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Communication in any organization is a complex phenomenon. Public schools are people‐centered enterprises in which the primary tasks of teaching and learning are accomplished verbally. Within each school, the principal is uniquely positioned to regulate these communications activities. The research reported here sought to examine how five school principals managed communications in their schools. Three major questions guided the research. What are the preferred modes and levels of communications activities utilized by principals? What are the major messages communicated through various modes and at different levels by principals? What do the communications activities of individual principals tell us about how principals interpret their leadership role in school, how they set administrative priorities, and how they put their beliefs and values into practice? The findings indicate that the communications activities of school principals are dominated by dyadic interpersonal contacts. The major purpose of these dyadic interpersonal exchanges were maintenance messages which related to policies, procedures, and regulations for organizing, operating and perpetuating the school. As an adaptation to the nature of a principal's work life, each principal demonstrated a pragmatic preference for accomplishing his/her communications through talk even when written messages or other mechanisms for message delivery would have been more efficient. Finally, the principals believed that the success of their communications activities in school was characterized by openness, honesty, high visibility, and the ability and capacity to listen.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among information‐seeking behavior, interpersonal communication, perceived procedural justice, and the reduction of job‐related uncertainty.

The sample consisted of 323 Japanese white‐collar workers who completed the questionnaires, with a usable sample of 295.

The results of covariance structure analysis (SEM) revealed that: there were not any direct relationships between information‐seeking behavior and the reduction of work‐related uncertainty; information‐seeking behavior induced a change of voice, explanation, and rational interpersonal communication from decision makers; the provision of voice, explanation, and social sensitivity from decision makers caused outcome recipients’ perception of procedural justice; and their perception of procedural justice caused the reduction of job‐related uncertainty.

There are some limitations of the present study that can be addressed in future research. First, the concept of uncertainty might have been used too broadly to have been applied to the concept of job‐related uncertainty. Second, the respondents in the present research were highly educated white‐collar workers and were selected to attend business school by their companies.

The results of the present study have some practical implications. Under a newly introduced managerial system of performance‐based personnel practices, Japanese companies need to establish a system by which workers can form judgements of fairness.

The paper suggests that one must exercise caution when generalizing the findings of the present study without taking into account the characteristics of the respondents.

During the 1990s the value to an intending professional accountant of undertaking a period of liberal (general) studies was promoted internationally by a number of individuals and organisations, including the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (the “Institute”). The Institute significantly changed its admissions policy for Chartered Accountants in 1996 and one change was to require four years of degree level study with a compulsory liberal studies component. This study surveys the perceptions of New Zealand accounting practitioners on the impact of this compulsory liberal component. The results of this study demonstrate that there is little support from accounting practitioners for IFAC’s claim that liberal education “can contribute significantly to the acquisition of professional skills”, including intellectual, personal and communication skills. In addition, the majority of respondents did not perceive any improvements in the professional skills of the staff that had qualified under the Institute’s current admissions policy. However, any perceived improvements were mainly attributed to the Institute’s admissions policy change. Notwithstanding the lack of support for the assertion that liberal education develops professional skills, there is a strong belief by respondents in the value of liberal education for intending professional accountants.

This paper aims to examine how trust and communication at the personal level relationships conform to trust and communication at the organizational level relationships and which role do the two different level relationships play in influencing firms’ commitment, performance and propensity to stay in long-term relationships.

A face-to-face questionnaire study was conducted using a sample of 209 in Mainland China companies, which were surveyed in nine exhibitions. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The results support the bottom-up effect of interpersonal trust and communication on inter-organizational trust and communication. Interorganizational trust has a more powerful total effect on firm commitment. Interpersonal communication has a more powerful total effect on inter-organizational trust and communication and firms’ operational performance. Interpersonal communication, inter-organizational trust and communication have comparably high impacts on firms’ propensity to stay in long-term relationships.

This paper selects Mainland China as the research context and targets a single boundary spanner in each respondent firm to evaluate both the interpersonal and inter-organizational relationships. A cross-sectional approach was used.

This paper suggests that business people should pay attention to the role of human factors in a firm’s relational exchanges with SC partners and effectively use the positive effects of these factors to create relationship-building benefits.

This paper conducts cross-level research, which has been called for in recently published inter-organizational literature. It develops and provides empirical evidence for a bottom-up model from interpersonal relationships to inter-organizational relationships and identifies their impacts on organizational outcomes simultaneously.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between employees' motives for communicating with superiors and coworkers, their commitment to their organizations, satisfaction with jobs, and with superiors.

This article makes use of survey research, using quantitative research methodology investigating employees' motives for communicating with their superiors and co‐workers, their satisfaction and commitment towards their organization. The research identifies pleasure, escape, relaxation, control and inclusion as motives explaining why people communicate with each other and how they relate to each other.

The findings revealed a relationship between the motives along with satisfaction and commitment. Employees report a moderate commitment with their coworkers as well as superiors. Furthermore, the results showed strong relationships between the control, affection, inclusion, escape and relaxation motives.

The research showed strengthening communication ties from a need to encourage more healthy interpersonal relationships by using jointly constructed reality. This approach was more effective because it goes beyond information process and it involves the process of people together creating what will be the mission and vision of the organization and developing corporate values. In addition, the organization's commitment can be enhanced through job enrichment together with matching the individual's values to those of the organization besides, finding ways and means of improving job satisfaction through different strategies such as improving the quality of the supervision, decentralization of power and counselling. Finally, the investigation serves as a context for evaluating the applicability of previous studies to the manufacturing, oil and petrochemical industries in Bahrain, focusing on Bapco (Bahrain Petroleum Company), GPIC (Gulf Petrochemicals Industries) and ALBA (Aluminum Bahrain ).

The study is the first thorough study conducted in the three above‐mentioned organizations. Therefore, it would be of great value to understand their employees better and improving their communication ties as well as motivation.

The common view of communication is of something that is not really communication. To be effective, communication effort must be seen in its holistic social context, and be managed — planned, co‐ordinated, integrated — and understood. Modern organisational communication, ie interpersonal communication in an organisational setting, must be recognised as a social integrator rather than as a mechanistic management tool. This requires managers to hold a particular concept of interpersonal communication. Evidence of the prevailing concept is provided, a more appropriate view is discussed, and a research agenda is outlined.

This chapter reports how accounting professionals and students perceive the proficiency of their communication skills. We find that professionals perceive themselves as having higher interpersonal skills, writing skills, and speaking skills than do students. Despite decades of accounting curricula’s focus on communication skills, there remains a perception gap between students and professionals on the importance of these skills. Professionals not only perceive that they have stronger communication skills, but they also consider these skills as more important for career success than do students. Furthermore, we find that, even after controlling for the difference in perceived communication skill levels, this perception gap continues to exist between accounting professionals and students.

This study found that 10 of 16 measures of interpersonal communication showed statistical significance between male and female administrators in a university environment. Using the FIRO‐B questionnaire, females preferred to initiate more inclusion and affection in interpersonal activities; also, they wanted other people to include them and to be friendly to them in inter‐personal relationships. Beyond the comparison of males and females, however, it is evident that all scores (both male and female) exist within the mid‐range categories. Thus, it is concluded that interpersonal communication capacity is lacking throughout the sample, and definite actions are needed to increase interpersonal communication effectiveness in organisations.