A Research Consortium That's All Over the Map - That's Our Strength,if We Use Trans lation to Teach Each Other: A Response to Janis Forman's ABC Outstanding Researcher Lecture

Abstract

Janis Forman's ABC Outstanding Researcher Lecture prompts us to consider several issues: whether pure research in business communication is possible, why we translate ideas and methods from other disciplines, and our responsibil ities as translators - to the disciplines we import from and to each other. Because business communication spans a vast territory and because our teach ing situates us in a variety of disciplines across the academy, each with its own research standards, research in our field has become a far-flung enterprise. The breadth of our research consortium, however, should not be seen as a liability, because the peer review process ensures the integrity of our imports, and as a discipline we benefit from the constant influx of fresh ideas. Although importing from other disciplines challenges us to translate for each other, we are uniquely qualified to solve this rhetorical problem because of the intrinsically pedagogi cal nature of business communication.