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The aim of this study is to explore effective communication strategies for Spanish‐speaking and Haitian‐Creole‐speaking employees in hotel companies.

A case study approach was employed. Three employee, focus group interviews and semi‐structured interviews with 12 managers were conducted in a resort hotel in Orlando to elicit critical factors related to effective communication strategies with Spanish‐speaking and Haitian‐Creole‐speaking employees.

It was found that the case study company mainly communicated with its employees through daily meetings, daily written information (e.g. hot sheets), wall postings, e‐mails, and periodic monthly/quarterly meetings. It was found that bilingual employees often worked as unpaid translators and assisted their colleagues. Spanish and Haitian‐Creole‐speaking employees felt that not being proficient in English hindered their promotion opportunities. Differences were observed among English, Spanish, and Haitian‐Creole‐speaking employees in terms of style of communication. Some native‐speaking employees seemed to refrain from communicating with non‐English‐speaking employees unless they communicated in English. Haitian‐Creole‐speaking employees spoke to other employees about only work‐related issues.

This is one of the first studies looking into communication strategies and challenges for Spanish and Haitian‐Creole‐speaking employees in hotel companies.

This paper aims to provide a research guide with recent resources in a variety of formats covering issues related to Haitian Americans and Haitian migration to the USA.

Local and union online catalogs, electronic indexes, bibliographies, and the worldwide web were searched to identify relevant items. Items were annotated after personal examination of the material, or after consultation of published reviews and abstracts.

The literature covering this population group is dominated by research from scholars addressing social identity, health issues, religious practices, and the socio‐economic and political determinants of migration.

No previous print bibliography has been limited in scope to Haitians in the USA. The few bibliographies that do address this population group are dated and do not reference recent literature. Furthermore, none of the previously published bibliographies consulted by the compiler include references to audio‐visual materials and web sites.

Women of Haitian nationality comprise a sizeable proportion of all women seeking labor and delivery services in a public hospital in Dominican Republic (DR), along the central border of Haiti. The purpose of this paper is to better understand and address the needs of Haitian women receiving labor and delivery services in this border region.

The authors conducted a mixed-methods study to identify personal motivations, demographic characteristics, and migration history of women seeking labor and delivery services at a public hospital.

The majority of women (83 percent) were born in Haiti but spoke Spanish (74 percent) and were long-term residents of the DR (mean 7.8 years). While many women reported they felt they had a positive experience delivering at the public hospital, some described feeling unwelcome or resented.

The study sample was small and from one hospital. Future studies could explore the differences in experiences among Haitian women who are long-term residents of the DR and those whose presence is more transient.

Women residing on both sides of the border would likely benefit from coordinated efforts by the Haitian and DR Ministries of Health to strengthen referral services to and from either country.

Hospital staff and services in the DR should consider the unique needs of this population, which makes critical contributions to workforce and culture in the DR.

This study is the first to assess labor and delivery service seeking practices and experiences within this population.

Haitian immigrants have settled primarily in several metropolitan areas of the Northeast region (New York and Boston, followed perhaps by Philadelphia), Southern Florida, and some areas of the Midwest (mainly Chicago). As indicated in a previous work (Zéphir, 2004, p. 90), New York City has the largest concentration of Haitians in the country as well as the oldest and most diverse established Haitian communities. Estimates of the New York population and its surrounding counties (Nassau, Rockland, and others) range from 200,000 to close to 500,000. This variation depends on whether one only takes into account figures given by the Census Bureau and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), or whether one also factors in the undocumented entrants and accepts estimates provided by Haitian community leaders themselves as being closer to reality. In more recent times, from the mid-1980s to the present, Southern Florida has been receiving the largest numbers of the new arrivals, particularly the cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, as well as their vicinities. The US Census Bureau (2000), places the legal Haitian population in the state of Florida at about 270,000; but when one considers the clandestine population that number obviously increases. Let us not forget that Florida is the destination of the most desperate Haitians, those who risk their lives navigating the Florida straits in rickety boats to reach “the promised land” that the United States symbolizes for them. In fact, as recently as March 28, 2007, a boatload of about 100 Haitians reached Hallandale Beach, Florida. These Haitians have been put in detention centers, pending reviews of their cases. The state of Massachusetts follows with a conservative estimate of 75,000 Haitians, of which the majority are Boston residents. The state of New Jersey is home to approximately 40,000 Haitian immigrants, concentrated mostly in the city of Newark. In addition, two other Northeast states, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, in particular) and Connecticut have sizeable Haitians communities. In the Midwest, another very conservative estimate of 30,000 Haitians have settled in Illinois, over half of them in the city of Chicago. Although the aforementioned states and cities have the most significant numbers of the total Haitian immigrant population, it is important to mention that Haitians have migrated all over the country, from Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, to California. For example, in the city of St. Louis, there are several well-established families who have been in residence there since the 1960s. Indeed, several years ago, I met a couple of physicians who explained that, when they came to the United States to do their medical residencies, few hospitals in the country at the time would accept Black residents. One exception was Omer Philip Hospital, which has long since closed. These first Haitians brought their families with them, who in turn sent for relatives. In time, a solid Haitian community developed and prospered in St. Louis. Moreover, as this chapter was being written in June of 2007, I received a phone call from a Haitian in Kansas City who was telling me about the emergence of a Haitian community there as well, which he estimated at about 2,000 people. This particular individual is the director of a community center that, he said, is called Glory House, affiliated with the Baptist Church. This center has been recently established to help working-class Haitians, by offering them English classes and other social services. Those examples attest to the fact that Haitians are mobile and moving to other areas of the country where they have not traditionally settled, in search of better economic, professional, vocational, and educational opportunities.

Historically, post-disaster reconstruction policies and practice ignore the embedded knowledge of the affected population; the process following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti followed this trend. This paper aims to examine the production of social space in self-settled post-disaster settlements in Leogane and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the paper demonstrates the role that traditional settlement patterns played in the production of social capital.

A multi-sited case study approach was implemented to uncover the patterns of the lakou, which is a primary Haitian, traditional settlement pattern reflecting the familial social structure, present in self-settled post-disaster settlements. The study took place between February and June of 2012, two years after the 2010 earthquake across settlements in Leogane and Port-au-Prince. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 inhabitants across the settlements to uncover meanings attached to the creation of space. Together with behavior mapping and participant observations, the interviews were analyzed to validate the reproduction of the lakou.

This paper demonstrates that endogenous inhabitants create the lakou in post-disaster settlements in Haiti. This case study validates the resilience of the lakou, the inclusive nature of the lakou system, and the important role it plays in the production of social capital within post-disaster communities.

This study demonstrates the importance of traditional settlement patterns in post-disaster community well-being and it demonstrates the need to incorporate traditional settlement patterns into post-disaster planning strategies. Furthermore, the study validates that traditional settlement patterns support the production of social capital within a community.

Perhaps the greatest peril to civilisation is the fragmentation of knowledge. Science often lends itself to easy application to technology and our economic systems are the result of applying this knowledge to our resources. But our knowledge of how societies work lags significantly, and the economic system frequently multiplies our social problems. At the heart of the problem is the distinction between knowledge of universals – scientific laws for example – and knowledge of people, who are unique particulars. The paper examines some recent disputes in the social sciences and suggests how the gap might be filled and economic systems made more responsive to social problems.

The learning outcomes are as follows: successful students will demonstrate an understanding of challenges in producing and delivering a product in emerging economies; they will be able to analyze the tradeoffs in operational decisions of a social enterprise; and students will apply supply chain principles to solve social and environmental challenges.

Carbon Roots International is a social enterprise in Haiti producing and selling charcoal from sugar cane waste. Their operational challenge is designing a supply chain, which enables them to accomplish their social goals while building a profitable enterprise.

This case can be used in graduate operations management and supply chain management courses. The company in the case is a social enterprise.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics