International Journal of Business Communication

The communication model now used by teachers of business communica tion explains symbolic activity in terms that are far too narrow and mecha nistic. A new model, which defines communication as symbolic action, would better describe the communication process and suggest new ways of analyzing communication problems.

This article presents the conceptual model of the administrative communi cation process as a first step toward a more definitive treatment of the subject. It also describes possible situational influences and alternative communication configurations and lists some general research questions raised by the model.

Experiential learning or learning from your own experience has surfaced as a strong alternative to didactic instruction. At the heart of experiential learning is the structured experience or exercise. This article describes con cepts that might comprise a course in organizational communication and identifies exercises that are available for teaching such a course using an experiential approach.

This study was designed to investigate new ways of reducing upward com munication distortion. The independent variables of channel of communi cation and anonymity were employed to determine their relative effects on satisfaction with upward communication and distortion of upward communication. The results indicated that subjects'satisfaction with the channel varied as a function of the channel used; satisfaction with upward communication varied as a function of the channel used. Subjects' percep tions of how openly they communicated varied as a function of the channel used.