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Call for Proposals: Special Joint Issue on Communication in Cross-Functional Teams
Subject:Call for Proposals: Special Joint Issue on Communication in Cross-Functional Teams From:"George F. Hayhoe" <george -at- GHAYHOE -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 10 Feb 1999 08:11:12 -0500
The editors of the _IEEE Transactions on Professional
Communication_ and STC's _Technical Communication_ announce
a special joint issue of the two journals on communication
in cross-functional teams to be published in February 2000.
DESCRIPTION
Guest editors for this special joint issue will be Carol
Barnum of Southern Polytechnic State University and Karl
Smart of Brigham Young University.
In organizations that have adopted user-centered design
principles, members of design teams represent
cross-functional areas such as software development, human
factors, technical documentation, and marketing. To make
such teams successful, people from diverse disciplinary
backgrounds must find a way to work together. As a recent
study states,
"Cross-functional integration has recently been emphasized
as one of the most important advantages in Japanese product
development. Existing research has argued that intensive and
extensive communication and coordination among different
functional areas underlie organizational capabilities for
cross-functional integration." (K. Kusunoki and T. Numagami.
1998. "Interfunctional transfers of engineers in Japan:
Empirical findings and implications for cross-functional
integration." _IEEE Transactions on Engineering
Management_ 45, no. 3:250.)
The same sentiment is reflected in a recent survey of
subscribers to the IEEE Transactions on professional
communication, where communication in teams was ranked as
the second most valuable topic needing to be addressed in
professional communication research.
This need will be addressed by the joint special issue. The
joint nature of this issue will serve to promote the same
multi-disciplinary cooperation under investigation in the
theoretical and empirical research making up this special
issue.
Although results of research on the effect of communication
in R&D teams, design/build civil engineering teams, auditor
teams, medical teams, government teams, farmer coop teams,
and military teams have been published, the results are
scattered. This joint special issue will provide a
compendium of the most current research on communication in
cross-functional teams for our subscribers.
The two journals welcome proposals for articles in the form
of reports of original research, the theory of communication
and interpersonal dynamics of work teams as they affect
communication, case studies, and surveys of prior research
on this subject.
ISSUE DEADLINES
The schedule for the special issue is as follows:
4 April 1999 500-word proposal
15 June 1999 Draft paper
15 August 1999 Final paper
22 January 2000 Publication date
CONTACT INFORMATION
To discuss a proposal, please contact guest editors Carol
Barnum at cbarnum -at- spsu -dot- edu or +1 (770) 528-7201, or Karl
Smart at karl_smart -at- byu -dot- edu or +1 (801) 378-2296.
NOTE
Please note that because of the lead time required to
publish this announcement, we have not yet received approval
from IEEE for this joint publication project. In the
unlikely event that approval is not obtained, the papers
accepted for the issue will be guaranteed publication in
either _Technical Communication_ or in the _Transactions_.
