On networking, friends, research, respect, and diversity: the insights of Margaret Graham.

At the outset, let me state that I am honored and pleased to serve as respondent to Marty Graham's excellent research assessment. I am honored because a few years ago, when Marty stood for promotion at Iowa State, I had the opportunity to serve as an external reviewer of her candidacy. After examining

I am pleased to do this response for a rather selfish reason as well. Stated simply, I enjoy reading and talking about this "stuff." In particular, I enjoy examining research trends in business communication and the association's accomplishments, roles, and contributions within those areas.

Doing this response permitted me to have a preseason peek into the insights Marty planned to share with us on these topics. The fruit of this analysis is that I had the opportunity to pluck a number of insights from Marty's presentation. I will focus this response on the two that I think are most important to us as researchers within the ABC.

Marty's first point, and she is too dignified to state it so bluntly, but it is exactly what she means, can be summarized in two words: Networking sucks! A recent plethora of articles in the Harvard Business Review as well as other applied business outlets advocate building professional networks. These articles suggest various strategies for doing so and, in the process, dehumanize the concept of friendship and respect for individuals. Stated another way, these articles frame people as objects: tools to be used for one's own self-serving ends. A recent article by Uzzi and Dunlap (2005), in fact, goes so far as to not just advocate using others for networking purposes but to tell others that you are doing so. The driver of the revelation is neither honesty nor integrity; instead, the authors propose sharing this motive to demonstrate "gratitude," "sincerity," and "flattery." Should those motives make us feel better for being used?

When Marty talks about getting research advice from Carol David and finding it productive to her academic career, when Marty talks about letting the work of Kitty Locker, JoAnne Yates, Jim Suchan, and others influence her work, she is not talking about meeting people to use them. In fact, her aim is quite the opposite. Marty reveals what academics and organizations such as the ABC are supposed to do: challenge old ideas and find new ones. In other words, Marty is asking questions to learn--the true job of an academic--not introducing herself to others to make an academic contact. Meeting people to use them is hypocritical and dehumanizing. Meeting people to learn from and to test and exchange ideas with them is what the ABC and other academic organizations are supposed to be about.

So Marty puts us back on track. She reminds us that it is important not just to meet and talk with Pris Rogers, Kitty Locker, or Jim Suchan, it is important to exchange ideas with them. Academics and research are about concepts, not contacts. How refreshing and, unfortunately, how antiquated in today's "it's who I know, not what I know" world.

The second key point in Marty's presentation, and one that provides genuinely new insight into ABC research, is that our organization's glass is half full. Stated another way, Marty shows us that our strength as an organization rests in our diversity and in our respect for one another's ideas. I was tempted to label this finding "universities are Pharisees: remove the golf club from your eyes, you foolish, short-sighted hypocrites," but that seemed a bit mean. I was then tempted to label this finding "salvation for the Association for Business Communication," but that seemed a bit religious and a bit risky for someone working in a state in which a rock listing the Ten Commandments might put a defrocked supreme court judge into the governor's seat. So I instead decided to stay with the theme of diversity and respect, although the other two aptly summarize Marty's valuable insights.

Prior to elaborating on Marty's observations on diversity and respect, let me mention two interesting studies that provide tangible academic support for her insights about the importance of these qualities. The first, by Morgan and Hunt (1994), has become the seminal study on which the field of relationship marketing has developed. In essence, in a study of the relationship between franchisers and franchisees, Morgan and Hunt discovered that trust and commitment, the foundations on which respect and diversity preside, are the most important factors for predicting success within a relationship. Without the presence of these traits, businesses have a significantly greater probability of failing.

The second, summarized best by Carrere and Gottman (1999), and cited in Gladwell's (2005) Blink, deals with the ability to predict marriage longevity. In essence, these researchers found the presence of one quality within a marriage significantly increases the probability of the relationship not continuing. That quality, contempt, is the exact opposite of respect.

Universities should pay attention to both studies and to Marty Graham's findings as well. While proclaiming respect for diversity and being welcome to a multitude of different views and concepts, universities and particularly academic specialty areas within these universities have become silos of academic contempt. Anyone who has been within an academic department for even a few days has witnessed this trait. Go to the library and review the content of any academic field's leading journal. You will instantly see a silo of contempt within the walls of those pages. Many proclaim to welcome articles using a number of different methodologies, yet the articles published reflect a one-eyed mania toward a given methodology.

When Marty's study shows charts on the research methodologies used within JBC, she shows convergence, not divergence. Charts of other respected academic journals would seldom, if ever, unite in the way that Marty shows ours have. Hence, Marty shows us, quite convincingly, that we have a kind of theoretical-methodological balance rarely evidenced in other disciplines. This is a fact to be proud of. This is a fact on which we can build. This is another contributory insight that Marty has provided to our discipline.

Within the area of diversity, Marty's comments and her readings, as well as the body of her research, show a level of breadth reminiscent of what academics should be. The issue of whether we should do quantitative or qualitative research is silly, Marty implies. Both procedures have uses; both provide insights. We must be aware of and have respect for multiple methodologies. It is not that one is right and one wrong--it is that both provide insights and solutions for different problems. The question should determine the methodology, not the methodology the question.

Furthermore--and here is where the ultimate salvation of the ABC may rest--Marty demonstrates that what makes ABC research unique is the diversity of perspectives and the different sets of readings that we bring to the table. Marry recognizes that although all of us unite and meet around the topic of business communication, we bring to that topic a number of different insights and perspectives based on where we work. This difference emanates not just from the different departmental perspectives that we bring--that is, English, business, communication, or wherever--but also from the varying perspectives of different schools where we work--that is, large state schools, small state schools, Ivy League institutions, and community colleges. What I have found admirable about the ABC over the years, and an insight that I find Marty hinting at in her presentation, is that once we register at an ABC conference, and once we hang that badge around our necks, we are all equal. We can all learn from one another. That's cool.

On this score, and returning more directly to Marty's presentation, is that her presentation as well as the overall body of her work recognizes that an organization such as the ABC is really about helping its members learn new things. Marty's presentation, coming from an English department perspective, tells me about books I need to read, such as Gibbon's The New Production of Knowledge, and things I need to think about, such as the influence of Marxism on business communication. And, ideally, coming from a business school perspective, I can pay her back by sharing Fleming, Coffman, and Harter's (2005) findings on human sigma--research that demonstrates that firms function more effectively if both employees and customers are happy--or by introducing her to the work of Charles Handy (2002), a British organizational philosopher who labels himself "a reluctant capitalist." It is in these kinds of discussions that the ABC has a special opportunity to grow. As long as we are willing to share new ideas, use different methodologies, express different perspectives, and maintain our respect for one another in the process, then ABC will be able to function in a way that an academic support organization is supposed to function.

So, Marty shows us that our glass truly is half full. We have a niche--that is a business strategy term, by the way--that no other academic organization can fill. And it is a niche in which we must trust and to which we must remain committed, both in the promotion of the association and in protecting and maintaining the diverse set of views and perspectives that our conference presentations and our journals exhibit. To do anything less would be a travesty.

And so I end this response with great hope. Please join me in congratulating Marty Graham both for her research and for her work as an academic. But even more important, join me in congratulating Marty for a career spent helping all of us learn more about business communication, business communication research, and what it means to be an academic. For that we should all be thankful.

REFERENCES

Carrere, S., & Gottman, J. (1999). Predicting divorce among newlyweds from the first three minutes of a marital conflict. Family Process, 38, 293-301.

Fleming, J. H., Coffman, C., & Hatter, J. K. (2005). Manage your human sigma. Harvard Business Review, 83(7/8), 106-114.

Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. New York: Little, Brown.

Handy, C. (2002). The elephant and the flea: Reflections of a reluctant capitalist. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Morgan, R., & Hunt, S. (1994). The commitment-trust theory of relationship marketing. Journal of Marketing, 58, 20-38.

Uzzi, B., & Dunlap, S. (2005). How to build your network. Harvard Business Review, 83(12), 53-60.

Ronald E. Dulek (PhD, Purdue University, 1977) is the John R. Miller Professor of Management at the University of Alabama. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ronald E. Dulek, University of Alabama, Management and Marketing Department, Box 870226, Tuscaloosa, AL 35486; e-mail: rdulek@cba.ua.edu.