Rate My Professor James O'Rourke

James O'Rourke is a Teaching Professor Emeritus in the Department of Management & Organization at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business. He earned a BBA in Management from the University of Notre Dame, an MS in Mass Communication from Temple University, an MA in Speech Communication from the University of New Mexico, and a PhD in Public Communication from Syracuse University, followed by post-doctoral studies at Christ's College, Cambridge University. A lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, he trained officers in media relations before joining Notre Dame in 1990, where he taught for 35 years and instructed over 10,000 students in undergraduate and graduate courses on corporate communication, reputation management, public speaking, and business writing. O'Rourke founded the Fanning Center for Business Communication in 1990 and served as its Arthur F. and Mary J. O'Neil Director from 2008 to 2017. He also established the Conference on Corporate Communication at Notre Dame.

O'Rourke's research specializations encompass corporate communication, crisis and reputation management, and business writing and speaking. He authored 23 books, including Management Communication, 7th edition (Routledge, 2023), Strategic Crisis Communication with Jeffrey Smith (Routledge, 2023), Management Communication: A Case-Analysis Approach, 7th edition (Routledge, 2023), and The Truth About Confident Presenting, 3rd edition (Anthem Press, 2024). He produced nearly 450 case studies, forming the largest English-language collection on management and corporate communication, with notable examples such as 'Burberry, Ltd.: Is It Okay to Burn Unsold Goods?' (2020) and 'Honda Motor Company: Communication and the Takata Airbag Crisis' (2019). His accolades include multiple Arthur W. Page Case Writing Prizes from 2003 to 2020, the Distinguished Service Award from the Arthur W. Page Society (2017), the Grand Prize in the COMM PRIX Awards for Academic Case Writing (2016), the Distinguished Publication on Business Communication from the Association for Business Communication (2010), and the John A. Kaneb Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2004). Through the Arthur W. Page Society, O'Rourke advised global chief communications officers, profoundly influencing crisis communication practices and business education by stressing authenticity in reputation management.