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What Communication Abilities Do Practitioners Need? Evidence from MBA Students

Georgetown School of Business, Georgetown University, Washington DC 20057

Annette N. Shelby

Georgetown School of Business, Georgetown University, Washington DC 20057

We collected written critical incidents from young business practitioners entering our MBA program, asking each person to describe a work-related communication episode that had challenged him or her and to answer several questions about the episode. Most often, respondents reported face-to-face oral events that required the respondent to function as an advocate or to manage conflict. Both gender and first language correlated with responses, suggesting that persons of different genders and cultures have differing business experi ences or draw differing conclusions from their experiences. On the basis of these results, we call for management communication courses to give sufficient attention to oral communication events that require spontaneity, persuasion, conflict management, and boundary spanning.

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