Teaching Critical Analysis of Persuasive Business Communication: Using Multilevel Marketing Recruitment to Illustrate Predatory Identification

Julie M. Stewart; Thomas Clark

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Teaching Critical Analysis of Persuasive Business Communication: Using Multilevel Marketing Recruitment to Illustrate Predatory Identification

Julie M. Stewart

University of Texas-Dallas, Naveen Jindal School of Management, USA

Thomas Clark

Williams College of Business, Xavier University, USA

Volume 23: 2026 pp. 00-00: ABSTRACT

Students increasingly encounter persuasive business communication that blends empowerment rhetoric, entrepreneurial promise, and community-based appeals. Distinguishing ethical influence from exploitative persuasion is therefore a central learning outcome in business ethics education. This article uses Kenneth Burke's theory of identification as a pedagogical framework for teaching students to analyze the ethicality of communication. Drawing on recruitment materials from three multilevel marketing (MLM) companies, the analysis demonstrates how identification strategies create predatory identification: appeals that exploit legitimate needs through promises structurally unlikely to be fulfilled. Offering instructors a replicable classroom exercise, learning objectives, and an Ethical Persuasion Analysis Worksheet, this framework supports instruction in business ethics, communication, marketing, and organizational behavior.

Keywords: business ethics education, persuasive communication, Kenneth Burke, multilevel marketing, identification theory, pedagogical framework, direct selling, feminist economics