Oral Communication in Business Textbooks: A Twenty-Four Year Survey

Abstract

Forty-eight textbooks used in business communication courses over the past 24 years were examined in an effort to determine whether they (1) were essentially different from textbooks used in speech communication courses, (2) showed a trend across the years to move from primarily writ ten to primarily spoken communication as the central thrust of study, and (3) offered training designed to meet the needs of business and profes sional persons, as identified by Hanna. Results indicated that speech and business communication students are being laught basically the same skills, that the trend toward a heavier emphasis on oral mode in business communication courses has been only slight, and that to date little effort to redesign curriculum with the Hanna study criteria or comparable cate gories included has been shown.