Achieving Shared Meaning in Cross-Cultural Dialogue

Abstract

Based on a qualitative study of the Twin Cities Hmong community, this paper offers a case study of a Hmong family's response to a situation in which a woman who is a member of their family has been chronically physically abused by her husband. The case illustrates the challenges of understanding the family's reactions in light of their cultural context as well as the implications for social work practice. An excerpt of a verbatim interview between the author and a subject from the study is provided. The specifics of the cultural values, protocol for handling conflict and communication patterns that contribute to understanding what has occurred are discussed. The author then discusses the challenges for the social work practitioner of simultaneously maintaining the ethical values of honoring diversity and protection of the oppressed.     

Organizational Crisis Resistance: Examining Leadership Mental Models of Necessary Practices to Resist Crises and the Role of Organizational Context

This study explores which governance practices nonprofit leaders consider necessary to avoid organizational crises. Further, it explores whether these leadership mental models of crisis resistance depend on the organizational context. This helps determine whether practical learning points are organization specific or can be applied broadly. With a multilevel sample of 304 leaders from 44 Belgian nongovernmental development organizations, an exploratory path analysis reveals that nonprofit leaders consider continuous improvement, as a governance practice, particularly relevant for effective organizational crisis resistance. A multilevel analysis also shows that variations in leadership mental models cannot be explained by the organizational variables used in this study (organizational size, leadership group size, operational activities, and languages in the leadership group). This article concludes with a discussion of consequences for further research.     

The Role and Implications of Values-based Leadership

This paper aims at analysing conceptually spiritual leadership in the organizational field. First, we identify if a relation between spirituality and leadership can exist and then if and how this influences employer/employees reciprocal behaviour. In the early years, the focus has changed, trying to deepen the differences between religion and spirituality and emphasizing the last one as a source of success for leaders. We focused on the understanding of the effects that spirituality has on the system of values and the role of values and emotions in determining a successful leader. Finally, we emphasize the role of values-based leadership capabilities within strategic management, aiming at highlighting the importance of a shared system of values in leading employees.     

Leadership Style in Relation to Organizational Change and Organizational Creativity: Perceptions from Nonprofit Organizational Members

As the environment within which organizations act continues to change and becomes increasingly competitive, maintaining an organizational climate that supports change and encourages creativity is a key objective for organizational leaders. This article examines the relationship between leadership style (transformational, transactional, laissez‐faire) and members' perceptions of the psychological climate for organizational change readiness and psychological climate for organizational creativity. Results indicate that transformational leaders have a direct positive relationship with psychological climate for organizational change readiness and organizational creativity, while laissez‐faire leaders have a negative relationship.     

The Leadership Role of School Administrators in Intercultural Education

Implementation of effective school programs of intercultural education require the supportive leadership of school administrators. This article provides school administrators, especially those whose schools are being heavily impacted with the diversity resulting from immigration, with an action plan for providing culturally responsive learning experiences for all students. In addition to the four steps of this action plan, the article also provides examples and references to the literature to support school administrators in building more culturally sensitive learning communities.     

当代中国文化视野中的大学生领导力教育

在中国当代文化中,马克思主义文化与中国传统文化占有重要的地位,这两种文化对成长于西方文化背景下的大学生领导力教育的普遍性、价值观教育以及领导人格的培养具有重要的启示性意义。只有充分考虑到马克思主义文化与中国传统文化中的优秀成果,并将其应用到大学生领导力教育中,才能形成具有中国文化特色的学生领导力教育,特别是形成具有"全心全意为人民服务"的价值观和具有中国传统文化中"内圣外王"的理想领导人格的大学生领导力教育体系。     

The Role of Intercultural Communication in Cyberterrorism

This article analyzes the role of intercultural communication in cyberterrorism. Cyberspace is a common site of meeting and interaction between cyberterrorists from multiple cultural backgrounds. It is also a place where cyberterrorists have to face law enforcement agents. As a result, intercultural clashes sometimes occur. This justifies the necessity for better understanding intercultural communication in Internet-mediated situations. Although there have been published pieces on hackers' culture, this article breaks new ground partly because no literature review has produced work on the role of intercultural communication in cyberterrorism.     

Transformational Leadership, Organizational Culture, Organizational Effectiveness, and Programme Outcomes in Non-Governmental Organizations

This study examines whether transformational leadership influences organizational culture that furthers NGOs?? effectiveness. It also examines whether transformational leadership at the top directly influences NGOs?? effectiveness. Further, it tests whether NGO effectiveness improves the programme outcomes in terms of health, income, education, and happiness of villagers. Data were collected from 312 NGOs in Jharkhand state (India). Transformational leadership, organizational culture, and NGO effectiveness were assessed from NGO personnel using standard instruments, and programme outcomes on health, income, education, and happiness were evaluated from villagers using wooden cubes. Findings reveal that transformational leadership builds organizational culture that furthers NGO effectiveness. Transformational leadership does not influence directly NGO effectiveness but it enhances NGO effectiveness promoting organizational culture. Furthermore, NGO effectiveness improves the outcomes of programmes undertaken by NGOs in terms of better health, income, education, and happiness of beneficiaries.     

Organizational Resources and the Gender Gap in Congregational Lay Leadership

The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational resources affect the gender gap within lay (volunteer) leadership in religious congregations. Using institutional theory as a framework, this study situates congregations within a larger field of organizations competing for legitimacy. Congregations with higher levels of resources—such as wealthier members, better-educated members, or larger memberships—are more likely to be connected to the core of the field and therefore more likely to have gender egalitarian practices in order to signal their legitimacy. Therefore, I hypothesize that women in resource-rich congregations will have greater access to volunteer leadership positions than women in congregations that are resource deficient. I analyze 70,942 individuals in 344 religious congregations from the 2001 U.S. Congregational Life Survey using multilevel modeling. I show that religious congregations with more members, better-educated attenders, and wealthier attenders have smaller gender gaps in volunteer leadership positions. Congregational resources can mitigate the gender gap in lay leadership, and women within resource-rich organizations have greater access to positions of authority.     

The Role of Mobile Phones in Family Communication

Whilst there is a wealth of research into family communication and family relationships, there is little information about whether (and if so how) mobile phones have impacted on these processes. The authors’ study involved individual semi‐structured interviews with 60 families, including parents/carers and young people aged 11–17, to investigate this further. The interviews explored how mobile phones are used in family communication; participants’ views about the benefits and disadvantages of mobile phone use; and issues around safety, surveillance and privacy. The findings show that young people and parents see mobiles as a key way for families to keep in touch, and to monitor and ensure young people’s safety. However, some participants felt there was a downside to this, in relation to some young people either withdrawing into their own social worlds, or having a false feeling of security as a result of having a mobile. Gender differences in views and usage were also found. The paper concludes with some general comments about the role of mobile phones in family life.     

The Organizational Role of Clinical Practice Models in Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practice

This paper presents a method for using different practice models as the basis for organizing interdisciplinary clinical teams. The different dimensions of multidimensional practice models are used for selecting the various professionals involved in these teams. The Neuman Systems Model (Neuman & Young, 1972; Neuman, 1995) is used to illustrate how this process works by structuring interdisciplinary teams along its five overarching and interrelated dimensions of human experience—psychological, physiological, sociocultural, spiritual and developmental. By extrapolating these five areas to their respective disciplines, a protocol is developed for selecting the necessary professionals while establishing the parameters of each professional's involvement. By specifically addressing the relevant clinical dimensions of a particular model, interdisciplinary teams can formulate a more theoretical, holistic, and comprehensive assessment and treatment plan. This approach also allows multiple client problems to be addressed simultaneously in a more systemic and efficient manner than could be accomplished by any one profession alone. A case study demonstrating the approach is included.     

Socialization and Newcomer Adjustment: The Role of Organizational Context

Research on how the context of work affects HRMpractices in general, and socialization practices inparticular, is relatively scarce. The present studyassesses a model linking context, socialization, and newcomer adjustment. Self-report data frombusiness school graduates after 4 months (N = 295) and10 months (N = 223) on the job revealed that mechanistic(vs. organic) structure, organization size, and jobs of high motivating potential were eachpositively associated with organizations' use of whatJones (1986) refers to as institutionalizedsocialization, and this form of socialization waspositively associated with newcomer adjustment. Contraryto expectations, neither a newcomer's bureaucraticorientation nor growth need strength moderated therelationship between socialization andadjustment.     

The Role of Humor Styles and Shared Laughter in the Postdivorce Recovery Process

ABSTRACT

Humorous communication has the potential to bolster resilient outcomes in individuals, and this could be especially true postdivorce. Framed by the resilience model and the stress buffering hypothesis, this study examined humor styles and shared laughter as coping mechanisms following divorce. Results indicate that participants (N = 89) who used self-defeating humor experienced physical stress, the time since the divorce was finalized influenced stress and rumination, and physical stress symptoms are suppressed by shared laughter with a source of social support. The implications of humor as an individual resource and shared laughter as a social resource in postdivorce resiliency are discussed.     

Women,Organizational Crisis,and Access to Leadership in International Organizations

Women who successfully break the glass ceiling have historically done so in the context of crises. Crises offer unique windows of opportunity for women because they either legitimize women as suitable candidates or create “glass cliffs” that make positions unattractive to men. This article examines four elections in the World Health Organization (WHO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), applying findings from the national to the international. First access to executive office international organizations—the breaking of the glass ceiling—is facilitated by organizational crisis; however, once broken, the importance of crises diminishes. Organizations become regendered or women become seen as acceptable candidates.     

愿景理论对大学生社团建设的作用

大学生社团是高校思想政治教育和校园文化建设中的生力军,目前发展中出现了凝聚力不足、管理不规范、社团文化不鲜明等问题,针对这些问题,本文旨在探讨愿景作为一个新的管理理念在学生社团管理中的运用。研究愿景管理在学生社团建设中操作的理论前提,如何在学生社团中运用愿景管理理论及对学生社团愿景框架的构建。     

The Effects of Authentic Leadership on Strategic Internal Communication and Employee-Organization Relationships

This study examines how strategic leadership influences excellent internal public relations by establishing the linkage between authentic leadership, symmetrical and transparent communication, and employee–organization relationships. The results showed that authentic leadership as an antecedent factor plays a critical role in nurturing an organization's symmetrical and transparent communication system, which in turn, cultivates quality employee–organization relationships. An organization's symmetrical communication worldview greatly fosters its day-to-day transparent communication practice. Transparent communication, characterized by information substantiality, accountability, and employee participation, largely contributes to employee trust, control mutuality, commitment, and satisfaction. The impact of symmetrical communication on employees' relational outcomes is fully mediated via transparent communication. Significant theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Attributes of Effective NGOs and the Leadership Values Associated with a Reputation for Organizational Effectiveness

Building on prior research characterizing organizational effectiveness as a social construction, this article identifies the perceived attributes of effective transnational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the leadership values associated with higher reputations for organizational effectiveness. Results are based on an in‐depth, mixed‐method interview study of 152 NGO leaders located in the United States and representing all major sectors of organizational activity. Among the twenty‐nine attributes that leaders identified in peer organizations that they regarded as particularly effective, leaders stressed instantiation of sound principles or strategy, a grassroots approach, large organizational size and resources, being collaborative, singleness of focus, campaigning abilities, funding and fundraising prowess, global scope, and quality people. Furthermore, statistical analysis reveals that NGOs with leaders who value similarities with peer organizations, grassroots approaches, diversity of strategies, dedication, professionalism, and distributed organizational structures have significantly higher reputations for effectiveness.     

The Role of Organizational Size and Industry in Job Quality and Work-Family Relationships

In this study we update analyses of the 1977 QES (Zipp, 1991) using data from the 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce. We use hierarchical linear modeling procedures to partition the variance in a wide variety of indicators of workers' experiences. Most variation was associated with the individual level of analysis, but significant and nontrivial variation also was associated with the organizational and industrial levels. Although workers in smaller organizations reported lower earnings, fewer benefits, and less education than their counterparts in larger organizations, they also reported experiencing less discrimination, better fit between their actual and desired work hours, more supportive work environments and loyalty to their employers, less burnout or interference between work and family, and shorter commute times.     

Effective Public Relations Leadership in Organizational Change: A Study of Multinationals in Mainland China

This study explored the role of public relations leadership during organizational change in 3 multinationals in mainland China. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, the findings suggested that the leadership of public relations unit or function during organizational change was shown through coaching middle management to manage employee emotions, providing communication training to middle management, communicating and reinforcing shared visions for change, and managing the conflicts between middle management and top management regarding change rationales, planning, and procedures. The leadership role of public relations managers was enacted through consulting CEOs' communication styles, exerting upward influence in change management, and acting as the different voice when decision making for change was questionable. Results of the study extended existing public relations leadership scholarship and shed light on some tentative dimensions of public relations leadership during organizational change: (a) coaching emotion management, (b) educating communication knowledge and skills, (c) reinforcing shared visions, (d) resolving conflicts, (e) exerting upward influence, and (f) acting as a different voice. Limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are also discussed.