Business Commons^™

Skills-Based Volunteering As Both Work And Not Work: A Tension-Centered Examination Of Constructions Of “Volunteer”, Sarah Steimel

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The Corporation for National and Community Service defines professional skills-based community service as “the practice of using work-related knowledge and expertise in a volunteer opportunity.” Traditional definitions of volunteer work in organizational communication scholarship, however, are typically based on (1) the bifurcation between work and volunteer activity; (2) low barriers to volunteer entry and exit; (3) the lack of managerial power/control over volunteers; and (4) the altruistic focus of volunteer work. An analysis of interviews with 19 skills-based volunteers highlights the identity and role tensions inherent in professional volunteering and serves as the basis for a proposal for a new …

Chaos, Reports, And Quests: Narrative Agency And Co-Workers In Stories Of Workplace Bullying, Stacy Tye-Williams, Kathleen J. Krone

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examined narratives that targets of workplace bullying told about their difficult work experiences along with how co-workers were framed in these narratives. Three different narrative types emerged from their accounts: chaos, report, and quest narratives. Co-worker responses of support or lack thereof were related to the construction of various narrative forms and the level of narrative agency evident in target accounts. The study has important implications for the difference co-workers can make in a target’s ability to withstand bullying and narrate his or her experience.

Connecting With Volunteers: Memorable Messages And Volunteer Identification, Sarah Steimel

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Many of the 1.8 million registered nonprofit organizations in the United States rely on the services of volunteers to be able to connect with and meaningfully serve their communities. However, volunteers are less likely to receive formal socialization and training than paid employees. Thus, this study employs the concept of memorable messages as a way for exploring the ways in which messages received by volunteers from a variety of organizational sources may affect their volunteer identification with the nonprofit organization they serve. Three results emerged from the data, including: (a) sources of memorable messages in volunteer organizations; (b) types of …

Workplace Dignity In A Total Institution: Examining The Experiences Of Foxconn’S Migrant Workforce, Kristen Lucas, Dongjing Kang, Zhou Li

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its …

Blue-Collar Discourses Of Workplace Dignity: Using Outgroup Comparisons To Construct Positive Identities, Kristen Lucas

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

People generally possess a strong desire to construct positive, dignified work identities. However, this goal may be more challenging for some people, such as blue-collar workers, whose occupations may not offer qualities typically associated with workplace dignity. Interviews with 37 people from a blue-collar mining community reveal three central identity discourses about workplace dignity: All jobs are important and valuable; dignity is located in the quality of the job performed; and dignity emerges from the way people treat and are treated by others. Participants communicated these themes by backgrounding their own occupations and drawing comparisons between two outgroups, low-status, low-paid …

Communication Skills Needed By Persons In Business Organizations, Vincent Disalvo, David C. Larsen, William J. Seiler

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Whether we like it or not, this is the age of subject matter relevancy and educational accountability. In order for instruction to be interesting, meaningful, and practical for students, it must be essentially a microcosm of that segment of the “real world” students will be entering upon graduation. The objective of competency- or performance-based models of education suggests that educators should be held accountable for what they teach. However, before teachers can be held accountable they need to know what skills and abilities their students will require in order to be successful in their career objectives.

In addition to the …