In response to the increasing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) in business and college classrooms, an exercise is proposed that reaffirms the fundamental and essential functions reason and creativity perform in personalizing and vitalizing professional communications. Three competing proposals—two generated by AI; one developed without AI assistance—are evaluated in terms of how effectively they answer an assignment from senior management. Alongside highlighting the strengths and limitations of AI’s consensus-based alternatives, the evaluations provide students with a practical demonstration of the substantive contributions human cognition makes to the production of quality communications and to enhancing the reputation of the communicator.
Business communication scholars and educators frequently assert that employers expect job applicants to demonstrate “effective communication skills,” yet the term itself remains frustratingly vague. In this study, we attempt to clarify what is meant by “communication skills” by reviewing how communication is expressed and defined in job advertisements. We begin by compiling a list of 78 communication-related skills, then searching for those skills in a curated collection of 782 job announcements. Although this approach offers insight into how employers articulate communication expectations, the findings also underscore the need for greater specificity and transparency in how those expectations are conveyed, particularly because business communication educators rely on these expectations when designing curricula meant to prepare students for professional practice.
The release of ChatGPT in 2022 introduced both transformative opportunities and notable challenges for writing instruction and heightened instructors’ concerns about its impact on teaching and student learning. To explore how GenAI may enhance business communication in the age of AI while mitigating its negative effects on writing instruction, this Feature on Teaching article explains how instructors can proactively design custom AI tools to shift use from content generation to learning support, and offers a practical approach to adapting to an evolving, AI-driven context while exploring strategies to enhance student engagement and learning outcomes.
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.
