Workplace Communication: An Emerging Field of Study

Dear Colleagues,

Workplace communication is a general term that captures elements of several well-defined disciplinary areas with an eye to pragmatic application. Whereas areas of study such as management communication, organizational communication, corporate communication, and business communication have garnered conceptual attention, even to the point of prompting consideration of the distinctiveness of those areas.

The emphasis for Wrench, in addition, is primarily application of task-related communicative practices in workplace contexts; the subtitle “strategies for success” suggests a concern for functionality, as does his explicit mention of the International Association of Business Communicators, a professional association focused on application and practice. A chapter on business and professional presentations in this second volume overlaps with content that courses in business communication or business and professional communication dedicated to speaking, presenting, and writing might offer, .

Mikkola and Valo’s approach embraced a communication as constitutive approach to organizing: “It is in workplace communication that the organization comes into being” (p. 3).

Chory and Horan (2023), in reviewing their special issue of Behavioral Sciences on personal workplace relationships, include multiple factors that point toward the importance of interpersonal communication in workplace settings. That “workplace” rather than “organizational” was chosen as the adjective to define the nature of the relationships in organizational settings Horan et al. examined is conceptually important.

Horan et al.’s conceptualization of workplace relationships ties “organizational” as an adjective to the notion of “role,” surfacing the formal nature of “organizational relationships,” which carry implications tied to formal organizational structure, such as superior/subordinate, or connections based on requirements of one’s job. From their conceptual standpoint, workplace relationships have a personal quality that transcends organizational roles. “Workplace” in this context is a modifier of “relationships”; “relationships” is the primary term, with the workplace as location for their development beyond formal boundaries.

This Special Issue invites manuscripts from a wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives exploring workplace communication relevant to all categories of organizational and institutional settings and addressing a broad scope of topics. Given that communication in the contemporary workplace presents multiple challenges and opportunities at both professional and personal levels, and given the rapidly changing landscape of the contemporary workplace, scholarship in this area is vital to the well-being of our global and local communities. Developments over the last decade, whether emerging from crises (such as the COVID-19 pandemic), from increasing opportunities for nontraditional work engagement due to advances in technology, or from applications of artificial intelligence in workplace settings, offer new perspectives on enduring themes of organizational socialization, workplace relationships, mentoring, teamwork and group communication, dysfunctional organizational communication, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, concerns for civility/incivility in work settings, robots in the workplace, and the shifting relationship of professionals and the professions to workplace settings, to name only a few topics appropriate for this special issue. We also invite research on topics engaging the intersection of workplace communication and traditional areas of organizational communication, management communication, business and professional communication, and corporate communication, and leadership communication, all of which offer insights for improved workplace communication.

References

Argenti, P. A. (1996). Corporate communication as a discipline. Management Communication Quarterly, 10, 73–97.
Chory, R., & Horan, S. (2023). Personal workplace relationships: Unifying an understudied area of organizational and personal life. Behavioral Sciences, 13, 760. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13090760
Fritz, J. M. H. (2013). Professional civility: Communicative virtue at work. Peter Lang.
Fritz, J. M. H., & Omdahl, B. L. (Eds.) (2006). Problematic relationships in the workplace. Peter Lang.
Horan, S., Chory, R. M., Craw, E. S., & Jones, H. E. (2021). Blended work/life relationships: Workplace peers, friends, and lovers. Communication Research Trends, 40, 3–47.
McDowell Marinchak, C. M., & DeIuliis, S. M. (2023). Corporate communication and integrated marketing communication: Audience beyond stakeholders in a technological age. Lexington.
Mikkola, L., & Valo, M. (Eds.) (2020). Workplace communication. Routledge.
Nicotera, A. M. (Ed.) (2020). Origins and traditions of organizational communication: A comprehensive introduction to the field. Taylor and Francis.
Omdahl, B. L., & Fritz, J. M. H. (2012). Problematic relationships in the workplace, volume II. Peter Lang.
Shelby, A. N. (1993). Organizational, business, management, and corporate communication: An analysis of boundaries and relationships. Journal of Business Communication, 30, 241–267.
Valo, M.,  & Sivunen, A. (2020). Future directions in workplace communication. In L. Mikkola & M. Valo (Eds.), Workplace communication (pp. 193–206). Routledge.
Wrench, J. (2013a). Workplace communication for the 21st century: Tools and strategies that impact the bottom line (volume 1). Praeger.
Wrench, J. (2013b). Workplace communication for the 21st century: Tools and strategies that impact the bottom line (volume 2). Praeger.

Prof. Dr. Janie Harden Fritz
Prof. Dr. Kristen Majocha
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• workplace communication
• organizational socialization
• organizational relationships
• professional civility
• incivility
• conflict