bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Local Control of Regional Enterprise Development Initiatives: The Issue of Sponsors, Agents and Participants
Authors: Christie Michael , Chamard John
Published: March 2007

Enterprise development programmes in Australia have traditionally been controlled by the central government. This article describes how a new enterprise development initiative in Australia is moving away from such centralised government control. The initiative is examined in the light of two models: one, the classic approach used by the International Labour Office (ILO) and two, the stake-holder control model. The latter concerns relative control exercised by the three main stake-holders, viz., sponsors, agents and participants in the design and implementation of small enterprise development programmes. The authors argue that the conven tional models of the ILO type presuppose external control by sponsors and agents. The Australian initiative, on the other hand, demonstrates the benefits of mutual control, wherein participants are involved in decision- making about the programme.
Impact of Industry Type and Firm Characteristics on Firm-level Financial Performance— Evidence from Indian Industry
Authors: Shergill G.S. , Sarkaria M.S.
Published: March 2007

Though the importance of considering industry type as a major determinant of firm level performance is well recognised, there is a dearth of evidence relating to the Indian situation. This paper is an attempt to fill this gap. The analysis pertains to the decade of the 1980s and covers 171 firms in twenty-one industry groups. The authors have developed two composite measures that reflect the growth and profitability dimensions. The results indicate that both industry effects and firm characteristics have significant influence on the above two dimensions.
South Asian Regional Cooperation: Problems and Prospects
Authors: Dixit J.N.
Published: March 2007

PEACE IN OUR view is not merely abstention from war, but an active and positive approach to international problems. Leading first to the lessen ing of present tensions through an attempt to solve our problems by methods of negotiation, and then to a growing cooperation between nations in various ways—cultural, and scientific contacts, increase in trade and commerce, exchange of ideas experience and information
Which Leadership Modet—Gandhian or Machiavellian?
Authors: Bhole L.M.
Published: March 2007

Many past and present events in the world clearly reflect the miserable failure of modern leadership across the globe. This has significantly contributed to the crisis of survival of humankind today. If humans and their environment are to survive, we need to search for the appropriate leadership model. To that effect this paper discusses the major tenets of the Gandhian and Machiavellian models of leadership in a comparative manner. The paper shows how and why the Gandhian model is admirable, attractive, timely, relevant and redeeming, while the Machiavellian model is not.
Valuing 'Self' in the Corporate Sector
Authors: Das Ganesh Prasad
Published: March 2007

This paper deals with issues related to character building and human values, both in personal and work life. The focus of the author is value-centred management, which has been discussed along two aspects of the human self, that is, the micro self and macro self. Here, the author tries to highlight the importance of both 'selves' in the organizational context. In the concluding part of the paper the author presents the authenticity of Kautilya's views on the macro self in the context of the present business scenario. The author attempts to portray the transition created by the market economy, which cannot provide an exclusively painless solution. Moreover, he advocates culturing of self-discipline in corporate life, which can bring about qualitative improvement, both in work and personal life. 'Work with integrity and serve with love' is the philosophy the author presents in this paper.
Seasons of the Heart: A Journey with the Quality Mind Process
Authors: Mukherjee Piya
Published: March 2007

Among the billions of persons journeying towards self-discovery, one is living in Mumbai, India. A woman, revelling in the roles of daughter and sister, wife and mother, teacher and writer. The three decades of her lifetime have seen lessons on faith and patience served to her in various interesting forms. And she has, almost magically, found guidance through friends and strangers alike at the 'right' times. She makes plenty of mistakes. Yet she sticks with childlike tenacity to her belief that the path ofgenuineness brings life to a splendid culmination.

January 2001 saw the opening of a new window in her heart-space—the introduction of the quality mind process (QMP), which she and others participated in during the week-long workshop on values and ethics at IIM Calcutta, India. She is yet to completely appreciate the magnificence of this new channel. Yet the shifis in feeling, thinking, speaking and behaving that she found happening due to the QMP have made her forever grateful.

This is the essay she wrote, with descriptions of happenings woven with reflections from her journal, to narrate as best as she could the journey of the year with QMP.
Human Values and HRM Practice: The Japanese Shukko System
Authors: Grainger Richard J. , Miyamoto Tadayuki
Published: March 2007

Aspects of the Japanese human resources management system are discussed to illustrate the underly ing significance of human values in Japanese organizational management, with a particular aspect of Japanese human resource management used as an illustrative case. Relevant literature is reviewed to introduce the relational Japanese management and human resources management (HRM) systems, and to explain the system of inter-firm employee transfer within the corporate group known as the 'shukko' system. The paper then discusses various impacts of this HRM practice upon major stakehold ers and identifies otherwise redundant employees as major beneficiaries of the system, thereby demon strating that human values are critical to the conceptualization and application of Japanese human resources management practices.
Community Culture, Ethics, Professionalism and Human Values: A View from Norway
Authors: Fløistad Guttorm
Published: March 2007

This paper begins by critically examining the inadequacies of production culture in organizations based primarily on impersonal, professional relationships and argues that many of the ills of modern industry like absenteeism and interpersonal conflicts stem from this culture. The author suggests that the culture of community characterized by social competence, personal relationships, cooperation, care and recognition can best serve the real purpose of organizations than mere professionalism. Culture of community implies values-based management or ethical management whereby an indi vidual or an organization is bound to accept certain norms for the well-being of the community. Thus, ethics ought to become a project for commitment to values which have gradually been eroded in our mass media society where religions no longer inspire men to live ethically. The author delves into Norwegian history and recalls the case of Hans Nielsen Hauge (1774-1821), whose inspirational leadership was summed up in his simple gospel: 'Fear of God, temperance and hard work'. Hauge's leadership style of management by building community cultures has, according to the author, great significance for modern enterprises.
Human Values in Swedish Management
Authors: Gustavsson Bengt
Published: March 2007

This paper tries to evolve a distinctive model of Swedish management from the standpoint of human values. The author attempts to understand the deeper and subtle aspects of the Scandinavian manage ment style and discusses ways to understand different management styles in different cultural contexts and how they can be sustained in an information age where culture-specific values face extinction. His analysis draws on several sources including personal experiences and mythological references. The paper explores the 'deep structure' of the Swedish mind and enumerates 'typical Swedish' values like equality, self-criticism, worship of nature, and their relationship with the Swedish management style. It also articulates the dilemma of the Swedish manager who has to stick to traditional Swedish values at work and at the same time be responsive to universal human values. According to the author, the ideal way to overcome this dilemma is to transcend into pure being by knowing one's real self and then coming out into the world of action to reflect the universal in the relative.
Values and Ethics in Eastern European Business: Some Contemporary Issues
Authors: Reed Darryl
Published: March 2007

This paper addresses some important questions related to ethical and human values that stem from the transition of Eastern European businesses to a market economy. While such a change has the potential for a tremendous redistribution of power and benefits in the societies involved, it also has its detrimental effects in terms of loss of wages, decline in security of life and a reduced standard of living for a significant number of people. The paper explores the problems and issues relating to former state-owned firms and newly created companies under three broad headings: (a) the manufacture and distribution of products; (b) management and corporate governance; and (c) rights, responsibilities and problems of workers. The author concludes by saying that while the transition to a market economy has broad support throughout Eastern Europe, it does not represent a painless solution. Moreover, it allows for the emergence of a range of moral problems. This complexity involved in addressing ethical issues lends itself to either of the two extreme tendencies-paralysis or creativity. The stance which Eastern Europeans take towards these problems will largely depend upon the 'moral resources' which they are able to muster up in addressing these issues.
Human Values and Consciousness: Towards a New Social Order in the Light of Sri Aurobindo (Part II)
Authors: Ambirajan S.
Published: March 2007

In the first part of his paper, published in the previous issue of this journal, the author dwelt on Sri Aurobindo's social, economic, political and nationalistic writings in Aurobindo's pre-Pondicherry days (1872-1910). In this second part, the paper crystallizes Sri Aurobindo's ideas and writings during the four decades he spent in Pondicherry. This paper looks at Aurobindo's metaphysical search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence. The future that Sri Aurobindo was seeking out was not a particular future of any single nation but that of the human personality itself, both in its individual and collective manifestations. The author documents with great fidelity Aurobindo's vision of the birth of a new consciousness which will liberate the individual from his ego and create a framework of life within which man can seek and grow into his real self and divinity.
Complementary Sustainability of the Inner and Outer Worlds: TNS and MHV
Authors: Atterhed Sven G.
Published: March 2007

This essay is an exposition of a profound sustainable linkage for the survival of the earth—the linkage between sustainability from within and sustainability from without. The author, writing from direct experience of both, makes an eloquent plea to seize and work upon the complementarity between the Swedish 'The Natural Step' (TNS) movement regarding the 'outer', and the Indian 'Management by Human Values' (MHV) movement about the 'inner'. Building on the best and most well-tested spiritual and scientific traditions and principles—MHV from the East and TNS from the West—the author feels convinced, could and ought to work in close cooperation for the future well-being of organizations and society.
Ethics in the Developing Economies of Asia
Authors: Takahashi Akira
Published: March 2007

An attempt is made to explore a major issue in the context of marketization for economic growth in developing Southeast and South Asian countries. The paper questions the ethics of ignoring the non- market aspects in each area, region and culture, while forcing a universalist Western paradigm of growth economics. Reference is made to many social institutions and traditional practices which have evolved organically within these countries and are serving the local people very well. Dismantling them, because they do not fit into the rigid mould of the Western perspective, is either strongly opposed by the locals, or after implementation they are worse off than before. The paper advocates practical and sensible relativism for congruence with community variables in all economic reform programmes.
Socially Responsible and Accountable Enterprise
Authors: Pruzan Peter , Zadek Simon
Published: March 2007

The paper challenges the purely economic and financial bottom line perspective of business enterprise. Five fundamental questions are raised to address the issue of socially responsible business. Social posturing is not social responsibility, nor is legal compliance true ethics. This is cynical instrumental- ism. Nor, of course, naive idealism has much merit in it. Genuine social responsibility is correlated with rising expectations of transparency from business enterprises. While benchmarking has the advantages of simplicity and cheapness in evaluating social responsibility, the authors suggest deeper and broader alternatives to this methodology such as 'ethical budgets' and 'ethical accounting statements'.
Pursuit of Competitiveness: A Boon or Bane
Authors: Bagchi Prabir K.
Published: March 2007

The paper assesses India's need for being competitive in the global marketplace in order to secure its rightful position in the comity of developed nations. Competitiveness is meant to be the basis of sustainability of one's position in the global marketplace. The role of the government in a developing country like India in this process is stressed. Eight key areas of emphasis for achieving competitiveness have been elaborated—including that of the 'Vedic values system'. The paper concludes by asserting the need for politicians to be far-sighted, rising above petty party politics.
Ethical Leadership in Three Dimensions
Authors: Kanungo R.N. , Mendonca M.
Published: March 2007

Is an ethical leader an oxymoron? Society demands and expects greater accountability from organizational leaders. The literature on leadership, especially business leadership, has neglected ethical issues by focusing only on those approaches and strategies that emphasize self-centred, individualistic concerns. How ever, true and effective leadership is one in which the leader's behaviour and the exercise of the leadership influence process are consistent with ethical and moral values. The authors argue that our understanding of leadership is incomplete, if not deformed, if it does not include the three critical dimensions of ethical leadership.
On Art, Science, Education and the Human Factor
Authors: Nobel Agnes
Published: March 2007

This paper, based on the recent UNESCO report Our Cultural Diversity, makes a plea for including art as an integral part of culture. Serious doubts are raised about the long-term effects oflopsided scientific-technical education. The pioneering but neglected ideas of Goethe, Schiller, Steiner, Tagore and Read on the role of art in total human development have been discussed. According to the author, the critical innovation in the sphere of education is now going to be on the borders between art, science and religion.
Leadership—A Comparative Study of Indian Ethos and Western Concepts
Authors: Murthy P.N.
Published: March 2007

Of late, there has been a deep interest in the subject of cultures and group behaviours with large numbers of nations engaging in international trade and other kinds of interactions. While a large body of knowledge in this area is available about other nations, it is only recently that interest in the study of Indian ethos has received attention. This paper is one such attempt to identify the distinctive features of leadership in the Indian ethos and contrast it with the delineation of leadership in the Western ethos. It is suggested that while there are several similarities, the spiritual orientation and non-desire motivated action distinguish leader ship in the Indian ethos from that in the Western ethos.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Development in India1
Authors: Reed Darryl
Published: March 2007

This paper is a normative analysis of corporate governance in India. The aim is to investigate the extent to which corporations in India, in their various dealings, have conformed to defensible normative standards and to identify the factors which have influenced their rate of (non)-conformity. The paper makes an attempt to understand how conformity to defensible standards can be better promoted. The normative standards to which corporations are subject can be categorized into three broad areas, namely, political, social and economic responsibilities. The focus here is on the least controversial area, that is, the economic responsi bilities of corporations. The author concludes with some reflections on the task of promoting more respon sible corporate governance.
Technology Generation and Technology Transfers in the World Economy: Recent Trends and Implications for Developing Countries
Authors: Kumar Nagesh
Published: March 2007

This paper puts together new data on technology generation and technology transfers in the world economy during the 1975-95 period to examine the emerging trends and pat terns. In panicular it examines the trends in the context of the developing countries and corporate concentration in technology generation in terms of indicators of R&D activity, patent ownership and receipts of technology fees and royalties against the background of emergence of new core technologies and the recent trend of corporate restructuring. It then examines trends and patterns in international technology transfers as represented by ray alty and technology receipts by major source countries of technology and contrasts these trends with those in FDI inflows. Trends with respect to the mode of technology transfer are also discussed. In conclusion, a few observations for technology import policies of developing countries are made.
Inventing Medieval Japan: The History and Politics of National Identity
Authors: Keirstead Thomas
Published: March 2007

In contrast to the situation in other Asian nations, the Japanese public readily accepted the notion that Japan had had a Middle Age. In the Meiji period, the medieval—perhaps the most European epoch—was easily indigenised. Accounts of this process emphasise Japan's desire to pattern itself after the West. Analysing the work of the first Japanese medievalists, this article argues that more was at stake. By claiming for Japan a medieval era, historians made two further claims that were crucial to the project of fashioning a modern, Japanese identity. By locating the roots of the modern nation in the Middle Ages, historians allowed that Japan might join the West while remaining quintessentially Japanese. And, second, the era provides Japan's point of departure from the rest of Asia: the transition from ancient to medieval Japan, as a move beyond China and its overvalued cultural products, is a move from the cultural to the historical, from the oriental to the modern.
'Medieval India': An Alien Conceptual Hegemony?
Authors: mukhia Harbans
Published: March 2007

The notion of a 'Muslim' period of Indian history inhered in the numerous court chronicles of "medieval' India, written in the Persian language. This derived from the assumption of the rise of Islam as the dividing line in 'world history', going back to Arab and Iranian historiographical tradi tions. Abul Fazl, writing at the end of the sixteenth century, posited an alternative conception of historical time as continuous and teleological. James Mills formalised the periodisation into the tripartite 'Hindu, Mohammedan and British India' in 1818. The 'British' period, with a heavy emphasis on its secular, modern and modernising identity was deliberately asymmetrical to the denominational determinants of the first two periods. The tripartite nomenclature was to be translated at the turn of the twentieth century into Ancient, Medieval and Modern India though the two remained interchangeable. Between the 1950s and the 1970s, the growing influence of Marxism redefined the boundaries of the tripartite division through a shift of focus from dynastic history to socio-economic problematics, though the division itself remained in place. The 1990s are witness to still newer problematics which by their nature tend to erode these boundaries.
The Language of Letters
Authors: POWELL MELISSA L.
Published: March 2007

This article analyzes the recognition, development, and use of the power of persuasion in American sales letter from 1905-1920, as well as two other business-writing traditions which developed during this period: the “you” viewpoint and the five C's. Examples will show how these two traditions changed the language used in business letters, allowing these letters to play a dual role by making these letters easier for the consumer to read and understand and by using these letters to pursue the growth in national character of American business. The article concludes with a call for further research, to help prepare writers to produce the letters of the future.
Collaborating the Course
Authors: BAKER TRACEY
Published: March 2007

Although the number of comprehensive studies that outline methods for incorporating collaborative writing into the professional writing classroom has increased, most studies discuss only one or two assignments throughout the term. This article describes an entire course focused on shared-document writing. Over a four-year period, students indicated that they valued the time allowed to coordinate groups and to understand and complete assignments. Structuring such a course necessitates assigning work that is related to a single topic and providing students with choices, including a voice in group formation and evaluation.
Feminist Theory and the Redefinition of Technical Communication
Authors: LAY MARY M.
Published: March 2007

To study the possible impact of feminist theory on technical communication, this article discusses six common characteristics of feminist theory: (a) celebration of difference, (b) impact on social change, (c) acknowledgment of scholars' backgrounds and values, (d) inclusion of women's experience, (e) study of gaps and silences in traditional scholarship, and (f) new female sources of knowledge. Three debates within feminist theory spring out of these common characteristics: whether to stress similarity or difference between the sexes, whether differences come from biological or social forces, and whether feminist scholars can avoid reinforcing binary opposition. The article then traces the impact of these characteristics of feminist theory and debates within feminist theory on the redefinition of technical communication in terms of the myth of scientific objectivity, the new interest in ethnographic studies of workplace communication, and the recent focus on collaborative writing.
Scholarly Writing
Authors: BAKER MARGARET ANN , GOUBIL-GAMBRELL PATRICIA
Published: March 2007

This study is an empirical investigation to determine if gender has an influence on academic performance and scholarly writing. A stratified random sample of faculty from 21 midwestern universities was selected to complete a 20-item survey. One variable revealed gender differences: Men were more likely than women to perceive children and family responsibilities as constraints on their ability to do scholarly writing. A second variable approached significance: Women were more likely than men to identify themselves as doing theoretical work. Although the women and men in this survey reported to have published similar amounts, women were less likely to be associate and full professors than were men. This study suggests that the organizational culture and structure of academia privileges men.
Gender and Modes of Collaboration in a Chemical Engineering Design Course
Authors: FLYNN ELIZABETH A. , SAVAGE GERALD , PENTI MARSHA , BROWN CAROL , WATKE SARAH
Published: March 2007

Modes of collaboration are gendered in the sense that they define power relationships among members of a group. In this study, the authors define three collaborative modes: dialogic, asymmetrical, and hierarchical. Dialogic and asymmetrical modes are emancipating and characterized by flexibility, open-ended inquiry, and concern for the growth and development of the individuals involved. Hierarchical modes are oppressive and are characterized by rigidity and suppression of the voices of others in the group. Two collaborative writing groups in a chemical engineering design course exemplify these modes. The first, composed of two women and two men, was primarily dialogic, and the second, composed of two women and three men, exhibited characteristics of all three modes.
An Investigation of Perceived Managerial Listening Ability
Authors: BARKER RANDOLPH T. , PEARCE C. GLENN , JOHNSON IRIS W.
Published: March 2007

This study employed a listening effectiveness inventory to measure perceived listening ability among managers who were leaders in a professional management association in the United States and Canada. Analysis of variance results revealed statistically significant differences for training and gender. Those who had taken more than one listening training seminar or course scored higher on the inventory than did those who had had no listening training. Females perceived themselves as better listeners than males did. No statistically significant differences were found for age. On the whole, the inventory developed in this study may provide another dimension to measures of listening effectiveness.
Teaching Desktop Publishing at a Business College
Authors: MARSDEN JAMES D.
Published: March 2007

Establishing a course in desktop publishing at the college level is an enterprise that requires important and sometimes difficult choices, such as selecting hardware and software, textbooks, and types of assignments. For faculty members who are involved in making those decisions, the need for information from people who have had experience in teaching desktop publishing is critical. Experience shows that a sound course in this area can be created with these elements: IBM-compatible computers, color monitors, mice, a scanner, one or two laser printers, Aldus PageMaker®, CorelDRAW™, Microsoft® Windows™, Harvard Graphics®, a couple of good textbooks, both practice and original projects, and an emphasis on principles of good design.
Modes of Power in Technical and Professional Visuals
Authors: BARTON BEN F. , BARTON MARTHALEE S.
Published: March 2007

Treating visuals as sites of power inscription, the authors advance a Foucauldian design model based on the Panopticon—Bentham's late-eighteenth-century architectural figure for empowerment based on bimodal surveillance. Numerous examples serve in demonstrating that maximum effectiveness results when visuals foster simultaneous viewing in the two panoptic modes, the synoptic and the analytic. The panoptic theory of visual design is shown to be compatible with many privilegings in the literature of visual design that have hitherto appeared ad hoc and undertheorized, with relations masked by the disparate terminologies employed. The limitations of panoptic theory are located in its neglect of oppositional practices—seen as the most compelling horizon for research on the empowerment of designer and viewer through visual design.
Owning Corporate Texts
Authors: WINSOR DOROTHY A.
Published: March 2007

Engineers and public relations writers must cooperate to write public relations releases in a manufacturing firm. These releases represent the firm rather than any individual writer. An ethnographic study shows, however, that both engineers and public relations writers see at least some aspects of the releases as representing themselves personally. They therefore try to control content, wording, and authorship of the documents. Despite the difficulties they have in achieving such control, writers invest in corporate texts just as they do in personal ones.
Remapping Curricular Geography
Authors: SULLIVAN PATRICIA A. , PORTER JAMES E.
Published: March 2007

Most discussions of disciplinarity start by claiming an emerging group as constituting a discipline or a profession and authorizing that group by locating appropriate research foci, programs for graduate education and undergraduate certification, professional societies, and central professional meetings. Our discussion examines the field of professional writing, focusing not so much on defining it as a discipline as on working out its curricular geography, an activity that will affect its status in both academy and industry. To that end, we explore the status of professional writing within the department of English by (a) briefly examining the problem of defining professional writing; (b) reviewing several theoretical positions within English that have provided a status for professional writing—literature, rhetoric/composition, business and technical writing—to expose the competition for control of the term and to surface the implications of accepting these various groups on their own terms; and (c) considering the curricular status to which professional writing might aspire by sketching a geography that positions professional writing in a new space within English.
This is a Pedagogical Essay on Voice
Authors: FREED RICHARD C.
Published: March 2007

Rhetorical voice is rarely discussed in business, professional, or technical communication textbooks, despite its strategic importance in aligning writer and audience so that persuasion can occur. This article identifies those aspects of the rhetorical situation that shape voice and presents a heuristic that writers can use to identify the components of voice and to construct their personae.
Studies in the History of Business and Technical Writing
Authors: RIVERS WILLIAM E.
Published: March 2007

This article is a bibliographical essay on the history of business and technical writing based on a survey of over 200 articles and books that demonstrate not only the quality and quantity of recent publications in this field but also the wide opportunities it offers for future research. The studies in the article and bibliography are grouped into 13 categories according to historical period (from ancient and classical times through the twentieth century), national origin, and (for twentieth-century studies) subject of investigation. The article concludes with suggestions about further research in the history of business and technical writing.
Hypertext
Authors: SMITH DOUGLAS C. , NELSON SANDRA J.
Published: March 2007

Hypertext, an electronic communication medium in which information is structured and accessed according to the audience's needs and interests, is increasingly used in business and technical communication. That use may justify curricula expansion in the development of the ability to communicate in hypertext from specialty courses to a variety of business and technical courses, including the foundation course. This article provides a concise overview of hypertext for instructors who may be considering this expansion but who need to become more familiar with the medium. The basic information that is provided includes the definition, uses, and advantages of hypertext. In addition, the terminology, theoretical bases, and essential structure of hypertext are discussed. Of particular concern to business and technical communication instructors who may be considering adding hypertext to their courses are the problems that the medium presents. Discussion includes considerations of linguistic design, computer capabilities, and human performance. Finally, behaviors that business and technical communicators should exhibit to encourage the use of hypertext are presented.
The Value of Formal Conventions in Disciplinary Writing
Authors: HAGGE JOHN
Published: March 2007

The value of formal writing conventions has been diminished in mainstream composition scholarship; although research on occupational writing suggests that formal conventions are important, these findings are hard to generalize. This study, a content analysis of 12 professional style manuals, achieves generalizability by elucidating the institutional norms of disciplinary writing (a subset of occupational writing to which much scientific and technical writing belongs). Formal conventions prove to be highly valued. More important, the use of formal conventions often is justified on rhetorical grounds, suggesting that the dichotomy between formalist and rhetorical axiologies posited in composition scholarship is false.
German Memo and Letter Style
Authors: BELL ARTHUR H. , DILLON W. TRACY , BECKER HARALD
Published: March 2007

This article describes German correspondence styles in order to assist American managers. In the coming years, more and more American managers will find that they must correspond with their German counterparts either as colleagues within international organizations or as associates representing collaborative and competing businesses. The article explains typical conventions of both memo and letter formats, emphasizing the need to appreciate differences between formal and informal modes of communication. American managers who know and respect these differences can communicate more clearly and persuasively with their German contacts.
Pedagogy and Social Action
Authors: BLYLER NANCY ROUNDY
Published: March 2007

Scholars in professional communication have called for a reexamination of pedagogy, asking that it instruct students not simply in the forms of workplace discourse but also in the connections between that discourse and socially responsible communicative action. This article posits that narrative can provide a basis for a pedagogy of social action—for a pedagogy, that is, that enables students to understand the workings of power and cultural reproduction in professional settings and that fosters reflection, critique, and dialogue. The article first reviews narrative theory supporting this claim, then discusses ways that teachers can use narrative to help students critique examples of professional discourse and their own composing choices. The article closes by discussing both the concerns about and the possibilities for such a pedagogy.
Identifying Communication Barriers between Tax Practitioners and IRS Agents
Authors: GOLEN STEVEN P. , GUPTA SANJAY , O'DELL MICHAEL A.
Published: March 2007

Improving communication between tax practitioners and IRS agents requires identification of specific barriers that impede effective communication. This study extends prior research on communication barriers to the tax practitioner-IRS agent relationship. Survey responses of 98 experienced national and international tax practitioners revealed that the barriers perceived to be the most serious relate to behavioral and personality concerns, personal conditions, inflexible thinking, physical concerns, technical competence, and closed-minded attitudes. Although these perceptions generally were invariant to gender and age, some differences were observed by the level of work experience of the respondents. The results of this study may be used by the IRS to develop outreach and education programs consistent with Compliance 2000, a philosophy of tax administration that aims to improve communication channels between the practitioner community and IRS agents. In addition, practitioners may use the results to devise ways to deal with communication problems during interactions with the IRS.
The Writing Consultant and the Corporate/Industry Culture
Authors: ORNATOWSKI CEZAR M.
Published: March 2007

Many teachers of technical and business communication consult in business, industrial, and governmental organizations. To make the consulting experience successful and to understand the communication problems in an organization, the consultant should be aware of how the organization's culture may affect communication practices of members and should learn to read the various signs of organizational culture. Effective reading of cultural signs may be critical to the consultant's success or failure.
Victor W. Pagé's Early Twentieth-Century Automotive and Aviation Books
Authors: BROCKMANN R. JOHN
Published: March 2007

Victor W. Pagé was either the first or one of the first to make a living primarily as a technical communicator in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. His 33 automotive and aviation books published by the Norman W. Henley Company were popular with both the public and critics because they contained timely, comprehensive coverage of novel technology; profuse illustrations; occasional analogies; easy-to-access information; well-established expertise; and sophisticated employment of task orientation. Pagé was able to publish many books quickly because he reused manufacturers' and his own material and methods of organization. He was also able to communicate his novel information effectively because he had both extensive firsthand experience with early automobiles and planes and because he was continually involved in teaching. Victor Pagé's early twentieth-century work demonstrates both what have become mainstream techniques in technical communication and a number of unique rhetorical strategies.
Activity, Context, Interaction, and Authority
Authors: BLAKESLEE ANN M.
Published: March 2007

Situated learning theories offer useful insights into how learning to write can be supported and transacted through interactions between newcomers and experienced practitioners in academic and professional domains. Reporting the findings from a study of a mentoring relationship in physics, this article addresses how such processes work to teach composing in advanced academic contexts and what can make them more or less effective. The author identifies and discusses three factors that may constrain situated learning in such contexts and the transmission of authority that purportedly occurs through such learning. These factors include newcomers' existing skills for, and approaches to, composing, which may limit their acquisition and use of new skills; the implicitness of situated learning, which may pose difficulties for newcomers as they struggle to grasp the conceptual complexity entailed in composing disciplinary texts; and the location and distribution of authority in practitioner/newcomer relationships, which may inhibit newcomers as they struggle to acquire and establish their own authority by making original contributions to their fields.
Assessing the Value of Client-Based Group Projects in an Introductory Technical Communication Course
Authors: WICKLIFF GREGORY A.
Published: March 2007

This article argues for the long-term value of client-based group projects in an introductory technical communication course. Survey results are presented from 73 former technical communication students with two to seven years of workplace experience. Lasting five to six weeks, these projects are a compromise between a briefer conventional case method and a more lengthy individualized internship or cooperative education experience. The projects reinforce research, analysis, and reporting skills, such as interviewing specialists and conducting survey research, that graduates continue to value highly even after years of workplace writing. When framed as such, client-based projects also encourage students to define and debate public policy issues.
Intertextual Connections to “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing”
Authors: SMITH ELIZABETH OVERMAN
Published: March 2007

Carolyn Miller's “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing” serves as an example of text that has influenced the knowledge-making activities within technical communication. The 68 references, or intertextual connections, to “Humanistic Rationale” between 1979 and 1995 demonstrate its influence and show the evolution of technical communication and the issues important to technical communication professionals. The authors respond to questions of the purpose of technical communication, the influence of the canons of rhetoric, the importance of audience, and the impact of social constructionism on technical communication. This analysis of the academic prose surrounding “Humanistic Rationale” reveals part of the discipline's discussions and the “communal rationality” (617) that shapes the activities of its members.
Yin/Yang Principle and the Relevance of Externalism and Paralogic Rhetoric to Intercultural Communication
Authors: YUAN RUE
Published: March 2007

Is understanding that transcends language and cultural barriers at all possible? How can we account for the different sorts of failure in achieving intercultural understanding and cooperation? What theory would describe how we can go beyond cross-cultural differences and reach some mutual agreement on business principles and practices? This article explores the relevance of Donald Davidson's philosophy of externalism and Thomas Kent's rhetorical theory of paralogic hermeneutics to these pressing issues in intercultural communication. Using a cultural perspective based on the Taoist yin/yang principle, it explains how an understanding of the externalist conception of truth and the world, and paralogic rhetoric as a theory of communicative interaction, can better enable us to deal with the radical changes taking place in the nature of intercultural relations and communication.
Reading Culture
Authors: WEISS TIMOTHY
Published: March 2007

A new orientation toward intercultural and international communication will demand a redefinition of the professional communicator and professional communication: Translation—understood in a broad sense—will become a crucial skill. Analyzing what is absent from contexts and messages will become just as important as editing and refining what is present in them. This article considers the process of translation in the framework of the postmodern debate about language and reality as well as the economic, cultural, and social phenomena that have transformed the communication landscape during the past 50 years.
Administrative Writing
Authors: GRAHAM MARGARET BAKER
Published: March 2007

To understand how context affects language use, students can analyze the relationship between the power dynamics in an organization and the linguistic politeness strategies in memos written to subordinates. Although this assignment offers a viable approach to understanding how power influences language, students should recognize that multiple variables can affect actual language use. They can also scrutinize the responsibility they implicitly assume when they perpetuate—or perhaps attempt to change—an organization's communication style.
Early Supplier Involvement in New Product Development on the Internet: Implementation Perspectives
Authors: Huang G.Q. , Huang J. , Mak K.L.
Published: March 2007

WeBid is a prototype web-based framework for supporting early supplier involvement in new product development on the Internet. It provides a suite of tools for establishing and managing the customer-supplier relationships in new product development pro cess. Through WeBid, this paper discusses the issues related to the development and implementation of web applications in product de sign and manufacture. The typical 3-tier architecture is explained to show how the main WeBid components work together to achieve the intended functionality. A number of Java features are discussed for their suitability for implementing and deploying particular application components. Various options for the connection and deployment of the remote databases are compared in terms of their strengths and limitations. The paper provides some useful guidelines for those who are interested in developing and applying web applications in prod uct design and manufacture in a supply chain or extended enterprise environment.
Using a Cluster Graph Representation of Products for Application in the Disassembly Planning Process
Authors: O'Shea B. , Kaebernick H. , Grewal S.S.
Published: March 2007

In this paper a method for product representation from the disassembly planning viewpoint is presented. The basis of this product representation technique is a product model referred to as the cluster graph. The details of the products' structure are reflected directly in the cluster graph in such a fashion that by mapping component end-use options and disassembly costs all potentially clusterable groups of parts within the product can be identified and analysed. Similarly by mapping facility requirements for product dis assembly to the cluster graph then all disassembly sequencing options can be clearly identified. The cluster graph is a 2-dimensional connected node based model of the product.
CyberEye: An Internet-Enabled Environment to Support Collaborative Design
Authors: Yi Zhuang  , Li Chen  , Venter Ron
Published: March 2007

The focus of this paper is to address two key issues in the development of an Internet-enabled collaborative design environ ment. The first is concerned with 3D-models display and manipulation on the Internet; the second with collaboration and coordination in communications across a team(s) through the Internet. A novel approach is studied in which Java3D technology is explored in achieving 3D-models display and manipulation on the Internet; meanwhile, state-of-the-art IT technologies (e.g., ASP, Java Servlet and Windows Socket) are applied to support both asynchronous and synchronous distributed interactions. As a result, the core of an Internet-enabled, platform-independent environment, referred to as CyberEye, is further constructed to support distributed collaborative design, which consists of three function suites, namely, Product Visualization Module (PVM), Product Information Management Module (PIMM), and Team Management Module (TMM). As such, the implementation of multidisciplinary team engineering over the Internet can be facilitated and supported.
Development of SDAI-Based Common Access Interface for Object-Oriented DBMS
Authors: Liu Thu-Hua , Trappey Amy J. C. , Lin ChH-Shi
Published: March 2007

The objective of this research is to construct a data access implementation at the database level using the specifications de fined in the ISO 10303 Standard Data Access Interface (SDAI). This paper documents the process of implementing the SDAI on a specific object-oriented database management system (OODBMS), called Web-based Object Oriented-DataBase (WOO-DB). WOO-DB is devel oped by the Institute for Information Industry and uses a proprietary object definition language (ODL) and object manipulation language (OML) to describe and manipulate data. The implementation is achieved by mapping the functions and schemata between the SDAI data model and WOO-DB ODL and OML. This research concludes a number of basic features that an OODBMS should support when con structing the SDAI access mechanism. Once the data access interface is independent of data storage technologies, the integration of ap plications in a computer-aided Concurrent Engineering environment can be achieved under a common data accessing protocol.
Synchronous Collaborative Development of UML Models on the Internet
Authors: Chan Stephen C. F. , Lee Paul S. H. , Ng Vincent T. Y. , Chan Alvin T. S.
Published: March 2007

This paper discusses the synchronous viewing and editing of object-oriented models based on the Unified Modeling Lan guage (UML) by multiple users on the internet. Each user works on a copy of the model, which is continuously synchronized with the master copy on a central server. A group of users can work together in the common single writer-multiple reader mode, controlled by a token that can be passed from user to user. Alternatively, different users can lock different parts of the model for exclusive editing while the changes are visible to all other users. One can improve on basic granular locking by considering the semantics of the graphical nota tion. A semantics-based locking mechanism has been designed and implemented for UML class diagrams in order to allow users to col laborate more effectively: A prototype collaborative UML (CUML) editing system has been implemented in Java to validate the design.