Business and Professional Communication Quarterly

A project undertaken by members of the marketing and English departments in a midwestern university incorporates writing assignments into an intro ductory course in international business. This discussion of course goals and writing projects shows that attention to writing can increase the amount of time students devote to learning course content.

Management students need to learn both analytic and communication skills to be successful in the university and at work. Communicative methods used to teach English as a Second Language (ESL), such as collaborative learning, dialogue journals, peer review, and oral presentations, can be adapted readily to teaching analytical and communication skills to native and nonnative speakers of English. ESL strategies work well to enable learners to analyze readings and form and communicate well-developed opinions in the context of case studies and media critiques used in business communication.

We asked each student enrolled in a graduate-level management communica tion course to describe in wrzting a work-related communication episode that had challenged him or her. Students reported most difficulties in face-to-face oral events, particularly when required to interact with someone in a different organization or with someone who ranked higher in the organization. Students also identified communication-related needs (for example, improved self-confidence and persuasiveness). Our results indicate that graduate management communication courses should include oral communication and should not conceptualize oral communication exclusively in terms of formal presentations.

The practice and teaching of nurse management writing has received little attention in professional communication journals. This study is based on sec ondary research, examination of documents written by nurse managers, and interviews with 54 nurse managers and 13 nurse educators. It indicates that writing a variety of business communications is a crucial career task jor nurse managers, directly affecting their professional power. However, most nurse managers interviewed believed their undergraduate education had not pre pared them adequately for their workplace writing and perceived a need for professional writing instruction in four-year nursing programs.

The affective responses of readers to job-refusal letters using direct and indirect approaches were investigated. Subjects were requested to rate organizational plan on 19 dependent measures. Results indicated that the direct job-refusal letter was preferred. It was viewed as more efficient, valuable and straightforward than the indirect approach. These findings are in conflict with current literature favoring the indirect approach for conveying negative information.