From the September 2008 Business Communication Quarterly
PowerPoint-based Lectures in Business Education: An Empirical Investigation of Student-Perceived Novelty and Effectiveness
Lisa A. Burke and Karen E. James
Classroom instructors are faced with ever-increasing competition for the attention of their students. Lisa A. Burke and Karen E. James find that the degree of novelty of PowerPoint-based lectures impacts the perception that undergraduate business students have of cognitive learning and classroom interaction. Therefore, introducing and sustaining novelty in PowerPoint presentations may help instructors to reclaim the attention of students in their classrooms.
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The Effect of Rater Training on Reducing Social Style Bias in Peer Evaluation
Gary L. May
How can college instructors have confidence in students’ peer evaluation of collaborative team projects? Peer evaluation is a common component of grading systems. Yet, without training, student raters often base their judgments on factors unrelated to performance. Gary L. May employs Social Style Theory to analyze the interactions of university students during peer evaluation. Strengths and weaknesses of this process are identified, and ways to make students aware of their tendency to judge using personality preferences. Preliminary evidence shows that such training can improve students’ ability to reduce bias in their peer evaluations.
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Aspects of Intercultural Awareness Through an MBA Study Abroad Program Going ‘Backstage’
Elizabeth A. Tuleja
When resources are tight, why does fostering intercultural awareness in business administration programs make sense? Elizabeth A. Tuleja describes this awareness as having two benefits. First, students’ critical thinking and analytic skills are reinforced and, second, corporations show no sign of reducing their ventures into international markets. Tuleja examines the instructional design of one MBA study abroad program and suggests ways to place greater emphasis on intercultural learning in conjunction with business learning. The strategies discussed can be applied before, during and after the MBA study abroad experience.
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From the July 2008 Journal of Business Communication
Special Issue on Corporate Reporting, Part Two, edited by John Penrose
Toward a Taxonomy of Corporate Reporting Strategies
Cynthia Clark Williams
Williams examines the strategies of corporate reporting—both mandatory and voluntary. Voluntary topics—social and environmental—are increasingly popular as corporations analyze, interpret, document, and communication information in various kinds of public reporting.
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Considering Bias in Government Audit Reports: Factors that Influence the Judgments of Internal Government Auditors
Laura A. Palmer
Audit manuals in the US and Canada offer little advice in identifying and reducing bias. Consequently, auditors are often unprepared for the interpretation of data that they must necessarily make.
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Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in South Africa
Cedric Dawkins and Faith Wambura Ngunjiri
The authors compare the reporting of environment, human relations, community, human rights, and diversity dimensions by South African companies to those of Fortune Global 100 companies. South African companies were are more likely to discuss social responsibility than Global 100 companies. Emerging market economies, thus, may be more likely to discuss social responsibility issues than established market economies.
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Changing Uses of Technology: Crisis Communication Responses in a Faculty Strike
Mary E. Vielhaber and John L. Waltman
During a recent faculty strike, both faculty and university administration relied on technology—press releases, email, and web sites—to make their case. Technology, in fact, increased the ability of faculty to make their case public.
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