Broadening Organizational Communication Curricula: Collaboration as Key to 21st-Century Organizing

Organizations look less like they did a decade ago as they are increasingly organic and dynamic when it comes to structures and decision-making. With the evolving organizational form demanding interconnected relationships and horizontal decision-making most of our students will need to collaborate, be it in the workplace or community. Indeed many of today’s most pressing problems and challenges require collaborative solutions. Lowitt (2013) claimed that organizations will increasingly adapt a “collaborative mindset” and that they will “want to hire and develop leaders who are adept at building relationships with a range of stakeholders” (p. 35). Consequently, collaboration is one of the most important organizational subjects we can teach in the 21st century.