Organizational Communication Methods Published in MCQ 2001-2015

Abstract

Organizational communication scholarship has moved beyond our discipline’s early squabbles concerning whether we should privilege qualitative or quantitative methods (e.g., Doerfel & Gibbs, 2014; Myers, 2014; Putnam, 2014). Now, organizational communication methodology is more entwined with theory and is not bound to adhere to strict ontology or epistemology. To better understand recent traditions and transitions in organizational communication research, I will report a summary of method sections of published articles in our field. Wert-Gray, Center, Brashers, and Meyers’s (1991) review of methodological orientations in organizational communication published 25 years ago in Communication Studies inspired my research approach.

To narrow this summary, I focused on published research in Management Communication Quarterly (MCQ), “our field’s flagship journal” (Sias, 2016, p. 3). As of 2015, MCQ had an impact factor of 2.08, ranked sixth among communication journals, and 44th among management journals. The journal publishes high quality articles focused on methods, as long as they make substantial methodological contributions (Sias, 2016). Although MCQ represents only a subset of the scholarship in our field, it is likely a key indicator of the type of scholarship we produce. Therefore, the specific research questions for this project were as follows:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): What research methods were published in MCQ between 2001 and 2015?

Research Question 2 (RQ2): What are the general research method trends observed in our published research?

Sample

I examined the past 15 years of publications in MCQ, which provided a contemporary perspective on publishing trends, and other scholars have found this time frame to provide meaningful trend analyses (e.g., Doerfel & Gibbs, 2014). Examining a single volume of any journal published only 4 times a year might be unrepresentative, so I began systematically coding each article independently. After coding, I realized that grouping the data into three, 5-year segments normalized some of the year-to-year variations that included special issues and forums. Because the three groups contained the same numbers of issues, this grouping also allowed me to compare across time segments.

Coding Decisions

I believed that identifying the methods used to collect data in published MCQ articles would be a simple descriptive content analysis process. However, as I reviewed the articles, I had four core realizations: (a) abstracts rarely mention method details suitable for coding; (b) what is called a single data collection approach often collects different types of data; (c) when authors say they used mixed methods, it can mean many different things; and (d) defining what counts as a research method is difficult. These realizations directed me to read every abstract and method section of all articles prior to assigning a code. This process revealed a layer of complexity in how our field describes methods.

I used K. Miller’s (2001) term of methodological practices to choose categories to code. These practices are most closely associated with a data collection approach. Although the type of data can dictate a specific path for analysis, this was not always the case in the articles reviewed. For example, there were articles in MCQ that collected interview data, but then used a more quantitative coding process and statistical analysis (e.g., Stephens, Sørnes, Rice, Browning, & Sætre, 2008). There were also surveys that collected qualitative data for inductive analysis (e.g., Scott & Rains, 2005).

Focusing on methodological practices helped define the unit of analysis. However, due to the considerable variations in how published articles defined and labeled method practices, I had to create codes that established distinct commonalities and differences in these practices. For example, I grouped different types of documents and communication artifacts together in a category labeled textual analysis. This decision was based on the observation that, regardless of type of artifact, the data were often analyzed similarly. Therefore, although not all scholars publishing in MCQ called their methodological approach a textual analysis, I coded all these related approaches into that single textual analysis category.

Trends in the Coded MCQ Data

Research Question 1 asked about the methods published in MCQ between 2001 and 2015, and Research Question 2 asked about the trends. To address these research questions, I coded the full population of my sampling frame. Because the sample was not large, statistical analysis was not needed. In addition to characterizing the descriptive and trend data, I also examined forums and conceptual articles included in these issues during the time frame of my analyses. Summary data are available in Table 1 and Figure 1.

Table 1.

Methodological Comparisons for Management Communication Quarterly Articles Published, 2001-2015.

Methodological practice	2001-2005	2006-2010	2011-2015	Total
Survey	12	15	18	45
Network data	1	1	2	4
Interview + Survey	1	1	1	3
Observation + Survey		1	0	1
Experimental manipulation	2	3	4	9
Interview	1	16	27	44
Interview + Observation	4	3	2	9
Interview + Textual	1	1	1	3
Interview + Observation + Textual	5	6	7	18
Textual analysis	10	6	19	35
Observations	2	2	0	4
Observation + Textual	1	2	0	3
Focus groups		0	1	1
Focus groups + Interview	1	1	0	2
Total empirical methods	41	58	82	181
Total multiple method	13	15	11	39
Conceptual	7	17	5	29

Figure 1.

Graphical Representation of Methodological Practices Published in MCQ During Three Time Periods.

Trends of Increasing Qualitative Research

In the past 15 years, two thirds of the published empirical articles in MCQ contained at least some qualitative methodological approaches. Interview-only studies increased considerably in the past 15 years (n = 1 from 2001-2005, n = 16 from 2006-2010, n = 27 from 2011-2015). Several published studies using survey data collection and network analysis also contained interviews and observations. In addition, there were published quantitative studies that exclusively used surveys (n = 45) and experimental design (n = 9) and analyzed the findings statistically. Trends over time suggested that two methods, often considered to be more quantitative, have also increased slightly: surveys (n = 12 from 2001-2005, n = 15 from 2006-2010, n = 18 from 2011-2015) and experimental design approaches (n = 2 from 2001-2005, n = 3 from 2006-2010, n = 4 from 2011-2015).

Multiple Method Use Is Stable Over Time

The use of more than one data collection method was common in this MCQ data set. I included every article coded as having more than one data collection method for this trend comparison. The findings revealed a fairly stable trend (n = 13 from 2001-2005, n = 15 from 2006-2010, n = 11 from 2011-2015). MCQ authors are not necessarily using multiple methods more often today than in the early 2000s. This count included all types of multiple methods, not just methods that contained both quantitative and qualitative approaches. True mixed method analyses were not common; therefore, I did not code these separately.

Forums and Special Issues on Methods

In addition to the empirical studies MCQ published between 2001 and 2015, there were forums and special issues focused on methods. In 2014, there was a forum that presented novel ways to think about qualitative research. One of those articles focused specifically on mixed methods. In 2011, there was an article written by organizational communication scholars that focused on quantitative methodology (V. D. Miller et al., 2011). In that same issue in 2011, Monge and colleagues reviewed research tools and analyses used to study organizational evolution and ecology. In 2008, there was a special issue focused on organizational rhetoric. Finally, between the years of 2000 and 2007, there were several forums that focused on organizational rhetoric and on how to analyze specific communication artifacts.

Conceptual Articles in MCQ

The final type of article found in MCQ between 2001 and 2015 was what I termed a conceptual, or theory-building, article. These were not empirical, and when they appeared in an issue with empirical manuscripts, I coded them as conceptual articles. Over time, MCQ has published fewer purely conceptual papers. Thus, the number of empirical articles published has steadily increased in the past 10 years, and doubled when comparing 2001-2005 with 2011-2015 (n = 41 from 2001-2005, n = 58 from 2006-2010, n = 82 from 2011-2015).

Methods Underrepresented in MCQ

The analyses showed that organizational communication has clearly become a field that accepts quantitative, qualitative, and multiple method studies, but several methods were underrepresented in the coded data. Although this journal does not constitute the entire body of organizational communication scholarship, it does provide a focus for our work. Therefore, it is important to realize that what is missing now in MCQ will likely grow or find a home in other journals. Network analyses are the first underrepresented area in MCQ. However, several of these publications that are published were excellent and represented solid mixed methodological approaches that contribute to our field (e.g., Cooper & Shumate, 2012). These methods also are congruent with the theoretical advances in our field. Many of our junior scholars and graduate students are learning network methods; thus, this approach should grow and include reviewers who can competently evaluate network analyses.

Another methodological approach that was missing from MCQ as of 2015 was computational social science. Although these methods are relatively new for social scientists in communication, the techniques are published in other social science journals, and should continue to grow in importance in organizational communication. These research methods can provide snapshots, trends over time, and simulated behavior, and are useful tools to develop theory (Pilny & Poole, 2016). This type of research invites scholars to consider new approaches to communication problems and offers novel ways to address questions unanswerable using our current methodological tools. Because most of these publications are the result of work from large, grant-funded, interdisciplinary teams, our field needs to develop our reviewing talent in this area and encourage organizational communication leaders in these methods to submit their relevant work to MCQ. With our journal reputation and impact factor improving, scholars on these teams have more leverage to suggest MCQ as a valid outlet for work that has clear contributions to organizational communication.

Limitations of This Work

Considering the broad goals of this essay, the content analysis did not include assessment of intercoder reliability. In addition, coding focused exclusively on methodological practices—a type of data collection method. However, this work does set the stage for more thorough analysis that could include additional definitions and categories of methodological practices. I also only included MCQ in this analysis, and future research should compare outlets and determine where and to what extent organizational communication scholars are publishing their wide range of methods.

Pedagogy Implications

The MCQ publishing trends for the past 15 years—and my decade of experience teaching graduate students in organizational communication—push me to pose several pedagogy implications for our discipline. With the broad acceptance of methodologies used in organizational communication studies, we may have created new burdens on our scholars. To read our scholarship and be an integral part of the field, our scholars need to stay current on new methods, approaches, and theories. The next generation of scholars need to learn multiple methods, beyond traditional quantitative and qualitative approaches. Because it is not possible to take enough method courses to cover our growing field, we must teach what I call methodological curiosity—a type of continual learning that begins in our classrooms, on our research teams, and when we attend conferences. We can encourage a breadth of understanding by exposing graduate students to research that uses different methods. Instead of allowing students to pretend they understand the method details in assigned articles, we need to interrogate and explain methods in all our classes.

The current generation of graduate students will need to collaborate to get grants, and must be willing to read outside our discipline if they are to successfully join interdisciplinary teams. Not only will they need to engage in continued learning of methods, but they also need to be methodologically flexible. The use of theory and the reporting of methods vary widely between fields. Methodological flexibility also means that members of these teams are aware that manuscript length varies depending on the field and the journal. We are training a different type of organizational communication scholar today. Our approaches to methods need to embrace methodological curiosity and flexibility without losing the type of depth in understanding that our field values.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the following people for providing comments and suggestions on this work: Josh Barbour, Joann Keyton, Phil Salem, and Eric Timmerman.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Keri K. Stephens’ research and teaching interests bring an organizational perspective to understanding how people interact with communication technologies. She is currently the Associate Director for Innovation and Strategy at the UT Austin Center for Health Communication, and an Associate Professor, who has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. She is an Associate Editor with MCQ, and in 2016 she was awarded the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award (7 given of all University of Texas at Austin Faculty).

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