Kitty O. Locker

The Challenge of Interdisciplinary Research

This is the Outstanding Researcher Award Lecture presented at the 1993 Meeting of the Association for Business Communication in November 1993 in Montréal. Each year the Association considers nominees for the Outstanding Researcher Award; Kitty Locker is the third person to receive the award. This is an expanded version of her remarks.

The Role of The Association for Business Communication in Shaping Business Communication as an Academic Discipline

The Association for Business Communication (ABC) has been instrumental in the development of business communication as an academic discipline. This article reviews ABCs impact in seven areas: nurturing teachers; establishing advanced courses, majors, and PhDs in business communication; fostering knowledge about international business communication; providing access to communicators in business; providing a voice for the profession; providing an academic home; and facilitating research. Research is the key to maturing as a discipline. Although we must meet our challenges individually and locally, ABC must continue to provide support and counsel so that we can continue the work of creating new knowledge and bringing our discipline to maturity.

Studying the History of Business Communication

THE HISTORY OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION is a H promising field for research and a congenial research area for anyone with expertise in the analysis of texts. In the colloquium that follows, five scholars working in the history of business and professional communication examine some of the questions facing the would-be researcher. Together, we determined the questions we wanted to address. Each person wrote answers, which were then compiled. Then we had two rounds of revision, enabling us not only to clarify or expand but also to respond to issues the others had raised. The result is a &dquo;conversation&dquo; conducted by e-mail and floppy disk. The following comments come from our answers to five questions:

As Per Your Request: A History of Business Jargon

Conventional phrases have existed in business letters since at least 1589, but both the number of phrases in conventional use and the phrases which consti tute jargon have changed. Texts have criticized jargon since at least 1914, but the phrases texts criticize continue to be used. Terms become conventional be cause inexperienced business writers copy existing correspondence. Jargon persists because people think that business letters should use jargon and be cause using jargon enables authors to write or dictate quickly.

Will Professional Communication Be the Death of Business Communication

IN THE LAST 15 YEARS, business and technical communication, once separate courses and areas of study in US universities, have increasingly, though incompletely, merged into a field called &dquo;professional communication.&dquo; The reasons for this merger are largely political but are facilitated by a common base in theory and research. I believe that business communication is in danger of being buried by professional communication and needs to preserve its own identity as a field. In this paper, I will first review the growth of business and technical communication courses as college courses in US universities, then document the move to &dquo;professional&dquo; communication in English departments and explain why technical communication dominates &dquo;professional&dquo; communication. Finally, I argue that faculty who teach business communication in business schools should

Special Section on Technology and Business Communication

The changing use of technology in the workplace is staggering. While large organizations have long had computers, networks formerly controlled by a vast hierarchy of information control are now being challenged by new technology dominated by electronic mail, voice mail, FAX, and new collaborative systems. Computers--telephones-graphic systems~nce separate technologies are now merging into integrated communication technologies. This special section on technology in this issue explores the expanding use of technology in the workplace as well as in the business communication classroom.