Search results

Electronic mail (EMS) is a new and increasingly common mechanism for communication. How computer‐mediated communication affects human behavior has become the focus of research and of commentary in the popular press. An etiquette or rules of conduct when using EMS appears to be needed. Suggestions are offered based on experience utilizing an electronic mail system for intra‐organizational communication in the Carnegie‐Mellon University Libraries.

This chapter investigates ways in which civility and mindful speech within the library workplace can improve the quality of employees’ interactions with each other. While most examinations of communication within libraries focus on the exchange between patrons and providers, this case study focuses on the vehicle of communication among co-workers and examines how civil discourse coupled with mindful speech reinforced by mindful actions can foster an atmosphere of cooperation, leading ultimately to empathy. We highlight common points within national and local civility initiatives which allow institutions to preserve their own unique culture while adhering to accepted benchmarks of civil dialogue. Although we present a mix of suggested strategies for cultivating mindful words and actions, based on empirical research limited to our own institution, we recommend civility and mindful speech leading to mindful action as gateways toward the adaptation of healthy shared values. Emphasizing civility, one of the cornerstones of civilization and peaceful coexistence, has widespread practical and social implications for countering the detrimental effects of poor communication. This effective, affordable, and attainable practice can repair the underdeveloped, fractured, and even dysfunctional relationships which lead to low workplace morale.

Intercultural trade always requires special efforts. The authors of this article lay down some guidelines for Western dealings with companies in China and Japan, and bring out points to note for both sides.

That someone can make us feel good is a quality in itself. There has been much talk within British government circles, for example, about “the feelgood” factor, which is constantly reminding us that it is just around the corner! Whether or not we can believe in this is another matter but it certainly displays an awareness that making other people feel good can also have positive benefits for ourselves. How this can be achieved will differ depending on our particular line of business. Having a good‐quality product does not in itself guarantee success as service quality must also be taken into account. This is where the feel‐good factor comes into play. It is all very well, for example, going to a restaurant to have a top‐class meal (in that the food was good), only to have it thrown at you. Quality, therefore, must not be seen as a separate entity, but more as a package deal. Service quality is important if you wish to retain your customer base as acquiring new customers can be both time‐consuming and costly. It quite often takes very little apart from good manners to keep customer loyalty as in the case of the restaurant. Other factors can, however, start creeping into the framework such as efficiency, timeliness and good communication. Is there, for example, a time limit on how long you can reasonably be expected to wait for your meal before it arrives at the table, and if there is a delay is this communicated to you? In other words, we all have expectations as to what is acceptable and what is not. The clever part is for the organization to learn by what criteria the customer judges its service quality performance.

This paper explores the “Western” concept of psychological capital in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and highlights critical areas of divergence and notable dimensions of similarity.

This is an empirical study conducted in a wide range of Chinese organisational forms, employing an inductive approach based on critical incident technique.

This research showed that the concept of psychological capital appears to have a degree of applicability and salience in China. A series of dimensions common in Western organisations were found in our research, including Optimism, Creativity, Resiliency, Self‐confidence, Forgiveness and Gratitude, Courage and Ambition (Hope). These were found to be common types of psychological capital both in China and in the West. However, the dimensions of Courtesy and Humility (Qian‐gong‐you‐li in Chinese), Self‐possession and Sincerity fell into the “different” category.

This paper is a first attempt to examine psychological capital in a range of organisational forms and industrial sectors in China using a grounded theory approach. It not only reports various dimensions of Chinese psychological capital, some unique to this research, but also compares and contrasts these dimensions between China and the West, highlighting further research opportunities.

The voices of cabin crew on international air routes have scarcely been heard in tourism management studies. Using an auto-ethnographic account and interviews with cabin crew colleagues, this chapter presents some of the complexities in managing Asian tourists on long-haul flights. Typical and real incidents demonstrating problematic behaviors by Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and Korean passengers are documented and discussed. The results show that the aircraft environment can be a site of intensity, rich in contradictions and tension. Key challenges include cabin crew grappling with unfamiliar passenger values, facing their own and staff judgments, and status issues. Adjusting and developing training curriculum for cabin crew to enhance cultural awareness is a core resolution to optimize service delivery.

This paper aims to analyse the conceptual bases of the related terms of “host” and “guest” in Chinese and reveal essential, though overlooked, cultural differences that relate to “hospitality” in Western and Chinese cultural contexts.

A presupposition of this conceptual investigation is that culture manifests itself linguistically. The analytic approach used here is textual analysis. Confucian classical texts are the main source of evidence for examining the conceptual commitments of the Chinese characters 主 and 客 and their corresponding practical expressions.

Cross-cultural comparison reveals asymmetries between the term “hospitality” and its Chinese translations, etymologically and culturally. This study demonstrates how the Chinese 主–客 paradigm is both hierarchal in nature and centred on the role and interests of the host. It further compares this paradigm with its Western counterpart along five different dimensions.

The specific Chinese norms for the host–guest paradigm synthesized here could prompt both academicians and operators to question the cultural attachments associated with hospitality by participants and the cultural differences in hospitality transactions and management. The cultural sensitivity modelled here is intended to facilitate harmony between a hospitality setting and the culture in which it is embedded.

This conceptual paper is the first in the Anglophone literature to explore the Chinese cultural roots of the concepts “host” and “guest”. The linguistic perspective used in this study allows the concept of “hospitality” to be studied cross-culturally and in an interdisciplinary way, addressing a blind spot in the extant hospitality literature.

This paper aims to fuse some ideas within different domains perceived to have some resonance together with the purpose to assist the development of the artificial world using a novel perspective on design and cybernetics in the context of the Chinese notions of “Li”.

This is a conceptual paper that reviews concepts related to the design of socio‐technical situations through a trans‐disciplinary perspective. One method used to develop ideas was participation in the American Society of Cybernetics Conference – C:ADM 2010 and enable its participants to influence initial ideas presented by the authors.

The paper provides a way of approaching the design of “dynamics” in the conceptualisation of artefacts in the widest sense of the term, and provides insights about designing future products, services and systems along with the education of designers in this.

The trans‐disciplinary approach to topics covered by the paper results in some compromises in disciplinary terms, and it has a more intuitive approach than might be taken within the disciplines alone. The discussion is enhanced by this approach however, researchers are encouraged to follow up particular aspects within a disciplinary approach as well.

The paper includes some examples of designs to illustrate the practical application of concepts discussed and how these may be incorporated into design education.

The interrelationship of the Chinese notions of “Li”, second‐order cybernetics, and four‐dimensional design is an original contribution. In addition the recommendation for design education generally, and a course for engineers at South China University of Technology, Guangzhou in particular, to assist students' “innovation consciousness” is of value.

Erving Goffman has been variously interpreted as a symbolic interactionist, a structural functionalist, or an a-structural power-game theorist. However, when considering Goffman’s affiliation with the human ecology (HEC) of Robert Park and Everett Hughes, one is able to shed new light on Goffman’s relationship to the aforementioned sociological paradigms. This chapter will demonstrate that his Darwinist underpinnings and overall implicit evolutionary perspective allowed him to develop a dramaturgical theory that explicates how actors are able to understand, predict, anticipate, accommodate to, and influence others while pursuing one’s own or own group’s interests, through one or more of role “taking,” “playing,” and “making.” Furthermore, Goffman elaborates upon Park’s use of dramaturgy, following him in making more room for competition and inequalities in status and power, and offering new dimensions and categories for specifying when and why different adaptive strategies will be used, within different types and degrees of accommodation. Ecological dramaturgy is the term we give to these interdependent lines of social action within stratification contexts. Such structural concerns ultimately separate Goffman from the more subjective and less deductive elements of traditional symbolic interactionist thought. We argue that Goffman’s much neglected ecological and evolutionary-minded approach to role-taking and its inspired analysis of competitive interactive processes provide a missing link in better understanding his complicated intellectual heritage.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the indigenous concept of suzhi at individual and organizational levels, and identify its dimensions for human resource management (HRM) research and practice in China.

Based on a comprehensive review of suzhi literature, Chinese cultural and historical literature, as well as Western mainstream HRM research, a multidimensional suzhi framework is conceptualized.

As an indigenous expression, suzhi can be and has been adopted for Chinese HRM research and practice. As a multidimensional construct, one’s cognitive suzhi is jointly determined by corresponding moral suzhi, wenhua (knowledge-based) suzhi and zhuanye (professional) suzhi. Cognitive suzhi, in turn, determines one’s behavioral suzhi that drives employees to enhance organizational performance, and this relationship is moderated by psychological suzhi.

The proposed framework provides new insight for Chinese indigenous management research, particularly in developing suzhi measurement for different dimensions. It also informs HRM practices in recruiting, selection, performance analysis and employee career development.

The complexity of suzhi dimensions from an organizational HRM perspective is analyzed. The resulting suzhi framework offers new insight for HRM research and practices in China.