Partnership Research: A Response to Priscilla Rogers

Abstract

The challenges of and of purpose that Priscilla Rogers (2001) proposes to the academic community in her Outstanding Researcher Lecture are indeed very welcome and full of promise, as they herald the possibility of a new turn in attitudes and orientation. We are invited to accept the multidisciplinarity and the variety of interests that characterise business communication research and turn them into advantages, thus leaving behind the conflictual exchanges that have been so prevalent between the pro-theory and the pro-application camps. She goes on to suggest that convergence underlies a more fruitful way of doing research that requires familiarity with a number of related areas and with relevant disciplines and their methods. In short, a convergent approach means tackling issues and problems from more than one angle and with a combination of methods and tools. In this response, we would like to comment further on the implications of convergence and commonality of purpose, and to pr opose the concept of partnership research as a useful step forward for the field of business communication. There is clearly a great deal of potential in working from a multidisciplinary perspective. This has been discussed not only in our own ABC publications (e.g., Louhiala-Salminen, 1997; Smart, 1998; Zachry, 2000), but also in a number of related disciplines-the other fish scales, as Gail Fann Thomas reminds us, that are so eloquently described by Campbell (1969, as cited in Thomas, 2001). For example, Goswami (1999) comments on the potential usefulness of working from various disciplinary perspectives (p. 309) in a recent volume on international professional communication. In the field of applied linguistics, there are increasing numbers of publications investigating business and professional discourse that take a multidisciplinary approach (e.g., Candlin, 2001; Scollon, Bhatia, Li, & Yung, 1999). It could be argued, however, that an individual cannot be easily expected to acquire multidisciplinary expertise. Sound research profiles tend to be built over a relatively long period of time, and despite our b est efforts, the widening of our research horizons can often be limited by other, more pressing commitments. On the other hand, partnership research, whether with a team or simply with one other colleague, may not only make a multidisciplinary approach to business communication a more attainable target, it may also provide insights from other areas or disciplines through the input of individual contributors that result in innovative research. Rogers' own collaborative work together with the applied linguist John Swales in their definitive account of the corporate mission statement is, of course, an excellent example of how effective such a research partnership can be (Rogers & Swales, 1990; Swales & Rogers, 1995). And the convergence challenge does not stop at multidisciplinarity. In complex research environments, such as those presented by business organizations, a mono-method approach is at best narrow, and at worst inadequate. Of course, the choice of methods can affect findings, but it is often possible, indeed desirable, to bridge the apparent incomparability of findings from distant methods, such as experimentation and in-depth interviews, in a multi-method approach (for further comment, see Smart, 1998; Scollon et al., 1999). The translation of aims, objectives, and findings is another benefit of partnership research, and it can be seen as a natural stage in the design of multi-party projects where the participants come to share a working language, as well as tools and insights. In fact, the identification of shared research questions in the initial stages of project design is a necessary first step towards the harmonisation of foci and strengths from separate disciplinary domains. As Rogers (2001) points out, convergence can only make progress if we strive for of purpose (p. …