Constance Kampf

Corporate social responsibility: WalMart, Maersk and the cultural bounds of representation in corporate web sites

Purpose – This paper seeks to analyze strategies used to communicate CSR to public audiences via the internet in Maersk and WalMart in order to examine the influence of national culture from the headquarters of each of these global corporations. The purpose of the paper is to further understanding about how CSR is framed and developed within the cultural bounds of a given nation. Design/methodology/approach – The paper extends Donaldson and Prestons model of interaction between the corporation and its stakeholders through a cultural systems approach. The notion of cultural systems is combined with three of Roomes CSR agendas – diversity, sustainable environment, and community involvement/corporate philanthropy – to examine presentations of corporate social responsibility on Maersk and Walmart corporate web sites. Findings – The consequences in corporate web site discourse about CSR in Maersk and WalMart are strikingly different. With respect to all three CSR agendas, the WalMart site includes a more detailed explanation of its efforts, rooted in local communities in the USA. In contrast, the Maersk site CSR section includes less detail, and a focus on efforts mainly in communities outside of Denmark. These differences in discourse imply different expectations from the public emerging from cultural system differences in the USA and Denmark. Thus, even though WalMart is not necessarily more involved with CSR efforts than Maersk, it has a greater need to express its CSR activities in detail due to the differences in expectations rooted in the US and Danish cultural systems. Originality/value – Introducing an approach for understanding corporation‐stakeholder interactions and the expression of corporate social responsibility to the public via corporate web sites as situated in cultural systems.

Developing writing assignments and feedback strategies for maximum effectiveness in large classroom environments

How do you teach writing effectively when your classes have between 40-80 students? This work addresses the challenges of working in large classroom environments with engineering students in the CE 4101 and CE 4102 classes. We demonstrate WebCT peer review techniques, and feedback techniques for writing that we have been using in large classroom environments. We also discuss the successes and challenges that we have encountered as we try to engage students in active learning in large classroom environments.

Multimodal Analysis: An Integrative Approach for Scientific Visualizing on the Web

The Multimodal approach offers technical communicators and science writers an analytical tool to synthesize the meaning made in the connections across communicative modes. This multimodal synthesis can help technical communicators better exploit the meaning-making potential of multimodal combinations and understand the needs of future generations shaped by their increasingly developed multimodal literacy.

Revealing the Socio-Technical Design of Global E-Businesses: A Case of Digital Artists Engaging in Radical Transparency

Global e-businesses such as Google, Amazon and E-bay affect both users and society. How can society begin to understand this duality in the socio-technical affordances of e-business? This paper examines a digital art performance as an example of the tensions between capitalist businesses and the public commons. Using notions of transparency and knowledge as a form of Knowledge Management rooted in Nonakas SECI Model, it examines ways in which knowledge about how Google uses the Internet are made explicit through the digital art performance. It discusses the implications for both defining a macro level of socio-technical design and using dimensions of transparency to understand technology based Internet business, positing global Internet business as having two levels of socio-technical design-1 the micro level, dealing with user interaction, and 2 the macro level, dealing with the social design and implications for society inherent in pervasive technology based businesses. The Macro level of design is operationalized through a combination of knowledge management theory and dimensions of transparency.

Using an AD-HOC Corpus to Write About Emerging Technologies for Technical Writing and Translation: The Case of Search Engine Optimization

Technical writers and translators struggle with language consistency in emerging technologies. Corpus linguistics can track language structures in such quickly developing environments. An ad-hoc corpus may be the tool needed for technical communicators. Key concepts: Mega-corpora versus ad-hoc corpora: The term “mega-corpora” typically covers the existing national corpora, whereas ad-hoc corpora can be created quickly for technical communication. Variation versus consistency: variation covers the range of possible solutions compared to the need for consistency of terminology in given contexts. Representativeness versus adequacy: representativeness defines the possibility of variation within the scope of the field; in contrast , adequacy represents contextual suitability. Key lessons: To use ad-hoc corpora as a tool for keeping track of and understanding language variation in texts about emerging technology: (1) design and compile a small set of relevant descriptions regarding the emerging technology, (2) use the software corpus tool representation of corpora to evaluate whether the ad-hoc corpus is representative-meaning that adding new texts does not add new words or variations in terminology use, (3) use the software corpus tool AntConc to analyze the ad-hoc corpus finding concordance patterns and variation in terminology usage, and (4) use linguistic strategies for selecting terminology based on linguistic evidence rather than intuition. Implications for practice: The ad-hoc corpus method offers an evidence-based approach for determining patterns of terminology. This method can be applied to standardizing product documentation or tracking variations in language use and can help technical writers and translators keep track of evolving terminology for emerging technologies.

What is excellence for Project Management knowledge in the context of globalization

How can technical writers understand not only excellence in Project Management knowledge, but also the effects of globalization on how project management knowledge is used in project conception and project planning when major stakeholders live in third world countries? This study focuses in particular on project conception for the use of cell phone and web 2.0 technologies with an NGO based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We found that students were able to use knowledge management and knowledge communication concepts to shape their project titles, goals and objectives, as well as their description of the work. Implications include that shaping projects through knowledge communication and knowledge management theory offers a new focus for excellence in project conception. This focus includes diversity in perspectives and fosters respect by recognizing differences as knowledge asymmetries.

Extending Sociotechnical Design to Project Conception: Knowledge Communication Processes for Situating Technology

Project management processes offer specific sites for understanding the interplay of the social and the technical. This article focuses on the connection between knowledge and technology through knowledge communication processes, cultural & rhetorical contexts in projects, and the iterative process of project conception rooted in sense-making by designers. The data comes from a Project management course in which the students were asked to design and plan projects to situate a mobile phone game in a social context. The course was taught simultaneously at the Helsinki School of Economics in Finland and the Aarhus School of Business, University of Aarhus, Denmark. The analysis demonstrates the potential of knowledge communication concepts for social technical design and highlights the cultural context of the designers as a key factor to consider in socio-technical design.

The Future of Project Management in Technical Communication: Incorporating a Communications Approach

Project management increasingly shapes workplace communication, especially when technical communicators participate in cross-disciplinary development teams. This paper looks at the future of project management in technical communication and argues for a communicative approach to project management for technical communication students. The project management course in the International Bachelor Program of Marketing and Management Communication at the Aarhus School of Business is described, and the implications for technical communication curricula are discussed

Appreciating the ties that bind technical communication to culture: a dynamic model to help us understand differences in discourse structure

In order to support an explicit understanding of cultural patterns as both dynamic and structured, we examine Hofstedes model for stabilization of cultural patterns and use this model to explore some cultural consequences for patterns of logic and signs that influence the effectiveness of technical communication across cultures. In order to demonstrate the model, we apply it to examples from different cultures, which show different patterns of logic, terminology, and conventions. In light of these examples, we propose that cross-cultural technical communication studies can be situated in a dynamic context as a foundation for analysis.

Processes of intercultural communication as part of shifting cultural paradigms

Intercultural communication is complex and a real part of technical communication today. Gould, Zakaria, and Yusof (2000) identified design elements for websites related to cultural dimensions, and presented a cultural comparison process, which resulted in guidelines for localization in Malaysia and the US. Building on Gould, Zakaria and Yusofs practical application for cultural dimensions, this paper will look at how we can help technical communication students better prepare for not only understanding localization, but also engaging in intercultural communication in the workplace and at a personal level. To lay the foundation for understanding the complexities of intercultural communication, I will first present lenses for viewing intercultural communication as dimensional, learnable and interactional. Then I will discuss how reflection can help students move between the lenses, and ultimately begin to shift their cultural paradigms through understanding and engaging in the intercultural communication process.