SPCH 1321 - Organizational and Professional Communication (Wade Cornelius): Web Sites

Use Professional Association Websites

Professional association and organizational websites are excellent resources for identifying issues and trends in your career field. There are professional and trade organizations for almost every industry or career.

What to Look For:

Once you've found the website for a professional organization, you should . . .

• Look for links such as: News, Newsletters, Topics, Publications, Research, Blog, Advocacy, Conference Agenda, Meeting Notes, Press Releases, etc.
• The titles of workshops, professional development sessions, or conferences can also give you a pretty good idea of what issues are important in that field.
• If the organization or association publishes any journals or trade publications, you can usually find those listed under Publications. You may not be able to access the full text of the articles, but you may be able to see the titles and summaries, which will allow you to identify issues and trends.

Search for articles within the professional association publications:

Once you have identified some issues or trends relevant to your field, you can then move on to search for resources that discuss those particular issues in more detail.

Listed below are  some key search terms for you to use when searching for resources about Business and Organizational Communication:

• "adversarial communication"

• "business communication competence"

• "Causality orientation theory"

• "change management"

• "cognitive dissonance theory"

• "collaborative communication"

• "communication accommodation theory"

• "conflict management"

• "decision-making strategies"

• "downward communications"

• "face-to-face communication"

• "group relations"

• "ingratiation theory"

• "interpersonal group relations"

• "organizational communication"

• "team members"

• "upward communications"

• "cross-cultural business interactions"

• empowerment

• "ethical communication"

• symbols