words (Kankaanranta & Planken, 2010, p. 392; RogersonRevell, 2010; Kankaanranta & Louhiala-Salminen, 2010 & 2007; Louhiala-Salminen &
Charles, 2006; Louhiala-Salminen & Kankaanranta, 2005; Nickerson, 1998). Two

12

recurring protocols characterize BELF: (1) focus on content comprehension and (2) let it
pass strategies.
Focusing on content comprehension
As an instrument for getting work done with non-native speakers of English, BELF
focuses on user comprehension of content rather than on grammatical or syntactical
correctness (Table 2). Errors that disrupt understanding matter, such as unclear pronoun
references and lack of subject-verb agreement. Accent errors, like missing articles or
incorrect plurals that do not impede understanding, are ignored (Rogers & Rymer, 2001).
A Japanese manager may never master the use of a, an, and the, although he
interacts regularly with employees at a manufacturing plant where English is the native
language. He can relax knowing that communication effectiveness is not dependent on
English language mastery in every respect, nor will his business associates expect
mastery.
Table 2: English Language Perspective Compared to Business English Lingua
Franca Perspective
English Language
Perspective

Business English Lingua

Franca Perspective

Speaker/writer aims to

Emulate native speaker

Get job done

Non-native speaker seen

as

Leaner who slows down

work & requires patience

Communicator in his/her
own right

Main Communication
concerns

Language errors

Important culture

Host country culture

Increasing English
vocabulary & responding
quicker
Global business culture

Goal of non-native speaker

is to:

Increase of understanding
of perfect English

Increase understanding of
Englishes for global
business

BELFs focus on content comprehension invites users to engage in a number of

distinctive practices (Kankaanranta & Planken, 2010). BELF interactions are known to
include good deal of checking and re-checkingDo you understand my meaning?
Delivery tends to be slower and more formal procedurally and linguistically. Procedural
formality involves topic control and turn taking. For example, in meetings individuals
may be invited to speak with their turns directed through a chairperson. Formal

13

procedures of this kind act as a barrier to spontaneous, self-selected turns, with some
NNSE [Non-native speakers of English] participants feeling they lack the ability to use
the appropriate formal register to claim turns or interrupt (Rogerson-Revell, 2010, p.
447; see also Du-Babcock, 1999). Linguistic formality may involve frequent
nominalizations, passive rather than active voice, and Latinate words learned in English
language courses. Words and phrases from users native languages may be interspersed
with English.
Using Let it pass strategies
Effective BELF users are also shown to ignore linguistic anomalies. Firth (1996) called
this the let it pass strategy, which disregards the surface features of talk in the interest
of making meaning together. A characteristic of let it pass is lack of other repair. One
participants non-traditional usage will go uncorrected and may be even replicated by
participants who know better in an attempt to identify (Rogerson-Revell, 2010; Sweeney
& Hua, 2010). Participants may also admit their own linguistic limitationsI dont
know if I say this the best way. Small talk about safe topics, like music or food, may be
interjected to build rapport and solidarity (Pullin, 2010).
The consequences of not knowing BELFs idiosyncrasies for international
management communication is just beginning to become known. One dramatic example
from the discipline of finance is Brochet, Naranjo and Yus (2012) discovery that
linguistic complexity in conference calls held in English by non-U.S. firms contributed to
reductions in trading volume and in price movement. Negative market responses were
even more pronounced when there was a greater presence of foreign investors. The form
in which financial information is presented, they concluded, can impose additional
processing costs by limiting investors ability to interpret the reported financials (see
abstract).
Managers who communicate in global environments need to know how BELF
works. This is particularly true for native English speakers (Kankaanranta & Planken,
2010). Sweeney (2010) characterized this as the native speaker problem, that is, the
native speaker continuing to speak idiomatically, using complicated or obscure
vocabulary, and bringing with them their cultural communication norms (p. 480).
In summary, managers must take language seriously. This involves choosing
strategies that are best suited for different contexts. A large repertoire of linguistic and
rhetorical options from which to choose and knowledge of BELF will enable this.
Seeing and Shaping Genre
Organizational genres are another communication tool for managing. Organizational
genres are typified messages recognized by their form, content, and the actions they
engender (Bakhtin, 1986; Miller, 1984; Yates, 1989b; Swales, 1990 & 2004; Yates &
Orlikowski, 1992 & 1994; Spinuzzi, 2003). They are often associated with work roles
(e.g. Nickerson, 2000). The status report a project team delivers to their supervising
manager, the flowsheet on which a nurse records patient information in a hospitals
emergency room, and the post-audit letter a tax accountant completes to examine the

14

accuracy of the Internal Revenue Services calculations for penalty assessment are
organizational genres (Pawlik, Rogers, & Shwom, 2013; sterlund, 2007; Devitt, 1991).
Research shows that organizational genres comprise an infrastructure for
managing communicative activities. They channel, sequence, and expedite recurring
work. They facilitate organized interaction among individuals with vastly different
responsibilities (Yates & Orlikowski, 2002; Nickerson, 1998 & 2000; Zachery, 2000).
They serve as collaborative tools and documentation (Winsor, 1999; Freedman, Adam, &
Smart, 1994).
Organizational genres originated to meet the need for structured and efficient
work processes as businesses grew and record keeping and reporting became more
complex (Yates, 1989a). For example, the memorandum, with its innovative subject line,
replaced the letter. The subject line directs a writer to surface the topic of the memo and it
facilitates efficient filing and retrieval.
But more than this, genres draw attention to the kind of work activities that are
important. For example, the standard quarterly financial report with its expectation that
figures be displayed in tables rather than solely elaborated in prose, not only makes
quarterly results easier for users to see, but also exerts pressure on reporting employees to
focus on profit-making activitiese.g., We should streamline the XYZ manufacturing
process so that we have more profits to report next year.
Genres may also be modified to redirect work activities as organizational goals
change (Bremner, 2012). The dean who added media citations to the categories in the
faculty annual report is an apt example. Intent on elevating his business schools MBA in
the Business Week rankings, the dean wanted faculty to produce research that would
impact managerial practices and, thereby, get reported in trade magazines and the popular
press. Whether the higher MBA ranking that followed can be attributed to the addition of
media citations to the faculty reporting genre is unclear. But the author of this chapter
did modify her publication activities as a consequence of this change.
Genre Sets and Systems
Sometimes genres are clustered into sets and systems that sequence the flow of work and
compile information for discussion and retrieval (sterlund, 2007; Spinuzzi, 2004).
Genre sets comprise a full range of genres for one side of a multiparty interaction, such
as the set of deliverables that consulting teams produce at the beginning, middle, and end
of project workcontracting documents, status reports, and final presentations (Pawlik,
Rogers, & Shwom, 2013). Contracting documents become instruments for benchmarking
team progress when status reports are delivered, for example.
Genre systems comprise an intermingling of two or more genre sets, such as the
genre sets that nurses, doctors, and clericals use as they move a patient through the
emergency room. Nurses regularly update patient flowsheets; doctors consult these
flowsheets to complete their reports; clerks compile all these genres for future reference
when patients are released (sterlund, 2007). Functioning as they should, genre systems
provide an iterative, systematic means for individuals with different work responsibilities
and interdependencies to interact effectively. But effective function requires genre
oversight.

15

Need for Genre Management

Managers are not always attentive to the potential of genres or the need to manage them.
Genres can become so ingrained in work routines that they go unmanaged. Sometimes
genres can fail to produce desired results or become abused. They can be diluted in their
use if they do not serve the best interest of their users (Bremner, 2012). An automotive
companys Dealer Contact Report (DCR) is a case in point. Field managers were
expected to complete DCRs to describe decisions for handling customer problems at car
dealerships. But some field managers ignored the required DCR format. Instead of
elaborating on the Problem, Recommendation, Action, and Timetable categories
specified on the DCR, they ignored these categories and simply wrote narrative
chronological accounts of their discussions with dealers. Field managers said narratives
were easier to write and were appreciated by their district managers. But their narratives
did not provide the kind of documentation that upper management needed to follow-up
on cases or to defend company decisions should a case be taken to court. Therefore,
training was implemented to show field managers why they needed to follow the dictates
of the DCR genre and to help them do so expeditiously (Rogers, 1989).
Organizational genres offer perceived fixity that can stabilize, direct, and
expedite work activities (sterlund, 2007, p. 83). But genres can also lose their power if
their form and content requirements are abused or ignored. Shaping genres that meet
workplace needs, reinforcing their diligent use, revising and replacing them when work
needs change, comprise a managerial endeavor of some complexity and consequence.
Diagnosing Communication Effectiveness
Managers also need diagnostic skills to monitor and improve communications. This is not
easy. Managers must be able to evaluate the effectiveness of messages and of those who
deliver them in light of contextual and discursive realities (Bhatia, 2008). Approaches
that work for one context may not work in another context. Jobs and situational demands
change and with them the communicative competencies needed to do them well.
Messages must be crafted for receivers with different and changing expectations and
obligations.
Managers are confronted with multiple questions related to communication
effectiveness: What types of communications are required for this job at this juncture in
the life of the organization? Who possesses the skills to communicate in this job well? Is
the employee assigned to this job meeting its communication requirements? If not, where
is improvement needed? Am I communicating the job requirements clearly? Will this
message achieve what we want it to achieve with its receivers? Managers use a variety of
diagnostic tools to address such questions.
Hiring and Placement
There are a slew of tools to measure personality traits, communication style, and
communication competence generally. Sometimes managers employ these to facilitate
hiring or placement decisions. Richmond and McCroskeys (2003 & 1990) Nonverbal
Immediacy Scale and the SocioCommunicative Style Scale are two examples. First

16

published in 1962, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, which measures how
individuals are inclined to view the world and make decisions, remains popular for
matching employees with jobs. Also used are assessment centers, which place candidates
in simulated situations like those they would encounter in a particular job. For example,
candidates for a managerial position might be given a simulated in-basket exercise. How
candidates process in-basket messages suggests their ability to discern the relative
importance of messages, to select appropriate media for responding, and to delegate.
Performance Appraisal and Message Monitoring
Providing employees with feedback about performance is one of the most important
communication tasks of the manager (Clampitt, 1991, p. 147). Organizations develop
appraisal genres for this purpose, which typically incorporate some assessment of
communication skills. But regular informal feedback is also important. Clampitt (1991)
provides a useful overview on performance feedback in Communicating for Managerial
Effectiveness.
Templates for evaluating various components of individual messages have also
been developed, such as the Analysis of Argument Measure--which scores the use of
claims, data, and warrant in persuasive messages based on Toulmins (1958) definitive
work on the components of an argument--and the Persuasive Adaptiveness Measure for
Managerial Writing, which scores the extent to which a message adapts the readers
perspective (Rogers, 1994). Challenged to provide new MBA students with a baseline
assessment of their managerial writing skills using the Graduate Management
Admissions Test Analytical Writing Assessment, Rogers and Rymer (2001) developed
four basic tools: the Task Tool evaluates how well a piece of writing fulfills the assigned
task and meets reader expectations; the Coherence Tool assesses if a message forms a
meaningful whole for readers; the Reasoning Units Tool examines how logically
convincing readers find claims and support in the writing, and the Error Interference Tool
identifies errors that impede reader understanding and/or hurt the writers credibility.
Managers can use such tools to help employees improve their skills.
Competing Values Framework
Used for management evaluation and training in Asia, Europe, and the United States, the
Competing Values Framework (CVF) is a multifaceted tool for diagnosing the
effectiveness of individual messages and communicative performance on the job. Rather
than evaluating effectiveness against some absolute standard, this tool asks managers to
compare a message or an employees performance as it is now to what it should be
for the situation or the job (Quinn, Hildebrandt, Rogers, & Thompson, 1991; Rogers &
Hildebrandt, 1993). The now and should be scheme is dynamic; it accommodates
contextual variability.
In brief, the CVF was empirically built by asking communication experts to
associate a comprehensive list of valued communication characteristics with four types of
communication: relational, informational, promotional, and transformational. Experts
responses were subjected to multidimensional scaling which revealed relationships
between the valued characteristics and the types of communication. The resulting CVF

17

identifies sets of characteristics most strongly associated with each type of

communication, as shown in Figure 1. For example, the characteristics open, candid,
and personal are highly valued for relational communications, whereas promotional
communications are expected to be more conclusive, decisive, and action oriented.

Figure 1: Competing Values Communication Framework illustrates the

relationships between four basic types of communication and valued characteristics
The CVF further illustrates the relationships between relational, informational,
promotional, and transformation types of communication. Each type of communication is
visualized as a quadrant. Quadrants that are side-by-side share characteristics. For
example, being dependable, accurate, and factual is valued for highly relational and
informational communications; being innovation, creative, and original are valued for
highly transformational and promotional communications. Types of communication in
quadrants located across from each other have competing values. For example, there is
a tension between the characteristics open, candid, and personal expected when relating
and the characteristics conclusive, decisive, and action-oriented needed to promote. The
fact that some characteristics are competing suggests that while all the characteristics are
valued, the extent to which they are targeted depends upon the goal of the
communicationa highly promotional communication will tend to be more conclusive
and action oriented; a highly relational communication more personal and open. In brief,

18

the CVF provides a conceptual map for understanding the qualities most expected for
different types of communication (Quinn, Hildebrandt, Rogers, and Thompson, 1991).
By attaching a seven-point scale to each set of valued characteristics, the CVF
becomes an instrument for evaluating individual messages or the extent to which an
individual is communicating to meet the demands of his or her job (Rogers &
Hildebrandt, 1993). Data is collected from workplace associates (such as subordinates,
peers, superiors, suppliers, and customers). These associates use a 1-7 point scale to score
the importance of each set of characteristics for an individuals jobwhere that
individuals communication is now (N) and where it should be (SB). These scores
are then averaged and used to create profiles. N scores are connected with a solid line; SB
scores with a dotted line, as shown in Figure 2. Characteristics on which N and SB match
suggest strengths. Where N and SB differ by two points or more, improvement is needed.
Associate profiling has been used to train medical staff at Detroits Henry Ford Hospital
and for new entrants into the Ross School of Businesss Global MBA Program to assess
their skills, for example. Individuals can also score their own communication for their job
to create self profiles and set goals, as is done by participants in a Singapore
government officer-training program.

Figure 2: Profile of a relatively newly hire with a liberal arts background

whose communication is now too transformational whereas it should be
more informational for his responsibilities as an analyst.

19

Figure 3: Profile of a memo that needs to be a bit more persuasive.

Individual messages can also be scored on N & SB, as shown in Figure 3. For example,
the CVF has been used to evaluate the effectiveness of CEO presentations of poor
earnings at the New York Society of Security Analysts (Rogers, 2001) and the
effectiveness of email messages to customers at TVS Logistics in Chennai, India.
More evaluative instruments that account for the unique contextual
communicative demands need to be developed for management communication.
Using Discourse Interaction
Another core activity for managers is using discourse interaction. Couture and Rymer
(1991) originated the term discourse interaction to describe oral and written
discussions about documents as they are planned, drafted, and revised. These
interactions may be dyadic, within groups, or across groups. When writers discuss their
drafts with supervising managers and when groups collaborate on writing or use
document cycling (passing a document back and forth between writers and various
parties), they are engaged in discourse interaction.

20

Discussions about oral texts have also been characterized as discourse interaction
(Pawlik, Rogers, & Shwom, 2013). Examples include a project team planning their oral
status report, a CEO and his deputy debating how to frame an upcoming presentation of
poor earnings, and a manager giving feedback on a consulting teams presentation
rehearsal. Such interactions about oral and written discourse are pervasive in the
communicative life of a manager.
Research suggests that discourse interaction can enhance the text under discussion
and also benefit discussants and their organization in a variety of ways. Discourse
interaction in management contexts is instrumental in getting work done. As Ede and
Lunsford (1986) noted about collaborative writing:
Working with someone else gives you another point of view. There is an
extra voice inside your head; that can make a lot of difference. Others can
see things about what I am doing or what I am saying that I cant see. And
if they are good and we work together well, we can do that for each other.
(p. 29, italics added).
When talking about discourse under construction, discussants discover new ideas, learn
about procedures, practices, and others views, explore possible political implications,
discover weaknesses, unearth disagreements, reach consensus, surface ethical concerns,
and reach consensus. For example, Rogers and Horton (1992) observed 19 groups
composing documents together in two different environmentsone with computers and
projection capabilities, the other with flipcharts and notepads. In both environments
group discussion of the documents spawned a deep analysis of rhetorical complexities
including the ethical dimensions of language choices. Groups developed a shared voice
for talking about the issues. Cross (2001) discovered that a large-scale collaboration
involving participants from multiple departments in the composing processes, helped
participants form a collective mind despite episodes of apathy, cacophony, and
anticonsensual revolt (p. 57). These and other studies suggest the value of discourse
interaction for managing (e.g. Forman, 1992).
Discourse interaction also presents the manager with an opportunity to guide what
is not said, what is said, and how it is said. It can function as a powerful teaching tool.
Consider what the writer learns from this supervisors feedback:
You can wait to email this. Ulrich wont even look at it until after
quarterly earnings are reported. By the way, send it as an email attachment
and use a memo format. Include more details about the customer and get
yourself out of it. Keep it objective. Dont use I. Its his turf, not yours.
This supervisor provides information on timing and distribution, genre use, the level of
detail required, and the appropriateness of self-reference. This could have reinforced with
a summary:
So the next time you prepare this report for Ulrich, consider his schedule,
use a memo format, provide more supporting detail, and keep the tone
neutral, not personal.

21

Research shows that the potential benefits of discourse interaction are not fully
recognized by managers, however. Consider the contrasting views of the writers and
supervising mangers that Couture and Rymer (1991) studied. Writers reported that
supervisor input brought clarity to important aspects of the writing assignment and
surfaced considerations that were not apparent before the interaction, such as content that
should and should not be included to keep a supervisor out of trouble, make the
department look good, or to help sell something (Couture & Rymer, 1991, pp. 96 & 99).
Discourse interaction was also reported to move the project along. For example, one
writer observed that discussing a document with his supervisor was the point at which
they worked out the technical details of the project, such as work commitments,
scheduling, and overall cost (Couture & Rymer, 1991 & 1993).
By contrast, supervisors were largely oblivious to these benefits. They viewed
these interactions as an unfortunate necessity to correct grammatical errors, clarify
misunderstandings, point out where more elaboration was needed, and explain reporting
requirements. Supervisors expressed resentment over the need for discourse interaction.
Professionals, like the writers reporting to them, should not have to be told what to do
(Couture and Rymer, 1991, p. 99). While supervisors acknowledged that the writers were
inexperienced, they failed to observe that interactions were contributing significantly to
the mentoring process and to the work itself. As Couture and Rymer (1991) concluded:
Writers and managers may have radically different perspectives on the
function of discourse interaction, inhibiting them from collaborating
effectively. . . . The disparity in their perceptions, we believe, causes much
of this interaction to be minimally effective (pp. 97-98 & 99).
Research on collaborative writing suggests that discourse interaction can fail if it
is not managed well. Forty-two percent of the respondents to Lunsford and Edes (1990)
well-known survey on writing collaboration reported that their group writing was not
too productive or not at all productive (p. 50; see also Ede & Lunsford, 1986). Locker
(1992) watched a team produce 13 inadequate document drafts before the writing task
was assigned to a new team. A writing group that Cross observed (1990) took 77 days to
compose the cover letter for an annual report and their final version failed to address
audience needs and contained poor explanations and redundancies.
To date, managing discourse interaction to get work done has received far too
little research attention. Compiling directives for collaborative writing (e.g., Cross, 2011,
1994, & 1990; Locker, 1992; Paradis, Dobrin, & Miller, 1985) and document drafting
(e.g., Shwom and Hirsch, 1994) and considering how they might be used to achieve
management goals would be a place to begin.

22

OTHER MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIES

The proposed five activities for managing the oral and written texts to get work done with
and through people should be viewed as starter kit. Other foundational constructs that
merit elaboration include:

Systems theory (Suchan, 2006; Suchan & Dulek, 1998)

Network theory (Ibarra & Hunter, 2007; Cross & Parker, 2004)
Media selection (Lengel & Daft, 1968; Yates & Orlikowski, 1992 & 2002)
Cultural identity and cultural intelligence theory (Jameson, 2007; Earley & Ang,
2003; Nickerson, 1999; Hildebrandt, 1998; Thomas, 1998; Hildebrandt & Liu,
1991)
Interpersonal communication (Iacoboni, 2008; Stone, Patton, & Heen, 2000;
Tannen, 1995), including listening (Barker, R. T., Pearce, C.G. & Johnson, I. W.,
1992), building credibility and trust (Thomas, Zolin, & Hartman, 2008), doing
empathy work (Clark, Murfett, Rogers, & Ang, 2013), and conflict
management (Thomas, Thomas, & Schaubhut, 2008)

Instrumental, day-to-day activities that managers need to master include informational

management and persuasion. Managing information requires decisions about what
information to share and retrieve, as well as ways to get information heard and
understood despite information overload (Hemp, 2009; Reinsch, Turner, & Tinsley,
2008). Managers need textual tools to help readers and listeners comprehend and process
information quickly (e.g., Kostelnick & Hassett, 2003). Young (2011) provides a
thorough list of textual aids to perception, attention, sentence-level comprehension, and
information integration. Heath and Heath (2007) describe techniques for making
information sticky so that its impact is long lasting.
Persuading is also essential for managing (Hill, 1997). Communication is almost
always an attempt to control changeeither by causing it or by preventing it, Hanna &
Wilson observed in Communicating in Business and Professional Settings (1998, p. 21).
Reinsch and Shelby (1997) found that managers most challenging situations involved
the conflict or the necessity of persuading someone (p. 18). Theories of persuasion and
compliance gaining have been applied to management activities (e.g., Shelby, 1986;
1988; 1991). The persuasiveness of various textual choices across cultures is also being
explored (e.g. Zhu & Hildebrandt, in press). Commonly used for management
communication teaching are Toulmins (1958) components of an argument (claim, data,
warrant, qualification, and rebuttal) and the six principles of persuasion (reciprocity,
commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity) that Cialdini
(2009) laid out in his book Influence: Science and Practice. Tests of evidence and logical
fallacies are also explored, including in Huffs (1954) classic book How to Lie With
Statistics, which is complemented by Seifes (2010) recent publication titled Proofiness:
The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception.

23

CONCLUSION
In summary, the field of management communication is newer than other professional
communication fields. It shares with business and corporate communication a keen
interest in effective speaking and writing on behalf of organizations. But it differs from
these fields and from organizational communication in its focus on the oral and written
texts that the manager creates, receives, and is responsible to manage to get work done
through people. The managers role requires some ability to predict how various
audiences will respond to textual choices, to develop a repertoire of language options
from which to choose, to use BELF strategies when working with non-native speakers of
English in some contexts, to see and shape genres to manage recurring events, to
diagnose the communication effectiveness of messages and employees, to use discourse
interaction as learning and consensus-building vehicles, to manage information so that it
gets understood and remembered, to persuade to cause or prevent change, and much more.
Research provides some frameworks and tools that can be rallied to assist managers with
this work, but much more remains to be done.
NOTES
1

Special thanks to Randolph Barker, Geoff Cross, Ron Dulek, Gail Fann Thomas, Janis
Forman, Herb Hildebrandt, Daphne Jameson, Catherine Nickerson, Lamar Reinsch, Jone
Rymer, Jim Suchan, and JoAnne Yates for directing me to studies they have conducted
and theories that influence their teaching of management communication. I asked these
Association for Business Communication Outstanding Research Award recipients (who
are known for their work on management communication) the following question: Which
two or three of your publications most influence your management communication
research and/or teaching? Their answers helped with this chapter and are provided in the
Appendix.
2

In the early 1980s scholars were comparing organizational and business

communication with no reference to managerial communication. Although management
communication is a young field, it has ancient roots. Rhetoric began to be developed as a
formal area of knowledge with ties to business in the 5th century B.C.E. (Reinsch, 1996;
Kennedy, 1963).
3

Founded in 1916, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, now

known as AACSB International, advances quality management education worldwide
through accreditation, thought leadership, and value-added services (AACSB
International, http://www.aacsb.edu/about/default.asp, accessed October 2012). In 2005,
Knight found that at the MBA level, communication was longer mentioned specifically in
the AACSB International standards, but communication appears throughout the
interpretative guidelines (http://www/aacsb.edu)

24

Appendix: Association of Business Communication Outstanding Researcher Award

recipients who are known for their Management Communication research recommend
readings from their work.

Researcher

Which three of your publications most influence your

management communication research and/or teaching

Randolph Barker Stutts, N. & Barker, R, T. (1999). The use of narrative paradigm theory in
audience value conflict identification. Management Communication
Quarterly, 13(2), 209-244.
Barker, R. T., & Camarata, M. (1998). The role of communication in
creating and maintaining a learning organization: Preconditions,
indicators and disciplines. The Journal of Business Communication,
35(4), 443-467.
Barker, R. T., Pearce, C.G. & Johnson, I. W. (1992). An investigation of
perceived managerial listening ability. Journal of Business and Technical
Communication, 6(4), 438-457.
Geoffrey Cross Cross, G. A. (2011). Envisioning collaboration: Group verbal-visual
composing in a system of creativity book review. IEEE Transactions on
Professional Communication, 54(2), 215.
Cross, G. A. (2001). Forming the Collective Mind: A Contextual Exploration
of Large-Scale Collaborative Writing in Industry. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton
Press.
Cross, G. A. (1994). Collaboration and Conflict: A Contextual Exploration
of Group Writing and Positive Emphasis. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Ronald E. Dulek Suchan, J. & Dulek, R. E. (1998). From text to context: An open systems
approach to research, The Journal of Business Communication, 35, 87110.
Fielden, J.S. & Dulek, R. E. (1984). How to use bottom-line writing in
corporate communications," Business Horizons, 27(4), 24-30.
Dulek, R. E. & Annette Shelby, A. (1981). Writing principles stressed by
business communication instructors. Journal of Business
Communication, 18(2), 41-50.
Janis Forman
Forman (2013). Storytelling in Business: The Authentic and Fluent
Organization, CA: Stanford University Press.
Forman, J. & Rymer, J. (1999). Defining the genre of the case write-up,
Journal of Business Communication, 36(2), 103-133.
Forman, J. (1992). Ed. New Visions of Collaborative Writing. Portsmouth,
New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook Publishers.
Herbert W.
Hildebrandt, H. W. (1998). International/intercultural communication: A
Hildebrandt
comparative study of Asian and U.S. managers. World Communication
Journal 17(1), 49-68.
Hildebrandt, H. W. & Liu, J (1991). Communication through foreign
languages: An economic force in Chinese enterprises. Journal of
Asian Pacific Communication--The Economics of the Language in the
Asian Pacific 2(1).
Quinn, B., Hildebrandt, H. W., Rogers, P. S. & Thompson, M. (1991). A
competing values framework for analyzing presentational
communication in management contexts. Journal of Business
Communication, 28(3), 213-231.

25

Daphne A.
Jameson

Catherine
Nickerson

N. Lamar
Reinsch, Jr.

Priscilla S.
Rogers

Jone Rymer

Jameson, D. A. (2007). Reconceptualising cultural identity and its role in

intercultural business communication. Journal of Business
Communication, 44(3), 199-235.
Jameson, D. A. (2001). Narrative discourse and management action. Journal
of Business Communication, 38(4), 476-511.
Jameson, D. A. (2000). Telling the investment story: A narrative analysis of
shareholder reports. Journal of Business Communication, 37(1), 7-38.
Nickerson, C. (2000). Playing the corporate language game. An
investigation of the genres and discourse strategies in English used by
Dutch writers working within multinational corporations. AmsterdamAtlanta: Rodopi.
Nickerson, C. (1999). Genre theory and intercultural communication. The
usefulness of genre theory in the investigation of organisational
communication across cultures. Document Design 1(3), 202-215.
Nickerson, C. (1998). Corporate culture and the use of written English within
British subsidiaries in the Netherlands. English for Specific Purposes,
17(3), 281-294.
Reinsch, N. L., Jr., Turner, J. W., & Tinsley, C. H. 2008.
MultiCommunicating: A practice whose time has come? Academy of
Management Review, 33(2), 391-403.
Patel, A., & Reinsch, N. L. (2003). Companies can apologize: Corporate
apologies and legal liabilities. Business Communication Quarterly,
66(1), 9-25.
Reinsch, N. L. Jr., & Shelby, A. N. (1997). What communication abilities do
practitioners need? Evidence from MBA students. Business
Communication Quarterly, 60(4), 7-29.
Clark, C. M., Murfett, U. M., Rogers, P.S., & Ang, S. (2013). Is empathy
effective for customer service? Evidence from call center interactions.
Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 27(2), 123-153.
Rogers, P. S., Ho, M., Thomas, J., Wong, I., & Cheng, C. (2005). Preparing
new entrants for subordinate reporting: A decision-making framework.
Journal of Business Communication, 41(2), 1-32.
Rogers, P. S. & Hildebrandt, H. W. (1993). Competing values instruments
for analyzing written and spoken messages. Human Resources
Management, 32(1), 121-142.
Rogers, P. S. & Rymer, J. (2001). Analytical tools to facilitate transitions
into new writing contexts: A communicative perspective. Journal of
Business Communication, 38(2), 112-152.
Rogers, P. S. & Rymer, J. (1995). What is the relevance of the GMAT
analytical writing assessment for management education? A critical
analysis, Part 1. Management Communication Quarterly, (8)3, 347-367.
Couture, B. & Rymer, J. (1991). Discourse interaction between writer and
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