Management Communication Quarterly Fall 2023 Newsletter

In Memoriam:

Dr. James Barker

By Matthew Koschmann

We received word of Jim's passing just as we were going to print with this newsletter. Much will be written about his life and legacy by people who knew him better than I did, but I couldn't let this moment pass without a brief comment on a scholar and mentor who has been so important to me and my professional development.

I last saw Jim in person at the International Communication Association (ICA) conference in Toronto earlier this year. He was the respondent for a panel on a forthcoming handbook on qualitative organizational communication research. I knew he had been dealing with health issues for a while, but he was in good spirits and delivered a characteristically enthusiastic response, punctuated by multiple refrains of "so cool" in reaction to the presentations from the various handbook chapter authors.

I first encountered Jim when he was the editor of this journal. He had come across a short blub I wrote about MCQ on the ICA organizational communication division website (a class assignment for our professor, who was division secretary at the time) and contacted me about expanding this excerpt into a guest essay for MCQ's 25th anniversary. That was my first foray into the pages of MCQ, giving me the confidence that I could succeed in this profession and a sense of belonging with this scholarly community.

I also worked closely with Jim to develop the 2012 MCQ forum on nonprofit organizational communication, a pivotal moment in the development of this scholarship and a springboard for so much of the work I've done since. And when I took the helm as editor-in-chief of MCQ earlier this year Jim was one of the first people to reach out and express his congratulations and offer his support.

Over the years we connected for occasional calls to talk about all things organizational communication, plus several guest (video) appearances in the classes he taught. He always signed off by saying "Give my best to all the good folks at Colorado and your wonderful department." I couldn't keep up with passing on his well-wishes as often as he expressed them. He was an abundance of encouragement.

We last chatted on a Zoom call to discuss all sorts of things...from projects he was working on and developments in the org comm literature to advice I sought about various editorial ideas and decisions. He was just as excited about ideas and just as encouraging about my development as when we first met several years ago. A scholar and mentor to the end. So cool.

~ MK

Editor Interview: MCQ Publishes First Article with Video Abstract

For this newsletter, I interviewed Professor Kirstie McAllum from the Université de Montréal, author of the forthcoming article: “I Only Tell Them the Good Parts:” How Relational Others Influence Paid Careworkers’ Descriptions of Their Work as Meaningful by Kirstie McAllum, Marta M. Elvira, and Marta Villamor Martin.

This is the first MCQ article published with a video abstract, so we wanted to talk with Professor McAllum about her work on this project and her thoughts about making our scholarship more engaging and accessible. The article is currently posted on our OnlineFirst website and will be published in our first issue of 2024. Our interview was edited for length and clarity.

Matthew Koschmann (MK): This is the first video abstract we've published for an article in Management Communication Quarterly...thanks for helping us move in this direction. Can you tell us a little more about how you came up with the idea of developing a video abstract for this project?

Kirstie McAllum (KM): As I was collecting data for my research project, which looked at how paid care workers who care for older adults give meaning to what they do, many spoke about their work as misunderstood and/or invisible. Some mentioned that the general public did not grasp the numerous personal and professional qualities (e.g., patience, empathy, a sense of humor, excellent observational skills, creativity, continuous learning) that are needed for care work, because everybody is a caregiver in some way. Others were frustrated by the negative and reductionist ideas about care work that they encountered and worried that these messages not only made it harder to recruit more care workers but dehumanized older adults who need care. Some suggested creating advertising campaigns about what care work entailed. I decided that a short video that focused on the value of care work would be one way to achieve this aim.

MK: Help us understand the practical steps involved in doing something like this. Were there resources at your university to develop this video, or did you work with an outside contractor? How involved were you in the creative process?

KM: Like anybody else who taught during COVID lockdowns, I am now a self-proclaimed expert in creating “pedagogical home videos”! To make a video that would showcase care work in a more polished way, I contracted a professional firm. I was able to pay for this service using my grant from the Fonds de recherche du Québec because the fund encourages knowledge transfer and outreach efforts. I was more involved throughout the process than I thought I would be! I sent the design team my article and they came up with an initial script (text and animations). We went through three versions, noting what we liked and what we thought was missing and made suggestions and additions, bearing in mind that we had to create a coherent narrative that could be conveyed in just three minutes. For instance, in the last version, we wanted the animation to represent the older adults in the video in a range of different contexts, including talking to the care worker in the kitchen, watering plants, and painting as well as lying in bed. Aging and caregiving take many forms.

MK: How have you used this video to present your research in other contexts? How have people responded?

KM: The funder, Fonds de recherche du Québec, and several research groups that I am involved with have used the video. I have also shared the video with care workers (including workers not involved in my study) who responded very positively. The video has acted as a springboard to talk more about care work as meaningful work with members of the research community too. Communicating the key points of a project in a succinct way forces you to think about the main contributions – a little like responding to Reviewer 2 but a lot more fun. I would like to share the video more widely on social media, once I figure out some alternatives to “X.”

MK: What advice do you have for scholars looking for alternative and creative ways of presenting their research?

KM: I would love to create more videos, as well as podcasts and infographics. Creating “bite-sized” research-based content that can be engaged with while on the move or in a shorter time frame makes knowledge more accessible and usable by end-users and members of the general public. I spent a lot of time researching companies who could help me to make the video in the first place and I invested far less energy into creating an outreach plan to share the finished product. Looking back, both of these processes are needed. I would recommend that members of the MCQ community who have already developed expertise in sharing their research share tips with newbies – like me – as well as key questions to ask before embarking on this type of adventure.

MK: From your experience working with our publisher, how can conventional outlets like academic journals do more to support things like video abstracts or other creative presentations of scholarship? What could we work on to improve the process and support other scholars doing this kind of work?

KM: Place the video at the beginning of the article it relates to and label it as such, rather than including it as a “supplementary file” tucked away out of readers’ sight. It would also be cool to create a community of practice where researchers could share promising practices, learn to master new tools and formats, and troubleshoot collectively.

Welcome Dr. Jos Bartels

Jos Bartels (PhD University of Twente) is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Jos is pioneering a new role, Associate Editor for Impact and Promotion. He'll be exploring new ways to promote our scholarship and increase our impact factor.

He started his career as a Lecturer and Assistant Professor in Marketing and Organizational Communication at the UT. He also worked as a Senior Researcher in Consumer Behaviour at Wageningen University & Research, The Hague, the Netherlands. In his previous jobs, Jos was an Assistant Professor in Communication Science at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He is also an (unpaid) research associate at Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK and at Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

His research activities focus on quantitative studies on 1) organizational communication, social media usage and organizational identification, 2) corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability.

An Update on the Emerging Reviewer Program

One of the most notable accomplishments of our editorial team this year is the launch of our new Emerging Reviewer Program, where qualified PhD students are invited to participate in our manuscript review process to enhance their development as scholars in our field. Here are some key details:

• 53 Emerging Reviewers enrolled
• Represent 32 universities and 6 countries
• To date 27 (51%) manuscript review invitations
• All have been matched with a faculty supporter (mentor at their home university or editorial board member volunteer)

2022 Honorable Mention

Temporal Dominance: Controlling Activity Cycles When Time Is Scarce, Sudden, and Squeezed by Jared T. Jensen, Shelbey L. Rolison, and Joshua B. Barbour

Overview: Constant interaction, digital interruptions, and shrinking time to think and act characterize much of present-day communication. The management of time pressures is a key concern for contemporary workers as work responsibilities encroach on each other and other domains of life. This study focuses on how individuals and collectives try to exert control over time through communication. An analysis of observational and interview data (N = 26) at a health research organization revealed that workers encountered cyclical, pervasive temporal structures marked by commotion: a blur of jarring, immediate tasks that require intense communication. As workers sought to make time for sustained focus, these pervasive temporal structures stymied their efforts. The findings contribute to communication theory by illuminating relationships among organizing, time, and control. This study provides metalanguage that facilitates the description and examination of temporal activity, and it describes a form of temporal control that was evident across hierarchal roles. Power differences explained the efficacy and agency of team members’ choices to manage busy, disrupted, and fast-paced work.

Thank You to Our Award Committee

• Dr. Stephanie Dailey, Texas State University
• Dr. Jan Bernadas, De La Salle University (The Philippines)
• Dr. Elizabeth Wilhoit Larson, Auburn University
• Dr. Matthew Weber, Rutgers University
• Dr. Stacey Connaughton, Purdue University

Thank you for being a part of our Management Communication Quarterly community.

Newsletter created by Laine Zizka, MS