This article presents a curated collection of eight teaching innovations presented at the Association for Business Communication 89th conference Tulsa, Oklahoma, as well as online, in October 2024. These MFA presenters demonstrated teaching ideas specifically on improving students’ writing skills, and this My Favorite Assignment 32nd edition introduces readers to these classroom approaches in teaching business writing. 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.
Legal translation competence includes a high number of sub-competences that legal translation trainees need to master. Therefore, trainers may have no time to tackle issues at the very micro level that are challenging not only for legal translation trainees, but sometimes even for professional translators. Although many such issues are identified in legal translation textbooks, the prevailing holistic approach to teaching legal translation may have led to such issues being sidelined in the legal translation classroom. Drawing on the author’s experience as a legal translation trainer, this paper attempts to fill this vacuum and offer a systematic approach to addressing at least some of these phenomena. A selection of tricky terms will be presented, together with practical activities designed to raise trainees’ awareness of such issues and teach them how to approach them confidently when translating from and to English. Four groups of terms are covered: false friends in general and legal language; vague terms such as good and reasonable; non-transparent terms where complex legal meaning is packed into a simple term (constructive, in lieu of), and enantiosemous terms (apparent, qualified). It is believed that when such phenomena are tackled in isolation, trainees may become better equipped to deal with them successfully the next time they encounter them in an English source text or to use them actively when translating into English.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
In a case study involving three asynchronous online professional writing courses, this research investigates students’ abilities to establish a social presence and build team cohesion via collaborative, team-based writing projects. Using the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework, this study is situated in the understanding that teaching and learning in higher education are not about the mere transmission of knowledge but that “teaching and learning are inherently interactive” as the terms of “community” and “inquiry” used in the framework suggest. Prior researchers have also established a clear connection between one element of the COI framework— social presence and student satisfaction in online courses. Findings from this study indicate participation in collaborative team assignments contributes to team cohesion and positively affects students’ ability to establish their social presence within online environments as well as transfer their knowledge to other contexts.
ABSTRACT Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of job demands and resources on international salesperson burnout. While general salesperson job demands are known, the current study seeks to identify role demands which are predominantly faced by international sales executives. Methodology/approach Job Demands-Resource Theory provides a foundation to expand the study of burnout to the international sales executive context. In addition, given the lack of established literature on international salesperson burnout, a grounded theory approach is ideal. Thirteen informants with experience selling internationally in all regions of the world were interviewed. The interviews averaged about 30 minutes and equated to 124 transcribed pages.A four-step process was applied to conduct this study. Step 1: Reviewing existing literature to guide the study. Step 2: Determine the analytical approach – including creating the interview guide, establishing sales profile criteria, and determining the data collection process. Step 3: Conducting the interviews, listening to the recorded interviews, and reading the transcripts. Step 4: Identifying themes and reporting the findings. Findings Four job demands are identified that are exacerbated within an international sales context (demands of understanding different cultures, the complexity of international business, understanding business, and demand of international travel). Job resources, at the firm and individual level, are examined as a buffer used to reduce the impact of job demands on burnout. Internal support and resource alignment were impactful at the firm level. Personal investments, personal time, and grit were impactful at the individual level. Additionally, this study identified sales closure rates, work-family conflict, and fight as self-undermining aspects that international sales executives experience. Research implications International sales research has remained limited. In 2011, only 97 articles were found over a 30-year period in the top 15 leading journal. To help address this limitation, this study identifies how job demands can lead to burnout, if not actively managed, within an international sales context. Practical implications The findings from this research indicate that managers need to be cognizant of the complexities of international travel. Duration to win can be much longer, win rates are significantly lower than domestic markets, and expenses can be significantly higher. Maximizing long-term results while balancing short-term costs need considerable attention. At a personal level, sales executives are more impactful when proper company policies and channels for communication with senior executives are aligned.International sales executives work in a function that requires travel away from home for two-to-three weeks at a time. Creating special policies for international sales executives to balance work and family can optimize company profitability while minimizing employee self-undermining. Originality/value/contribution This research provides a foundation for the examination of Job-Demand Resource Theory within an international selling context. Based on the results, seven propositions are developed to advance this stream of research. In addition, a series ofguidelines are offered for international firms to use in managing their salesforce
Stigmatization and undervaluation of the Colombian peasantry have been a constant throughout history. In order to generate a better understanding of the behaviour dynamics of the peasant population, this paper makes an analysis through the behavioural economics from Daniel Kahneman and Vernon Smith in 2002 and Richard Thaler in 2017 influences. It is assumed that behaviour is not purely rational as traditional economic theory postulates, allowing elucidate development expectations of individuals and the dynamics of their motivations and actions. Through direct interview with the rural population in the municipality of Tuta, Boyacá state, Colombia, specifically with the El Tambre community of Agua Blanca sector, comments were obtained that allowed us to learn about the psychology of the peasant. In relation to their psyche, results show that for years the peasants have not been able to overcome their vulnerabilities. On the contrary, it is evident how they are subjected to coping “strategies” that end up being little adaptive to their environment
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Alexandra Agredo Saenz, Diana Marcela Vargas Rueda, Juan Carlos Osorio Gómez
Mitigating food losses and wastage in the supply chain is important for increasing incomes, fighting hunger, improving food quality and security in the countries of the world. For this matter, the management of operational risk allows to determinate the necessary actions tending to mitigation or elimination of the risks that affect the performance of the chains. One of the fundamental activities to guarantee the success in the risk management has to do with the identification of the same ones. On the other hand, the participation of third-party logistics companies has increased in supply chains, affecting in several ways the performance of these and creating new risks in the system. The operational risk identification is associated to outsourced transportation activity affecting the performance of a fruits and vegetables supply chain in Valle del Cauca, Colombia. For the operational risks identification, questionaries have been applied to experts in their field, with said questionnaires the impact probability matrix was constructed so that not only the identification of operational risks is achieved, but also a first approximation of the prioritization of the risks themselves.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
This study examined the impact of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) on institutional performance of public shareholding companies in Jordan based on COSO (2004) ERM Integrated Framework. Questionnaire survey was adopted as the research methodology for this study, and a total of 313 questionnaires were successfully collected. The obtained data was analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling Tool (Smart-PLS), and based on the analysis, implementation of ERM was found to have a significant influence on institutional performance. From the finding’s analysis, it was revealed that enterprise risk management framework had a role in improving the performance of extraction companies in Jordan. The analysis also highlighted that the increase of enterprise risk management framework implementation will increase the performance of the extraction companies in Jordan. Furthermore, all the independent variables (Internal Environment, Event Identification, Risk Assessment, Risk Response, Control Activities, Information and Communication, and Monitoring) are significant predictors, except for objective setting. These variables statistically and significantly predicted performance of extraction companies in Jordan. The findings from this study enable organizations to better understand the status of their ERM implementation and assist them in identifying areas of improvement, with regards to the processes within each ERM elements. Corresponding author: Mohammad Altanashat Email addresses for the corresponding author: altanashat.mohammad@yahoo.com First submission received: 5th May 2018 Revised submission received: 20th July 2018 Accepted: 8th August 2018 Introduction A variety of risks confronts organizations today. Forces such as globalization, regulatory uncertainty, competition and technology add complexity to the business environment, thereby imposing additional risks on the economic entity, and ultimately, decreasing shareholder value. Given these risk factors and others, managers have to achieve a more holistic orientation towards risk management and stronger governance in their organizations (Shannak, 2010). In order to be able to face the complex internal and external challenges of the modern world, a firm's investment in an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) program is no longer a matter of choice, but of necessity. Poor risk management is found to be a major contributor to the credit crisis, and consequently an increasing number of shareholders, Boards of Directors (BOD) and rating agencies are taking a serious view of and analytical approach to adopting risk management (Shoter, 2016). The word enterprise for Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) clearly shows a different meaning than traditional Risk Management. Enterprise means to integrate or aggregate all types of risks, using integrated tools and techniques to mitigate the risks and to communicate across business lines or level compared to Traditional Risk Management (Izah, Tahir, Ahmad, 2011). In recent years, a shift of trend has been observed on how the organizations view and manage risks (Shad, Lai, & Iskandar, 2015) as a fundamental concern of any organization. Instead of the traditional risk management method, which is based on the silo approach, organizations now treat risk management from a holistic perspective which is commonly known as Enterprise Risk Management Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 3 April 2019 www.jbrmr.com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 257 (ERM) (Gordon, Loeb, Tseng, 2009). The instability in the international financial, currency and commodity markets, and uncertainties on the direction of monetary policy in some dominant economies have caused substantial risk facing emerging economies (Ai Ping & Muthuveloo, 2015). The global financial crisis and the consequential implications and effects on the business environment, whether internal or external, constitute one of the most important topics in contemporary research, although analysts are unable to determine their precise causes and sources. While companies face the inevitable risks of the crisis and its consequences that threaten, in some cases, their survival and continuity if not responded to and adapted to. Since the crisis broke out in September 2008, its repercussions and consequences have affected the Jordanian economy in all its sectors (Matar & Nuaimat, 2014). The most significant manifestation of these repercussions was the sharp drop in the profits of the Jordanian public shareholding companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange in 31/12/2008, with all sectors reaching an average drop rate of 48%. This decline was reflected in the trading volumes of those companies, which also fell by 62%. On average, this effect extends to its market values, which fell by an average of 55% (Burghol, 2015); in other words, the wider business and management implications of having or not having a system of ERM should be considered. Forces such as globalization and instability in the political and economic environment add complexity to business and have provided a significant impetus to the importance of managing risks. Internationally, the financial crisis of 2008 has highlighted some weaknesses in the process of risk management (Voinea & Anton, 2009). In the context of the Middle East, the events of the Arab Spring have increased the risk perceptions of organizations (Al Khattab & Hood, 2015). Previous risk management studies on Jordanian organizations (Khattab, Anchor, & Davies, 2008) reported that risk assessment practice is crisis-oriented. Risk management is not fully integrated into the general business and management decision-making process, in that it focuses only on the negative outcomes of possible events and not on the balance between risk and reward. ERM is seen as a top down approach, which constitutes identifying, assessing, and responding to strategic, operational, and financial risks in order to achieve four objectives: strategy (high level goals that align with company mission), operations (effective and efficient use of resources), reporting (reliability of reporting), and compliance (compliance with applicable laws and regulations) (Harner, 2010). ERM is believed to have positive impact on firm’s performance (Shad, Lai, Iskandar, 2015). Therefore, this study sought to determine the relationship between enterprise risk management and institutional performance in public shareholding companies in the southern region of Jordan. Literature Review Risk and Risk Management The term "risk management" is an open-concept that has no specific fixed agreed definition. Every specialist in this area has its own definition of the concept, based on his personal experience and the experience and culture of the organization, which works to manage risks (Abdel-Hay, 2010). Risk management is a continuous process of making and implementing decisions that will minimize the extent of uncertainty concerning exposure to risks that have an impact on the business in other words, it is the natural tendency of the organization to balance between opportunities (Martin, 2013). In this regard risk management is a process affected by an entity’s board of directors, management and other personnel, and is applied in strategy setting and across the enterprise, designed to identify potential events. In turn, it may affect the entity, and manage risk to be within its risk appetite and provide reasonable assurance of the achievement of the entity’s objectives (Bujayrami, 2011). In a state of uncertainty, it is the probability of the occurrence of circumstances/events that could have an influence on the goals established, including the possibility of a loss or a profit based on the difference found in the desired result. Both risk and incident are associated with the possibility of the occurrence of the event causing the danger, and the related effects or consequences (AS/NZS, 2004). The common feature of many risk definitions is that risk deals with uncertainty (Ferkolj, 2010). One of the most general definitions of risk was provided by the International Organization for Standardization in the ISO 31000 standard. According to such standard, risk is defined as the effect of uncertainty on objectives (ISO, 2015). Similarly, Hopkin (2010) provided a comprehensive definition of the word risk in the business context and described a major risk to an organization as "an event with the ability to impact (inhibit, enhance or cause doubt about) the mission, strategy, project, routine operation, objective, core process, key dependencies and/or the delivery of Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 3 April 2019 www.jbrmr.com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 258 stakeholder expectations. By the term uncertainty, we mean the absence of certainty or something, which is not known. It refers to a situation where there are multiple alternatives resulting in a specific outcome, but the probability of the outcome is not certain. This is because of insufficient information or knowledge about the present condition. Hence, it is hard to define or predict the future outcome or events. Uncertainty cannot be measured in quantitative terms through past models. Therefore, probabilities cannot be applied to the potential outcomes, because the probabilities are unknown (Surbhi, 2016). Risk management is a central part of any organization’s management as it helps managers gain an understanding of the potential positive and negative effect of all the internal and external factors surrounding the organization, and thereby, increases the probability of achieving the organization’s
This paper aims to diagnose the current situation of the Colombian wholesale electricity market in relation to the markets of Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. The analysis has been carried out from the point of view of existing supply and demand in the market, of the market participants, of the types of market that have been able to be constituted depending on the regulatory transformations that have taken place, and of the institutional structure on which they are based. This analysis will make it possible to identify whether the Colombian market lags behind the region or whether, on the contrary, it can be considered a benchmark for the other countries in the region.
Finance, Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Arnaud Anciaux, Renaud Carbasse, Josianne Millette
et al.
Les transformations contemporaines traversant les sphères professionnelles de la communication, et se construisant notamment autour du numérique, paraissent nombreuses et potentiellement de grande ampleur, bien qu’il demeure difficile d’en délimiter les contours avec certitude. Dans ces métiers, les conditions d’emploi et les conditions de travail changent graduellement, non sans faire écho à des changements touchant l’ensemble des sociétés, et semblent s’accompagner de réactions diverses, parfois équivoques de la part des différentes catégories d’acteurs. Dans cet article, nous interrogeons les métiers de la communication comme résistances, reflets et accélérations de ces transformations qui les dépassent, afin d’aborder trois propositions principales de travail : le transfert de responsabilités – économiques comme éthiques – à la charge des travailleurs et travailleuses ; la construction de la flexibilité comme idéal au sein d’un entrepreneuriat de soi ; la déstabilisation des carrières au profit d’une mise en avant d’une valeur ajoutée à l’offre de travail. Ensemble, ces mutations au sein des sphères de la communication apparaissent comme une traduction, à la fois reprise et interprétation spécifique, des exigences du capitalisme néolibéral.
Contemporary transformations of labour in the different professional spheres of communication, which are increasingly taking ground in the digital landscape, appear to be emerging on a potentially large scale, although the precise nature and forms of these transformations remain to be studied more closely. Working conditions and modes of employment are gradually changing, echoing larger societal trends, and are met with different, sometimes equivocal reactions. In this article, we look at communication work as a site where these transformations are reflected, resisted and accelerated. We formulate three research avenues: 1) a transfer of responsibility – both of an economic and ethical nature – from the organisations to the workers; 2) the presentation of flexibility as a new ideal in a movement favouring self-entrepreneurship; 3) a destabilization of careers and employment trajectories that puts forward the need for workers to demonstrate their added value and expertise. We argue that, taken together, these transformations that are taking place in communication spheres of work can be considered as translations – both picking up and offering specific interpretations of – neoliberal capitalism and its pressures.
Communication. Mass media, Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Mervi Varhelahti, Marjo Joshi, Mirjamaija Mikkilä-Erdmann
et al.
The aim of this study was to identify which media is chosen for Computed-mediated Communication (CMC) in multicultural business interactions when the main language of communication is English as a lingua franca. The second aim was to determine how the results of this study should be taken into consideration at Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in curriculum development. The analyses employed in this survey followed Media synchronicity theory (MST), originally proposed by Dennis/Valacich (1997) and later refined by Dennis et al. (2008). This study was conducted using a mixed method approach with data from a quantitative survey regarding media usage of 274 respondents and qualitative theme interviews of five working life representatives. The findings indicate that the choice of media varies between different countries and is dependent on the different capabilities and synchronicity of the media. The team structure, communication processes, choice of language, cultural diversity and ethical rules of the company play an important role in communication and are meaningful when choosing the media for communication. The main conclusion is that the ability to choose the media that is suitable for varying communicative situations in working life has become essential and therefore needs to be developed as part of curriculum development work at HEIs.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Machine translation post-editing is becoming commonplace and professional translators are often faced with this unknown task with little training and support. Given the different translation processes involved during post-editing, research suggests that untrained translators do not necessarily make good post-editors. Besides, the post-editing activity will be largely influenced by numerous aspects related to the technology and texts used. Training material, therefore, will need to be tailored to the particular conditions under which post-editing is bound to happen. In this work, we provide a first attempt to uncover what activity professional translators carry out when working from Spanish into Basque. Our initial analysis reveals that when working with moderate machine translation output post-editing shifts from the task of identifying and fixing errors, to that of “patchwork” where post-editors identify the machine translated elements to reuse and connect them using their own contributions. Data also reveal that they primarily focus on correcting machine translation errors but often fail to restrain themselves from editing correct structures. Both findings have clear implications for training and are a step forward in tailoring sessions specifically for language combinations of moderate quality.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) is a widely used approach through manufacturing environments in a variety of sectors. With a tendency to go to specialized, smaller lot sizes in several industries (e.g., the pharmaceutical sector), companies are dealing with capacity bottlenecks if the planning rhythm wheel is not well calibrated or when production lines are not flexible enough in terms of changeover (C/O) and set-up times (S/U) (OEE is too small). A well-established communication system including other enterprise resources or production factors (e.g., Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP) is favorable to any extent. More and more questions arise from stakeholder communities and end-users on whether or not supply chains and manufacturing environments are sustainable and safe. Departments such as Environmental Health, Safety & Sustainability (EHS & S) and Product Stewardship are too often at the “blind” side of the ICT interface. When it comes to product and organizational sustainability, data seems to be lacking in order to conduct sustainability assessments proficiently. Years of intensive research and experience proved that primary data to perform sustainability assessments often are measured through equipment control sensors (e.g., flow rates, temperatures, etc.) and sent to PLCs and many other systems. Nevertheless, these data measurements are in many cases simply not penetrating through the Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) because these bottom-up engineering data seems to be of little value to planning, procurement, etc. This communication paper deals with how sustainability assessments can be embedded in business operational management systems. After all, who does not want a “live Carbon Footprint” for process improvements and external sustainability reporting instead of a series of expensive resource consuming studies of 4 to 6 months digging into data logs in traditional Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)? This communication paper has taken one step further in coupling business ERP systems with environmental sustainability of products, services and enterprises.
After a brief survey of ideas about synesthesia in philosophy, science and the arts, this paper explores the common qualities of the parameters of colour, graphic shape (including typography), timbre and texture, hypothesizes a number of points of correspondence and argues for their semiotic importance in the contemporary multimodal communication of identity.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence
Patent claims define the protection scope of the intellectual property sought by the patent applicant or patentee. Broad claims are valuable as they can describe more expansive rights to the invention. Therefore, if these claims are too broad a potential infringer will more easily argue against them. But if the claims are too narrow the scope of protection of the intellectual property is greatly reduced. Patent claims have to be, on the one hand, determinate and precise enough and, on the other hand, as inclusive as possible. Therefore patent applicants must find a balance in the broadness of the scope defined by their claims. This balance can be achieved by the choice of words with a convenient degree of semantic indeterminacy, by the choice of modifiers or other strategies. In fact, vagueness in patent claims is a desirable characteristic for such documents. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of a corpus of 350 U.S. patents provides a promising starting point to understand the linguistic instruments used to achieve the balance between property claim scope and precision of property description. To conclude, some issues relating vagueness and pragmatics are suggested as a line of further research.
Business communication. Including business report writing, business correspondence