Creative activities and skills for bright and gifted children to supplement the Scott, Foresman and Company new basic readers for grade two

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Is Courtesy Enough?Solidarity in Call Center Interactions

Polite self-presentation is expected of call center agents even through they must convey complex and unfavorable information speedily via the telephone. This study identified and evaluated the use of response strategies that are strongly associated with courtesy. Data were drawn from 587 stressful calls in a corpus of 3000 calls recorded at a large Singaporean insurance company call center. We adopted a grounded theory methodology together with a rich triangulation of qualitative (linguistic and rhetorical) and quantitative (scalar and correlational) methods. Tools for coding response strategies (independent variables)and courtesy (dependent variables) were developed via analyses of calls, interviews with call center agents and management, and a series of evaluations involving blind coding and subsequent consensus. We identified four categories of response strategies that are tightly related to each other and to courtesy: shows solidarity, anticipates needs, shows attentiveness, and asks for direction. Correlations and analysis of their enactment in stressful calls led us to propose solidarity expressionresponses that engage the caller in search of meaning to work on the task as a team. We argue that solidarity expression challenges traditional views of politeness and is less about the presentation of self and more about enabling collaboration with the other.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/58608/1/1103r_may08_rogers.pd

Management Communication: History, Distinctiveness, and Core Content

Management communication is the study of managers’ stewardship of writing and speaking to get work done with and through people. This paper overviews the field of management communication, its history, distinctiveness from other professional communication fields, and its content. The diversity of management communication training across the Financial Times’ top twenty MBA schools and of the theories influencing award-winning researchers’ work prompted a search for fundamental constructs. These training and researcher data, coupled with a review of the field’s most read journals and literature on the nature of managerial work, suggested a place to begin. Five core management communication activities are proposed: predicting audience response, selecting workplace language, seeing and shaping organizational genres, diagnosing communication effectiveness, and using discourse interactionhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97419/1/1186_Rogers.pd

Rhetorical Tools for Communicating Strategic Change: Dana's Definitional Statement

What rhetorical tools are critical for managers seeking to communicate strategy? What textual features matter when developing a language of change? To explore these questions we compare Dana Corporation's 1987 strategic definitional statement, The Philosophy and Policies of Dana, with its 2004 revision, our framework being Eccles and Nohria's triadic of rhetoric, action, and identity. In a newly competitive environment, Dana evolved from recognition as an exemplary company into reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Concurrently, their 2004 statement marks a significant rhetorical shift. Dana's example suggests the usefulness of thematic rearrangement, language adjustments, and opening sentence subjects to articulate revisions in purpose, values, and behavioral expectations and illustrates the usefulness of Eccles and Nohria's framework for understanding rhetoric as a strategic organizational activity.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51544/1/1079-Rogers.pd

Choice-Based Writing in Managerial Contexts

Research indicates that "rule-based" writing and writing pedagogy may be inadequate and irrelevant for management practice. As an alternative, this article introduces the notion of "choice-based" writing, an approach which examines the range of writing op tions available in any given managerial context. Two questions are addressed: (1) What is choice-based writing? and (2) What is choice-based writing instruction? Dis cussion of the second question centers on a particular writing choice of a select group of managers in a specific communication context — namely, field managers' use of nar rative for Dealer Contact Reports. Analysis illustrates the benefits of a choice-based ap proach that recognizes contextual complexities and explores writing choices managers find functional.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69131/2/10.1177_002194368902600301.pd

Fifty Years of Intercultural Study: A Continuum of Perspectives for Research and Teaching

Reviewing intercultural research since the publication of Halls (1959) The Silent Language, this study identifies five different perspectivesuniversal, national, organizational, interpersonal, and intrapersonaland key scholars associated with them. Three approaches for integrating these perspectives for intercultural studies are proposed: selected lens, sequential hierarchy, and dialogic identity.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/58594/1/1104-rogers.pd

Business and Management Communication Cases: Challenges and Opportunities

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68054/2/10.1177_108056999806100102.pd