ABSTRACT

This chapter examines rhetorical function of business attire as the visual, aesthetic expression of organizational values and its influential role in the rhetorical process of establishing, maintaining, and enhancing an individual’s ethos in the workplace. It discusses how business attire serves as both an influential, concrete visual expression of an organization’s core values and a means to encode and convey its organizational ethos. Credibility or ethos as it relates to impression management, professionalism, and integrity informs many of the lessons business educators deliver in their classrooms, whether working with college freshmen, undergraduates, or more seasoned MBAs. Exploring the communicative function of business clothing has likewise informed the research questions posed by business communication scholars examining the semiotics of business attire in the workplace and the various meanings it conveys to multiple audiences. As a visual rhetorical device, accountant’s traditional business suit signifies or connotes a visual message about the employee’s ethos and that of the firm he or she represents.