Fluent Essays

Culture and Leadership ChallengesReview the Riverbend City: Cultural Competency simulation (linked in Resources). Then, read the information about the Confucian Asian Leadership Profile on page 448 in the course text. In your initial post, discuss the application of the findings in the article by Aritz and Walker (linked in Resources) to the leadership challenges experienced by Arthur Wang, the Asian supervisor in the media piece. Explain how leadership qualities and behaviors identified in the article and the text readings in the studies for this unit might result in challenges or conflicts between Arthur Wang and his direct reports or his colleagues at the VA Hospital.Riverbend City: Cultural Competency Arthur Wang Behavioral Health Supervisor Look, I think all this talk about trouble and turmoil is really, really overblown. Everythings fine! No department runs without a bump here and there. Thats just business. You have to look at the bottom line — any metric you look at, the Behavioral Health Department has been on a tear since I took charge. At the weekly department heads meeting, Im always the envy of the other heads–nobody else hits their metrics the way we do. Im a big football guy. Are you? I can never get anybody to watch it with me–I try and get my dad hooked, but his English isnt good enough to follow. Wish they did the broadcasts in Mandarin! Anyway…I think footballs a good way to understand this department. Im the quarterback. I read the situation, get direction from the coach—thats Director Martinson—execute. Maybe I call an audible if needed. My people, theyre the offensive line. They move in the same direction, everybody does what theyre assigned to do in relation to everyone else, and they protect their quarterback and we move down the field.The thing I dont understand is when they feel like they need to step out of line. A good offensive line doesnt have linemen who feel like they need to compete with each other. You cant have a left tackle trying to show up the center! And there are times when I wish theyd just do what theyre told without questioning their quarterback–you cant have a good offense with all the linemen standing up and saying hey, I think- whenever the quarterback calls an audible.But its all good. Theyre learning. Ken Sherman Riverbend City VA Hospital Employee Arthur? Well, hes all right, I guess. He gets the job done. Ive had worse bosses.I dont know, though, I cant say I get really excited to come in and work for him every morning. He goes around babbling about how much butt were kicking in his department head meeting and it doesnt really take a genius to see that hes happy to be showing up the other guys and thats about it. Hey, the director patted you on the back again, good for you. Meanwhile, your staff turnovers through the roof and patients are just getting shuttled around the wing like a herd of cattle.I gotta lay my cards on the table here. Im still a little pissed that Arthur got the job. I applied for it, too, when it was open. I was—and am—pretty well-qualified to be running this department. But, well, you know how affirmative action hires go.Hey, at least he likes football. Talks about it enough. Veronica Marquez Riverbend City VA Hospital Employee I dont want to speak badly of Arthur, but I dont always understand his choices or behavior. I do wish hed be more inclusive of his staff. I know that, under Sarah, his predecessor, there was a strong feeling that we were a team of equals and everyone could (and should!) weigh in on important decisions for the department. After all, were all important stakeholders, and weve all got a lot of experience! But that just doesnt seem to be Arthurs style. Hes certainly a nice man, and a capable one, but he makes it very clear that he feels like hes in charge and were his subordinates.I wish it werent this way. I liked the way the department ran under Sarah; the Behavioral Health Wing felt like a big family then. Shed even invite us all over to her house once a quarter or so. Its hard to imagine Arthur doing that; I cant even imagine what it would be like to have a conversation with him that wasnt rigidly focused on work matters.But I try not to let too much of this bother me. Ive been here a long time, and really my loyalty is to the patients. The hospital politics, I just try to let them go. I actually considered applying for Arthurs job when it was open; I decided not to because I wanted to keep my attention on the patients and on the work, not on pleasing the director and fussing with budgets.April Ripka Riverbend City VA Hospital Employee Oh, Arthur Schmarthur. If it makes him feel good to swagger around like hes the king of the department, I guess thats fine. Its not like I havent carried some dead weight around on my back before. As far as I can tell, Arthurs here to play some weird game with the director where they just say numbers back and forth to each other and write memos about some new list of 6-step policies to deal with the latest thing that happened and blah blah blah. Meanwhile, the rest of us get the actual work done. I cant tell you how many times my eyes have just about rolled right out of my head because Arthur had some very serious talk with me about a bunch of very serious rules he just made up that get forgotten a week later. I just let it roll right off of me.I think hes kind of doing me a favor, soaking up all the politics and bureaucracy. Once I figured out I could just let him go playact while I got on with my day, I was just fine. As far as real leadership goes, if I have a question or need some advice, I go talk to Veronica, just like I always have. Shes been the real head of this department as long as Ive been here, no matter what it says on paper. Veronica and me, we have the Behavioral Health wing pretty well in hand. Ladies of color: we get the job done. Bill Cook Riverbend City VA Hospital Employee Arthurs a nice guy to talk about the Packers with, but thats about the only time I like to talk to him. Most of the time, hes just kind of an inflexible hardass.I know what Im doing here. I been doing it a while. I dont need Arthur to be standing outside my office tapping his foot when Im talking to a patient, just waiting to rush in and bust my chops because Im not doing enough to raise our quality measures. Never had Sarah riding my ass about quality measures back in her day.Kind of bums me out, you know? You do a job a certain way for 15 years, theres a point where you ought to get some respect for knowing the ropes. OK, so Ill knock off a little early every now and then. Who cares? I only do it if everythings taken care of–and if that happens, its because I know how to get stuff done pretty fast. No patient ever suffered because I left a little early to get a jump on traffic. Anyway, Veronicas always around, shes superwoman, she can fix anything that comes up. I guess thats my biggest problem with Arthur–he doesnt know how to leave well enough alone. He needs to learn to butt out unless theres a specific problem that needs his special attention.Page 448 of the textConfucian Asia Leadership ProfileThe leadership profile of the Confucian Asia countries describes a leader who is self-protective, team oriented, and humane oriented (Figure 16.5). Though independent and to some extent inspiring, this type of leader typically does not invite others to be involved in goal setting or decision making. In sum, the Confucian Asia profile describes a leader who works and cares about others but who uses status and position to make independent decisions without the input of others.Figure 16.5 Culture Clusters and Desired Leadership Behaviors: Confucian Asia article.pdf article.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview 516211 research-article2014 JBCXXX10.1177/2329488413516211Journal of Bioactive and Compatible PolymersAritz and Walker Article Leadership Styles in Multicultural Groups: Americans and East Asians Working Together International Journal of Business Communication 2014, Vol. 51(1) 72­–92 © 2014 by the Association for Business Communication Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2329488413516211 jbc.sagepub.com Jolanta Aritz1 and Robyn C. Walker1 Abstract The global economy has created new realities for businesses, and the need for understanding differing communication practices and cultural values is greater than ever, particularly with regard to the surging economies in the East. Working in multicultural work groups is a new workplace reality that has created a greater need to understand how to lead these groups to maximize the quality and effectiveness of multicultural group work. Cultural differences exist regarding the importance and value of leadership. Still, much remains to be understood as to the way in which culture influences leadership and organizational processes. To what extent do cultural forces influence the expectations that individuals have for leaders and their behavior, for instance? What principles of leadership and organizational processes transcend cultures? This article is primarily directed to an American audience and uses a discursive leadership approach to provide a better understanding of how different leadership styles affect group member interaction in multicultural groups involving participants from American and East Asian cultures. Our results demonstrate that differing discursive leadership styles can affect the participation and contribution of members and may affect their feelings of inclusion and satisfaction within the group. Our results also provide evidence that particular styles of and approaches to leadership may not be as successful with all cultural groups. Keywords turn-taking, leadership communication, intercultural business communication, multicultural groups 1Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California,CA Corresponding Author: Jolanta Aritz, Center for Management Communication, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, 3660 Trousdale Parkway, ACC 215D, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0444. Email: aritz@marshall.usc.edu Aritz and Walker 73 Introduction and Literature Review Today’s global economy has increased the occurrence of multicultural work groups, and consequently, the focus on maximizing the quality of multicultural group work has increased as well. Studies have shown that moderately heterogeneous groups experience significant communication problems and do not reach their performance potential (Earley & Gibson, 2002; Earley & Mosakoski, 2000; Franklin, 2007; Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale, 1999; Ravlin, Thomas, & Ilsev, 2000). Previous research on culturally diverse groups found that different interaction patterns exist across group members with different cultural backgrounds. Previous studies have shown that cultural preferences for length of turns, pauses between turns, simultaneous talk, or discrete turns specifically affect group performance and lead to communicative difficulties (Clyne, 1994; Du-Babcock, 1999, 2005, 2006; FitzGerald, 2003; Graham, 1985; Scollon & Scollon, 1995; West & Graham, 2004; Yamada, 1992). While multicultural groups and different communication patterns have received significant attention in previous studies, there has been little research to understand cultural influences on leadership practices, particularly regarding Asian leadership practices and expectations. Hui and Tan (1996) reported results of a small body of research on Chinese leadership, which rather randomly mixed supervisory and leadership processes. They found that Chinese employees want their leaders to be considerate and benevolent, adhere to the Confucian parental role, and exercise sound moral judgment, such as being self-restrained, honest toward fellow colleagues and subordinates, trustworthy, and impartial. Sarros and Santora (2001) surveyed 181 executives of Australia, Japan, China, and Russia to explore the linkage between their value orientations and leadership behaviors. They found that Chinese executives emphasized values such as benevolence, harmony with others, and self-restraint. They also noted that compared with executives from the other three countries, Chinese executives did not identify independent thinking as a key value dimension. It is not surprising that business communication research on leadership across cultures is in its infancy since the study of leadership has traditionally been undertaken by management studies, whose upsurge has been attributed to the political, technological, and economic superiority of the United States in the postwar years (Collard, 2007; Foster, 1962; Hofstede, 1980). As a result, it is laden with theories, practices, and modes of operation that reflect U.S. cultural assumptions characterized by consumerism, individualism and self-sufficiency, competitiveness, toughness, and rationality, while being exemplified in some non-Western countries as new, modern, scientific, and results-oriented (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swindler, & Tipton, 1985; Lam, Lau, Chiu, Hong, & Peng, 1999; Pilkington & Johnson, 2003). Therefore, intercultural leadership studies often take an etic approach, when a theory or a measure developed within one social group is validated in another. Moreover, when validating their theories on other groups or in other countries, their interest has not been to understand how the theories worked but only in seeing that they worked. Leadership researchers rarely have done cross-cultural studies to learn the limitations of their theories (Ayman & Korabik, 2010). 74 International Journal of Business Communication 51(1) The emerging communication scholarship on intercultural dialogue has adopted a working definition of the term as promoting “an open and respectful exchange or interaction between individuals, groups, and organizations” (Ganesh & Holmes, 2011, p. 81). The goal of such exchange is to develop a deeper understanding of diverse practices and to increase participation in making choices and decisions. BargielaChiappini (2004) identifies contrasting cultural discourses and the “cultural other” as the future research agenda in the field of organizational discourse. The goal of such inquiry is to recognize the existing differences and find ways to effectively manage them, and at the same time, facilitate the process of intercultural dialogue. Oftentimes, the “Other” is defined in negative terms and is viewed as inferior, especially in cases where the Western paradigm is pervasive, such as in the socialization process of managers modeled after U.S.-centered MBA programs (Westwood, 2001). In order for Western leaders to interact successfully and effectively on a global scale, it is imperative to learn more about cultural “Others” and to include this knowledge in their intercultural interactions in order to move toward to more equal and collaborative partnerships. An increasing body of research is studying leadership by looking at language and approaching the phenomenon as an act of social constructionism (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2000; Fairhurst, 2007, 2009). From this perspective, leadership is viewed in the context of what leaders do and is thus discursive in nature. According to Robinson (2001), “Leadership is exercised when ideas expressed in talk or actions are recognized by others as capable of progressing tasks or problems which are important to them” (p. 93). According to Fairhurst (2008), this definition enables us to understand leadership as a process of influence and meaning management that advances a talk or goal, an attribution made by followers or observers, and a process, in which influence may shift and distribute itself among several organizational members. More and more researchers are treating language as a methodological question and a window into cultural meanings. A linguistic focus is also enabling scholars to rethink traditional approaches to international business issues and, in doing so, to reveal more nuanced details about how issues such as leadership are “brought off” in intercultural settings (Fairhurst, 1993, 2007). Our study uses linguistic approaches to identify three styles of leadership communication and to assess their effectiveness in managing intercultural decision-making in groups, specifically among participants from the United States and East Asia. This study uses some foundational assumptions of interaction analysis (IA), thought broadly, to look at how leadership emerges in groups. From an interactional perspective, relational patterns are always codefined. This is because individuals in leadership relations do not relate and then communicate; instead, they relate through communication (McDermott & Roth, 1978). IA is the study of interaction process. McDermott and Roth (1978) defined IA as when “a person’s behavior is best described in terms of the behavior of those immediately about the person, those with whom the person is doing interactional work in the construction of recognizable social scenes or events” (p. 321). Aritz and Walker 75 This study is an attempt to more fully understand leadership if it is understood as primarily discursive in nature and co-constructed by those involved in interactions in which influence emerges. More specifically, it provides three cases that illustrate three common processes by which leadership emerges in groups. In addition, this article argues that understanding of the construct of leadership in multicultural groups is central in accomplishing the goal of fostering mutual respect, advancing dialogue, and including different perspectives. More specifically, we analyze how particular leadership communication styles may either exacerbate or resolve some of the problems associated with working in intercultural groups in diverse organizational settings (Earley & Gibson, 2002; Earley & Mosakoski, 2000; Jehn et al., 1999; Ravlin et al., 2000). Participants and Data Collection Two types of data were collected in this study. The first set consisted of survey data. We asked participants to also complete a survey instrument in which they were asked to identify the leader of their group after the simulation was completed and to identify the characteristics they observed to make that determination. We used this information to identify the leader in each of the transcripts used in this study. In addition to identifying the leader of their group, the participants were asked to respond to a 12-question survey (see Appendix A) intended to measure their attitudes about the group experience in two areas: their satisfaction with the group decision-making process (an outward measure—orientation toward other group members) and their perceived sense of inclusion and value in the process (an inward measure—orientation toward “self”). Participants were used to rate their experiences in these areas, using a 7-point Likerttype scale, ranging from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree.” The attitude survey was administered to a total of 146 participants that included five additional multicultural groups that participated in the same activity but were not included in the transcription analysis to ensure a higher number of respondents for purposes of statistical analysis. Of 146 participants, 59 participants were from East Asian cultures, predominantly from China, Japan, and Korea, and 87 participants were from the United States, all native English speakers. All participants were business professionals enrolled in an MBA program at a private university in Southern California with at least 2 years of work experience in their home country. In addition, we developed a communication style-oriented measure of leadership attribute preference using six global leader behaviors identified by the GLOBE Research Program: Charismatic/Value-based leadership, Team-Oriented leadership, Participative leadership, Autonomous leadership, Humane-Oriented leadership, and Self-Protective leadership (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004). Based on the definition of these six global leader behaviors (Dorfman, Hanges, & Brodbeck, 2004), we derived five communication styles that we used to measure leadership. We collapsed two separate GLOBE categories, Team Oriented and Participative leadership, into one category, “Involved other in decision-making process,” based on the communicative moves that the leadership style would exhibit. 76 International Journal of Business Communication 51(1) The five communication styles then included (a) decisive and task oriented; (b) involved others in decision-making process; (c) modest, compassionate, and supportive; (d) independent and self-reliant; and (e) status-conscious and procedural. Twenty-six participants from five different countries, the United States, Korean, China, Japan, and Taiwan, completed this measure after participating in a simulated decision-making activity. The results of these surveys led us to analyze our third set of data, which consisted of a total of 25 groups of business professionals (N = 120) involved in decisionmaking meetings. All 25 meetings were transcribed and analyzed. Of 25 groups, 20 multicultural groups consisted of members from East Asian and American cultures while 5 were homogenous groups consisting of American participants only. We chose to include an additional set of five homogenous groups because it generated a third leadership style that was not replicated in any of the multicultural teams we observed. We felt that it is important to address all three styles observed to provide a more accurate picture of the available linguistic repertoire that was used to construct leadership communication by participants from the West. Based on this set of data, three representative transcripts were chosen as the focus of this study based on their exemplary nature in representing styles of leadership that were observed. We followed Schiffrin (1994) and used her transcription conventions (Schiffrin, 1987) based on an earlier version of transcript notations by Jefferson (1979) to transcribe our data. Since we did not focus on gaze or vocal qualities in our analysis, we felt that Schiffrin’s conventions better served our needs. The simulation used in the study, Subarctic Survival, asked each group to take the role of airplane crash survivors. Groups were then asked to discuss and ultimately agree on the ranking of items salvaged from the aircraft in terms of their critical function for survival. The meetings were 20 minutes in length and were held and videotaped in an experiential learning laboratory equipped with professional facilities and technicians. The meetings were held in English, and the videotapes were then transcribed. Methodology for Transcript Analysis Two methods of analysis were used to interpret the transcript data, turn-taking patterns and interaction analysis. Both methods focus on a turn as the main unit of analysis to observe how contribution changes when multicultural groups involved in decision making are subject to different leadership styles. Turn-taking is defined as the ordering of moves that involves the interchange of talking by speakers (Johnstone, 2002). Numerous studies demonstrate that turn-taking styles are culture-specific and the potential source of many communication problems. Cultural preferences for length of turns, pauses between turns, simultaneous talk, or discrete turns specifically lead to these difficulties (Du-Babcock, 2006; FitzGerald, 2003). The analysis of Southeast Asians’ conversational style revealed that they are not successful in turn maintenance when competing with Europeans (Clyne, 1994). Du-Babcock (1999) found that meetings of multinational groups conducted in English were characterized by linear Aritz and Walker 77 patterns of communication (distinct phases and predetermined sequence of turns) while meetings conducted in Cantonese were characterized by circular patterns (nondistinct phases and random turns). Additionally, a comparison between Japanese and Mandarin Chinese conversational styles revealed some cultural differences among East Asian groups. Japanese speakers used a high-context communication style consistently, while Hong Kong Chinese switched between a high-context and low-context communication style, depending on whether they used Cantonese or English (Du-Babcock & Tanaka, 2013). First, we used turn-taking to analyze conversational interaction and to examine different leadership styles and group dynamics. Our specific method of analysis of turntaking is based on a model developed by Coates (1993) to analyze the management of naturally occurring interactions in which she describes cooperative and competitive conversation styles in gendered talk. Coates’s (1993) method was selected to provide a finer grained analysis of our data and to describe competitive and cooperative styles that emerge in multicultural groups and the effects it has on group dynamics. Coates’s (1993) model of analysis focuses on the following areas: (a) The meaning of questions—are they direct in purpose or used indirectly to facilitate conversation? (b) Links between speaker turns—does the speaker acknowledge the contribution of the previous speaker or talk on the topic without acknowledging that contribution? (c) Topic shifts—are they abrupt or do speakers build on each other’s contributions? (d) Listening—is the speaker using backchannels or latching? (e) Simultaneous speech— do the speakers overlap by elaborating on the previous contribution or does the contribution of the second speaker contradict or disrupt that of the first speaker? These interactional elements are used to analyze how their combination affects the emergence of leadership within groups of business professionals. We did not include nonverbal clues, such as gaze and gestures, in our analysis because our focus was on language and the unit of analysis was limited to a turn as a vehicle to construct leadership in talk. Nonverbal elements may provide interesting insights into our understanding of leadership, but they fell beyond the scope of this study. Second, we used an IA approach, which involves the categorization of discourse units according to a predefined set of codes (Bakeman & Gottman, 1986). It is a quantitative approach to discourse analysis that draws from message functions and language structures to assess the frequency and types of verbal interaction. Particular emphasis is given to the sequences and stages of interaction, their redundancy and predictability, and the links between interactional structures and the organizational context (Putnam & Fairhurst, 2001). IA itself is not a unitary field but also uses different theoretical foundations, units of analysis, observational modes, and study designs. But generally speaking, IA has been used to examine organizational constructs such as leadership, strategies and tactics of negotiation, and faithful or unfaithful appropriations of technology as they evolve from communication systems (Fairhurst & Cooren, 2004). We tracked member contribution by looking at three variables, the number of turns taken, number of words spoken, and the average turn length. We calculated the number of turns taken by looking at how many times a participant spoke in any given meeting. We chose to use number of words spoken rather than the amount of time spoken used 78 International Journal of Business Communication 51(1) by other studies, because we believe that it is a better indicator of contribution, since many of our participants were not using their native language. Therefore, they might take longer to ... 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