Linda Putnam’s Contributions Toward a Research Home for Organizational Communication Studies in Management Communication Quarterly

There are many ways in which I (and others) might construct the intersecting stories of Linda Putnam’s reliance upon MCQ for developing organizational communication as a field and of how she contributed to both MCQ and organizational communication. Both stories would speak to legacy although in different ways and with intriguing mixtures of fact and fiction. In the interest of discerning where Linda Putnam fits within these stories and of celebrating Linda’s profound influence, I begin with some facts then move into legend and legacy.

The first story is Linda’s reliance on MCQ as a research home for her key ideas and for organizational communication’s growth and changing nature. In researching this angle, I must admit surprise. In an age where we tend to look at citation patterns, numbers of publications, and other key indicators, I both found and didn’t find the story I expected. I noted that Linda was a member of MCQ’s first editorial board for Vol. 1, issue 1, in 1987, a position that she has held on and off since that time. Her MCQ Editorial Board membership was not her first—indeed, MCQ was her 7th editorial board—but it is her most enduring insofar as she has devoted more years to MCQ than to any of her other 22 editorial boards. Structurally, then, Linda was embedded in MCQ systems of influence. Her views encouraged and enabled publication, promoted the journal within communication and in other disciplines, supported editorial teams, provided advice about future editors, and shaped MCQ’s nature and functions. In this capacity, Linda not only set agendas on topics, theories, and methodologies, but framed how content would be presented in organizational communication scholarship throughout MCQ’s 25 years.

The how, for Linda, has always been primary and processual in particular ways. Her writings and insights coalesce around direct, empirically based findings and appeals for more quality research as well as creative, alternative possibilities. In her work on alternative possibilities, she often tells sideways stories. These stories enable members of our field to see, and encourages performance of, organizing differently. Moreover, Linda’s how typically captures multiple, layered details in which communicative behaviors and structures—indeed. These stories constitutive approach to organizing and organization in diverse venues—can yield productive changes in the ways people talk, negotiate, and create and dismantle structures. Here Linda reflects upon and crafts key moments in our field through which she has figured prominently in the production of paradigm-shifting discourses.

As evidence of these connections with and products within MCQ, Linda has contributed in a variety of ways. She provided an overview of her thoughts on and possibilities for journal rankings in 2009, thus linking her scholarship to key service for our discipline in which she has been engaged for years (i.e., heading the ISI committee for the Council for Communication Associations, CCA). ¹ She raised issues for addressing the Communicative Constitution of Organization (CCO, Putnam & Nicotera, 2010). She edited special issues on organizational conflict, discourse and resistance, and organizational communication in Brazil (Putnam, 1988, 2005; Putnam & Casali, 2009b). Importantly, the how for Linda has always involved reflecting upon who we, as organizational communication scholars, are in particular moments and where we might contribute to challenges facing our worlds (see Knapp, Putnam, & Davis, 1988; Putnam, 1988; Putnam, Poole, & Seibold, 1997; Putnam, Grant, Mickelson, & Cutcher, 2005). Lest we forget our past, Linda also saw MCQ as the space for honoring the life and work of dear friends, colleagues, and coauthors, such as her “Dedication to Frederic M. Jablin” in 2005.

In short, Linda Putnam relied upon MCQ for developing organizational communication in different ways over time and contributed to MCQ and organizational communication structurally and conceptually. But the story doesn’t end here. In delving further into fact and fiction of the legend and legacy of Linda Putnam, I also looked at the June 2012 “most read” and “most cited” lists of articles for MCQ. I rechecked multiple times. Again, the pattern was not what I had expected. In these two lists, I noted only one entry for Linda Putnam and that entry was in the first category, the “most read” list (i.e., Putnam & Nicotera, 2010). This seemed odd for someone who has been such a force in MCQ and our field. So I dug deeper. Here I found that she has been cited 279 times in MCQ —considerably more than any of the top two dozen scholars in organizational communication for whom I did the same analysis—meaning that Linda’s impact on and through MCQ has not resulted from particular MCQ articles but has been much more diverse and far-reaching. Here her influence has resulted from the different ways in which others use her work. For instance, Linda’s publications have been cited in MCQ articles on: conflict, CCO, linguistic turns in communication, bridging and creating distinctions among fields, discursive struggles, resistance, meaning making and social constructions, empowering relationships, negotiating, agency, problem formation, engagement, organizational change, identity, ethics, power, hierarchy, symbolizing, socializing, volunteer and not-for-profit organizing, downsizing, emotion, branding, learning, uncertainty, methods, professionalizing, feminist perspectives, knowledge construction, telework, leadership, narrative, dissent, self-organizing, performance, and technology, amongst other topics. In examining both Rooney, McKenna, and Barker’s (2011) “intellectual structure approach” to ascertain Linda’s place in their history of ideas and organizational communication identity formation in MCQ as well as editors’ essays on their contributions during their tenures at MCQ (see 2007 MCQ Forum, vol. 20, issue 4), Linda’s work figures prominently in every era’s concept map and every editor’s goals from 1987 to the present. Linda’s ideas contributed to the constitution of the field with MCQ as the platform to accomplish her goals.

In closing, I ask how one should measure legend and legacy? Linda Putnam’s influence in the field extends far beyond her impact on and through MCQ. It is her profound intellect, unfailing foresight, integrative capacity, boundary-spanning, and generosity of time, ideas, and encouragement in person and in MCQ pages to which we are indebted.

Linda’s impact cannot be measured solely through citation patterns or the research agendas that she has set, framed, and implemented. In providing the “facts” about Linda’s contributions, I have given short shift to the inspiring legend and legacy that is Linda Putnam. As one of her doctoral advisees, a beneficiary of her guidance and common sense when i edited MCQ, and as President of CCA and collaborator, I can speak firsthand about her tireless and enduring commitment to our field. I also can—and should—say that her work in MCQ and elsewhere has never been only about building her CV. She has always looked to see where her talents might best be utilized for our field and in her different institutional homes. Moreover, has given and continues to give her much pleasure.

Indeed, Linda Putnam’s contributions lie between the pages of MCQ insofar as her influence is implicated in everything that organizational communication scholars do and what MCQ has become. As such, Linda has produced an enviable legacy—born out of influence that she does not even know she has had—a kind of legacy that continues well past the reading of particular articles and books. Linda’s legacy lies in the ideas, critical linkages to diverse disciplines, and analytic strategies that have moved, and continue to move, organizational communication and MCQ forward.