Vanessa Dean Arnold

The legitimacy of Business Communication

Establishing the legitimacy of a profession is not a new idea. Many others have attempted to do so within their own field, most notably Kenneth Boulding. As an economist and a philosopher, Boulding published over 400 papers during his career. About 10 of these were concerned with the concept of legitimacy. The authors will use the model developed by Boulding and used by him to establish the legitimacy of economics to advance the legitimacy of the profession of business communication. Examples meeting the criteria identified in the model will be discussed to support this legitimacy. The future of the profession must include an awareness of characteristics that assist in the legitimization of a profession. Internal and external acceptance of professional legitimacy is necessary for continued success.

Communication: The Missing Link in the Challenger Disaster.

aftermath of this highly publicized event, questions were raised as to why the tragedy occurred. A presidential commission popularly known as the &dquo;Rogers’ Commission,&dquo; concluded that the launch should never have been approved by management in the first place. Three of the Rogers’ Commission’s recommendations specifically addressed communication problems. One problem was the lack of effective communication between the decision-makers-nontechnical people-and the technicians and engineers who were painfully aware of operational problems as the Challenger project progressed. The second problem addressed by the Commission was the lack of a formal communication channel which resulted in

The Concept of Process

it is useful, the following definitions found in a small desk dictionary will suffice tor the purposes of this discussion: (1) the action of moving forward progressively from one point to another on the way to completion, (2) a set of facts, circumstances or experiences that are observed and described or that can 1)e observed and described throughout a series of changes continuously succeeding each other, or (3) any continuous operation or treatment. Communication theory reflectS a process point of view. According to Herlo,2 &dquo;A communication theorist rejects the possil)ility that nature consists

Faculty Stress: Causes and Cures.

In all types of jobs there is interaction between the demands that the job makes on an individual and the demands that the individual requires of the job. The lack of accommodation between the demands of a person and that of his or her tasks is the major cause of stress in any field of endeavor. In any job there must be &dquo;goodness of fit&dquo; between an employee’s characteristics and the &dquo;nature of the task.&dquo; Charlesworth and Nathan (1984) estimate that as many as 75 percent of all medical complaints are stress-related. Most, but not all, of these complaints come from individuals who are suffering from job-related stress. The concept of stress is a complex issue and is difficult to define. One person’s stress may be another’s quite normal motivation to perform. One person’s unhealthy stress may be another person’s challenge. What produces mild stress for one individual might be a traumatic situation for another. Hence, stress is an individual’s reaction to something, not the something. Stress, therefore, might be defined as an individual’s reaction to a particular situation and not the situation itself. Moreover,

A Twenty-Five Year Perspective On the Pedagogy of Business Communication:

field. Further, in reviewingitems of interest in each year’s issues, one will find topics that reflect the current zeitgeist, that is, the spirit of the times; the general trend of thought of the era. In 1963, for instance, a writer discusses business writing professors and the space age. &dquo;Does all this ferment, all this innovation, all this social change affect us? Does the space age have special implications for professors of business writing?&dquo; he asks. Some twentythree years later his statement, &dquo;If communication breaks down, we all suffer&dquo; is sadly prophetic for an enormous space-age disaster (the Challenger explosion) has been blamed on a lack of effective communication between decision makers nontechnical people and the tech-

Organizational Behavior: Coping with Difficult Co-Workers.

Abstract This article discusses the need for students to learn to recognize and to cope with difficult co-workers. Although human relations skills are taught in most business classrooms, little attention is paid to the human relations skills needed in dealing with peers who exhibit difficult or disturbed behavior. This article describes a few types of personalities that exhibit difficult or disturbed behavior and offers suggestions for coping with these personalities. Further, the discussion leads the reader in learning methods of handling some of the difficult situations in which workers may find themselves. Through this discussion, the reader is learning management skills that are effective in any problematic human relations situation.

Letters That Must Persuade.

or a service involves persuasion so does the selling of an idea or point of view-or even oneself, and the structure of the letter is generally the same whichever is being sold. Usually emphasis is placed on the persuasive aspects of communication when the topic of sales letters is considered. Yet many writers of business communication textbooks agree that most students will have little need for the more specialized techniques of writing sales letters. Even so, these writers point out that students can capitalize on a knowledge of the general techniques of persuasion as used in sales letters in a number of practical applications. Students will readily admit that hardly a day goes by that they do not try to convince someone