Search results

This study aims to advance knowledge in international management research about how researchers’ cultural identity in fieldwork encounters may be grounded in the choice of language in multicultural and multilingual projects.

The study is based on critical reflections on the experience of two co-authors as Chinese nationals conducting research in overseas Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs) in developing economies.

Drawing on social identity theory, the authors demonstrate that the cultural identity and cultural insider/outsider positionality of both the researcher and research participants can be shaped by language, translation and other artefacts in cross-cultural interviews, constantly being shifted, managed and renegotiated during qualitative interviewing. This study highlights the politics of language which, when combined with other forms of power relations, such as the researcher’s perceived status, economic development of the MNCs’ home country and the participants’ organisational hierarchy, affect power distribution between the researcher and participants. Researchers often need to move from being an “insider” to an “outsider” and often to an “in-betweener” at different stages in an interview interaction to balance power.

This study contributes to international debates about the complex interplay of languages, politics and identity in multilingual and multicultural qualitative research. In contributing to these literatures, the authors focus on the relatively under-researched Chinese MNCs in other developing countries including Mongolia and Tanzania. Recommendations for researcher training and reflexivity are proposed.

While higher education has been encouraging interdisciplinary research, few studies have been conducted to understand how interdisciplinarity shapes the identity construction of scholars, especially doctoral students who may already strive to socialize into academia.

Therefore, this study adopts the approach of autoethnography to analyze my lived experience of developing disciplinary literacy and constructing interdisciplinary identity as a Chinese international doctoral student at a North American university. Communication theory of identity (CTI) is the theoretical framework through which I understand the negotiation among my personal, enacted, relational and communal identities while communicating my research through diverse literacy practices.

This autoethnography reveals that interdisciplinary doctoral students can flexibly use discursive resources from different disciplines and literacy practices in both English and their first language to dynamically create interdisciplinary identities communicable to different discourse communities. Their identities in different disciplines can develop simultaneously, rather than suppressing one for the development of the other as they do interdisciplinary research.

This study first extends current scholarly discussion of disciplinary literacy to a less-investigated setting, i.e. doctoral education in higher education. Second, it adds an additive and current layer of interdisciplinarity to the existing understanding of international doctoral students’ identity construction. Third, it helps to understand how the development of disciplinary literacy can facilitate disciplinary identity construction and how disciplinary identity construction can facilitate the development of disciplinary literacy.

This article demonstrates the reach of Tuhiwai Smith’s ideas across Pacific research. It discusses the theoretical and practical influence of her seminal work Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples through “holographic epistemology”, an indigenous way of viewing knowledge.

The authors present a talanoa (Pacific-style relational conversation) to explore Tuhiwai Smith’s legacy for Pacific Islander researchers and research. The talanoa between two academics at different career stages draws upon personal and professional research experiences and peer-reviewed published sources to explore the expansive and enduring legacy of Tuhiwai Smith’s life and ideas.

Decolonizing Methodologies has helped Pacific Islander researchers flourish, and Pacific Island research approaches gain legitimacy in higher education. Its epistemological influence can be seen in research which utilises knowledge of body, mind and spirit – holographic epistemology – and in indigenous innovations to qualitative research.

This article has value for those seeking to understand the epistemological underpinnings of indigenous approaches to research. It has originality in its presentation as a talanoa between two researchers who have found affirmation and academic freedom with Tuhiwai Smith’s ideas. It is also original in offering a Pacific perspective from a Hawaiian and a Samoan academic about the immense koha (gift) they have received from a Maori tuahine (sister).

This paper shows the benefits of multi-sited ethnography for global migration studies in management, in particular when cosmopolitan self-initiated expatriates meet a local setting.

The author conducted a multi-sited ethnography to trace how a local East German research organization’s well-intended approach to integration becomes condescending.

Highly skilled non-Western migrant employees who represent English-language cosmopolitanism are framed as negatively “foreign” by corporate discourses and practices. This phenomenon can only be understood if one follows the interconnections of language power, White subalternity and compressed modernity and if one considers the immediate surroundings, the historical context of East German identity and wider migration frames in Germany.

Multi-sited ethnography, if power-sensitive and historically-aware, is suitable for understanding the multi-level phenomenon of global migration and identifying limiting framing-effects on management and organizations. Researcher standpoint is both its strength and its limitation.

Managers and companies can “imagine otherwise” and move beyond the unquestioned dominant frames limiting their problem analyses and, consequently, their strategies and actions.

Managers and companies are enabled to move beyond individual- and corporate-level approaches to managing migration at work and can thus take up full social responsibility in the sense of good corporate citizenship on a global level. Global mobility researchers can work towards an inclusive migration theory.

Multi-sited ethnography, in particular, one that is power-sensitive and historically aware, is an approach not yet applied to migration in the context of management and organization. By means of an example, this paper illustrates the value of this approach and enables researchers to understand its main principles. Compressed modernity and White subalternity are introduced as novel concepts structuring migration, and language power emerges as relevant far beyond the scope of the multinational corporation.

The purpose is to investigate the professional identity of public library, archive and museum (LAM) professionals in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Norway and Sweden.

The data have been gathered through the administration of three questionnaires. A comprehensive analysis is conducted to explore the variations in the professionals’ perceptions of their professional proximities to the other LAM professions and other related professions, considering demographic factors such as age, education, gender and immigrant background of participants.

Through a lens of micro- and macro-professional identities, the findings underscore both clearly perceived role separation between the LAM professions and notable points of convergence, suggesting opportunities for collaborative efforts. The implications of these discoveries are discussed, offering a foundation for future research endeavors.

The study highlights the professions perceived to have the most and least similarity to LAMs based on questionnaire responses, providing valuable insights into the interplay between various professional domains.

Although sexual identity disclosure in the workplace can be related to heightened adversity for lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) employees, disclosure can also serve as an avenue for LGB employees to attain additional resources. Much of the work done in today’s organizations is done in team-based structures, making it likely that LGB individuals disclose to members of their work teams. However, very limited prior research has examined the associations of sexual identity disclosure within work team experiences. This paper aims to take a first step in addressing this gap in research on the experiences of LGB employees in the workplace.

This study takes a first step toward addressing this gap by examining the associations between LGB identity disclosure and critical team-specific attitudes and behaviors (i.e., trust in team, commitment to team, conflict with team, withdrawal from team) and the atemporal indirect role of perceived LGB identity support from the team through a cross-sectional survey of 159 employees.

Results demonstrated that perceptions of a supportive LGB team climate atemporally mediated the association between disclosure and relevant workplace variables. Specifically, disclosure of sexual identity to one’s work team is directly and indirectly, through perceived identity support, positively associated with trust and commitment toward the team. Furthermore, disclosure was indirectly, through perceived identity support, negatively associated with conflict and withdrawal from the team. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

The results of this study highlight the importance of perceived identity support when individuals disclosure their sexual orientation in a team context.

This study examined differences related to gender and racial/ethnic identity among academic researchers participating in the National Science Foundation’s “Innovation-Corps” (NSF I-Corps) entrepreneurship training program. Drawing from prior research in the fields of technology entrepreneurship and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, this study addresses the goal of broadening participation in academic entrepreneurship.

Using ANOVA and MANOVA analyses, we tested for differences by gender and minoritized racial/ethnic identity for four variables considered pertinent to successful program outcomes: (1) prior entrepreneurial experience, (2) perceptions of instructional climate, (3) quality of project team interactions and (4) future entrepreneurial intention. The sample includes faculty (n = 434) and graduate students (n = 406) who completed pre- and post-course surveys related to a seven-week nationwide training program.

The findings show that group differences based on minoritized racial/ethnic identity compared with majority group identity were largely not evident. Previous research findings were replicated for only one variable, indicating that women report lower amounts of total prior entrepreneurial experience than men, but no gender differences were found for other study variables.

Our analyses respond to repeated calls for research in the fields of entrepreneurship and STEM education to simultaneously examine intersecting minoritized and/or under-represented social identities to inform recruitment and retention efforts. The unique and large I-Corps national dataset offered the statistical power to quantitatively test for differences between identity groups. We discuss the implications of the inconsistencies in our analyses with prior findings, such as the need to consider selection bias.

Civil service workers are valuable resources for any nation and play a crucial role in driving their country’s economic development. Per the supervisor, this research examines the impact of mindfulness, proactive personality, and career competencies on employee job performance. The study also analyzes the effects of career adaptability and identity on this aspect.

To test the model of this study, questionnaires were administered to a sample of 500 civil service employees whose career-based knowledge and skills were measured in various cities in the province of Punjab, Pakistan.

Mindfulness and career competencies significantly impact supervisor-rated task performance, whereas a proactive personality does not substantially relate to supervisor-rated task performance. Research indicated that the two hypotheses about mediation were accepted. However, career adaptability does not play a significant role in the link between mindfulness and how well a supervisor rates task performance. Regarding moderation, career identity did not significantly moderate the relation between proactive personality and supervisor-rated task performance. However, the other two moderate hypotheses have been proven to be significant.

The findings offer compelling support for career construction theory (CCT) in this study area by analyzing the connections related to career adaptability and identity within the framework. In the future, researchers can build on this model by adding theories like conservation of resources (COR), looking into possible moderators that might change specific pathways in this network of relationships and using longitudinal designs to find stronger causal relationships.

Considering the evolving workplace due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the study offers fresh perspectives on the post-COVID situation, understanding and integrating various variables. For future studies, more variables can be explored in this model with the expansion of sample size and change of context.

This paper aims to examine how visual elements used in packaging design relate to diasporic consumer identity and influence aesthetic appreciation.

Drawing on social identity theory, research on aesthetic principles and using a mixed methods approach, two studies are conducted. Study 1 involves a qualitative exploration of the nature of diasporic consumer identity and its relation with visual design in packaging. Study 2 involves quantitative testing and calibration of this relationship and its subsequent influence on aesthetic appreciation.

Diasporic consumers from the Middle East appreciate hybrid visual designs and prefer packaging that strikes an optimum balance of visual elements (colour, shapes, patterns) from the heritage aspects of their ancestral homeland and more contemporary aspects from their culture of living. Preference for balance elicits an overall positive diasporic identity feeling that mediates the relationship with aesthetic appreciation of visual design in packaging.

These findings offer new knowledge about the role of visual design in packaging in delivering symbolic value to diasporic consumers, evidencing how diasporic consumers’ dual identities shape aesthetic appreciation and preferences for hybrid visual designs.

Provides marketing practitioners and packaging designers with a concise and contextual directive for creating visual designs that appeal to a growing segment of diasporic consumers.

This research draws on social identity theory to uncover an aesthetic cultural precept – heritage, yet contemporary – that can inform the development of packaging designs targeting diasporic consumers.

This project set out to explore information scholars’ perceptions of the influence of their keyword selections and the implications of their linguistic choices on possibilities for and perceptions of the field of Information Science. We trialed a narrative methodological approach to investigate the multiple stories told with specific keywords, how they relate to larger discourses within the field and the impact they have on the lives of information researchers.

This paper draws on Arthur Frank’s narrative analysis to consider keywords as stories, which shape one’s sense of professional identity and belonging. The analysis, which is informed by insights from multi-disciplinary scholars of keywords, employs data from a keywords-oriented workshop with Information School faculty and students, as well as an online questionnaire sent to heads of Information Schools.

We did not find a singular definitive story of information science scholars’ experiences with keywords. Rather we identify tensions surrounding common and contested understandings of discipline, canon and information, engaging the complexity of interdisciplinary, international, intellectual and moral claims of the field. This research offers insight into the experiential factors that shape scholars’ engagement with keywords and the tensions they can create.

A wealth of bibliometric analyses of keywords focuses on finding the “right” words to describe the scholarship you seek or the work you want others to discover. However, this study offers information researchers a novel approach, creating space to acknowledge the generative tensions of keywords, beyond the extractive logic of search and retrieval.