William T. Howe

Biography

William was born in Harlingen, TX and raised in Arlington, TX. After graduating high school William attended seminary and then became an assistant pastor of Friendly Lane Baptist Church in Haltom City, TX. During this time he also worked as a mortgage loan officer until the mortgage crisis began in 2007.

William then served in the United States Army, where he was stationed at Fort Hood, as a combat medic and deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He earned two Army Commendation Medals and two Army Recommendation Medals for his service in Iraq.

After leaving the military he started college anew at Texas Christian University in communication studies. Upon graduation from TCU he attended the University of Oklahoma for his Ph.D. work and was advised by Dr. Ryan Bisel in 2020.

William was an Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky before the yearning to come back to Texas became too strong and he joined Texas Tech University.

Research

William believes in a syncretic approach to research and therefore uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. His research focuses primarily on organizational communication and specifically examines how occupational identity is formed, adopted, and communicated by members of high reliability organizations (e.g. military, police, firefighters). Other areas of interest include intercultural communication and game studies. William has published 16 peer-reviewed journal articles, to date. He has also presented over 35 papers at international, national, and regional conferences, including four Top Paper presentations. He was awarded Master's Thesis of the Year by the Master's Division of the National Communication Association in 2017. In 2019 he received the Stanley L. Saxton Applied Research Award from the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research.

Methodologies

• Interviews
• Ethnography
• Cross-Sectional Surveys
• SEM & Path analysis
• Social Network Analysis

Research Areas

• Military
• Corporate and Organizational
• Crisis
• Science

Selected Publications

• Howe, W. T. & Bisel, R. S. (2023). Veteran contempt for civilian communication (VCCC) scale: Development and validation. Management Communication Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1177/08933189231186149
• Lee, S. K., Howe, W. T., & Kim, K. (2023). Factors of information overload and their associations with news consumption patterns: The roles of tipping point. Management Informatics Research 25(3) 1-26. http://dx.doi.org/10.14329/isr.2023.25.3.001
• Scott, A. L., Howe, W. T., & Bisel, R. S. (2022). High reliability team (HRT) scholarship: A systematic review and research agenda. Small Group Research.
• Howe, W. T. (2022). Existing in higher education as a United States Veteran: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Veteran Studies, 8 (2). 1-9. Existing in higher education as a United States Veteran: Challenges and opportunities. Journal of Veteran Studies, 8 (2). 1-9.
• Roeder, A. C., Bisel, R. S., & Howe, W. T. (2021). High reliability organizing and communication during naturalistic decision making: National Weather Service (NWS) forecasting teams' use of "floating". Journal of Applied Communication Research, 49(4), 441-459. High-reliability organizing and communication during naturalistic decision making: U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) forecasting teams' use of ‘floating': Journal of Applied Communication Research: Vol 49, No 4 (tandfonline.com)
• Howe, W. T. & Bisel R. S. (2020). Third-party online organizational reviews: Explaining review-and-rating patterns of the United States Military and large corporate organizations. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 1, 1-8. Third-party online organizational reviews: Explaining review-and-rating patterns of the United States military and large corporate organizations - ScienceDirect

Teaching Focus

• Organizational Communication
• Small Group Communication
• Conflict Resolution and Problem Solving
• Public Speaking

Leadership & Awards

• Secretary of “Communication and the Military Division of NCA”
• Top Four Paper: Comm and Military Division - NCA - 2023
• Top Four Paper: Group Communication Division - NCA - 2023
• Top Four Paper: Comm and Military Division - NCA - 2021
• Best of the B.E.S.T. - ICA - Organizational Communication - 2020
• Stanley L. Saxton Applied Research Award - Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research - 2019