Connecting Classrooms and Community: Engaged Scholarship, Nonacademic Voices, and Organizational Communication Curriculum

Organizations have changed dramatically over the last decade as globalization, new technology, and generational shifts shape almost every aspect of twenty-first century American society. Ideally, communication education would prepare students for experiences in the workplaces they will join after they graduate, but some have suggested that academia is disconnected from the realities of organizations. In these two studies we examined the degree to which organizational communication textbooks have kept pace with those changes. The first consisted of interviews with local organizational leaders. Those leaders identified communication-related issues that were important in their organizations. The second study consisted of a content analysis assessing the degree to which organizational communication textbooks address the themes found in Study One. The more abstract themes from Study One were found in abundance, but the practical applications of those themes were under-represented in these textbooks.