Colleen Keough

Colleen
Keough

Clinical Professor of Communication
Colleen M. Keough, PhD is an award-winning researcher, teacher-scholar and advocate for academic-practitioner collaborations, as well as an active mentor for junior faculty and students.
(213) 740-3944
Colleen Keough
Colleen M. Keough, PhD is an award-winning researcher, teacher-scholar and advocate for academic-practitioner collaborations, as well as an active mentor for junior faculty and students.
Expertise: 
Argumentation, Advocacy and Rhetoric, Education, Groups, Organizations and Networks, Social Justice

Colleen
Keough

Clinical Professor of Communication
(213) 740-3944

Tabs

During her more than 30 years at USC, Keough has designed and taught 22 different courses, served as public speaking course director, mentored dozens of instructors, and specialized in curriculum development. Her university service includes faculty mediation officer and Fulbright Scholar coach.

Her academic research interests include communication in alternative dispute resolution and negotiation, organizational culture, food communication and civic engagement. Keough pursues engaged scholarship that integrates theoretical research and practical application and draws on her past industry experience as she works with academics to identify practitioner-oriented research projects. She is a past winner of the W. Charles Redding Dissertation Award from the International Communication Association’s Organizational Communication Division. (W. Charles Redding is also a USC alumnus.)

Keough has extensive organizational development and training experience in a variety of for-profit and non-profit organizations. She has spent many years working with managers and senior executives in the areas of conflict management skills, presentation effectiveness, relationship management, and all aspects of management training. Internationally, she has conducted strategic planning and financial management workshops in Central and Eastern Europe and negotiation workshops for Chinese and Japanese clients.

Keough has served as a volunteer facilitator with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Dispute Resolution office working on community issues through the “Days of Dialogue” program. Keough recently served on the board of directors of the American Spaniel Club and is now on the Strategic Planning Committee, specializing in communication and outreach activities. She has PhD from USC, MA from Purdue University, and BA from University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Awards and honors:

W. Charles Redding Dissertation Award, Organizational Communication Division, International Communication Association (1989)
USC Mellon Award for Faculty Mentoring Nominee (2009)

Books

International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication. “Negotiation and bargaining.” (2017, Wiley & Blackwell)

The ethical nexus. “Values as structuring properties of contract negotiations.” (1993, Ablex)

Communication and negotiation.“Bargaining arguments and argumentative bargainers.” (1992, Sage)

Journal Articles

“The case of the aggrieved expatriate.” (1998, Management Communication Quarterly)

“Community or colony: The case of online newspapers and the web.” (1998, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication)

“The nature and function of argument in organizational bargaining research.” (1987, The Southern Speech Communication Journal)

Courses

CMGT 505: Communication in Work Settings
CMGT 576: Communication Strategies for Conflict Management