Current thinking about effective written communication does not systematically assess the complex role that language plays in organizations. This article calls for a contingency view of communication clarity and effectiveness based on the impact that an organization's language customs have on perceived effectiveness. To justify this need for a contingency approach, we examine the psychological-social function of organizational language and discuss the role that language has in creating new knowledge in organizations.
Although clarity holds a privileged place within the field of business/management/ corporate communication, adopting a strategic perspective suggests that ambiguity, and even deception, may be appropriate choices, depending on strategic intent. This article builds a framework for analyzing the dark side of strategic communication from both a strategic perspective and a linguistic perspective and then applies it to four business scenarios involving corporate finance; three involve public pronouncements from executives about future stock offerings, while the fourth involves a private statement made by a CEO to an important client and reported to the authors in an interview. The analysis of these scenarios leads the authors to propose that the intentional use of strategic ambiguity occurs along a continuum better represented by multiple shades of gray than a single hue of black.
This study examines the extent to which the leaders of business schools engage with Twitter to reach diverse audiences, the possible links between Twitter usage and the ranking of the Dean’s respective business college, and the linguistic/stylistic approaches adopted. We employed sentiment analysis to examine the linguistic approaches among the various tweets from the Dean’s account. The findings of the study suggest speaking at stakeholders from a public microblog may not be the most effective way to connect with them. Notwithstanding, biological and cognitive constraints limit the economy of attention and relationships in an online world.
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