Handbook of Interpersonal Communication - Book Review

Organization Studies, July, 2003 by Phyl Johnson

Mark L. Knapp and John A. Daly: Handbook of Interpersonal Communication

2002, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 842 pages.

Communication between people is central to what so many of us who study organizations are interested in, engaged by and focus our research on. It is part of strategizing, it is part of organizational change, it is part of joining, leaving and staying in organizations and so on. Also, it is increasingly being argued that instead of being seen as an important part of the organization, the interpersonal communication that takes place is the organization as it is created and recreated through narrative and discourse. Whether the former or the latter stance is adopted, the chapters that appear in Mark Knapp and John Daly's edited text ought to be of interest to many in our field.

This is the third edition of Knapp and Daly's text to appear. It is clearly positioned as a reference text and the editors have required their authors to focus on: what we know, what we don't know and what we are seeking to know in the future. As such, this edition, alongside the two previous texts, offers a useful barometer of opinion within the field of interpersonal communication.

In their opening chapter, Knapp and Daly follow the format of what we know, what we don't know, etc. and offer a quick guided tour of the 'historical highlights' of communication research. This landscape mapping is a useful device. In particular it was noticeable how the field became less and less bounded over time as it became more and more relevant to a broader audience. The editors make the point that their field has moved far beyond the focus on communication in life partner relationships and is concerned with multiple contexts: so organization researchers prick up your ears.

The text is split into five parts that cover the following: introduction, perspectives on inquiry, fundamental units, processes and functions (types of communication) and contexts. Clearly not all of the 19 chapters will be directly relevant for the organizational researcher: e.g. interpersonal processes in romantic relationships. Nonetheless, there is, with the increased interest in the emotional side of organizational life, plenty of material of direct relevance to many an organizational research agenda. For instance, there are chapters on emotional and supportive communication, and communication during interpersonal conflict, as well as fundamentals such as non-verbal communication, culture and communication, and personality and communication.

As previously mentioned, this text is designed to act as a reference text to be dipped in and out of. As such this review has selected a chapter from each of the sections in order to offer the reader of the flavour of what is on offer.

Before moving on to an exploration of each section it is worth a brief revisit to Knapp and Daly's introductory piece in order to report the issues that they consider key. The introduction is a useful guide for the reader to discern what the editorial team are likely to have concentrated on and the perspective their authors are likely to have adopted. They state the following issues are of import in current and future research in the field of interpersonal communication: behaviour as well as cognition, consciousness and intent, and meaning created in context.

Perspectives on Inquiry

This section contains three chapters, each of which discusses methods of inquiry that exist within the field of communication research. I selected Bochner' s chapter three: 'The Moral of Stories'. I was drawn to select this chapter as it reflected for me the rise in the use of narrative analysis in both the study of organizations and more broadly in fields such as social psychology.

I found the chapter to be comprehensive and followed the editors wishes in terms of what we know, what we don't know, etc. reasonably well. If one was an organizational researcher already engaged in narrative analysis there would be little of additional value here. However, for a novice or an interested party' the chapter is an accessible and complete enough place to begin with and move on to more detailed reading.

Fundamental Units

The same type of comment could be made about the chapter selected from part three, covering fundamental units; and when one reflects on the job of the five chapters in this section, this is hardly a surprise, and in fact an asset. That is, part three is designed to take some of the basics of communication and give the reader a comprehensive starting point for further reading.

I selected Burgoon and Hoobler' s chapter eight on nonverbal signals for purely selfish reasons, as I am currently analysing a videotape of a CEO and his team, and am fascinated by the nonverbal signals that are consciously and unconsciously being sent and received (or not received, or misinterpreted, etc.). I wanted to see if the chapter, although a 'fundamental' covering the basics, helped me out in an area of analytic interpretation I feel pretty familiar and comfortable with. It did.