International Association of Business Communicators (IABC)

Historical Overview

IABC is more than 30 years old. From its beginnings at a communication conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1970, the organization has supported and acted as an advocate for professional communicators and their organizations. In the era of a booming post-WWII marketplace, the number of local International Council of Industrial Editors (ICIE) chapters grew to the point where its leaders decided to create the first American professional communication association. Although the headquarter concept did not work for ICIE, the organization continued its print publications through local chapters. In addition, the association developed a peer and management evaluation and awards program. A similar organization, the American Association of Industrial Editors (AAIE), later established the Gold Quill awards, a program of recognizing excellence in the field, which continues today.

The associations began tracking membership and the function of communication in organizations during the 1950s. Using quantitative measures, the volunteer members analyzed data from nearly 2,000 American editors of nearly 10,000 internal and external organizational publications. Those findings are interesting to communication history students in that they demonstrate the gender, age, and income of the early professional communicators. (In 1955, one-third of the respondents were women, nearly one-half were more than 40 years old, and the average salary for those 40 years and older was US$12,000.) The figures also trace the evolving functions of internal communicators.

The mid-1950s saw a shift in a communicator's responsibilities. Editors were increasingly moving from external communication departments to those of internal relations. However, many business publications had no identified link to their organization's objectives. The volunteer members identified this incongruity as an opportunity to communicate the value of their work to their organizational leaders.

Associations with the American Management Association, Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and Oklahoma A & M led to professional development and strategic initiatives for local members during the 1950s. During this decade, ICIE volunteers developed measurement techniques that would help members communicate the value of their work to industry leaders. The main goal of the volunteers was to demonstrate through case histories with tangible results that managed communication programs tied to business objectives can lead to better understanding of company policies, lower turnover rates, and increased sales.

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