Jensen J. Zhao

The Impact of Business Communication Education on Students’ Short- and Long-Term Performances

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to identify the short- and long-term impact of business communication education on students’ skill developments and performance outcomes. Nearly 400 students at an AACSC International–accredited business college participated in the study during their sophomore and senior years. The findings indicate that the business communication course helped students develop good skills in writing reports, solving problems, working in teams, communicating orally, and using Internet technologies for both the short term (sophomore year) and the long term (senior year). More than 95% of the students reported achieving As and Bs on written assignments, company-analysis reports, problem-solving assignments, and oral presentations in their sophomore, junior, and senior years. However, the long-term effect was statistically less significant than was the short-term effect, although both were within the same positive range.

Using Case Studies for International Business Communication Training

Business students must possess the abilities of discovery, problem solving, and collaboration in international and cross-cultural business communication and management when entering a competitive, knowledge-based global econ omy. This paper describes how the case method can be used in business com munication classes to help students develop such important abilities. First, the paper defines the instructional rationale and the case-selection criteria. Then, the paper offers a step-by-step approach using a current international busi ness communication case as an example for case study activities.

Self-Assessment of Com munication Behavior: An Experiential Learning Exercise for Intercultural Business Success:

This self-assessment is an experiential learning exercise designed for both corporate training and classroom. With Kolbs experiential learning model as a theoretical base, the self-assessment questionnaire in the exercise was developed on the basis of seven. dimensions of communication compe tence identified and confirmed by various empirical studies as predictors of intercultural business success. After com pleting this exercise, students should be able to (a) identify their communication behavior in intercultural interactions, (b) be aware of their communication competence level in intercultural interactions, and (c) increase their under standing of the relationship between communication behav ior and intercultural business management success.

Retail E-Commerce Security Status among Fortune 500 Corporations.

The authors assessed the Fortune 500 corporations’ retail e-commerce security to identify their strengths and weaknesses for improvement. They used online content analysis, information security auditing, and network security mapping for data collection and analysis. The findings indicate that most sites posted security policies; however, only one third stated what security measures were in action. Second, all of the sites secured My Account login with secure Sockets Layer Encryption, but only 16% limited 3 attempts of login access. Third, although the sites had most of their Internet ports filtered or behind firewalls, nearly one third of the sites’ computer operating systems were detected from the few open ports.