This study investigates how perceived credibility can serve as self-feedback to enhance speaker credibility. Using a critical literacy-informed self-assessment tool, 30 business undergraduates in an advanced business communication course observed the first minute of their recorded presentation at 5-s intervals for 5 non-verbal cues. Coded findings revealed two key gender differences in positioning for speaker credibility: females used fewer body movements, more facial expressiveness and eye contact while males demonstrated greater fluency and more confident hand gestures. These findings may allow instructors and learners to mitigate gender-based differences in the classroom to enhance oral presentation competence critical for workplace success.
Organizational communication patterns were utilized to predict employee creativity and innovation, with employee engagement examined as a potential mediator. Data were collected from participants employed across a variety of industries and organizations, using a census-matched, nationally representative sample ( N = 378). As hypothesized, the conversation and positive conformity orientations positively predicted both creativity and innovation. Although negative conformity negatively correlated with creativity and innovation, it positively predicted employee innovation in the path analysis. Employee engagement served as a full mediator for positive conformity and a partial mediator for the conversation orientation with both creativity and innovation.
As organizations increasingly use AI-assisted tools for hiring and candidate screening, résumés are now evaluated by both human reviewers and automated systems. This study examines how AI-assisted résumé screening responded to hidden instruction-like content (prompt injection) embedded within fictional résumés. Across three screening environments, prompt injection attempts produced limited influence on hiring outcomes, though detection became less consistent as governance structures were reduced. The findings suggest that AI-assisted résumé evaluation is shaped not only by computational systems, but also by rhetorical governance structures, including genre expectations, evaluative criteria, and professional communication conventions. Rhetorically strong résumés consistently outperformed manipulation attempts.
Annual assessment scores from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), local business leader feedback, and extensive classroom experience all indicate that students need additional practice writing, particularly in business and/or technical programs in which students often actively avoid courses featuring writing (and to a lesser extent, public speaking). Moreover, experiential learning activities tend to aid students in their eventual transition into the workplace—and they often generate increased levels of student enthusiasm and engagement. However, even as students commonly engage in group-work in business and tech programs, they typically operate within insular groups that rarely if ever interact with other groups. On the other hand, real-world workgroups depend functionally upon contributions from other groups and, in turn, produce deliverables of their own within cycles of inter- and intra-group feedback and cooperation. Therefore, this semester-long, full-class assignment has been designed to address these issues within an Information Technology course setting that, quite unexpectedly for the participants, forces students to practice all of these skills within a simulated work environment.
This exploratory study investigates how frontline managers (n = 10) interpret Generation Z’s early-career communication challenges. Analyzed via constructivist grounded theory and Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), three themes emerged: professional communication readiness, interpersonal adaptability, and emotional regulation. Findings suggest that early-career communication breakdowns often reflect interpretive mismatches and accommodation failures rather than simple skill deficits. Rather than presenting definitive conclusions, these provisional insights offer a foundational framework to guide future large-scale validation studies, curriculum design, and workplace onboarding.
The R & eacute;sum & eacute; Redesign exercise equips business communication students with essential job search competencies through an experimental approach to r & eacute;sum & eacute; design. Grounded in contemporary research on AI literacy and r & eacute;sum & eacute; design, this assignment incorporates an AI-powered r & eacute;sum & eacute; scanner alongside faculty feedback to strengthen students' understanding of formatting, mechanics, and audience adaption. Survey results from 136 student respondents indicate the AI feedback to be clear and helpful. This exercise offers flexibility for in-person and online learning environments to enhance a r & eacute;sum & eacute; assignment and introduce students to AI-mediated recruitment practices, while maintaining the critical role of human review in the r & eacute;sum & eacute; evaluation.
Learning and development, in its many forms, including one-off training seminars, multisession learning academies, and coaching, continues to be a priority for organizations in all industries. The forms that leadership development takes vary nearly as much as the needs and skill areas of the leaders themselves. Our argument in this article is that although there are myriad ways to do leadership development, some are more effective than others. This article reviews a variety of common approaches to leadership development, progressing from “good” to “better” to “best” practices. Then we present what we term a “breakthrough” approach to leadership development through an in-depth, illustrative case study showcasing how one Fortune 500 company is scaling coaching across the company.
This article’s author situates late 19th-century essays by Andrew Carnegie within the rhetorical history of business and professional communication (BPC). A close analysis of the essays reveals that Carnegie relied on rhetoric to shape his public image as a benevolent business leader during a period characterized by significant socioeconomic divisions in the United States. Three primary themes— wealth , labor , and democracy —emerge, which the author argues animated Carnegie’s reasoning and arguments throughout the essays. The author concludes by recommending greater attention to the rhetorical history of BPC in future research and teaching.
This study examines how diversity and inclusion are communicated in LinkedIn job advertisements as workplace communication texts. Using qualitative, discourse-oriented analysis of job advertisements from global hotel brands, the study identifies recurring discursive frames through which organisations construct inclusivity, including belonging-oriented language, celebration of diversity, formal equal opportunity claims, and well-being-focussed narratives. These discourses are realised through specific communicative signals such as non-discrimination statements, values-based cultural cues, identity-affirming language, and references to inclusive policies. The study proposes the Inclusive Recruitment Communication Process conceptual framework, explaining inclusive recruitment communication as a platform-mediated process linking discourse, signalling, and conceptualised applicant sensemaking.
Teacher communication influences students' cognitive and emotional well-being, yet mechanisms linking communication behaviors to learning outcomes remain underexplored. Grounded in the conservation of resources framework, this study tested an ecological model in which teacher clarity and rapport indirectly reduced writing apprehension through perceived immediacy, self-efficacy, and burnout. Undergraduate students (N = 389) in Business and Professional Communication courses completed validated measures. Structural equation modeling supported a serial mediation: clarity and rapport predicted immediacy and self-efficacy, which reduced burnout and, in turn, writing apprehension. Findings highlight burnout as a psychological conduit linking instructional communication to student anxiety.
To address students' challenges in business writing and bridge the gap between workplace demands and the skills of new professionals, this quasi-experimental study examined the effects of flipped-ARCS and face-to-face ARCS instruction on Pakistani undergraduate English as a Second Language (ESL) students' business writing achievement and motivation in a business communication course. The findings indicated that the flipped-ARCS model was more effective in improving business writing, while face-to-face ARCS instruction better boosted students' motivation, supporting the potential of innovative teaching strategies and providing valuable insights for educators and policymakers on integrating technology-based instructional methods into business writing education.
This study addresses the persistent misalignment between Arabic language curricula in Chinese universities and the communicative demands of Arabic-mediated business work. Adopting an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, we surveyed 105 Chinese graduates who use Arabic in professional settings and conducted follow-up interviews with three lecturers responsible for Arabic for Business Purposes (ABP) courses. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed three reliable constructs: teaching methodology, workplace ability, and future training needs, while regression analyses showed that learner-centered, task-based teaching methodologies significantly predict graduates' perceived workplace ability and heighten their awareness of ongoing training needs. The qualitative findings illuminated high-stakes communicative events such as negotiations, client correspondence, and intercultural meetings, and revealed systematic gaps between academic instruction and workplace discourse practices. Integrating quantitative and qualitative strands, the study proposes a dual-layer instructional model consisting of eight developmental stages and five interrelated competence domains that link classroom tasks to authentic business communication events. The model offers a contextualized pathway for redesigning ABP curricula in China and contributes to wider debates on how language-for-specific-purposes programmes can better support employability and professional communication readiness.
This article presents a curated collection of six teaching innovations presented at the Association for Business Communication 90th conference in Long Beach, California, as well as online, in October 2025. These MFA presenters demonstrated activities in helping students understand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and social media in business communication. This My Favorite Assignment 34th edition introduces readers to a variety of classroom-ready ideas that integrate tasks involving social media and AI. Teaching support materials-instructions to students, stimulus materials, slides, rubrics, frequently asked questions, links, and sample student projects-are downloadable from the Association for Business Communication website.
This study examined how lecture background type influences student learning experiences in business and professional communication contexts. An online experiment was conducted with undergraduate students in the United States. Participants viewed a lecture on one-way interviews presented with either a digitally created background (university-branded PowerPoint slide) or authentic-appearing background (image of a physical office wall). The results revealed an indirect effect of lecture background type on students' perceptions, mediated by the perceived social presence of the instructor: specifically, a lecture delivered with an authentic-appearing background fostered social presence, which in turn, enhanced students' perceptions of the instructor's credibility and their affective learning.
Counterproductive meeting behaviors (CMBs) are meeting behaviors that distract members from meeting goals. Using an expectancy violations theory lens, this study explored how subtle, nonverbal CMBs were perceived by meeting members. Additionally, this study considered how apologizing for the behavior may minimize negative perceptions of CMBs. Results showed that meeting members generally viewed subtle, nonverbal CMBs more negatively than the control condition. Further, mobile communication was perceived more negatively than arriving late, and apologies did not impact perceptions of subtle, nonverbal CMBs. These findings are explained in light of expectancy violations theory and apology research.
