Organizational Communication Commons^™

Discourse Markers In Conflict Management: A Literature Review, Erica W. Martin, Krystle L. Hunter

Peace and Conflict Studies Journal Conference

Discourse Markers in Conflict Management: A Literature Review

Discourse markers, often seen as fillers in conversation, are important for managing interpersonal conflicts. This literature review aims to show how these markers influence conflict dynamics, with implications for promoting peace and strengthening community relationships. By combining research from linguistics, communication studies, and conflict resolution, the review looks at how discourse markers function during three phases of conflict: initiation, escalation, and de-escalation. The authors aim to improve both theoretical understanding and practical approaches to engaging constructively in conflicts, enhancing cohesion within global and local communities through better communication.

Using a qualitative synthesis …

Managing The Mood: How Managerial Communication Shapes The Experience Of Emotional Labor Among Restaurant Employees, Brynn Olverson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Restaurant work is emotionally demanding work for servers and bartenders. Organizational Support Theory (Eisenberger et al., 1986) suggests that employees’ perceptions of their organizations’ support can bolster the negative side effects of such work. However, past instruments used to measure these perceptions do not distinguish between types of emotional experience, nor separate perceptions of emotional support from other forms of support. Likewise, OST notes that supervisors play a key role in influencing perceptions of organizational support, but more work is needed to determine specific communicative behaviors that can increase perceptions of organizational support. The study at hand proposes that managers' …

Merger Crisis Role-Play: Organizational Behavior In Action, Jyro B. Triviño

Leadership and Strategy Faculty Publications

To advance professionally, students must be prepared to navigate dynamic and contentious organizational environments by articulating their varied views, protecting their personal and professional intentions, anticipating challenges, and then fostering consensus. This paper addresses a high-stakes, multi-round immersive role-play simulation of a company merger in an undergraduate Organizational Behavior course. Grounded in the core pillars of experiential learning, adaptive leadership, and organizational sensemaking, this classroom exercise places students in a pre-set, realistic post-merger leadership team facing immediate business challenges. Compared to traditional case studies, this method requires students to demonstrate real-time organizational behavior competencies, providing a powerful platform for negotiation …

Nbc Peacock North Winter 2026 Newsletter, Peacock North Staff

NBC Peacock North Newsletter

Highlights include: Al Roker is our Guest Speaker, NBC Turns 100! --Tom Wolzien interviewed by Karen Curry and Marilyn Altman -- When Vinnie Novak Met Fidel Castro -- Silent Microphones -- The Oscars will be Streamed in 2029

Digital Diplomacy And Activism: Sustaining Institutional Legacy Through State-Proxy Discursive Competition In The Aftermath Of The Usaid 2025 Suspension, Maryam Alaa Elprince

Capstone and Graduation Projects

This study examines how the 2025 suspension of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) transformed the arena of U.S. foreign-aid diplomacy by eliminating the agency’s operational capacity and erasing its digital presence, thereby redistributing discursive authority across a fragmented communicative field. The research aims to determine how diplomacy adapts when a bilateral institution central to American soft power is dismantled through top-down decision, and whether discursive power exercised online can extend institutional relevance and legitimacy beyond structural collapse. Using an interpretivist qualitative design that combines digital-forensic reconstruction, document-based content analysis, and elite interviews  with top ranking officials, the …

The Effects Of Inadequate Training On Knowledge Management Systems: Retention Crisis Of Captains In The United States Army, Lexis R. Grudzinski

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the relationship between the United States Army’s communication strategy in knowledge management for officers and the desires of captains to continue serving beyond their service obligation. Amidst the current retention crisis (Winkie, 2023) at the captain rank, blame often falls on factors outside of the Army’s control. This research, however, seeks to investigate a factor within the Army’s control and offer workable solutions.

For this research, we will use the common definition of knowledge management (KM): the process of creating, capturing, and organizing knowledge within an organization in a way that improves efficiency. KM includes both explicit …

Crisis Communication Guidebook For Small And Medium-Sized Food Business: From Theory To Practice, Yixin Li

Masters Theses

This creative thesis aims to develop a practical crisis communication guidebook for small and medium-sized food businesses. Compared with larger businesses that have greater human and financial resources, small and medium-sized food businesses are often more vulnerable to the influences of crises on revenue and reputation. For this reason, they have a bigger need for practical and systematic crisis guidance. This project is grounded in crisis communication theory and analyzes existing literature in order to translate academic research and theoretical knowledge into an applied guidebook.

The guidebook is organized into three sections based on the timeline of crisis development: before …

“We Do Things A Little Different Exactly As You'd Expect Here...": Egocentric Network Structures As Predictors Of Organizational Culture Type, Ray Celeste S. Tanner

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This dissertation examines organizational culture as an outcome of communication structures by integrating the Competing Values Framework (CVF) with egocentric network analysis. Although CVF is one of the most widely used frameworks for diagnosing organizational culture and predicting organizational effectiveness, prior research has overwhelmingly treated culture as an independent variable. Responding to calls for greater attention to the antecedents of culture, this study reconceptualizes organizational culture as a dependent variable and investigates how individuals’ perceived communication networks predict perceptions of CVF culture types. Using egocentric network data collected from employees across a diverse range of organizations and industries, this study …

Crisis Communication In The Influencer Era: A Crisis Response Analysis Of Poppi And Alani Nu, Meredith E. Staley

Honors College Theses

As social media continues to reshape modern public relations practice, beverage brands like Alani Nu and Poppi offer relevant examples of influencer-driven communication and crisis response. This honors thesis compares and contrasts these brands following two major crises: Poppi’s influencer vending machine campaign and the health concerns and backlash surrounding Alani Nu’s energy drinks. Despite the well-known prevalence of these brands, there is little scholarly research examining their crisis communication strategies. Guided by Situational Crisis Communication Theory, this study uses a combination of social and news media content analysis to evaluate how each brand responded to its respective crisis. Each …

Communicating Wildfire Risk In Real Time: An Idea Model Analysis Of Watch Duty Alerts, Audrey E. Miller-Greene

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Traditional wildfire public information systems often rely on fragmented data provided through multiple government agencies and platforms. Historically, community members have been required to identify and piece together information necessary for preparation, evacuation, and decision-making during wildfire events. Watch Duty, a 501(c)(3), works to address this gap by compiling fragmented wildfire information for the public. The platform has undergone rapid growth and increased public reliance, providing a rationale for this research project. As Watch Duty expands its capabilities, its messages should be evaluated against established risk and crisis communication best practices. This study evaluates alerts released by Watch Duty during …

Making Sense Of Membership: Organizational Socialization Of African Immigrant Employees In U.S. Workplaces, Ikeola J. Bodunde

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This dissertation examines how African immigrant employees make sense of organizational socialization in U.S. workplaces. As global mobility reshapes the labor force, nearly one in five U.S. workers is foreign-born, making organizational socialization an increasingly complex communicative process. Classic socialization models assume linear, uniform adjustment, yet international employees often face ambiguity, cultural mismatch, and racialized expectations that complicate early workplace experiences. Guided by sensemaking theory, this study conceptualizes socialization as an ongoing, nonlinear process through which newcomers notice cues, construct interpretations, act on provisional understandings, and revise meanings as contexts shift. Using a qualitative, interpretive design, I conducted semi-structured interviews …

Bilingualsim In The Workplace: How Work Attitudes Influence Burnout And Turnover Intentions, Andrea Del Aguila

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Understanding whether language status functions as a risk or protective factor for employee well-being and retention is essential for developing organizational policies that support workers from varied demographic backgrounds. This study examined how work attitudes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work engagement are seen among bilingual and monolingual workers and how these outcomes relate to employee burnout and turnover intentions. An outside researcher from Talent Metrics Consulting collected data via an online survey utilizing previously validated measures of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, burnout, work engagement, and turnover intentions. Participants were recruited through online advertising and social sampling obtaining …

Impact Of Instagram Flyers In Higher Education: Within Resident Assistant Program Attendance Marketing, Mary J. Mcdonald

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

This exploratory pilot study examines whether posting Instagram digital flyers affects Resident Assistant (RA) program attendance in the higher-education Housing and Residence Life (HRL) context. Instagram has emerged as a dominant channel of communication among Generation Z (1997-2012). As a result, higher education institutions have increasingly used social media to prompt student engagement and foster belonging, in hopes of strengthening retention. Using a quasi-experimental matched comparison design, attendance data from the 2024 academic year without Instagram flyers were compared to the 2025 academic year with Instagram flyers. The independent variable was the implementation of Instagram digital flyers, and the dependent …

Critical Feminist Editorial Praxis: My Tenure As The First Journal Editor Of Color Of Communication Monographs, Srivi Ramasubramanian

Media Studies - All Scholarship

In this essay I theorize about Critical Feminist Editorial Praxis, which envisions journal editing as a site for scholar-activism. I use the term activism because to counter the hegemonic whiteness and coloniality of Communication knowledge requires active efforts to go against the taken-for-granted processes and practices. Journal editing is a significant location for interventions because this is often where we learn what is considered cutting-edge scholarship within our discipline. This significance is especially clear when the journal in question is a flagship publication of a leading professional organization. As I end my tenure as the first editor of color of …

The Role Of Media Literacy In Shaping Campus Student Leaders’ Perceptions Of Media Activism, Online Risks, And Social Support, Srivi Ramasubramanian, Minnie Mcmillian, Shumaila Bhatti, Shannon Burth, Julius Matthew Riles, Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, Melody Wilson

Media Studies - All Scholarship

Campus activism by student leaders has historically played a significant role in social movements. Within contemporary contexts, media is an important site through which campus student leaders raise awareness, share relevant information, distribute online petitions, and shape public discourses on various social issues. Media literacy is an essential skill for student leaders to be effective in their activist initiatives and be able to cope with the inevitable pushback through trolling and cyberbullying that such activism would likely bring up. This survey (N = 855) with college student leaders across three universities explores how they rate themselves on media literacy skills, …

The Journey To Generative Conflict: An Action Research Study In A Community Action Agency, Maya Townsend

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Countries around the world face unprecedented levels of polarization and discontent, creating conditions that encourage organizational conflict as employees replicate patterns present within the environment. Organizational conflict can be a source of anxiety, a distraction from work, and an impediment to innovation, sound decision making, and quality outcomes. However, conflict need not be destructive. With that background, this dissertation is guided by the following primary research question: How can an organization develop a generative conflict culture that strengthens relationships and contributes to positive outcomes? The single-case study follows one community action agency as it seeks to develop and implement more …

Motivational Interviewing Impact On Provider Burnout, Julie Cook

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

The study of patient–provider communication rarely considers the impact of provider–patient dialogue on providers themselves. This dissertation explores why motivational interviewing (MI) has been shown to reduce burnout among health care providers who use it. Using the empathic communication model (ECM) as a lens, it examines possible explanations for how MI contributes to lower burnout in providers. A mixed‑methods approach was used, consisting of a survey‑based quantitative study and a qualitative study using semi‑structured interviews. The quantitative study surveyed physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. Participants were asked questions assessing their knowledge of MI, the types of empathy they experience …

An Exploration Of The Professionalization Of Graduate Students Using Rhetorical Theory, Jennifer M. Crowell

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

This qualitative study examines the professionalization of graduate students as a rhetorically mediated and relational process of identity development within an interdisciplinary doctoral program. While existing scholarship emphasizes institutional structures and formal mechanisms of professional preparation, less attention has been given to how graduate students experience professionalization at the individual level. This study addresses that gap by exploring how students interpret expectations, use rhetorical strategies, and construct professional identities across multiple disciplinary contexts.

Grounded in organizational rhetoric and community of practice theory, the study investigates how graduate students in the Texts & Technology Ph.D. Program at the University of Central …

Speaking For The Families: Organizational Socialization Of Military Spouses In Volunteer Leader Positions, Virginia Klaus

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Military spouses holding volunteer leadership positions in military unit family readiness groups, provide a link between commanders and families of service members. They act within military organizations as the only official voice of spouses, a stakeholder group recognized as influential in retention rates and force readiness. Despite their importance, military spouses are often portrayed in research as passive members, taking on roles to meet the expectations of their peers and military organizations. That contradicts historical evidence of military spouses as active organizational members who have socialized other spouses, and as family advocates who have challenged military organizational practices and policies. …

The Communicative Constitution Of Resilience In Graduate-Student Parenthood: Ventriloqual Analysis, Intersectionality, And Sociomaterial Assemblages, Lin Lin

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Graduate education is often organized around norms of uninterrupted productivity, flexibility, and professional availability, making graduate study especially challenging for students who are simultaneously raising children. Although prior research has documented the structural barriers faced by graduate student parents (GSPs), less attention has been paid to how resilience is communicatively enacted within the intersection of academic work and family life. This dissertation examines how GSPs communicatively constitute resilience while navigating work-life disruptions. Drawing on Communication Theory of Resilience (CTR) and the communicative constitution of organizations (CCO) perspective, particularly ventriloqual analysis, this study explores how resilience emerges through interactions among human …