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The purpose of this paper is to examine how the boundaries of rhetoric have excluded important theoretical and practical subjects and how these subjects are recuperated and extended since the twentieth century. Its purpose is to foster the awareness on emerging new trends of rhetoric.

The methodology is based on an interpretation of the history of rhetoric and on the construction of a conceptual framework of the rhetoric of judgment, which is introduced in this paper.

On the subject of the extension of rhetoric from public speeches to any kinds of persuasive situations, the paper emphasizes some stimulating relationships between the theory of communication and rhetoric. On the exclusion and recuperation of the subject of rhetorical arguments, it presents the changing relationships between rhetoric and dialectics and emphasizes the role of rhetoric in scientific research. On the introduction of rhetoric of judgment and meanings it creates a conceptual framework based on a re-examination of the concept of judgment and the phenomenological foundations of the interpretative methods of social sciences by Alfred Schutz, relating them to symbolic interactionism and theories of the self.

The study on the changing boundaries of rhetoric and the introduction of the rhetoric of judgment offers a new view on the present theoretical and practical development of rhetoric, which opens new subjects of research and new fields of applications.

The authors unpack the critical role of rhetoric in developing and justifying the New Zealand (NZ) government's coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown strategy.

Using Green's (2004) theory of rhetorical diffusion, the authors analysed government documents and media releases before, during and after the lockdown to reconstruct the government's rationale.

The blending of kairos (sense of urgency and “right” time to act), ethos (emphasis on “saving lives”), pathos (fear of disruption and death) and selective use of health-based logos (shrinking infection rates), prompted fast initial adoption of the lockdown. However, support for the rhetoric wavered post-lockdown as absence of robust logos became apparent to the public.

The authors implicate the role of rhetoric in decision-makers’ ability to successfully elicit support for a new practice under urgency and the right moment to act using emotionalisation and moralisation. The assessment of the NZ government's response strategy provides insights decision-makers could glean in developing policies to tame the virus.

This study’s analysis demonstrates the unsustainability of rhetoric in the absence of reliable information.

The authors demonstrate the consequences of limited (intermittent) evidence and disregard for accounting/accountability data in public policy decisions under a rhetorical strategy.

Previous research has shown that eras of managerial rhetorics have alternated between normative and rational ideologies. The purpose of this study is to test the influence of generational membership on this phenomenon.

Examining data for the past 130 years, eras of managerial rhetorics are matched with recurring generational archetypes.

Empirical evidence is analyzed and found to be generally supportive of the hypotheses: generational membership is associated with the timing of the alternation in managerial rhetorics.

The findings of association suggest generational change could be a causal driver of long‐term change in managerial rhetorics.

The model tested implies a predictive ability to anticipate the movement from the current normative rhetoric to a new rational rhetoric in the near future.

This study is the first to find evidence that the alternation between rational and normative managerial rhetorics is related to generational effects.

The need for a permanent revolution in organizational structures and use of human resources is legitimated by reference to the need to adapt to ever more turbulent times. This gives rise to and is sustained by a distinctive anti‐bureaucratic rhetoric based largely on over‐hyped, unrepresentative examples and misunderstood processes. However, though empirically unsustainable, the rhetoric survives, in part because this kind of managerial discourse is playing by different rules. Explores and challenges the internal dynamics of this discourse to show that the rhetoric of discontinuity has been a continuous feature. Uses case studies of privatized utilities and analysis of the literature to explore both the gap between rhetoric and reality, and how managers operate in that gap.

The purpose of this paper is to combine conceptual and documentary research.

Drawing on a range of New Zealand curriculum documents and on the history of English subject in the New Zealand context, it maps aspects of the contestation that has accompanied the development of various versions of the subject over time. It also explores ways in which the subject has always drawn on a range of primary disciplinary discourses through a process of recontextualization (Bernstein, 2000).

Based on this analysis, it problematizes the conventional location of literary study within the English curriculum, arguing that this arrangement disadvantages English as an additional language (EAL) students with an interest in literature. As another plank in the argument, it argues that literary study is itself currently disadvantaged by being linked to narrowly conceived notions of textual practice and the pervasive power of high-stake assessment technologies in constructing content and pedagogy.

A solution to both problems is offered, arguing a case for relocating literary study in an expanded Arts curriculum. The paper then goes on to draw on the concept of disciplinary literacy, to argue a case for the “reinvention” of the English teacher as a cross-disciplinary resource teaching a re-framed subject renamed “Disciplinary Rhetorics”. It concludes by discussing the implications of these two re-envisionments for English teacher identities and the construction of their professional content and pedagogical knowledge.

In previous research on rhetoric and narrative in management research, cultural narratives have been studied as tools to reflect on rhetorical situations from the perspective of management. The purpose of this paper is to present a similar exploration of rhetoric while focusing on a modern example from popular culture: the television series Mad Men.

This paper first discusses rhetorical concepts from the work of Kenneth Burke and Richard Lanham as inspirational guides, thereafter, these concepts are used to analyze the case of Mad Men. Specifically, the main character Don Draper is analyzed as a homo rhetoricus in an attention economy.

Don Draper becomes a case study of what it means to introduce a rhetorical perspective in advertising and management. It is argued that Don Draper’s reflections in the series can be described as a “perspective on perspectives” or as a “toggling” between different rhetorical perspectives.

Previous research discussed the emergence of spinning and the appearance of the “spin doctor” as a major figure in society in general and fiction in particular. In this article, it is argued that the same is also true for advertising. Mad Men is introduced as a case study about the revival of rhetoric as a major skill and an important perspective in and for our personal, professional and social lives.

In the United States in 1957 a fresh intellectual excitement emerged within the field of educational administration; high hopes were held for the potential contribution of theory‐oriented research. But in retrospect from 1967 the promise of the decade does not appear to have been fulfilled. Vast Federal funding has proven to be only a mixed blessing. An obsessional preoccupation with “change” has diverted efforts away from basic research, has induced intellectual homogenization within the academic community, and has bombarded administrators with so many exigencies that their planning efforts have been increasingly concentrated upon short‐term perspectives, at best. Never before have politics, education and welfare been commingled so incestuously. Four serious concerns that must now be dealt with in our graduate programs are: the mythology of human motivations; the juggernant of “the Technological Society”; the mythology of change; and the impact of existentialism upon modern man.

This article uses discourse theory to examine the rhetoric of human resource management (HRM) in shaping organisational change. Built on the assumptions that people actively construct their “organisational world” and that language is central to these processes of social construction, HRM is treated as a discursive resource that can be used by managers to persuade employees to accept a particular world view of organisational change. Drawing upon a private sector case study, the article highlights important implications on the use of HRM rhetoric not addressed by conventional research designs concerned with notions of “strategic fit” and “best practice”. Here organisations are treated as being part of an objective reality that can be “measured” using some kind of statistical analysis. This article challenges assumptions underpinning these designs and examines the potential of discourse theory to develop richer insights into questions about the practicalities and ethics of managing meaning at the workplace.