Suggests the field of communication studies is substantially marked by a nearly exclusive emphasis on culture that risks ignoring a powerful class antagonism between workers and employers. Notes that current literature in the field emphasizes voice, identity, and cultural microstrategies in the workplace rather than on labor's agency in winning…

Analyzes mid-life professional women's experiences of growing older at work. Notes that women do not simply reproduce the decline narrative (experiencing and articulating growing older in terms of loss, isolation, and diminished material resources)--they also offer resistant stories. Highlights implications for theory and practice, and suggests…

Reports on a study intended to develop a typology of "troublesome others" at work as a basis for research on unpleasant work relationships. Notes respondents rated an unpleasant work associate on a series of Likert-type scales. Present six troublesome boss clusters, eight troublesome peer clusters, and five troublesome subordinate clusters…

Demonstrates the centrality of emotion in the organizing process. Focuses on the enjoyment 911 dispatchers derive from their performance of emotional labor as comic relief, as a fix, or as altruistic service. Speaks to the broader issue of emotional labor in the construction of organizational community. (NH)

Analyzes and critiques a front-page article in the "Wall Street Journal." Finds that, underlying an image of fun and equitable workplace, is a disquieting depiction of adversarial gendered relationships, and of career advice that can damage the competence assessments and long-term advancement of women. (SR)

Claims the emotional labors of the majority of service workers are neither fully recognized nor compensated. Uses A. Hochschild's surface, passive deep, and active deep acting notions to identify the emotional labors (effort and dissonance) employees experience communicating with customers when trying to feel and/or display emotions that are…

Engages Silicon Valley as both a real site of high technology organizations and as a contested, symbolic site of cultural discourse. Develops five themes that indicate how communication scholars might engage Silicon Valley as a "noisy" site swarming with the interrelated dialects of organization and culture. Demonstrates how the…

Presents the case study involving a fictitious company's English-only policy and threats of legal action based on that policy. Includes the following responses: "Legal Issues Posed in the Language Dilemma" (Gregory S. Walden); "English Only: A Workplace Dilemma" (Alan Pakiela); "Problems with English-Only Policies" (Barbara Lynn Speicher); and…

Investigates whether individual levels of organizational commitment are related positively to perceptions of organizational climate and of communication climate. Finds that employees' perceptions of organizational climate and of communication climate were correlated positively with the level of employees' organizational commitment. (PRA)

Assesses the level of job satisfaction among public relations practitioners. Finds that autonomy, variety of tasks, and upward mobility results in satisfaction. Identifies as causes of dissatisfaction small budgets, dead-end jobs, dull work, low prestige, unsupportive bosses, low pay, lack of input into the decision process, and sexism. (KEH)