256 The Journal of Business Communication 38:3 July 2001

The Challenge of Inclusion:

Reconsidering Alternative Approaches
to Teaching and Research
Cynthia Ryan
University of Alabama at Birmingham

O ne underlying theme in the speeches presented by Paula Pomerenke

(Outstanding Teacher), PrisciUa Rogers (Outstanding Researcher), and
Gail Fann Thomas (Respondent) at the ABC 2000 Convention in Atlanta
is the need to listen to alternative voices in our discipline, to acknowledge
our shared interests and histories whUe making room for new approaches
to teaching and research. AU three speakers recognize the importance of
devising a common umbreUa under which scholars and practitioners of
business communication can meet, discuss our particular professional and
institutional successes and chaUenges, and formulate together the future
of business communication as a rich and necessary discipline.
Yet, each also suggests that we have not gone far enough in opening
this umbreUa to individuals in our profession who bring alternative per-
spectives to pedagogy and scholarship and who might therefore help both
in tackling our discipline's problems and in bringing a renewed vitality to
our work. Pomerenke (2001), for instance, caUs ABC members to build and
strengthen relationships with business practitioners, and to consider the
two-way conversation between academics and practitioners that wiU re-
energize communication theories and practices in both sectors. Rogers
(2001) discusses the dual processes of convergence and commonality in our
discipUne, suggesting that we can encourage diversity in business commu-
nication scholarship, in particular, if we keep our eyes on the common goal
of "providing practical knowledge that can enhance the communication
effectiveness of all kinds of organizational stakeholders, particularly
related to business" (p. 21). According to Rogers, the "topical streams and
recurring themes in our conference programs and journals" (p. 20) are evi-
dence of our disciplinary commitment to improved interactions in the cor-
porate sector and serve as a reminder that "inteUectual tensions" (p. 16)
between individuals who espouse varied ideological and methodologicsd
perspectives migjit be overcome as we work towards fulfilling this com-
mitment. And Thomas (2001) effectively reinforces the idea that diversity
need not lead to splits in our discipline; rather, the varied aspects of our
work (e.g., teaching and research, positivism and interpretive studies)
might be viewed as "two side of the same [business communication] coin"

Cynthia Ryan is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Alahama

at Birmingham and can he reached at <c3mryan@uah.edu>.
The Challenge of Inclusion / Ryan 257

(p. 24). The message that I took away from these speeches was one of
inclusion and tolerance, a message that is both inspiring and encouraging
to scholars and teachers in our profession who desire to take pedagogical
and methodological risks and to challenge the boundaries of our discipline.
Later during the conference, I attended a panel discussion focusing on
qualitative research methods and theories and was heartened by the con-
tinued tone of inclusion of alternative perspectives (including such inter-
disciplinary emphases as rhetorical studies and social theory, narrative
theory, cultural studies, and discourse theory). Yet, at the close of the ses-
sion, several audience members raised their hands to express concern
about merging some of the "new" approaches discussed with what "we"
do as teachers of business communication courses in business schools and
English departments, as consultants for "real" business organizations,
and as researchers situated in a variety of professional contexts. I do not
want to suggest that there was a lack of interest or enthusiasm on the
part of aU audience members for the methods and theories offered by pan-
elists. But as we left the room, I sensed that the overwhelming response
was something to the effect of "what interesting ideas . . . too bad we
can't try them out given the places where we work, the people with whom
we work, and the students whom we teach."
Throughout the remainder of this response, I want to focus on just one
example of a disciplinary interest represented by the panelists, cultural
studies (Rentz, 2000), and discuss its (perhaps unnecessary) exclusion
from our scholarship and teaching interests. Oftentimes, we resist the
work being done in other disciplines because of the negative assumptions
we have adopted regarding both the foundations and practices of this
work. In the case of cultural studies, to which I now turn, three particu-
lar assumptions prevail that prevent us from drawing on many of its rich
pedagogical and methodological strategies.
The first assumption is that the goals of cultural studies are necessar-
ily contradictory to the goals of business communication. Of course the
underlying political basis of traditional cultural studies, Marxism, is not
compatible with the capitalist framework driving the activities of individ-
uals in most business org:anizations. However, some recent adaptations of
cultural studies, especially in current composition theory and pedagogy,
align it more closely with the interests of academics and practitioners of
business communication. These current applications of cultural studies
theory are not based on orthodox Marxism, acknowledging instead the
global economy in which we live and the situatedness of students as learn-
ers, consumers, and participants in a capitalist culture. Rather than
taking up the anti-capitalist, communitarian precepts of strict Marxism,
many cultural studies approaches now support a more generic liberal dem-
ocratic position, one that recognizes that as individuals who live and work
in a democratic society, our students need to be introduced to critical
258 The Joumai of Business Communication 38:3 July 200!

metbods for assessing the production, distribution, and consumption of

goods and services in a free marketplace. While many wiU object to my
efforts to "de-politicize" cultural studies, claiming that the removal of
strict Marxism from any discussion of this approach discounts the
approach itself, 1 believe that we need not whoUy accept the historical
foundation of a particular set of methodological practices to find useful-
ness in them. As one member of the panel focusing on qualitative
research theories and methods suggested, business communication spe-
cialists need to borrow from various approaches—including some that
seem oppositional to what we do—to create new frameworks that serve the
needs and interests of our discipline (Rentz, 2000). Rogers (2001), too,
states that "convergence chaUenges us to get inside the head of other dis-
ciplines, to adopt them as our own . . . to use methods that are foreign
to us and to study research areas investigated by colleagues whose con-
ference sessions we would not be inclined to attend" (p. 17). So, we need
not feel comfortable with aU aspects of an approach that we are initiaUy
tapping into for new ideas; rather, we need to study these approaches and
the frameworks that drive them while transforming them to meet our
goals and expectations and those of our students.
A second negative assumption is that introducing cultural studies
strategies to the business communication classroom is impractical, that
lessons in marginalizing discourses and practices won't do much to pre-
pare our students for the real world. In response to this objection, I
want to return to Rogers' (2001) point that we need to keep our common
goal of improved communication in organizations in mind. In recent
years, we have stressed the importance of introducing students to the
ethical implications of individual decision making and organizational
practices in business contexts. In their indexes for 2000, for example.
The JBC and BCQ each list two articles under the category of ethics.
These listings do not include the many other articles published in these
journals during the year that discuss the nuances of particular corpo-
rate cultures, preferences for particular document tsrpes, attempts at
global communication with diverse audiences, and other topics with eth-
ical implications. Cultural studies approaches encourage students to ask
questions about representation (e.g.. Who is being targeted in this
Calvin IQein ad and how are they being represented? What messages
about class, race, and gender identities are being conveyed?) and tbe
ethics of this representation (e.g.. What values, both positive and nega-
tive, are communicated through this representation? What individuals
or groups in our society are being privileged and what individuals and
groups are being alienated or rejected?). These questions appear to com-
plement the goals that many business communication teachers hope to
accomplish: to encourage students to look at the personal and political
outcomes of their work for co-workers, consumers, and other members
The Challenge of Inclusion / Ryan 259

of society. We must believe that attaining this goal will result in

improved communication in the workplace.
Along these same lines, many cultural studies pedagogies, especially
those developed for the composition classroom, offer students concrete
strategies for analyzing and critiquing texts that can be helpful to stu-
dents of business communication. One means for teaching students how
to contribute positively to communication in business contexts is to
enhance their ability to think critically, specifically to look at business
texts and situations from multiple perspectives and to imagine possibili-
ties for revision. From a cultural studies perspective, diverse forms of
communication in the professional and social arena can be analyzed and
critiqued as texts, including office spaces, product packaging, employee
orientation videos, and dress codes. We can help students to better under-
stand the "rhetoric" of all business texts that communicate, both those
that are traditionally considered to be "composed" or "written" (e.g., let
ters, memos, proposals) and those that many students beUeve are simply
"normal" or a matter of "chance" (e.g., who sits where at a business meet-
ing and what conventions are followed in oral exchanges between workers
in a corporation). Thus, I argue that cultural studies approaches, when
accompanied by other teaching strategies, are extremely useful for busi-
ness communication students. In fact, many of the students I have taught
over the years have told me that they felt they had an "insider's per-
spective" of the organization they joined after graduation because of their
ability to "read" texts of many kinds and to interpret the corporate cul-
ture they were entering.
The last negative assumption that has prevented us from appljdng cul-
tural studies approaches (as well as other disciplinary approaches) to
teaching and research is that these strategies may not be perceived as
legitimate by the individuals we study. We believe, in other words, that
people working "out there" do not, or wiQ not, consider the kinds of values
on which culturEil studies or other disciplinary emphases rely to accomplish
their goals. As I consider this assumption, I am reminded of Pomerenke's
(2001) discussion of her previous efforts with Deborah Bosley to create a
committee composed of ABC members that would work to "build alliances
with business communicators, and most importantly to bring more prac-
titioners to [ABC's] conferences so that [participants] would have more
exposure to business practices" (p. 7). One ABC member questioned
whether business communicators working in the corporate sector would
listen to the ideas and strategies that teachers of professional communi-
cation had to offer, while another member of the designated committee
wondered whether we—as "experts" trained formally in the discipline—
would be open to the thoughts of those who practice business communi-
cation outside academia. This incident suggests that we are well aware of
the boundaries that exist between academics and practitioners and that we
260 The Journal of Business Communication 38:3 Juiy200i

have come to accept the institutional divides that keep us apart. Yet
Pomerenke (2001), Rogers (2001), and Thomas (2001) all seem to be argu-
ing for a reconsideration of these boundaries and a renewed commitment
to open communication between members of our discipline and beyond. I
think we might be surprised by the efforts being made in the corporate
sector to be more inclusive of employees and audiences who have tradi-
tionally been ignored or silenced. Just as we have addressed the increas-
ing complexity and fragmentation of the marketplace in our scholarship
and pedagogies during the past decade, business practitioners have also
needed to adapt their policies and practices to reach alternative social
groups and to incorporate changing cultural values. Since we are unable
to locate the primary source of evolving business practices (i.e.. Are orga-
nizational communication strategies initially conceived inside the academy
or outside? Does information about how best to motivate employees and
target consumers flow outward from the classroom or do teachers simply
respond to existing cultural and organizational trends?), it is important
that we be willing—even eager—to share our views with practitioners and
invite them to demonstrate how they cope with emerging demands for
better and more efficient communication.
In closing, I suggest that an important step towards inclusion of alter-
native approaches to teaching and research is the reconsideration of our
own assumptions, both about what we do as members of this discipline
and about what others do in disciplines with which we are somewhat unfa-
miliar. I believe that we can find commonalties that aEow us to move for-
ward in creative and productive ways.

REFERENCES
Pomerenke, P. (2001). Challenges for ABC memhers in 2000 [Outstanding Teacher
Lecture]. The Joumal of Business Communication, 38, 5-13.
Rentz, K. (2000). A cultural studies primer for business communication researchers.
Paper presented at The Association for Business Communication 65th Annual
Convention, Atlanta, GA.
Rogers, P. S. (2001). Convergence and commonality challenge business communi-
cation research [Outstanding Researcher Lecture]. The Journal of Business
Communication, 38, 14-23.
Thomas, G. F. (2001). Forging our own path: Building synergy from opposing
forces [Response to Pomerenke and Rogers]. The Joumal of Business Commu-
nication, 38, 24-28.