JOURNAL

10.1177/0021943604271958
Forman,
Markus
OF BUSINESS
/ COLLABORATION,
COMMUNICATION
COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

RESEARCH ON COLLABORATION,
BUSINESS COMMUNICATION,
AND TECHNOLOGY:
Reflections on an Interdisciplinary
Academic Collaboration
Janis Forman
University of California, Los Angeles

M. Lynne Markus
Bentley College

Interdisciplinary research is often recommended and occasionally studied, but little has been written
about the personal, practical, and methodological issues involved in doing it. In this article, the authors
describe one particular research collaboration between a business communication scholar and an information systems researcher. They present their observations about the political pitfalls and personal benefits of their interdisciplinary collaboration. As they attempt to generalize from their experience, the
authors conclude that politics in the broadest sense of the term is the most critical challenge to the
conduct of interdisciplinary research.
Keywords: collaboration; interdisciplinary; computer-supported writing; management communication; information systems

Following publication of the Forum in the January 2004 issue of the Journal of
Business Communication (JBC), the topic of collaborative writing again comes to
the pages of JBC. Although enough research has been done on the topic to warrant a
review (Forman, 2004; Thompson, 2001), important areas of collaborative writing
research remain relatively underexplored. One such area is interdisciplinary academic collaborations on the topic of collaborative writing.
Janis Forman (Ph.D., Rutgers University, 1980) is director of management communication and an
adjunct full professor of management in the UCLA Anderson School of Management at the University of
California, Los Angeles. M. Lynne Markus (Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University, 1979) is trustee
professor of management in the Management Department at Bentley College. The authors would like to
thank the following people for their assistance with this article: Marjorie Horton (The Center for
Machine Intelligence), Allen S. Lee (Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business), Wanda
Orlikowski (MIT Sloan School of Management), Priscilla Rogers (The University of Michigan School of
Business Adminstration), Barbara Shwom (Northwestern Universitys writing programs), and JoAnne
Yates (MIT Sloan School of Management). Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed
to Dr. Janis Forman, 110 Westwood Plaza, Suite 420, Box 951481, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481; e-mail:
Janis.forman@anderson.ucla.edu.
Journal of Business Communication, Volume 42, Number 1, January 2005 78-102
DOI: 10.1177/0021943604271958
2005 by the Association for Business Communication

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

79

In academia, interdisciplinary research is often recommended, both as a general

value and as an approach to understanding particular research questions, but little
has been written about the personal, practical, or methodological issues it entails
(Barton, 2001; Lowry, Curtis, & Lowry, 2004; OConnor, Rice, Peters, & Veryzer,
2003). Interdisciplinary collaborations bring an extra element of difficulty to an
already challenging task. As Larry Smeltzer (1994) notes in commenting on Kitty
Lockers (1994) thoughts about interdisciplinary research:
She states that business communication is interdisciplinary; however, I am not
sure that many of us are interdisciplinary. We simply bring our own disciplinary
training to the forum and tend to ignore valuable contributions made by those
using a different perspective. (Smeltzer, 1994, p. 158)

Similarly, in the field of organizational behavior, OConnor et al. (2003) point

out that researchers run the risk of interpreting . . . data through their own
thought worlds. . . . [T]hought worlds exist in academia . . . and work against
researchers achievement of a thorough understanding of complex phenomena
(p. 354).
Investigations of computer-supported collaborative writing qualify as a complex phenomenon to which the divergent academic disciplines of business communication and information systems can usefully be brought to bear. From 1985
through 1987, we undertook an interdisciplinary collaborative research project on
that topic, hoping to learn from the convergence of our respective fields. In 1993a
few years after the study was completedwe wrote up our observations on our collaboration. For various reasons, these observations were never published, but the
recent JBC Forum on collaborative writing recalls our project to mind. Reflecting
on those observations in 2004, we believe that they remain current todayand add
to the discussions on collaborative writing and interdisciplinary research.

DISCIPLINES AND INTERDISCIPLINARITY: BUSINESS

COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS

The core and boundaries of the academic fields of business communication and
information systems are hotly contested. (See, for example, Blyler, 1995, Forman,
1998, and Smeltzer, 1993, on business communication, and Benbasat & Zmud,
2003, and Briggs, Nunamaker, & Sprague, 1999/2000, on information systems.)
Each field issues periodic calls for diversity and openness to other points of view.
And each field has periodic crises of faith in which members wonder if the field will
ever achieve disciplinary status. (See Dulek, 1993, Graham & Thralls, 1998, Rentz,
1993, and Shaw, 1993, on business communication and Banville & Landry, 1989,
Baskerville & Myers, 2002, and Benbasat & Weber, 1996, on information systems.) It is not our intention in this article to engage these concerns, but it is important to understand that interdisciplinary conflicts can arise to some extent even in

80

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

collaborations among the members of the same field. Indeed, across two fields the
clash of thought worlds can be much greater, even when they share the common
denominator of business.
By the discipline of business communication, we include those research questions, theoretical concerns, and methodological practices that are found in articles
published by the major journals, namely, Business Communication Quarterly, the
Journal of Business Communication, the Journal of Business and Technical Communication, Management Communication Quarterly, and Technical Communication Quarterly. By the early 1990s, some of the leading scholars in business communication strongly advocated opening research in the discipline to outside
influences. This rhetoric of interdisciplinarityexperts public statements about
the need to include other disciplines in the study of business communication, and
public acknowledgment of the goodness of inclusivenesstook center stage in
Larry Smeltzer and James Suchans introduction to the 1991 special issue of JBC
on theory in the discipline: Business communication research continues to represent a pastiche of theoretical perspectives borrowed from organizational behavior,
speech communication, rhetoric, composition, organizational communication,
marketing, international business, and a number of other areas (p. 181).
Other scholars followed suit, especially in the 1993 special issue of JBC on business communication as a discipline. (See, in particular, Gary Shaw, 1993, on business communication as a hybrid discipline based upon the fields of communication, management, and rhetoric.) Interest in the topic deepened in the late 1990s and
the first decade of the new century. For example, Margaret Baker Graham and
Charlotte Thralls (1998) discussed the interdisciplinary dimensions of the field as a
central concern in the formation of the discipline, as did Priscilla Rogers (2001) in
her Outstanding Researcher Award lecture given at the 2000 Association for Business Communication Conference and those who commented on her presentation in
a later issue of JBC. (See Bargiela-Chiappini & Nickerson, 2001; Ryan, 2001a,
2001b; Wardrope, 2001, for the commentary.)
Information systems (IS) started as an area of interest at the intersection of
computer science, management science, and organizational science (Culnan &
Swanson, 1986). Over the years, the field has also drawn in other perspectives,
notably psychology, economics, and strategy. Among the leading journals in the
field today are Management Information Systems Quarterly, Information Systems
Research, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, and Journal of Management Information Systems. As technology developed, emerging challenges
linked to the advances in technology often lead to calls for the importation of yet
more perspectives. For example, electronic commerce has led many IS researchers
to explore the marketing and supply chain literatures. Just as frequently, fears of
fragmentation stimulate calls for stronger boundaries and a more stable core
(Banville & Landry, 1989; Benbasat & Zmud, 2003).
Researchers who hope to bridge two fields as different as business communication and information systems face a double challenge. Not only must they reconcile

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

81

the conflicting voices within one community of scholars, but they must also find a
way to understand the conflicts in another. How can a researcher who has already
studied the constituent disciplines of business communicationcomposition, rhetoric, organizational communication, among othersalso achieve competence in
the relevant constituent disciplines of information systemscomputer science,
operations research, management science, and organizational behavior, among
othersor vice versa? Is the need to bring in still other disciplines not simply too
much to ask of specialists in interdisciplinary fields who enter a new research
domain?
Clearly, interdisciplinary academic collaborations are one way to bring the perspectives of different disciplines to bear on complex, multifaceted research topics.
But despite considerable research on academic collaboration and communication
(see, for instance, Galegher, Kraut, & Egido, 1990; Latour & Woolgar, 1979;
OConnor et al., 2003), the rhetoric encouraging interdisciplinary research
(Barton, 2001) has far outstripped the study of such undertakings. Little has been
written about academic research that crosses disciplinary lines. What little there is
suggests that the challenges facing interdisciplinary research teams are great.
OConnor et al. (2003) note that academic environments have pressures that discourage and foil interdisciplinary collaborations. For example, junior faculty pursuing tenure are expected to publish a certain number of articles in the high-ranking
journals of their specific field. Interdisciplinary collaboration appears to many to be
a highly risky endeavor because the possibility of publication in the high-ranking
journals of ones home discipline may be more difficult for studies that cut across
disciplines than for those that are clearly linked to the home discipline. Should a
junior faculty member manage to achieve a sufficient number of publications in
high-ranking journals, he or she may face an additional hurdle in considering
collaborative interdisciplinary research:
There is no explicit discussion offered regarding the appropriate degrees to which
researchers acting as a team should influence one anothers thinking, when in the
process such interaction should take place . . . , or what the best mechanisms are at
different points in the process for engaging in such interaction. (OConnor et al.,
2003, pp. 353-354)

At the end of the road, the potential rewardswith an emphasis on potentialinclude a richer understanding of complex phenomena but at the cost of
time spent learning to work collaboratively across disciplinary boundaries.
One way to close the gap between the rhetoric and the practice of interdisciplinary academic collaborations is through stories. These stories, we argue, can give
substance to the rhetoric of interdisciplinary collaboration while suggesting problems in its theory and practice. (In his Outstanding Researcher Award lecture given
at the 2003 Association for Business Communication Conference, Jim Suchan,
2004, urged researchers and practitioners to begin telling their stories as an
approach to developing knowledge in the discipline.) In this article, we offer our

82

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

own story of interdisciplinary collaboration for a multiyear research study of information technology and collaborative writing involving the collaboration of a
business communication specialist and a researcher in information systems.

One way to close the gap between the

rhetoric and the practice of interdisciplinary academic collaborations is
through stories. These stories, we
argue, can give substance to the rhetoric of interdisciplinary collaboration
while suggesting problems in its theory
and practice.

We begin with a narrative of our collaboration, written (except for minor editing) in 1993, a few years after our joint study, conducted between 1985 and 1987,
was concluded. This narrative describes the study, how we worked together, the
written products of the study, and our contemporaneous observations about the factors that spawned and shaped our collaboration and our assessment of its benefits.
Then we revisit this story from the perspective of 2004, considering the issues that
arise in interdisciplinary collaboration more generallyespecially the politics of
the academyand conclude with suggestions for additional research.

OUR INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION THEN . . .

Our collaboration involved a 2-year study of information technology use in collaborative writing. In the first year of the study (1985-1986), we closely observed
teams of master of business administration (MBA) students while they conducted
6-month consulting projects that culminated in strategic reports for real client organizations. As a result of our observations, we identified many problems in collaboration attributable to poor group dynamics, writing problems, and lack of appropriate information technologies. In the 2nd year of the study (1986-1987), we selected
a package of information technologies that addressed, we believed, many of the
technology needs identified during our initial investigation. We solicited four
teams of volunteers, had them trained in the use of information technology, and
observed how they collaborated in their consulting and writing tasks and how they
used technology while doing so. (See Figure 1 for details of the project rationale,
the groups studied, the information technology used, and the research procedures.)

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

83

Project Rationale
This project focuses on the uses of computer-mediated group writing in the managerial problemsolving, decision-making, and communication tasks that take place in the Field Study process. Computer-mediated group writing includes electronic messaging, computer conferencing, and group writing
software. Since Field Study resembles the small group project activity that many managers perform,
Field Study research provides an ideal testbed for exploring ways the new information technology can
contribute to overall project success.
Dr. Forman will focus upon how computer-mediated technology influences the creation of two groupwritten documents for Field Study, namely the communications component and the final report.
Professor Markus will look at 1) the different material constraints and enablements of traditional versus computer-mediated group writing and 2) the influence of computer-mediated technology on the time
use and interaction patterns of Field Study teams.
The thesis of this study is that computer-mediated technology will enhance group problem-solving,
decision-making, and communication tasks, but will require new users of the technology to master a set
of new skills to use it effectively. (from a joint-authored memo requesting funding for the study, October
10, 1985)

The Groups and Their Task

As a requirement for their master of business administration (MBA) degree, 2nd-year students at
UCLA must complete a field study. The field study is a strategic consultation for a real client; it culminates in an oral and a written report (approximately 25 pages) to the management of the client company.
The report describes a strategic problem or opportunity facing the company, an analysis of it, and recommendations for client company management. In addition to this final report, several intermediate written
products are required of the field study teams. The field study is conducted over two quarters (6 months)
in teams of three to five students, during which time students take other courses, conduct job searches,
and may engage in part-time employment. Teams are supervised by two faculty advisors; a single grade,
common to all members of the team, is given for both quarters work.

The Information Technology

Each participant in our study was provided an information technology package with four key elements:
(a) the loan of an IBM personal computer (PC) Convertible with a portable dot-matrix draft printer and an
external modem, (b) a complimentary copy of Framework II, an integrated word processing, spreadsheet, database, graphics, and terminal emulation package, (c) access to an electronic communication
package called TEAMate with three key features: electronic messaging, electronic filing/bulletin board,
and electronic file transfer, and (d) extensive initial training and ongoing support. (TEAMate predated
Lotus NOTESa widely used software package with functions similar to those of TEAMate.) Access to
the telecommunications package was limited to the team members, their faculty advisors, and the study
research staff.

Research Procedures
Four field study teams (three teams of four students, one team of three students) and their faculty advisors volunteered to participate in the study during the fall and winter quarters of the 1986-1987 academic
year. In return for the loan of the equipment and training in its use, participants granted permission for
researchers to observe the teams at work; to record or collect oral, written, and computer communications; and to interview them individually 4 times over the course of the study. At the midpoint of the
project, we conducted taped group interviews evaluating each teams interpersonal process during
the creation of an early deliverable, a five-page proposal. Participants were not required to use the studysupplied technology except to demonstrate competence in its use. Our contract with participants did not
enable us to coerce them to use the technology, and we had limited reward power over them.
Figure 1. Our Collaborative Research Project

84

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Method of Working Together

Unlike some other interdisciplinary projects, for this one we did not work dialectically to create a set of agreed-upon, shared research questions that synthesized
our disciplinary perspectives. Instead, we pursued separate research agendas
within the context of our shared data collection and analysis. We collaborated fully
in many aspects of the project: the initial project proposal, data collection, project
administration, and final data analysis. Naturally, some division of labor occurred
for reasons both of efficiencyit made sense to split up the data-gathering tasks
and of expertiseit made more sense for Janis than Lynne to evaluate the teams
writing processes and written products and for Lynne rather than Janis to evaluate
the technology and design of the technology training.
To some extent, the data collection reflected a compromise rather than a synthesis of interests. Janis required assembly of all intermediate drafts whereas Lynne
insisted on computer monitoring of communication behavior. Nonetheless, we
jointly agreed about the best procedures for collecting, coding, and analyzing all
dataagreements that involved many hours of meeting and discussion. For
instance, we strove for, and achieved, consensus about a ranking of the teams in
terms of writing quality, interpersonal effectiveness, and use of technology.
Written Research Products
We departed from our pattern of collaboration only in the publication of our
research, whichexcept for this articlewas written separately for specialized
journals in our respective fields and reflects our concern for pursuing questions of
interest to our home disciplines and our perceptions that the key publication outlets
for each field lacked the necessary readiness to publish work in the others home
discipline. For example, merely defining the meaning of key terms in one field for
publication in another would not suffice. Such key terms themselvesfor instance,
collaborative writing in business communicationcarry a history of meanings
and research claims that could not be easily transferred to an information technology publication. Table 1 provides some details of our separate publications from
this joint research: article titles, journals where published, intended audiences,
research questions, and abstracts.
Personal Reasons for Launching the Project
Our predisposition toward interdisciplinarity was essential in creating and sustaining our collaboration. Janis initially had several practical and theoretical reasons for undertaking an interdisciplinary project on collaborative writing and computing. As her earlier interest in collaborative writing expanded to include a
concern for the relationship between technology and collaboration, she realized
that she lacked the expertise to conduct a study of collaboration involving technology. Very early in the project, she also learned that an intervention study requires

85

Article
abstract

Journal
where
published
Intended
audience
Research
questions

Article title

Table 1.

Information Technology & People (1992)

Asynchronous Tools in Small Face-to-Face Groups

Lynnes Publication

Information systems researchers with an interest in the use and effects of

information technology
When asynchronous technologies are newly introduced in management student groups that can meet face to face, will the groups adopt these technologies for communicating among team members?
For what purposes, in what manner, and how extensively will members of
face-to-face groups use asynchronous technologies if these systems are
introduced primarily to support communications within the groups rather
than with outsiders who are less accessible physically?
How do small groups with the ability to meet face-to-face adopt and use asynThis article identifies problems in the computer-supported group
chronous technologies, such as electronic mail, file transfer, and electronic
writing of MBA [master of business administration] students
bulletin boards? This paper identifies a set of expectations about technology
who are both novice strategic report writers and novice users of
adoption and usage based on prior theory and research on information techtechnology that supports group work. These problems consist of
nology and work groups. After describing a longitudinal study in which the
lack of attention to readers needs, attitudes, and expectations;
adoption and usage of asynchronous technologies were observed in small
poor conflict management; leadership problems; genre confuface-to-face groups, the paper compares actual observations with the theorysion; shaky definition of the strategic problems; poor commitment and attitudes toward use of new technology; poor computer
based expectations. Expectations about electronic messaging and bulletin
policies and practices; and conflicting hardware and software
boards were generally supported. However, some groups used electronic file
preferences. The article suggests several reasons for these probtransfer in a way that theory did not predict: synchronously, to support faceto-face interaction. The one group to use the technology asynchronously did
lems, draws implications for instruction of computer-supported
so, in part, because of poor social relations: The technology enabled group
group writing, and suggests topics for further research.
members to maintain social distance while performing group tasks. The
implications of these findings for theory and future research are discussed.

Communication professionals in academe, business, science, and

government
What kinds of problems do novice management student groups
encounter in group writing?
What kinds of problems do these groups encounter in using
computer tools to support group writing?

Novices Work on Group Reports: Problems in Group Writing

and in Computer-Supported Group Writing
Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1991b)

Janiss Publication

Our Respective Publications

86

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

the participation of someone experienced in working with computer vendors and in

choosing intelligently among technology optionstraining that Lynne had and
Janis did not. As important, either by sensibility or habit, she was interested in questions that defy disciplinary boundaries rather than in disciplinary-based research.
(Her first publication was jointly authored with a political theorist, a critical introduction to a work by Rousseau that reflected his ideas as a dramatist and a social
thinker [Barber & Forman, 1978].) She strongly concurred with Kenneth Burkes
(1984) notion of trained incapacity, the idea of limits to our understanding of
problems that result from training in a specific discipline with its necessary restrictions, namely, its underlying propositions, theories, and methodologies. (Burke
claimed to have borrowed the idea from Thorsten Veblen, who used it to describe
the limitations of financially trained business people in their approach to decision
making.)
As the study progressed, other reasons emerged for doing work with an IS
expert. With Lynnes assistance, Janis could formulate questions about writing and
computing that she sensed to be important but as a business communication specialist could not articulate specifically. These questions concerned how the computing policies and practices of groups contribute to their use of technology for
report writing, how the social dynamics of groups influence their choice and use of
groupware, how the geographical proximity of group members may affect their
decisions about which technology to use and when to use it (Forman, 1991a, p. 68),
and, perhaps, most important, how technology ought to be regarded as a set of
options or tools that writing groups manage or mismanage rather than as a machine,
a convenient substitute for pen and paper or a typewriter. At the same time, as an
additional benefit of interdisciplinary research, Janis found that she was forced to
look critically at her own research assumptions when explaining some of the premises of business communication to Lynne (Forman, 1991a, p. 68). For instance,
through her exchanges with Lynne, Janis learned that she adheredperhaps too
uncriticallyto the notion that writing is central to management tasks, when, in
fact, writing may sometimes be peripheral, just one of several communication
options from which managers may choose.
For her part, Lynne had several reasons for wanting to do interdisciplinary
research. She had had good experience working with a business communication
specialist before and so was favorably inclined to work with Janis. From a broader
perspective, she was intellectually predisposed to choose an interdiscipinary rather
than a single-discipline approach to research; her academic career is characterized
by interdisciplinary work. She came to the field of IS as a cross-disciplinary excursion from her doctoral training in organizational behavior. In her studies of the
behavioral aspects of information technology use, she had on various occasions
read deeply in the literatures of other disciplines such as anthropology, economics,
organizational communication, and sociology. She had been working on studies of
electronic mail use in organizations and was interested in getting more deeply into
the emerging study of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) or group-

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

87

ware. The study with Janis offered the opportunity to work with a subject matter
expert in group writing, and Lynne thought that the very subject matter of the study
of groupware seemed to demand a collaborative effort. Finally, from a pragmatic
point of view, she knew that if she did not collaborate, she would have had to choose
a more bounded project, such as an analysis of the uses of electronic mail in an
organization, rather than the more challenging implementation study that she conducted with Janis.
In forming a research partnership, we agreed that we represented different disciplines in several ways. We had different academic training, had read different literatures, and used different research methodologies in our earlier separate studies. We
also had different professional affiliations and, as a result, we attended different
conferences and socialized with professionals in different discourse communities.
Within the Graduate School of Management (GSM) at University of California,
Los Angeles (UCLA), we were located in different units that had different objectives, and we taught subjects that occupied different places in the curriculum.
(Today, GSM is known as UCLA Anderson School of Management.)
We also recognized a number of similar disciplinary and professional concerns
without which we would not have shared enough common ground to undertake a
joint research venture. Both of us believe that knowledge is not objective, nor completely generalizable across individual cases. (On the continuum of research
approaches that Blyler, 1995, presents as a single one of functionalist versus interpretive, both of us fall somewhere in the middle.) As researchers and instructors in a
school of business, we were both interested in our students becoming leaders in the
business world and in their development of useful skills as well as interpretive
frameworks based in specific disciplines.
Institutional Support for Our Collaboration
Despite our predisposition toward interdisciplinary collaboration, this collaboration might not have occurred without institutional support in the form of research
funding and without the institutional placement of our respective disciplines. In the
mid-1980s, GSM had received a grant from IBM to conduct applied research on IS
and the education of managers. The grant provided the opportunity for the collaboration and for the design of the specific project in question, involving a technology
implementation and intervention. Because Lynne could calculate the amount of
work necessary to design and execute an effective intervention, she would never
even have dreamed of proposing one as a faculty member in a management school
in the absence of UCLAs receiving the IBM grant, which made funds available for
computer equipment. (She might also have conducted this kind of project if she had
been working for a computer or software product development firm, where equipment resources would presumably be available, but, of course, that is a different
story.)

88

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

For her part, Janiss role as director of management communication at GSM

gave her a unique position with respect to the field study programthe setting
within which this study was conducted. Because of her involvement with field
study as the key communications instructor for all field study teams, senior administration at the school wanted Janis to consider ways in which to integrate computing into the instruction of group writing. Thus, except for the institutional accident
of Janiss services to the field study program, the collaboration would never have
occurred.

The institutional arrangements that

made our interdisciplinary collaboration
possible also placed constraints on its
outcomes, and in particular shaped our
decision to publish the major results of
our research as single-authored publications for journals in our respective
fields.

Other institutional arrangements also supported work such as ours. Both IS and
the teaching of business writing were housed in UCLAs management school,
GSM. In all likelihood, our study of the four student teams would not have occurred
had business writing been located in a traditional English department, that is, in a
literature-centered English department with little disciplinary diversity. In such
departments, interdisciplinary problem-centered research such as ours is rarely
funded. Furthermore, as a member of an English department, Janis would not
have had occasion to meet colleagues in IS, who typically belong to management
departments, for conversations about concerns shared across the disciplines. In
this instance, the shared concern was technology and group work. Moreover, if Janis had belonged to a traditional English department, her thinking about
computers and group writing would more likely have been influenced by humanities scholarshipthe disciplinary authority of literary theory and especially of
postmodernismthan by research on small group dynamics and IS. In the mid1980s, none of the IS literature appeared in business communication journals. Similarly, had Lynne been teaching in a school of computer science, library science, or
department of industrial engineering, there would have been considerably less
opportunity for her to interact with someone of Janiss background. We surmise,
then, that departmental goals and configurations, including the literal proximity to
one another of researchers from different disciplines, can be powerful agents in the
shaping of interdisciplinary research.

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

89

Institutional Disincentives for Our Collaboration

The institutional arrangements that made our interdisciplinary collaboration
possible also placed constraints on its outcomes, and in particular shaped our decision to publish the major results of our research as single-authored publications for
journals in our respective fields. At GSM, more reward is given for a singleauthored publication than for a collaborative work. This bias, made clear in faculty
meetings and during Lynnes brief stint on the schools personnel committee, motivated us to publish as sole authors. In addition, although the school had recently
endorsed the importance of applied interdisciplinary research, building formal
mathematical theory was more valued than was empirical research focused on finding answers to practical business problems, which by their nature usually cross disciplines. The higher value placed on mathematical theory was demonstrated by the
relative speed with which such researchers achieved tenure and accelerated promotions. Furthermore, greater value was attributed to pure research in one of the
better established disciplines such as economics, finance, or marketing than to what
the institution considered to be marginal disciplines such as both business communication and IS. (See Graham & Thralls, 1998, Dulek, 1993, and Rentz, 1993, on
the struggles of business communication to gain disciplinary status and Banville &
Landry, 1989, and Benbasat & Zmud, 2003, on this issue as it pertains to IS.) In
fact, the discursive power of the disciplines of authorityeconomics, finance,
marketingdiminished the perceived value of knowledge resulting from collaborative work between business communication and IS experts. In Foucaults (1972)
words, not just anyone, finally, may speak of just anything (p. 216). The empowered disciplines have the most say as well as the authority to exclude others from
speaking.
Had either of us been more politically motivated, we would have delayed our
joint research until we had gained the requisite promotion or tenure. Interdisciplinary research seems to be toleratedeven rewardedwhen conducted by faculty
who have institutionally recognized reputations that have been built in a single discipline. Or, if organizational enfranchisement had been our central concern, we
would have aligned our research interests to those of an empowered discipline in
order to seek status by association with that discipline. Of course, such a decision
would have been at considerable expense to the concerns of our home disciplines
because, in all likelihood, these concerns would have been subordinated to those of
the empowered discipline. (See Warren Bennis, 1956, on how status conflict affects
interdisciplinary research teams.)
Barriers to Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Created by Our Respective Disciplines
The barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration extended beyond the confines of
our employing institution into our academic disciplines as well. This claim may be
substantiated by considering how our colleagues in IS and in business communica-

90

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

tion, respectively, would evaluate our joint research. To simulate this situation we
gave an IS expert (an experienced journal editor) Janiss published article to
review as though she were submitting it for publication in a mainstream IS journal, and we asked a business communication expert to do the same with Lynnes
article. The results of these reviews, written in 1993 and summarized in Figure 2,
speak for themselves.
In both cases, our single-authored articles were unacceptable to members of
each others field, because these papers were insensitive to a host of audience
issues, including lack of focus on topics central to the journals readership and failure to explain literature cited from the others discipline or to cite literature appropriate to the disciplinary domain of the journal. In Janiss case, the reviewer noted
that she
has done little to establish any ties between her research and the current body of IS
research. Relevant to the failure of the four teams to use technology successfully,
for example, are the literatures of IS implementation, IS development, and CSCW.

According to the reviewer of Lynnes article, it seems to assume that the adoption of technology is an end in itself. Our field [business communication] is
more concerned with ways in which people adopt and adapt technology to meet
or expand their communication objectives. Viewed from a rhetorical perspective, these fundamental differences confirm Perelman and Olbrechts-Tytecas
(1969) assertion that there are agreements that are peculiar to the members of a
particular discipline and there is a discourse characteristic of each discipline
that summarize[s] an aggregate of acquired knowledge, rules, and conventions (p. 99). In sum, each article faced rejection in the others discipline on the
basis of differences about what issues are worthy of investigation and what
constitutes appropriate evidence and its presentation.

Despite the difficulties we experienced

in our collaborative research, and
despite the constraints imposed on our
work by our institutional setting, we
both found many benefits from our collaboration, both for this study and for
subsequent projects each of us has
undertaken.

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

91

Rejection of Janiss Article

Journal where publication sought: Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ)
Reviewer who rejected the article: Allen S. Lee, (in 1993) Information Systems Department, College
of Business Administration, the University of Cincinnati, and member of the editorial board of MISQ; (in
2004) professor of information systems and associate dean for research, School of Business, Virginia
Commonwealth University, and former editor-in-chief of MISQ
Reviewers reasons for rejection of the articlePertinent excerpts from the review: The manuscript
currently addresses business communication specialists, of which there are few among the MISQ readership. MISQ readers have expectations that, I believe, the manuscript would not satisfy. These expectations pertain to (1) methodology/research-designand (2) relationship or relevance to the IS literature.
With regard to methodology and research design, it seems to me that the manuscript is doing a case
study. However, the manuscript makes no use of Robert K. Yins classic book, Case Study Research:
Design and Methods, 1989, or to Allen S. Lees article, A Scientific Methodology for MIS Case Studies, in the March 1989 issue of MISQ. Because case research is a form of research that MISQ readers
today would recognize and readily consider acceptable, I therefore strongly urge the author to reframe
his or her research design as one of a case study. Of course, there are also other genres of qualitative
research that MISQ readers would recognize and accept, and which, therefore, the author might also consider in addition to that of case studies. One such genre is grounded theory, which appears in the September 1993 issue of MISQ.
With regard to the manuscripts relationship or relevance to the IS literature, the author has done little
to establish any ties between her research and the current body of IS research. Relevant to the failure of
the four teams to use technology successfully, for example, are the literatures on IS implementation, IS
development, and CSCW [computer-supported cooperative work]. As I was reading the manuscript, I
was wondering what lessons these three literatures might have for the authors case study, as well as what
lessons the authors case study might have for these three literatures. To address the current body of IS
[information systems] research would increase the manuscripts interest in the eyes of the MISQ
readership.
Because I am not at all familiar with how technology can be used to support group writing, I found
much of the manuscript to be difficult to understand, simply because I had no idea as to how information
technology could conceivably support group writing. If, instead, early in the manuscript, there had been a
thick case description (whether actual or hypothetical) about who uses what tools to support this or that
particular task, then I could have understood the manuscript better in my first reading of it. Of course, I
was eventually able to infer who used (or could have used) what tools to support this or that particular
task; however, why not just tell the reader up front?

Rejection of Lynnes Article

Journal where publication sought: Journal of Business Communication
Reviewer who rejected the article: Barbara Shwom, Northwestern Universitys writing programs
and reviewer for business communication journals (in 2002) president of the Association for Business
Communication
Reviewers reasons for rejection of the articlePertinent excerpts from the review: This article is not
appropriate for this journal for one key reason: the article focuses primarily on technology; issues of
communication, though present in the article, are submerged.
Figure 2. Rejection of Janiss and Lynnes Articles for Publication in a Journal of the Others Discipline
(continued)

92

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Although the article does an excellent job of contextualizing its issues within a body of current
research, most of that research is from outside the fields our journal covers: business, technical, organization, or management communication. Very few of the references are from communication journals or
books; they are weighted heavily toward information systems and information technology. This poses
two problems for the article. Readers of our journal are unlikely to be familiar with any of the theories
presented or the researchers or research studies used as evidence. In addition, readers will have to work
hard to see the relevance of the research to communication issues.
The article assumes a knowledge of certain concepts in the communication technology research that
is not appropriate for the business communication audience. For example, the article assumes that everyone will be familiar with the concept of discretionary database, a term from outside the communication
fields.
Currently the article seems to assume that the adoption of technology is an end in itself. Our field is
more concerned with the ways in which people adopt and adapt technology to meet or expand their
communication objectives. The article should highlight the communication issues in technology and perhaps, in its conclusion, address the benefits of introducing asynchronous technologies into the workplace.
Figure 2 (continued)

Benefits of Our Collaboration

Despite the difficulties we experienced in our collaborative research, and
despite the constraints imposed on our work by our institutional setting, we both
found many benefits from our collaboration, both for this study and for subsequent
projects each of us has undertaken. For Janis, her work with Lynne has allowed her
to see the role of technology as a possible agent in group writing, influencing both
writing processes and products. What technology is chosen? How is it managed?
These are central questions in any study of collaborative writing that involves technology, and they have informed her research, teaching, and consulting. Prior to her
interdisciplinary work with Lynne, Janis unwittingly adopted an add technology
and mix approach to her understanding of technology and writing. (Lynne would
call this approach treating technology like a black box.) That is, she viewed technology as not much more than a machine that writers could use to facilitate writing.
For Lynne, her work with Janis has increased her rhetorical awareness and her recognition of how important the notion of discourse community is to the development of arguments. This new knowledge has assisted her in teaching graduate students and in her work as an associate editor and a reviewer for several journals in
various fields (communication, computer science, IS, organizational studies). It
has also influenced her work on a manuscript on the topic of writing as the methodology of qualitative research. For both of us, viewing the others radically different
interpretation of the same data puts into relief our respective theoretical and methodological views of how knowledge is made and what constitutes knowledge in our
respective disciplines. (In one instance, Janis used the idea of discourse community to interpret a teams unorthodox use of groupware, whereas Lynne used the
teams use of groupware to substantiate her argument about social distance and
technology.)
Perhaps most important for both of us, our knowledge of each others discipline
is based on experiencing an insiders perspective from another discipline and

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

93

constitutes a tacit knowledge of the other discipline that cannot be easily acquired
by other means, such as by intensive reading of the literature in the others field.
Both this kind of tacit knowledge and work with colleagues from other disciplines
may be able to mitigate the hazards of wholesale, naive borrowing from other
disciplines and the tendency to overgeneralize theories from other disciplines
beyond their original intended application (see Rose, 1988, and Forman, 1998, on
this problem). At best, in the words of a collaborator from another business communication/IS team, the specialist from the other discipline can become an invisible author (M. S. Horton, personal communication, March 31, 1992), an internalized voice that opens up new methods of inquiry, new problem-solving approaches,
in work that follows an interdisciplinary effort.
How Typical Was Our Collaboration?
Reflecting in 1993 on our interdisciplinary collaboration naturally raised the
question of how it compared to other collaborations we had participated in as well
as to those of other business communication/IS teams. Was our interdisciplinary
work limited or extensive? From one perspective, our collaboration was extensive
in that we shared many aspects of the study, including lengthy analysis of the data.
But from another perspective, unlike other collaborations we had engaged in
(Forman & Katsky, 1986; Markus & Connolly, 1990), our collaboration was limited in that each of us developed a separate set of research questions and retained
our own intellectual property in the form of separate publications. Moreover, in the
generation of these single-authored publications, each of us subordinated the
others work both in the argument and in the writing process. In addition, our reading of each others manuscripts was limited to a review for readability and for
accuracy of details drawn from our pooled data.
One explanation for our decision to publish separately lies in the immaturity of
combined research efforts in business communication and IS at the time of our
study. There were, in fact, no other studies published in the late 1980s that represented this kind of collaboration and, hence, there were no theoretical bases or practices that we could build upon. This contrasts to the state of research by the mid1990s; collaborations between researchers in the two disciplines who publish
together, in particular the work of Priscilla S. Rogers and Marjorie S. Horton and
that of JoAnne Yates and Wanda J. Orlikowski, as well as studies on technology and
writing that link written communication to other disciplines (Ferrara, Brunner, &
Whittemore, 1991), offered precedent for further interdisciplinary work.
Negotiation Between Collaborators
Of course, collaborative research even within a single discipline is characterized
by negotiation, as collaborators Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford (1983, 1990)
reported in the mid-1980s and early 1990s in their discussions of the differences in
each others composing processes and in their routines for conducting research.

94

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

But negotiations between collaborators from different disciplines can compound

these challenges by introducing potential incompatibilities in the methods and
underlying assumptions of each of the disciplines involved (although members of
the same discipline may disagree vehemently if their theoretical or methodological
views differ). In our case, we debated about data interpretation, especially in our
coding of teams according to variables such as group dynamics and experience
with technology, and in our creation of case histories for each team.
In the early 1990s, intellectual debate based on the differing disciplinary
home of collaborators was also amply attested to by two other pairs of business
communication/IS researchers, Priscilla S. Rogers and Marjorie S. Horton of the
University of Michigan and JoAnne Yates and Wanda J. Orlikowski of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Horton and Rogers engaged in frequent debate
about what constitutes data, one arguing for quantitative methods and the other for
qualitative (M. S. Horton & P. S. Rogers, personal communication, March 31,
1992). Yates summed up her negotiations with Orlikowski as a protracted process in which each of them was aware of her own core beliefs and of those areas
in which they were willing to be persuaded (J. Yates, personal communication,
April 7, 1992).
Yet, despite the costs in time and effort, negotiation represents a key strength of
interdisciplinary collaboration. The Orlikowski-Yates team concurred that debate
and dialectic fostered the kind of invention that neither collaborator alone could
have achieved. In our collaboration, we bypassed the difficulties of such negotiation by agreeing early to study questions of interest in our respective disciplines.
This limitation may have been partially attenuated by our extensive debate about
data interpretation.

. . . AND NOW: SOME GENERALIZATIONS ON

INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION IN 2004

Revisiting our project in 2004, we find that the politics of such effortspolitics
in the broadest sense of the termstrikes us as the most critical challenge to the
conduct of such research. Interdisciplinary collaborators must conduct their work
within the context of the opportunities and constraints offered by institutions and
disciplines.
Institutional Enabling of and Constraints
Upon Interdisciplinary Collaboration
Interdisciplinary collaboration is embedded in and often deeply influenced by
the institutional settings in which it occurs. As discussed earlier, our placement
within a management department, even the location of our offices within close
proximity to each other, encouraged discussion between us, and eventually, a formal research project. Orlikowski and Yates view this issue similarly, although in

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

95

their case they were and are members of a single departmentan incentive for joint
researchbut are located in different buildingsa constraint, but one they are able
to overcome (W. J. Orlikowski & J. Yates, personal communication, July 16, 2004).
Placement in an interdisciplinary program, think tank, or research center including business communication experts and experts from other disciplines would
make collaboration even easier, we believe, because the raison detre of such organizational units is facilitation of interdisciplinary work, and the reward structure in
such units favors interdisciplinary efforts. This incentive for interdisciplinary
research has been the case for the Orlikowski-Yates team over the past decade: the
Center for Coordination Science, which had funded each of us individually before
we began working together, enthusiastically supported our joint work (W. J.
Orlikowski & J. Yates, personal communication, July 16, 2004). Moreover, this
team is now 4 years into a 5-year National Science Foundation grant focused
explicitly on interdisciplinary work.
But institutions can constrain interdisciplinary collaboration as well. For example, Rogers notes that since the early 1990s at her home institution,
our two deans . . . seem to be moving faculty together again by disciplinary group
as offices become open. Meanwhile, interdisciplinary research and pedagogy is
less a topic of discussion, and faculty teams for projects have been reduced to one
primary and one secondary faculty member in the discipline directly related to the
nature of the project. (P. S. Rogers, personal communication, July 1, 2004)

(A similar movement to assign faculty office locations by disciplinary group has

also characterized GSM since moving into new facilities in the mid-1990s.)
In sum, challenges persist even in management schools that are home to several related fields (Boudreau, Hopp, McClain, & Thomas, 2003; Henderson,
Ganesh, & Chandy, 1990) and, in some instances, appear to have increased.
One of the least conducive settings for interdisciplinary work such as we have
described is the traditional English department. There, business communication
specialists who seek to work with experts in other fields need to make extra efforts
to arrange such work and to defend it, because social science research and collaboration tend to be devalued.
Opportunities and Constraints of
the Disciplines Upon Collaboration
Negotiation between collaborators from different disciplines cannot be separated from the receptivity of each discipline to borrowing from other fields. This
proved both advantageous and disadvantageous in our collaboration in the 1980s.
Although there had been no collaboration between business communication and IS
specialists prior to our research project, both disciplines espoused the value of contributions from other disciplines to further knowledgeand still do (see, e.g.,
Smeltzer & Suchan, 1991, on business communication and Benbasat & Zmud,

96

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

2003, Fitzgerald, 2003, Paul, 2002, and Perry, 2003, on IS). In fact, by the early
1990s, cross citations had begun to appear in the major publications of each discipline. At present, IS seems a strong potential partner for business communication
researchers as the importance of electronic messaging and groupware to writing
processes and products is recognized (Lowry et al., 2004; E. M. Rogers &
Allbritton, 1995). Moreover, interdisciplinary partnerships may be able to bypass
the gatekeeping of single disciplines by publishing their work in the journals of
fields that are explicitly interdisciplinary, as is the case for the Orlikowski-Yates
team:
We chose to publish most of our work not in disciplinary journals, but in the interdisciplinary field of Organization Studies, in such outlets as ASQ, AMR, and
Organization Science. For both of us, these journals were perceived by Sloans
interdisciplinary Personnel Committee as more prestigious than the disciplinary
journals of IS and particularly of management communication. (W. J. Orlikowski
& J. Yates, personal communication, July 16, 2004)

On the other hand, interdisciplinary work may be discouraged by the lack of

publication outlets in business communication, in IS, or in some combination of
the two that create forums in which each discipline is on an equal footing. Commenting more generally about publication outlets for interdisciplinary work,
Rogers notes her recent experience in which her interdisciplinary work was
rejected by
three relevant journals before we finally got it accepted. Our first submission, to a
sister journal, was rejected outright, our second try with a different sister journal was rejected based on reviewer input, and, finally, our third submission, to a
journal directly in our field [management communication] was embraced. (P. S.
Rogers, personal communication, July 1, 2004)

Summarizing her experience, in the same communication, she concludes,

I seem to be experiencing more barriers to interdisciplinary thinking than
previously.
Where joint authorship occurs, the disciplinary focus of the publication outlet
results in an imbalance of authority over the text; the collaborator from the same
disciplinary focus as the publication outlet has a disproportionate say in the argument, organization, and voice of the text. For instance, in the case of this article,
Janis took the lead because this article has been submitted to a leading journal for
experts in business communication and because she is more familiar with discourse
conventions for communication articles and with the discussions about collaboration among these experts than is Lynne. Joint authorship representing equally
shared authority on the part of each collaborator can be very difficult, if not
impossible.
The maturity of each discipline relative to the research questions addressed by
the collaborators also influences interdisciplinary collaboration. As the abstract

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

97

from Janiss article indicates (see Table 1), she drew upon the literatures of several
disciplines: from composition and rhetoric (references to audience analysis); from
social psychology and the management of small groups (references to leadership
and group conflict); from IS (references to computer policies and practices and to
conflicting hardware and software needs); and from composition (references to
pedagogy). On the other hand, Lynnes article (see Table 1) contains a central argument that is placed in an ongoing set of propositions about technology and group
work within IS. As she writes, the paper compares actual observations with the
theory-based expectationstheories that are widely accepted within IS. On the
basis of these abstracts, sociologist Murray Davis would say that IS is a more
mature discipline than is business communication, at least in terms of Lynnes argument as opposed to Janiss (at the time when the research was conducted): Lynnes
propositions confirm, extend, or work against accepted theories within IS, some of
which synthesized work in other disciplines. Her baseline is the taken-for-granted
assumption of the intellectual specialty itself (Davis, 1971, p. 330). By contrast,
Janiss work reflects thinking in a less mature discipline as far as computing and
group work are concerned. There are no established propositions in business
communication that her article addresses.
The relative maturity of the two disciplines partially explains why we decided to
work with some independence within the context of our collaborative project and
may suggest what motivates other collaborators to choose a similar pattern for
working together. As management theorist Warren Bennis (1956) has noted, interdisciplinary research may be discouraged by
the difficulty of sharing and combining concepts between disciplines at varying
stages of development. Interdisciplinary research infers a contemporaneity between
cultural products. . . . It may be that an attempt to cross disciplines at a conceptual
level may be destined for failure because of their lack of contemporaneity.
(p. 227).

NEW DIRECTIONS

This article has been our attempt to describe one extended interdisciplinary project and to comment on it from the perspective of 1993, the completion of our
research publications, and from the perspective of 2004more than a decade later.
In his Outstanding Researcher Award lecture given at the 2003 Association for
Business Communication Conference, Jim Suchan appealed to researchers to
begin telling their stories, arguing that stories are a legitimate and undervalued
method for advancing knowledge in the field as well as an approach that unearths
data and insights that would be otherwise overlooked. At a minimum, we hope that
our example will prompt those who conduct interdisciplinary collaborations to
begin telling their stories, especially as these stories anchor, in specific cases,
notions of what constitutes knowledge and knowledge making in business commu-

98

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

nication and offer opportunities to test and define what is meant by interdisciplinary research in the discipline.

In his Outstanding Researcher Award

lecture given at the 2003 Association
for Business Communication Conference, Jim Suchan appealed to researchers to begin telling their stories, arguing
that stories are a legitimate and undervalued method for advancing knowledge in the field, as well as an approach
that unearths data and insights that
would be otherwise overlooked.

Increasingly, business communication specialists have claimed that knowledge

and knowledge making involve an openness to other disciplines, a turn toward
interdisciplinary work. But as even this one example shows, the idea of interdisciplinary approaches to business communication and the conduct of such work are
complex and problematic along several dimensions:

the nature of interdisciplinary work;

interdisciplinary teams;
the fortunes of the discipline;
the role of publication outlets and institutional politics.

The nature of interdisciplinary work: What is meant by interdisciplinary

work? Does it mean drawing on multiple research literatures, using a common
database for different audiences, and sharing interpretations of data? Or is it a
more global, synthetic kind of knowledge building represented by the research
of Horton and Rogers and of Orlikowski and Yates?
Interdisciplinary teams: Will a pattern emerge of business communication
experts displaying disciplinary loyalty in some of their research and moving
into interdisciplinary groups for other work, as in the case of the OrlikowskiYates partnership? If such a pattern emerges, what will it reveal about the kinds
of questions being investigated?
The fortunes of the discipline: If business communication continues to
demonstrate permeability, will it be open to all other disciplines or only to some,

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

99

and for what reasons? Will there come a point at which openness causes the
breakdown of the field and the constitution of new ones born of collaborative
interdisciplinary effort and the recognition of a fundamental commonality
between once distinct disciplines? In other words, will business communication
experts build bridges to other disciplines or radically restructure the discipline?
(See Klein, 1990, pp. 27-28.)
The role of publication outlets and institutional politics: Because funding
agencies, educational institutions, and publication outlets can confer status and
authority, what role will they play in the fortunes of business communication?
The most long-standing and prolific of the teamsOrlikowski-Yateshas published most of their work in interdisciplinary journals. These journals are highly
respected by their home institution and also forced/enabled us to merge our
perspective and develop a more thoroughly combined one (W. J. Orlikowski &
J. Yates, personal communication, July 16, 2004).
Stories of interdisciplinary teams will help to address these issues. Analysis of
such stories, especially of the kinds of sharing that occur among researchers from
different disciplines, may help specify what is meant by saying that business communication is open to interdisciplinary approaches.
Beyond the telling of stories about interdisciplinary work as a way to address the
questions identified above, we offer two other recommendations: ethnographic
research on the work of interdisciplinary teams and cocitation studies of articles
published in business communication journals. As for the former, investigators
observations and interviews of interdisciplinary business communication and IS
teams (or of business communication researchers and researchers from any other
discipline) promise to yield insights about the nature of such research and the theoretical borrowings and transformations that characterize the growth of business
communication as a result of such collaboration. Research by sociologists of the
natural sciences may offer models for such study of collaborative interdisciplinary
research, in particular Latour and Woolgars (1979) participant-observer study of
team research in a scientific lab. As for the latter, researchers and theorists within IS
may provide business communication specialists with good examples (e.g., Culnan
& Swanson, 1986). Tracking those instances when a researcher cites any work of
any given author along with the work of any other author in a new document
(Culnan, 1987, p. 343) assists in determining the disciplines outside IS that are
influencing its growth. The same kind of tracking has begun for business communication (Reinsch & Lewis, 1993). Such analysis results in information about the various disciplines that have influenced business communication at different times and
in the work of different researchers and scholars, and might form the basis for historical analysis of business communications relationship to other disciplines.
Taken as a whole, personal stories, outside investigators ethnographic studies, and
cocitation analysis may illuminate how knowledge in business communication is
socially constructed, especially as this construction is influenced by outside experts.

100

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Our emphasis on the institutional context for interdisciplinary collaboration

underscores how such collaboration is a highly bounded activity that goes beyond
the dynamics between or among collaborators. The ability of business communication specialists to work with outside experts may depend upon institutional
arrangements. Institutions are not neutral; they can be gatekeepers or facilitators of
research. For this reason, business communication specialists located in traditional
English departments will have to make extra efforts to undertake interdisciplinary
work. Informal meeting places such as study groups and colloquia that bring
together experts from different disciplines may be one way to initiate such efforts.
For example, at GSM a colloquium series on the topic of groups in the workplace
attracted faculty from business communication, management, IS, public health,
psychology, and sociology. Those business communication specialists located in
professional schools or in interdisciplinary units rather than in traditional English
departments should find it easier to establish both formal and informal research
activities, and may be expected to lead attempts to apply other disciplines to
business communication.

The ability of business communication

specialists to work with outside experts
may depend upon institutional arrangements. Institutions are not neutral; they
can be gatekeepers or facilitators of
research.

If it is important to broaden the theoretical and methodological base for future

research in business communication, one avenue for such expansion is collaborative research with experts from other disciplines. Precedent is set for this kind of
work, but there is much more to be done. The conduct of such work should proceed
in tandem with the critical analysis that can clarify our understanding of business
communication as a discipline continually revitalized and redefined by the theories
and practices of other disciplines.

REFERENCES
Banville, C., & Landry, M. (1989). Can the field of MIS be disciplined? Communications of the ACM,
32(1), 48-60.
Barber, B., & Forman, J. (1978). Preface to Narcisse: Introduction. Political Theory, 4, 537-542.
Bargiela-Chiappini, F., & Nickerson, C. (2001). Partnership research: A response to Priscilla Rogers.
Journal of Business Communication, 38, 248-251.

Forman, Markus / COLLABORATION, COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY

101

Barton, E. (2001). Design in observational research on the discourse of medicine: Toward disciplined
interdisciplinarity. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 15(3), 309-332.
Baskerville, R. L., & Myers, M. D. (2002). Information systems as a reference discipline. MIS Quarterly,
26(1), 1-14.
Benbasat, I., & Weber, R. (1996). Research commentary: Rethinking diversity in information systems
research. Information Systems Research, 7(4), 389-399.
Benbasat, I., & Zmud, R. W. (2003). The identity crisis within the IS discipline: Defining and communicating the disciplines core properties. MIS Quarterly, 27(2), 183-194.
Bennis, W. G. (1956). Some barriers to teamwork in social research. Social Problems, 3, 223-235.
Blyler, N. R. (1995). Research as ideology in professional communication. Technical Communication
Quarterly, 4(3), 285-313.
Boudreau, J., Hopp, W., McClain, J. O., & Thomas, L. J. (2003). On the interface between operations and
human resources management. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 5(3), 179-202.
Briggs, R. O., Nunamaker, J. F., Jr., & Sprague, R. (1999/2000). Special section: Exploring the outlands
of the MIS discipline. Journal of Management Information Systems, 16(3), 5-10.
Burke, K. (1984). Permanence and change: An anatomy of purpose (3rd ed.). Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Culnan, M. J. (1987). Mapping the intellectual status of MIS, 1980-1985: A Co-citation analysis. MIS
Quarterly, 11(3), 340-353.
Culnan, M. J., & Swanson, E. B. (1986). Research in management information systems, 1980-1984:
Points of work and reference. MIS Quarterly, 10(3), 289-302.
Davis, M. S. (1971). Thats interesting! Towards a phenomenology of sociology and a sociology of phenomenology. Philosophy of Social Science, 1, 309-344.
Dulek, R. E. (1993). Models of development: Business schools and business communication. Journal of
Business Communication, 30(3), 315-331.
Ede, L., & Lunsford, A. (1983). Why write . . . together? Rhetoric Review, 1(2), 150-157.
Ede, L., & Lunsford, A. (1990). Singular texts/Plural authors: Perspectives on collaborative writing.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Ferrara, K., Brunner, H., & Whittemore, G. (1991). Interactive written discourse as an emergent register.
Written Communication, 8(1), 8-34.
Fitzgerald, G. (2003). Information systems: A subject with a particular perspective, no more, no less.
European Journal of Information Systems, 12(3), 225-228.
Forman, J. (1991a). Computing and collaborative writing. In G. E. Hawisher & C. L. Selfe (Eds.), Evolving perspectives on computers and composition studies. (pp. 65-83). Urbana, IL: National Council of
Teachers of English.
Forman, J. (1991b). Novices work on group reports: Problems in group writing and in computersupported group writing. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 5(1), 48-75.
Forman, J. (1998). More than survival: The discipline of business communication and the uses of translation. Journal of Business Communication, 35, 50-68.
Forman, J. (2004). Opening the aperture: Research and theory on collaborative writing. Journal of Business Communication, 41, 27-36.
Forman, J., & Katsky, P. (1986). The group report: A problem in small group or writing processes? Journal of Business Communication, 23(4), 23-35.
Foucault, M. (1972). The discourse on language. In M. Foucault, The archaeology of knowledge & the
discourse on language (A. M. S. Smith, Trans., pp. 215-237). New York: Pantheon.
Galegher, J., Kraut, R. E., & Egido, C. (Eds.). (1990). Intellectual teamwork: Social and technological
foundations of cooperative work. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Graham, M. B., & Thralls, C. (1998). Guest editorial: Connections and fissures: Discipline formation in
business communication. Journal of Business Communication, 35, 7-13.
Henderson, G. V., Jr., Ganesh, G. K., & Chandy, P. R. (1990). Across-discipline journal awareness and
evaluation: Implications for the promotion and tenure process. Journal of Economics and Business,
42(4), 325-351.

102

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Klein, J. T. (1990). Interdisciplinarity: History, theory, & practice. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University
Press.
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The social construction of scientific facts. Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage.
Locker, K. O. (1994). The challenge of interdisciplinary research. Journal of Business Communication,
31, 137-151.
Lowry, P. B., Curtis, A., & Lowry, M. R. (2004). Building a taxonomy and nomenclature of collaborative
writing to improve interdisciplinary research and practice. Journal of Business Communication,
41(1), 66-99.
Markus, M. L. (1992). Asynchronous technology in small face-to-face groups. Information Technology
& People, 6(1), 29-48.
Markus, M. L., & Connolly, T. (1990). Why CSCW applications fail: Problems in the adoption of interdependent work tools. In F. Halasz (Ed.), Proceedings of the Conference on Computer-Supported
Cooperative Work (pp. 371-380). Los Angeles: ACM Press.
OConnor, G. C., Rice, M. P., Peters, L., & Veryzer, R. W. (2003). Managing interdisciplinary, longitudinal research teams: Extending grounded theory-building methodologies. Organization Science,
14(4), 353-373.
Paul, R. J. (2002). (IS)3: Is information systems an intellectual subject? European Journal of Information Systems, 11(2), 174-177.
Perry, M. J. (2003). (IS)4: Is information systems interesting in itself? European Journal of Information
Systems, 12(3), 231-234.
Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1969). The new rhetoric: A treatise on argumentation. Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Reinsch, N. L., Jr., & Lewis, P. V. (1993). Authorial and citation patterns for The Journal of Business
Communication, 1978-1992. Journal of Business Communication, 30, 435-462.
Rentz, K. (1993). Editorial: Negotiating the field of business communication. Journal of Business Communication, 30, 233-240.
Rogers, E. M., & Allbritton, M. M. (1995). Interactive communication technologies in business organizations. Journal of Business Communication, 32(2), 177-195.
Rogers, P. (2001). Convergence and commonality challenge business communication research (Outstanding Researcher Lecture). Journal of Business Communication, 38, 14-23.
Rose, M. (1988). Narrowing the mind and page: Remedial writers and cognitive reductionism. College
Composition and Communication, 39, 267-302.
Ryan, C. (2001a). The challenge of inclusion: Reconsidering alternative approaches to teaching and
research. Journal of Business Communication, 38, 256-260.
Ryan. C. (2001b). Communicating a new ABC: Advocacy, partnership, and implementing change. Journal of Business Communication, 38, 252-255.
Shaw, G. (1993). The shape of our field: Business communication as a hybrid discipline. Journal of Business Communication, 30, 297-313.
Smeltzer, L. R. (1993). Emerging questions and research paradigms in business communication
research. Journal of Business Communication, 30, 181-198.
Smeltzer, L. R. (1994). Confessions of a researcher: A reply to Kitty Locker. Journal of Business Communication, 31, 157-159.
Smeltzer, L. R., & Suchan, J. (1991). Guest editorial: Theory building and relevance. Journal of Business
Communication, 28, 181-186.
Suchan, J. (2004). Writing authenticity, and knowledge creation: Why I write and you should too. Journal of Business Communication, 41, 302-315.
Thompson, I. (2001). Collaboration in technical communication: A qualitative content analysis of journal articles, 1990-1999. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 44(4), 161-173.
Wardrope, W. J. (2001). Challenge is a positive word: Embracing the interdisciplinary nature of business communication. Journal of Business Communication, 38, 242-247.