Kirk St. Amant is an Associate Professor of Technical and Professional Communication at East Carolina University, and he is also on the faculty of ECU’s Master’s of Arts in International Studies (MAIS) program. His research focuses on international and intercultural communication as it relates to online media and includes international virtual workplaces, international outsourcing/offshoring, and the effects of globalization on online education. He has worked on international projects for companies such as Medtronic, VERITAS Software, the Braun Corporation, and Unisys, and for the non-profit organizations the Humanitarian Demining Information Center (HDIC) and the Consortium for the Enhancement of Ukrainian Management Education (CEUME). Kirk is a senior member of the Society for Technical Communication (STC), and serves on the editorial board for the STC journal Technical Communication. He is also the Associate Editor for Globalization and Outsourcing for the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication – the journal of the IEEE Professional Communication Society.
Degrees
B.A. Bowdoin College
M.A. James Madison University
Ph.D. University of Minnesota
Primary Areas of Research/Teaching
Intercultural and international communication
Online education in global environments
Globalization and offshoring/international outsourcing
Rhetoric of economics in global contexts
Courses Taught
7785: History of Professional Communication
7765: Intercultural Technical Communication
7730: Issues in Technical and Professional Communication
7705: Ethics in Technical and Professional Communication
5780: Advanced Writing for Business and Industry
Selected Publications and Presentations
With Robert Cunningham. (2009), “Examining Open Source Software in Offshoring Contexts: A Perspective on Adding Value in an Age of Globalization.” Technical Communication, 56: 361-369.
With Matthew McCool. (2009). “Field Dependence and Classification: Implications for Global Information Systems.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60: 1258-1266.
With Jan M. Ulijn. (2009). “Examining the Information Economy: Exploring the Overlap between Professional Communication Activities and Information Management Practices.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 52: 225-228.
With Pavel Zemliansky (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Virtual Workplaces and the New Nature of Business Practices. Hershey, PA: Idea Group, 2008.
With Sigrid Kelsey (Eds.) Handbook of Research on Computer Mediated Communication Vol I. and Vol. II. Hershey, PA: Idea Group, 2008.
With Daniel Flage, Noel Hendrickson, William Hawk, and William O’Meara. The Elements of Critical Thinking. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008.
(Ed.) Linguistic and Cultural Online Communication Issues in the Global Age. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2007. (337 pages)
“Outsourcing: Perspectives, Practices, and Projections.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 50 (2007): 81-84.
“Online Education in an Age of Globalization: Foundational Perspectives and Practices for Technical Communication Instructors and Trainers.” Technical Communication Quarterly, 16 (2007): 13-30.
“Globalizing Rhetoric: Using Rhetorical Concepts to Identify and Analyze Cultural Expectations Related to Genres.” Hermes – Journal of Language and Communication Studies, 37 (2006): 47-66.
