Global Partnerships: Positioning Technical Communication Programs in the Context of Globalization

Abstract

Globalization is radically transforming technical communication (TC) both in the workplace and in higher education. This article examines these changes and the ways in which TC programs position themselves amid globalization, in particular the ways in which they use emerging global partnerships to prepare students for global work and citizenship. For this purpose, the authors report on a Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication-supported exploratory study of current partnership initiatives in TC programs. The study indicated a high level of activity, planning, and interest in global partnerships and revealed a range of creative and innovative partnerships that systematically integrate new opportunities for experiential learning, collaborative international research, and civic engagement in a global context into programs and their curricula. Partnerships also emphasize cultural sensitivity, equal partner contribution, and mutual benefit, thus offering alternatives to emerging global trade visions of higher education. The article also identifies key challenges that partnerships face, suggesting implications for programs and the field as a whole to facilitate successful partnerships.Certainly the top global concern for technical communicators in the United States is the notion of sending TC work offshore. (Giammona, 2004, p. 355) We are at the beginning of the era of transnational higher education, in which academic institutions from one country operate in another, academic programs are jointly offered by universities from different countries, and higher education is delivered through distance technologies.As these quotations attest, technical communication (TC) in both the workplace and higher education is undergoing powerful change as a result of globalization. As TC manager Giammona (2004) found in her survey of influential TC practitioners, globalization is one of the key issues technical communicators face in the workplace. At the same time, as TC programs respond to these changes, they find themselves positioned in what higher education researcher Altbach (2004a, 2004b) described as a profoundly changing environment.In this article, we explore these changes in both the workplace and higher education and examine how TC programs position themselves amid these changes. In the first part of this article, we analyze globalization trends and their influence on TC in the workplace, specifically noting the literacies technical communicators need to develop for global work and citizenship. As we show, these changes increasingly call for new program partnerships to facilitate learning environments that immerse TC students in global digital networks with professionals, peers, citizens, and experts from diverse contexts; challenge students to negotiate and build shared learning cultures across diverse boundaries; and provide students with new opportunities for civic engagement in a global context. However, these are not the only changes calling for new partnerships. These partnerships also play an...

How Trust and Credibility Affect Technology-Based Development Projects

“…One key benefit of this strategy is that it delegates work across project stakeholders. Distributing time-intensive work like partnership building could be a beneficial strategy for stretching limited resources, which is the top challenge to existing global partnerships in technical communication programs, according to Starke-Meyerring et al (2007).…”

“…Reasons include that face-to-face communication is rarer than in traditional work environments (McNair, Paretti, & Davitt, 2010) and that stakeholders in distributed environments often differ in language and culture (Henderson & Louhiala-Salminen, 2011;Starke-Meyerring et al, 2007). WALTON Research on trust and distributed teams in business contexts has addressed issues including creativity (Ocker, 2005), deception (Fuller, Marett, & Twitchell, 2012), and language (Henderson & Louhiala-Salminen, 2011), but much technical communication literature addressing trust in distributed environments has focused on educational contexts (see Blythe, 2004;Harrington, 2010;Starke-Meyerring et al, 2007). Scholars have stressed that technical communicators must learn to strategically apply technology and cross-cultural communication skills to build trust among stakeholders:…”

“…For example, this article presents how trust and credibility affect ICTD projects, a topic with implications for other types of distributed work environments like university-industry partnerships and multinational organizations. Trust is a key factor affecting distributed work environments (Starke-Meyerring, Duin, & Palvetzian, 2007;Suchan & Hayzak, 2001), which are often characterized by a mix of colocated and virtual teams, crossorganizational communication, and globalization-characteristics shared by ICTD projects.…”

Glocalization in Website Writing: The Case of MNsure and Imagined/Actual Audiences

“…In this vein, several scholars have advocated • Partnerships between the U.S. and other countries (Rice & Lauren, 2014;Starke-Meyerring, Duin, & Palvetzian, 2007;Herrington & Tretyakov, 2005;Paretti, McNair, & Holloway-Attaway, 2007) • Collaborative online experiences or virtual teams (St. Amant, 2007;Starke-Meyerring & Wilson, 2008;Paretti & McNair, 2008) • Pedagogy of globalization (Hoft, 1995;Starke-Meryerring, 2010;.…”

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“…These partnered learning environments -termed globally networked learning environments (GNLEs) (Starke-Meyerring, 2005;Starke-Meyerring et al, 2007;Starke-Meyerring & Wilson, 2008) -connect students with peers, instructors, and communities across multiple boundaries to help students develop new ways of knowledge making and learn how to build shared learning and knowledge cultures (Peters, 2007) across traditional boundaries, especially with peers and communities that have been the most marginalized and disadvantaged in the emerging global social and economic order.…”