Key elements found in areas of organizational commnication which develop into the foundational structure for the comprehensive list of best practices for communication is discerned from the wide array of practices existent in American companies. To remain among the most competitive globally, it is increasingly important to understand how best practices can be utilized to maintain a lead. This can be accomplished by recognizing the importance of American efforts to share knowledge and strategies for competitiveness. The Federal program under the directive of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) manages a program called the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA). Using the award summary profiles of the 68 MBNQA recipients, the best practices are studied to reveal the tactics and strategies that influence the best American companies to achieve the highest productivity and successful communication models. The practices measured within the profile summaries of winning organizations are comprehensively packaged for senior leader use in strategic planning and vision deployment. Exploring reoccurring communication models found in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Program contributes to the body of knowledge in organizational communication studies; by comprehensively providing the practices used for organizational excellence. The seven principles integral to organizational communication methods employed by top national companies can be categorized by these essential communicative functions: adapting to change, adapting new technology, managing information effectively, mentoring for leadership, organizational culture, performance feedback, and supervisor and employee communication. MBNQA recipient application profiles principle attributes were calculated by degrees of contribution to the successful application to organizational communication models. Success is identified by the award criteria with regard to aspects of business which exemplify quality improvement in their approach to deployment, integration, and learning. These areas are looked at in terms of relevance to key factors in varied levels concerning strengths, opportunities, and results.

This paper investigates how U.S. private firms communicate with equity investors around private capital raising. Using multiple research methods, including survey, interview, and archival analysis, I provide systematic evidence on private firms’ public and private disclosure practices. I find that despite engaging in a low level of public disclosures, private firms actively communicate with investors through the private communication channel at initial fundraising and subsequent periods. Such private communication also exhibits greater cross-sectional variation. Focusing on provision of financial information, I provide evidence suggesting that private firm managers consider the relevance of information when making disclosure choices. Lastly, I investigate the relation be- tween firms’ private communication and public reporting preference and find a substitutive effect. The study informs current debate on regulating private market participants by examining existing disclosure landscape of private firms as an important first step.

This study examines the effects of SEC office change on regulatory oversight and firms' reporting quality. Firms are assigned to the SEC's filing review offices. However, the SEC regularly change office assignment for firms in some industries. I find that SEC oversight on newly assigned firms will be more intense. Firms are more likely to receive comment letters and there are more accountants on the filing review team. Then I provide evidence that firms improve their reporting quality after office change. Firms' financial reports are less likely to be restated and more readable. The effects start in the first year of office change and are stronger for firms with long office tenure. The SEC is more likely to be involved in newly assigned firms' restatements and asks fewer questions about severe issues in the comment letter. Overall, the results suggest that office change brings a "fresh look" benefit and leads to an increase in the intensity of SEC oversight. Firms improve their reporting quality by anticipating the increase.

Different national cultures use communication in different ways. When international businesses use resources in different countries, the communication needs to work for mutual understanding to occur. This essay focuses on the interactions between Sweden and Ukraine, and Sweden and India. As the business-oriented interactions play out, a negotiated culture is formed between the co-workers. Traditional cultural research makes comparisons between nations to predict outcomes, ignoring the importance of the interactions. This leaves no room for understanding the new culture that emerges in the meeting. The research conducted in this thesis is to be understood within the context of this negotiated culture; this space of interactions where the business communication takes place. Pioneers in our field we mapped the interactions observed in three virtual teams, called clusters, within the company. To understand the creation of mutual understanding several aspects were taken into consideration: the context of the company and the negotiated culture, the understanding of what another person means with their words – their frame of reference – and the view on and use of communication.  The research found a low awareness of the negotiated culture that co-workers communicate within. As the host country Swedish egalitarian and flat structure heavily biased the negotiated culture; yet with a focus on the relationship that came to permeate all findings. A friendly relationship and trust within the cluster helped with the communication, collaboration and understanding of each other. Initial physical meetings were found important for understanding another’s frame of reference, while the continuous meetings proved relationship building. The process of mutual understanding works very well within the clusters of the company. Others could use the findings of this report as guidelines in reaching mutual understanding.

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In this era of globalisation and the consequent increase in social, economic and physical mobility, small businesses are transforming into sites of increasing language contact (Harris and Bargiela-Chiappini 2003). This study explores situated language practices within two small multilingual businesses. The first is a bicycle rental and repair shop located in Amsterdam (the Netherlands), which is a city with a dynamic multilingual society. The second is a tyre fitment centre in Grahamstown (South Africa), which is a city characterised by a stable triglossia of English, Xhosa and Afrikaans. Using Linguistic Ethnography (Rampton 2007) as my data collection method, I spent a total of eight weeks in these businesses. For the analysis I draw on Spencer-Oatey’s (2000b; 2011) Rapport Management Framework and sociolinguistics of globalisation (Blommaert 2010). This combination allowed me to explore situated language practices in relation to a contemporary context of increased globalisation. The analysis is structured using Spencer-Oatey’s (2000b) concept of rapport orientations. The orientations are presented as one of the key factors that influence the choice for a certain strategy. The orientations thus seemed a constructive way of showing how the observed strategies were employed by the participants of this study and what function they fulfilled in a certain context. However, difficulties emerged during the analysis with applying this concept to some of the more elaborate and complex data. As a result my argument developed into two different strands. The first demonstrates how individuals turn to their multilingual repertoires to negotiate agency and power relationships in small business discourse. The analysis reveals that people at times deliberately promote and maintains discordant relations, which can be understood as a rational response to the individual’s social and economic context. The second discusses the problems that emerged during my analysis with applying rapport management orientations to my data. I propose theoretical developments, warranted by my data, to create an Enhanced Rapport Management Framework suitable for the analysis of complex small business discourse.

Thesis (D. Tech)--Central University of Technology, Free State, 2008 / The global, one-world economy has arrived and South Africa is part of it. Business needs to understand the challenge of global competitiveness. This study reflected the prominence of managing diversity in establishing service excellence and performance management for professionals in the mediumsize chicken breeder/broiler industry in South Africa, following the increased importance of the breeder/broiler industry in providing an affordable nutriment/commodity to the poor and needy South African population. The ongoing variables in the political, social, cultural and technology domains in South Africa also affect the chicken breeder/broiler industry. It necessitates the scientific evaluation of the effect of the external political and socio-political environment; internal training and development, leadership styles, literacy levels, employment equity, resistance to change, reverse discrimination and cultural diversity on service excellence and performance. Country Bird (Pty) Ltd., a significant role-player in the food production industry, was thus selected as the object of this study. The role of management and the workers was examined to determine the level of impact in attaining service excellence and organisational performance. Attention was also focused on the development of a service excellence and organisational performance management model that can be used in the chicken breeder/broiler industry to improve organisational performance and sustainable profits.

This research study is qualitative exploratory in nature, trying to gain insight into integrated communication at Eskom. The study presents the methodology of the investigation, the analysis of the data, the findings as well as the conclusion and recommendations. Data collection techniques include an online self-administered questionnaire, structured questionnaire, focus group discussions and content analysis of the organisations’ publications. The population selected consists of Eskom communication managers and professionals, human resources personnel and project managers to establish the extent to which integrated communication is practised within Eskom. Finally, the research findings are discussed and further recommendations proposed. The findings show that Eskom communication is predominantly top-down with the divisions still working in silos. Furthermore, a measuring instrument developed to evaluate the extent of integrated communication as proposed by Du Plessis and Scoonraad in Barker and Angelopulo (2006) were found to be applicable to the Eskom situation. / Communication Science / M.A. (Specialisation in Organisational Communication Research and Practice)

This study identifies the need for intercultural business communication competence and contends that a course in this field is of particular relevance to South African organisations. The aim of this study is to identify, through needs analysis, the specific intercultural business communication requirements of lscor managers with regard to Japan. The requirements are identified in such a way that they may be used as the criteria for an intercultural business communication course. Quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in the study. The results of the research indicate that managers generally lack knowledge of various communication aspects relating to Japan. Participants also indicated a high degree of culture shock in terms of specific intercultural factors. The findings of the study form the content topics around which a course in intercultural business communication may be developed. The relative value of the topics to specific managers is also identified. / Communication Science / M.A. (Communication)

Thesis (MPhil (Afrikaans and Dutch))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This study investigates the role of that which the style concept people‐orientation plays with regard to image formation and image projection in documentation, with specific reference to the Stellenbosch University’s registration forms. The goal of this study was firstly to determine how the concept people‐orientation could be operationalized within this specific case study. Regarding image formation and image projection, the researcher aimed to determine (a) what students’ current image of the University Stellenbosch is, (b) if students regard peopleorientation as an important style aspect within communication and (c) if the presence or absence of people‐orientation has an effect on the image of an institution. The Integrated Model for Image Formation and Projection (IFP‐model), whereupon this study is based, suggests that different messages in a document can have an effect on the image of an institution. These messages can however be manipulated in order to determine or adjust the image of an institution. In reference to this, this study investigated the effects of a presence or lack of people‐orientation as an aspect of style in communication. The researcher defines people‐orientation as a concept that bears reference to those aspects which directly or indirectly writes the human role player (including the writer and the reader) into the text. In other words, it refers to communication that puts the role of the person in the foreground of the communication situation. The concept of people‐orientation is however very complex in the sense that it can be created by a number of document design aspects. Thus the best way to test people‐orientation was to identify a number of operationalizeable design aspects. The researcher selected five style aspects which at core has relevance to people‐orientation. These five aspects were forms of address, reference to self, the use of passive or active voice, the use of politeness and empathy markers and the use of graphical illustration, which for the purpose of this study also classifies as a stylistic signal. Thirty‐two respondents from the Humaniora faculties were selected to participate in this study. Although the faculty of Economical and Management Sciences and the Faculty of Law traditionally fall under this division, only the Faculty of Theology, the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Education were used. Gender and race were incorporated as independent variables of this study. Respondents’ attitudes were tested using interviews as the primary methodology, aided by informal questionnaires as secondary methodology. Questionnaire results were however not processed by use of the traditional statistical methods, mainly because the sample of the study was too small. These results were only functional as a basis from which tendencies could be identified. Interview results had a very multi‐dimensional quality and the researcher therefore decided that it would be best to discuss these results in a thematic order rather than listing responses in tables. The results clearly demonstrate that students have a preference for forms which contain people‐orientation and that they dislike forms which lack people‐orientation. Their responses indicate that style aspects which promote people‐orientation have a relative to high probability to positively effect an institution’s image . Thus, Afrikaans‐speaking students from the Humanioria‐faculties regard people‐orientation as an important component in the management of effective communication, especially that of a positive image.