A World of Possibilities: Introducing Positive Communication Scholarship to Inspire Better Business and Organizational Communication Research

This special issue is an invitation to study business communication with a positive perspective. For decades, researchers in business communication have predominantly explored the problems, challenges, and issues facing organizations and leadership communication. Whether those include exploring the nature of crisis (e.g, Waller & Iluzada), communication responses and outcomes of sexual harassment (e.g., Mills & Scudder), or the role of internal communication in culture creation (e.g., Yue, Men, & Ferguson), researchers’ theoretical and methodological lenses are often used to critique, point to, or reveal the problematic nature of business life. In this special issue, we want to celebrate the extraordinary, what works well in organizations, and the nature of positive communication and its inspirational force for people and organizations. Specifically, we argue that Positive Communication Scholarship should inspire better practice. To support this endeavor, we begin with a brief history of the positive communication movement in the field of communication. Then, using this history, we define positive communication scholarship and describe what it will help our discipline accomplish. We also introduce the articles featured in this special issue, advance an agenda for future research, and end with a call to action.