The adjustment of leadership styles in intercultural workplace – some evidences from the multinational construction companies in Hong Kong

This study investigates the existence of intercultural adjustment in the multicultural construction workplaces by examining the leadership orientations (task-/people-orientation), communication and conflict resolution skills (high/low-context culture), and power relationship styles (high/low power distance) of local Chinese and the British expatriate project managers in the multinational construction companies in Hong Kong. A sample of project managers (N = 40) and their subordinates (N = 61) were surveyed using the structured questionnaires. Statistical techniques (independent-samples t-test, and Pearson correlation analysis) were employed to evaluate the data. The results revealed a number of interesting findings. First, it was found that both project manager groups equally considered the importance of task performance and interpersonal relationship. The results of correlations analysis provide support for the linkages of the length of working abroad with the change in task/people orientation for Chinese and expatriate managers. The analysis revealed that those Chinese managers who have the longest length of time living or working in Western countries tended to measure higher on task-orientation. Similarly, those British expatriate managers who have the longest period of working in Hong Kong tended to be less task-orientated. Second, local Chinese managers were found to be more confrontational when they strongly disagree with their team members than their British expatriate counterparts. It would appear that stress from project deadline which increase the directness and terseness in communication acts, and retain the composure of project managers in dealing with the subordinates. Finally, our findings show that there is significant difference between local Chinese and British expatriate managers in their power relationship with subordinates. This implies that although the intercultural adjustment might influence perceptions of local and expatriate managers, some dominant deep-rooted cultural values and beliefs are still not easily altered. Conclusions are presented along with suggestions for future studies.

Being ethical : how process drama assists pre-service drama teachers to reflect on professional ethics

This research thesis focuses on the experiences of pre-service drama teachers and considers how process drama may assist them to reflect on key aspects of professional ethics such as mandatory codes or standards, principled moral reasoning, moral character, moral agency, and moral literacy. Research from higher education provides evidence that current pedagogical approaches used to prepare pre –professionals for practice in medicine, engineering, accountancy, business, psychology, counselling, nursing and education, rarely address the more holistic or affective dimensions of professional ethics such as moral character. Process drama, a form of educational drama, is a complex improvisational group experience that invites participants to create and assume roles, and select and manage symbols in order to create a fictional world exploring human experience. Many practitioners claim that process drama offers an aesthetic space to develop a deeper understanding of self and situations, expanding the participant’s consciousness and ways of knowing. However, little research has been conducted into the potential efficacy of process drama in professional ethics education for pre-professionals. This study utilizes practitioner research and case study to explore how process drama may contribute to the development of professional ethics education and pedagogy.

Ethical behaviour in the construction procurement process

In construction, inter-organisational relationships are of the highest importance. Ethical practice and behaviour is a means for improving inter-organisational relationships by providing a clear understanding of the rights and obligations of all parties, improving productivity, affecting long-term business dealings, and influencing quality, time and costs. Therefore, the ability to build sustainable relationships grounded in ethical practice is important to the construction industry. Establishing ethical standards at the beginning of the procurement process provides an ethical platform for the project life cycle and the relationship between procurers and contractors. Therefore it is important to determine what the ethical issues are in the Australian construction industry from members of the industry themselves; including clients. This “bottom up” approach is not a particularly new concept. Ever since the Gyles Royal Commission in 1992 there has been a considerable effort by government agencies to develop policies to improve the ethical behaviour of the industry.

Learning, language and leadership : conduits to dynamic public service networks

Networks are having a profound impact on the way society is organised at the local, national and international level. Networks are not ‘business as usual’. The defining feature of networks and a key indicator for their success is the strength and quality of the interactions between members. This relational power of networks provides the mechanism to bring together previously dispersed and even competitive entities into a collective venture. Such an operating context demands the ability to work in a more horizontal, relational manner. In addition a social infrastructure must be formed that will support and encourage efforts to become more collaborative. This paper seeks to understand how network members come to know about working in networks, how they work on their relationships and create new meanings about the nature of their linked work. In doing so, it proposes that learning, language and leadership, herein defined as the ‘3Ls’ represent critical mediating aspects for networks.

The open kimono: How Intel balances trust and power to maintain platform leadership

A small group of companies including Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco have used "platform leadership" with great effect as a means for driving innovation and accelerating market growth within their respective industries. Prior research in this area emphasizes that trust plays a critical role in the success of this strategy. However, many of the categorizations of trust discussed in the literature tend to ignore or undervalue the fact that trust and power are often functionally equivalent, and that the coercion of weaker partners is sometimes misdiagnosed as collaboration. In this paper, I use case study data focusing on Intel's shift from ceramic/wire-bonded packaging to organic/C4 packaging to characterize the relationships between Intel and its suppliers, and to determine if these links are based on power in addition to trust. The case study shows that Intel's platform leadership strategy is built on a balance of both trust and a relatively benevolent form of power that is exemplified by the company's "open kimono" principle, through which Intel insists that suppliers share detailed financial data and highly proprietary technical information to achieve mutually advantageous objectives. By explaining more completely the nature of these inter-firm linkages, this paper usefully extends our understanding of how platform leadership is maintained by Intel, and contributes to the literature by showing how trust and power can be used simultaneously within an inter-firm relationship in a way that benefits all of the stakeholders.

Identifying effective leadership practices for implementing a new mathematics curriculum in Taipei

This study explores successful junior high school principals’ leadership practices for implementing the reformed mathematics curriculum in Taipei. Avolio and Bass’s (2002) full range leadership theory was used to record data through interviews and observations of five Taipei “Grade A” junior high school principals. Findings revealed that specific leadership practices linked to management by exception-active and contingent reward (transaction leadership), and individualised consideration and idealised influence (transformational) were considered effective for implementing reform measures. Ensuring principals are aware of effective measures may further assist reform agendas.

A new look at leadership in collaborative networks : process catalysts

Collaborative networks have come to form a large part of the public sector’s strategy to address ongoing and often complex social problems. The relational power of networks, with its emphasis on trust, reciprocity and mutuality provides the mechanism to integrate previously dispersed and even competitive entities into a collective venture(Agranoff 2003; Agranoff and McGuire 2003; Mandell 1994; Mandell and Harrington 1999). It is argued that the refocusing of a single body of effort to a collective contributes to reducing duplication and overlap of services, maximizes increasingly scarce resources and contributes to solving intractable or 'wicked’problems (Clarke and Stewart 1997). Given the current proliferation of collaborative networks and the fact that they are likely to continue for some time, concerns with the management and leadership of such arrangements for optimal outcomes are increasingly relevant. This is especially important for public sector managers who are used to working in a top-down, hierarchical manner. While the management of networks (Agranoff and McGuire 2001, 2003), including collaborative or complex networks (Kickert et al. 1997; Koppenjan and Klijn 2004), has been the subject of considerable attention, there has been much less explicit discussion on leadership approaches in this context. It is argued in this chapter that the traditional use of the terms ‘leader’ or ‘leadership’ does not apply to collaborative networks. There are no ‘followers’ in collaborative networks or supervisor-subordinate relations. Instead there are equal, horizontal relationships that are focused on delivering systems change. In this way the emergent organizational forms such as collaborative networks challenge older models of leadership. However despite the questionable relevance of old leadership styles to the contemporary work environment, no clear alternative has come along to take its place.

The ethical predisposition of university students in Western Australia : 1997 vs 2007

A sample of 285 Western Australian university students was used to assess the prevailing attitudes regarding potential breaches of ethical conduct on the part of business practitioners and organisations. The authors developed an ethical profile for the 2007 sample based on 14 scenarios used in the questionnaire. This profile was then compared to the results from data collected in 1997 using similar sampling and the same survey instrument. The prevailing predisposition is best viewed as centrist in nature, with a move to a more ethical stance in the last 10 years.

Comparing the ethical predisposition of university students in five English-speaking countries : an examination of 14 questionable business practices

Recent years have seen intense scrutiny focused on the reported ethical breaches of enterprises across the globe. At the forefront of the accompanying criticism are the actions of giant American firms such as WorldCom, Arthur Anderson, and Enron. However, such deviations from acceptable standards of conduct have not been confined to the American market. Australia endured its era of “corporate excess” in the 1980s [Milton-Smith, 1997]. As a result, a spate of ethics-based research was undertaken in the early 1990s. More recently, China has been identified as a major venue for behavior deemed to be unacceptable, even unsafe. Issues such as counterfeit fashion items, software, and automobile parts have been a concern for several years [Gonzalez, 2007]. Perhaps more disconcerting are the recent recalls of children’s products, many of which were produced for leading toy companies such as Mattel and Fisher-Price, because of the use of dangerous lead-based paint. As one might anticipate, news reports and consumer protection agencies have been quick to condemn any action that falls within the “controversial” category. Indeed, many segments of society characterize such actions as unethical behavior. One result of this increased level of concern is the higher level of attention given to ethics in higher education programs. Even accreditation bodies such as AACSB have virtually mandated the integration of ethics into the curriculum. As a consequence, academicians have ramped up their ethics-based research agendas.

Teacher leadership : interns crossing to the domain of higher professional learning with mentors?

Over the last two decades, the notion of teacher leadership has emerged as a key concept in both the teaching and leadership literature. While researchers have not reached consensus regarding a definition, there has been some agreement that teacher leadership can operate at both a formal and informal level in schools and that it includes leadership of an instructional, organisational and professional development nature (York-Barr & Duke, 2004). Teacher leadership is a construct that tends not to be applied to pre-service teachers as interns, but is more often connected with the professional role of mentors who collaborate with them as they make the transition to being a beginning teacher. We argue that teacher leadership should be recognised as a professional and career goal during this formative learning phase and that interns should be expected to overtly demonstrate signs, albeit early ones, of leadership in instruction and other professional areas of development. The aim of this paper is to explore the extent to which teacher education interns at one university in Queensland reported on activities that may be deemed to be ‘teacher leadership.’ The research approach used in this study was an examination of 145 reflective reports written in 2008 by final Bachelor of Education (primary) pre-service teachers. These reports recorded the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of their professional learning with a school-based mentor in response to four outcomes of internship that were scaffolded by their mentor or initiated by them. These outcomes formed the bases of our research questions into the professional learning of the interns and included, ‘increased knowledge and capacity to teach within the total world of work as a teacher;’ ‘to work autonomously and interdependently’; to make ‘growth in critical reflectivity’, and the ‘ability to initiate professional development with the mentoring process’. Using the approaches of the constant comparative method of Strauss and Corbin (1998) key categories of experiences emerged. These categories were then identified as belonging to main meta-category labelled as ‘teacher leadership.’ Our research findings revealed that five dimensions of teacher leadership – effective practice in schools; school curriculum work; professional development of colleagues; parent and community involvement; and contributions to the profession – were evident in the written reports by interns. Not surprisingly, the mentor/intern relationship was the main vehicle for enabling the intern to learn about teaching and leadership. The paper concludes with some key implications for developers of preservice education programmes regarding the need for teacher leadership to be part of the discourse of these programmes.

Australian school leadership today : conclusions

The evidence provided in this book allows us to conclude that the context of 'new managerialism', which embraced managerial efficiency and effectiveness through bureaucracy and accountability as key levers for meeting higher community expectations and reforming schools, has failed. It also allows us to conclude that it is time that the professionals, the school leaders, ensure that what happens in schools, now and in the future, is what they want to happen. The professionals need to re-establish their individual and collective educational agency. The major professional challenge for any school leader is overcoming the gap between dependence in, or a feeling of, the inevitability of political, system or bureaucracies being the means of achieving what they want, and actively working to implement their preferred model of schools as social centres, learning organisations or professional learning communities (see chapters in this book and Mulford, 2008).