Corporate Culture and its Effect on Audience Awareness

This case study explores how engineers at one consulting firm analyzed intended audiences using an array of analysis strategies. It finds that the engineers most often used these strategies intuitively and that their use of the strategies was influenced by values considered important in their organization's culture. This suggests that communicaters can intentionally choose among an array of audience analysis strategies, and the choices of analysis strategy, information to include/exclude, and style are influenced by the organizational culture in which the communicater works. This further suggests that professionals can analyze their intended audiences to determine whether the audience is likely to share the organization's assumptions and values upon which a communication is based.