Journal of Business and Technical Communication recent issues

A Critique of Hall's Contexting Model: A Meta-Analysis of Literature on Intercultural Business and Technical Communication

Cardon, P. W. — 2008-09-15

Edward Hall's model of low-context and high-context cultures is one of the dominant theoretical frameworks for interpreting intercultural communication. This article reports a meta-analysis of 224 articles in business and technical communication journals between 1990 and 2006 and addresses two primary issues: (a) the degree to which contexting is embedded in intercultural communication theory and (b) the degree to which the contexting model has been empirically validated. Contexting is the most cited theoretical framework in articles about intercultural communication in business and technical communication journals and in intercultural communication textbooks. An extensive set of contexting propositions has emerged in the literature; however, few of these propositions have been examined empirically. Furthermore, those propositions tested most frequently have failed to support many contexting propositions, particularly those related to directness. This article provides several recommendations for those researchers who seek to address this popular and appealing yet unsubstantiated and underdeveloped communication theory.

Ethos as Market Maker: The Creative Role of Technical Marketing Communication in an Aviation Start-Up

Mara, A. — 2008-09-15

This study examines how a very light jet start-up, Eclipse Aviation, changed its ethos appeals in order to survive the loss of its principally declared innovation, a jet aircraft engine. Eclipse Aviation's corporate transformation from a spin-off company to a convergence-of-innovation company hinged on modifying an early marketing strategy. To overcome the loss of the jet engine, employees had to radically modify earlier expert representations and adopt rhetorical appeals that more closely parallel what Miller described as "cyborg discourse." To understand how Eclipse Aviation survived the typically fatal loss of a stated primary innovation and to explore the implications that this particular start-up's rupture has for technology transfer and technical marketing, this study centers its analysis on a Web site that marketers used to "ventilate" the company and prevent financial collapse. The transformation in the company's marketing strategy illustrates how cyborg ethos appeals aggregate and discipline distributed stakeholder roles.

Qualitative Sampling Methods: A Primer for Technical Communicators

Koerber, A., McMichael, L. — 2008-09-15

Qualitative sampling methods have been largely ignored in technical communication texts, making this concept difficult to teach in graduate courses on research methods. Using concepts from qualitative health research, this article provides a primer on qualitative methods as an initial effort to fill this gap in the technical communication literature. Specifically, the authors attempt to clarify some of the current confusion over qualitative sampling terminology, explain what qualitative sampling methods are and why they need to be implemented, and offer examples of how to apply commonly used qualitative sampling methods.

When West Meets East: Teaching a Managerial Communication Course in Hong Kong

Roberts, E., Tuleja, E. A. — 2008-09-15

Although considerable previous research has focused on Chinese students' expectations and experiences while studying in English-speaking cultures, little research to date has focused on how the instructor's cultural background affects the learning process within a managerial communication classroom Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, this exploratory case study involves two U.S. instructors teaching a managerial communication course to 106 Chinese students in Hong Kong. The findings from this study provide implications for managerial communication pedagogy and further research.

Book Review: Smart, Graham. (2007). Writing the Economy: Activity, Genre and Technology in the World of Banking. London: Equinox

Bremner, S. — 2008-09-15

Call for Papers: 22nd Annual Research Network Forum at CCCC: March 11, 2009 San Francisco Hilton, California

2008-09-15

Board of Reviewers

2008-09-15

Introduction to the Special Issue on Business and Technical Communication in the Public Sphere: Learning to Have Impact

Rude, C. D. — 2008-06-06

Action Research and Wicked Environmental Problems: Exploring Appropriate Roles for Researchers in Professional Communication

Blythe, S., Grabill, J. T., Riley, K. — 2008-06-06

The authors report on a 3-year action-research project designed to facilitate public involvement in the planned dredging of a canal and subsequent disposal of the dredged sediments. Their study reveals ways that community members struggle to define the problem and work together as they gather, share, and understand data relevant to that problem. The authors argue that the primary goal of action research related to environmental risk should be to identify and support the strategies used by community members rather than to educate the public. The authors maintain that this approach must be supported by a thorough investigation of basic rhetorical issues (audience, genre, stases, invention), and they illustrate how they used this approach in their study.

Making Academic Work Advocacy Work: Technologies of Power in the Public Arena

Propen, A., Schuster, M. L. — 2008-06-06

Through interviews and courtroom observations in a case study done in collaboration with a community partner in two judicial districts in Minnesota, the authors extend the scholarly conversation about critical, activist research in business and technical communication and make pedagogical suggestions by studying two groups who contribute to the discourse about victim rights: judges who accept plea negotiations and make sentencing decisions and advocates who help victims contribute, through victim impact statements, their reactions as crime victims and their requests for certain punishments and conditions for the crime perpetrators. The authors identify the technologies of power used by each group to assert their disciplinary authority and trace how these assertions play out in the courtroom. They conclude that by capitalizing on the normative structures of impact statements, advocates may actually give victims more power. Such activist research might benefit research participants and enhance research methods.

Rupturing Context, Resituating Genre: A Study of Use-of-Force Policy in the Wake of a Controversial Shooting

Knievel, M. S. — 2008-06-06

Internal institutional genres can become fertile terrain for public policy debate when what Birkland called "focusing events" or ruptures extricate these genres from their contexts and subject them to public scrutiny. This study examines consequences for the local instantiation of the police use-of-force policy genre in the wake of a controversial shooting in Denver, Colorado, and traces ways in which the formation of a multi-interest task force charged with revising the police department's policy altered the policy's conventional activity system. In doing so, the public participated in remapping the local policy instantiation's relationship to the use-of-force policy genre and the routinized social action it performed.

Distortion and the Politics of Pain Relief: A Habermasian Analysis of Medicine in the Media

Koerber, A., Arnett, E. J., Cumbie, T. — 2008-06-06

This article invokes Habermas's ideal speech situation to analyze the controversy surrounding a recent study of pain relief for women in labor. Using Habermas's concepts, the authors argue that distortion of scientific and medical information originated in the New England Journal of Medicine article that first reported the study's results. Thus, their analysis aims to complicate the assumption that such distortion starts only with public reporting and to expose the ways that scientific or medical research from the beginning can be reported to either facilitate or preclude public debate and understanding of complex issues.

Board of Reviewers

2008-06-06

Submission Guidelines

2008-06-06

Critiquing Critiques: A Genre Analysis of Feedback Across Novice to Expert Design Studios

Dannels, D. P., Martin, K. N. — 2008-02-29

In the discipline of design, the most common presentation genre is the critique, and the most central aspect of this genre is the feedback. Using a qualitative framework, this article identifies a typology of feedback, compares the frequencies of feedback types between different levels of design studios ranging from novice to expert, and explores what the feedback reflects about the social and educational context of these design studios. Results suggest that the feedback socialized students into egalitarian relationships and autonomous decision-making identities that were perhaps more reflective of academic developmental stages or idealized workplace contexts than of actual professional settings—therefore potentially complicating the preprofessional goals of the critique.

Toward a Unified Social Theory of Genre Learning

Artemeva, N. — 2008-02-29

This article discusses the development of a unified social theory of genre learning based on the integration of rhetorical genre studies, activity theory, and the situated learning perspective. The article proposes that these three theoretical perspectives are compatible and complementary, and it illustrates applications of a unified framework to a study of genre learning by novice engineers. The author draws examples from a longitudinal qualitative study of a group of novice engineers who developed their professional genre knowledge through both academic and workplace experiences. These examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework for the study of professional genre learning.

I Want to Talk About...: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Introductions of 40 Speeches About Engineering

Van De Mieroop, D., de Jong, J., Andeweg, B. — 2008-02-29

This article investigates the introductions of 40 professional speeches from a rhetorical perspective to address the problems audiences seem to have with presentations about engineering. The authors use an exordial model that they derived from classical manuals on rhetoric. This model enumerates and groups rhetorical exordial techniques into 3 main functions: attentum, benevolum, and docilem . The study shows that rhetorically complete introductions are rare. Most of the speakers seemed to prefer a content-oriented, direct approach (docilem) in their introductions and seldom used techniques to garner the audience's attention (attentum) or sympathy (benevolum). The article concludes with an evaluation of the exordial model and a discussion of the study's pedagogical implications.

Writing New Mexico White: A Critical Analysis of Early Representations of New Mexico in Technical Writing

Johnson, J. R., Pimentel, O., Pimentel, C. — 2008-02-29

In this article, the authors analyze early technical documents produced by the New Mexico Bureau of Immigration (NMBI), including "The Legend of Montezuma" and "Illustrated New Mexico." The purpose of these documents are clear: to increase the number of white Americans to create a clear white majority when New Mexico became a state and thereby prevent the Mexicans from gaining power. In analyzing these documents, the authors use theoretical frameworks from studies in the history of business and technical writing (SHBTW) and critical whiteness theory to show how early textual representations of New Mexico reproduce racist constructions of native New Mexicans and represent whiteness as the norm.

Problem-Based Learning in an Intercultural Business Communication Course: Communication Challenges in Intercultural Relationships in Internationalizing Small- or Medium-Sized Enterprises

Saatci, E. — 2008-02-29

Teachers of intercultural business communication may want to consider using problem-based learning (PBL), an instructional approach that places learners in problem-solving situations, that is, students are presented with messy and complex real-life problems that provide a context for learning concepts and developing skills. This article describes how ill-structured communication problems that emerge in intercultural business relationships in internationalizing small- or medium-sized enterprises are used to provide a context for learning. It explains how these problems are tackled by learners through the implementation of PBL in four stages: problem identification, information acquisition, information analysis, and problem resolution. Finally, it discusses the reactions of the students, external participants, and instructors to the PBL approach.

Board of Reviewers

2008-02-29

Editor's Farewell

Winsor, D. A. — 2007-12-12

Editor's Greeting

Russell, D. R. — 2007-12-12

Wrestling With Proteus: Tales of Communication Managers in a Changing Economy

Amidon, S., Blythe, S. — 2007-12-12

Because communication specialists often lack the power and prestige of other knowledge workers, such as engineers and product designers, managers who direct the work of communication specialists face unique challenges. This study, based on interviews with 11 communication managers, found that their agency and identity were determined both by the structure of the organizations in which they worked and by their use of genres, technologies, and regulatory techniques. With their work undergoing transition because of globalization, outsourcing, and rapid technological change, the stories that these managers tell demonstrate the importance of studying management as it specifically applies to communication specialists.

This Is Too Formal for Us...: A Case Study of Variation in the Written Products of a Multinational Consortium

Angouri, J., Harwood, N. — 2007-12-12

This article reports a case study of three multinational companies that work together in a consortium, focusing on intercompany and intracompany variation in writing products and processes. The authors discuss variation in two genres: meeting minutes and internal memos. Adopting a social constructionist, communities of practice (CofP) approach, they argue that the companies form overarching constellations of CofP. Although the participants broadly work with the same genres of written documents, the form of these documents varies according to the local context, audience, and purpose. The authors discuss the implications of their findings, with particular reference to the difficulty writers face when they make the transition from writing for one community of practice to writing for another.

Mode, Medium, and Genre: A Case Study of Decisions in New-Media Design

Graham, S. S., Whalen, B. — 2007-12-12

Recently, scholars of new media have been exploring the relationships between genre theory and new media. While these scholars have provided a great deal of insight into the nature of e-genres and how they function in professional contexts, few address the relationship between genre and new-media theories from a designer's perspective. This article presents the results of an ethnographic-style case study exploring the practice of a professional new-media designer. These results (a) confirm the role of dynamic rhetorical situations and hybridity during the new-media design process; (b) suggest that current genre and new-media theories underestimate the complexity of the relationships between mode, medium, genre, and rhetorical exigencies; and (c) indicate that a previously unrecognized form of hybridity exists in contemporary e-genres.

Assessing a Hybrid Format

Katz, S. M. — 2007-12-12

As college instructors endeavor to integrate technology into their classrooms, the crucial question is, "How does this integration affect learning?" This article reports an assessment of a series of online modules the author designed and piloted for a business communication course that she presented in a hybrid format (a combination of computer classroom sessions and independent online work). The modules allowed the author to use classroom time for observation of and individualized attention to the composing process. Although anecdotal evidence suggested that this system was highly effective, other assessment tools provided varying results. An anonymous survey of the students who took this course confirmed that the modules were effective in teaching important concepts; however, a blind review of student work produced mixed results.

Book Review: Amernic, Joel, and Craig, Russell. (2006). CEO-Speak: The Language of Corporate Leadership. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press. 256 pages

Dave, A. M. — 2007-12-12

Book Review: Gross, Alan G. (2006). Starring the Text: The Place of Rhetoric in Science Studies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. 240 pages

Paul, D. — 2007-12-12

Book Review: Moeran, Brian. (2006). Ethnography at Work. Oxford, England: Berg Publishers. 192 pages

Toth, C. — 2007-12-12

Board of Reviewers

2007-12-12