ACADEMIC WRITING DEFICIENCIES OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT STUDENTS: CAUSES, EFFECTS AND SOLUTIONS

Producing scholarly text by most of the Business Management students in the countries in which English is used as second and/or foreign language can be stated as a difficult task, as it requires enhanced written communicative skills and comprehensive linguistic background. A large number of Business Management students do not have the comprehensive linguistic background and thus lack the enhanced written communicative skills. The present study aimed at shedding light on the importance of expression and diction in the English language in terms of writing academic text. Ten class assignments and thirty-five final reports submitted by the different business management students enrolled in different semesters were analysed to describe the causes, effects and solutions for the academic writing deficiencies of business management students. It also analysed the different most frequently occurred grammatical errors. Based on the findings, the study recommended a 5-step criterion to measure the adequacy of academic writing of business students. Based on its general applicability to the business students, the criterion is acceptable by any business school offers academic courses in English as a second language. Different demographic variables should be used for the use of this criterion in practice to explore the differences found based on gender, race, ethnicity, background etc. However, the most important use of this 5-step criterion is to evaluate the academic writing deficiencies experienced by a particular group of business students. Therefore, the scope of this study is applicable, but not limited to the business schools professors, business school students, and business schools course designers/developers.