International Journal of Business Communication

Narrative analysis helps us better understand how writers handle complex business communication challenges. This study analyzed shareholder reports of equity mutual funds whose total returns were high in absolute terms, but low in relative terms. These reports were complex in that the returns were ambiguous and, although the subject matter was technical, the readership was broad. Narrative analysis reveals that mixed-return shareholder reports use a nonlinear hyperstruc ture, dramatize ideas through contrasting narrators, embed a variety of subgenres, and complement verbal with visual discourse in order to make readers active par ticipants in constructing the investment story. Readers' responses to these reports depends not only on their intellectual understanding, but also on their emotional interaction with the narrator personae and visual symbolism. The discourse tex ture, the underlying fabula, and the story affect how readers experience a text. Applied similarly, narrative analysis could elucidate other business communication genres, principles, problems, and questions.

This article develops a theoretical framework for intercultural business communica tion which sets it apart from intercultural communication and international busi ness. In the past, discussions on the theory of intercultural business communica tion have mostly focused on intercultural communication using business as examples rather than including business as a distinct variable. The model pre sented here discusses the intercultural, business, and communication strategies that are part of intercultural business communication. It is argued that for intercul tural business communication to take place, it is not sufficient for all three vari ables to be present. The three variables interact and create a synergy that reflects the dynamic character of intercultural business communication. In this process, intercultural business communication becomes a unique construct that is different from intercultural medical or intercultural religious communication. The article examines how past articles in the field fit into this model.

Workplace ethics has become an increasingly important topic since the 1960s. Companies emphasize ethical behavior; schools and professional groups devote many resources to applied ethics training. However, very little research has explored the use of pre-employment selection measures to influence organizational ethics. This article describes initial construct validation of a structured ethical integrity interview. The article reviews evidence relating to cognitive and impres sion management strategies used when college students encounter an ethical integrity interview in a simulated job applicant setting.

Whether a collective mind forms in large-group writing in the workplace is the focus of this article originally given as the 1998 ABC Outstanding Researcher Lec ture. This article is based on a five-year ethnographic study that describes and analyzes a three-month group writing process that created a computer service-level agreement, involving a 20-person cross-functional core more than 100 other collab orators at a major corporation. The article discusses "collective form" in two senses: First, a document's evolving form or superstructure produced a collective schema that allowed the group through a process of equilibration (Piaget, 1981) to adapt outsider boilerplate into a more situated general model and then into a sit uated document. Second, architectural forms motivated and molded group activity in several ways. To combat group apathy, the leaders appropriated an in-demand meeting room for the project, positioning the project as high-status in the center of the workflow. Group leaders prominently displayed a task completion check-off chart that, in a downsizing environment, helped both to coordinate group activity and to encourage completion.