Developing Your Communications
Strategy: Audiences, Translation and
Timeliness
Robin Wensley
Open University and Warwick Business School
The nature of multiple audiences
•Within and Between various groupings
•Some key groups: Colleague Researchers and
Peers, Students, Executives, Journalists and
Policy makers
•The Process of Sequential Gatekeepers to get
to the audience
Sequential Gatekeepers
•Grant Bids: Office; Reviewers; Board
•Journal Articles: Desk Assessment; Reviewers;
Editors/Area Editors
•Media: Journalists, Sub-editors, Editors.
The Issue of “Lost in Translation”
•Eva Hoffman's book and Sofia Coppola's film
•The Book: the permanent shift from Poland to Canada •The Film: a temporary shift from one culture (USA) to
another (Japan)
•Both raise questions of translation but only the former
raises serious questions of identity.
Lost Before Translation?
One survey examined why management research
is often not applied in management practice. The
"lost in translation" problem occurs when
academic researchers do not present their results
in ways that make sense to practitioners. The "lost
before translation" problem occurs when
management research does not address questions
that are even of interest to managers. problems.
Shapiro, D.L., Kirkman, B.L., & Courtney, H.G. 2007. Perceived causes and solutions of
the translation problem in management research. Academy of Management Journal, 50:
249-266.
Translation as Decoding and Encoding
Translation may be regarded as a kind of litmus paper that
makes the process ( of decontextualization and
recontextualization) unusually visible. What I was just
describing rather glibly as 'equivalents' for alien concepts
and practices cannot be assumed to exist. Some words,
ideas and customs are a good deal less translatable than
others. Especially the important ones. So much so that the
British writer Salman Rushdie once suggested, in his novel
Shame, that to understand a culture, one should focus on
its untranslatable words.
Peter Burke, Lost (and Found) in Translation: A Cultural History of
Translators and Translating in Early Modern Europe, European Review
(2007), 15:1:83-94
From Source Text to Translated Text
•From word-for-word to sense-for-sense to the
relationship between the ST and the TT
•The ST no longer has privileged status
• ST has (acquires) its meaning in the context of an
audience.
Eva Hoffman on Words
Every Day I learn new words, new expressions... The words I
learn now don't stand for things in the same
unquestioning way they did in my native tongue. “River”
in Polish was a vital sound energised with essence of
riverhood, of my rivers, of my being immersed in rivers.
“River” in English is cold – a word without aura.
Translation and the Time Line
DESIGN: What is of interest may not be researchable and
vice-versa
FIELDWORK AND ANALYSIS: Even when it is of interest to
different communities the research process takes time and
priorities and interests change.
DISSEMINATION: How might we balance the need for
timeliness with the careful process of independent review?
Table 0.1: Mapping Collaborative Research Against Five Dimensions (Easterby-Smith, Mark (2012)
WORK STAGE
“In the Middle”
Theory Driven
Problem Driven
INITIATION
Enquiry driven
by theory ( A
journals)
Research agenda
adapted to
organisational
interests
Research
questions
derived from
dialogue
Organisation
identifies broad
issues and seeks
academic
collaboration
Organisation
defines
questions and
hires researchers
FIELDWORK
Researchers use
external data
sources
Researcher get
permission to
survey managers
or employees
Interviews held
with emergent
sample, some
jointly
Academics act as
advisors in
sorting sample
and data
collection
Sample and
questions
determined by
organisation
DATA ANALYSIS
Researchers do it
all.
Draft findings
checked out with
organisation
Initial findings
discussed; lead
to further data
Organisation
interprets and
checks out with
academics
Organisation
takes data and
makes up own
mind
CONTACTS
Contact only with
gatekeepers
Contact with
subgroup (e.g.
SMT)
Wider contact
and sharing of
basic questions
Work with
practitioner
community and
share questions
Respond as
facilitator to
community’s
questions
OUTPUT
Academics write
for A journals
Organisation
people contribute
but academics
write
Joint output in
practitioner
press.
Organisation
dissemination in
practitioner
communities;
academics help
Internal
dissemination by
organisation only
The Worlds of Academe and
Practice
Kieser and Leiner (2009) argue that following Luhmann,
the worlds of scientific research and economic practice
are in the end closed systems which operate according to
different logics: true/false in the case of science;
payment/non-payment in the case of economic practice
BUT whilst the two worlds do indeed operate according to
different basic principles, they can and do interact to
effect. Following Luhmann, Rasche and Behnam (2009)
argue that interventions between the worlds of science
and practice should be seen more as "irritations" or as
"fictions".
A Communications Approach: Some
Suggestions: (1)
•Stories matter and are powerful ( outliers, context,
identification)
•Remember the sub-editors rule: you can cut the text at
almost any point!
•Use footnotes and endnotes properly
A Communications Approach: Some
Suggestions: (2)
A Realistic Portfolio of Audiences
The twin challenges: That’s Interesting! and So What?
Mystery as Method
Remember the broad rationale for references: helps the
audience locate your work in their wider context.
Further Reading
•
Rasche, Andreas and Michael Behnam (2009), “As if were relevant:
a systems theoretical perspective on the Relation between Science
and Practice”, Journal of Management Inquiry September 2009 vol.
18 no. 3 243-255
•
Hoffman, Eva, Lost in Translation, William Heinemann : London,
1989
•
Alvesson, Mats and Dan Kärreman Qualitative Research and
Theory Development: Mystery as Method, Sage Publications:
London, 2011
•
Easterby-Smith, Mark (2012) ‘Research Collaboration in
Management: Exploring the Academic-Practitioner Divide’ ,
Working Paper, Department of Management Learning and
Leadership, Lancaster University, Lancaster. LA1 4YX