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Tiêu đề Wilson And Standing In Front Of Him Seized Him Firmly By
Trường học Standard Format University
Chuyên ngành Corporate Communication and Public Relations
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Watching Tom I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over tWatching Tom I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and standing in front of him seized him firmly by the upper arms.Watching Tom I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and standing in front of him seized him firmly by the upper arms.Watching Tom I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and standing in front of him seized him firmly by the upper arms.Watching Tom I saw the wad of muscle back of his shoulder tighten under his coat. He walked quickly over to Wilson and standing in front of him seized him firmly by the upper arms.o Wilson and standing in front of him seized him firmly by the upper arms.

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

Trang 2

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

A comprehensive addition to existing literature, the Handbook of Corporate Communication and

Public Relations provides an excellent overview of corporate communication, clearly positioning

the field’s most current debates Synthesizing both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinaryapproaches, it offers readers the in-depth analysis required to truly understand corporate com-munication, corporate strategy and corporate affairs as well as the relevant public relationsissues Written by academics based in Europe, Asia and North America, the text is well illus-trated with contemporary case studies, drawing out the most pertinent best practice outcomesand theoretically based applications

Its four parts cover national communication; international communication; image, identityand reputation management; and the future for corporate communication theory and practice.With a refreshing new approach to this subject, the authors challenge reductionist views ofcorporate communication, providing persuasive evidence for the idea that without an organ-izational communication strategy, there is no corporate strategy

The Handbook of Corporate Communication and Public Relations is an essential one-stop

refer-ence for all academics, practitioners and students seeking to understand organizationalcommunication management and strategic public relations

Sandra M Oliver is a corporate communication academic at Thames Valley University,

London, where she founded and also directs the MSc Corporate Communication Programme

A consultant research practitioner and former industrial PR, she is founding Editor-in-Chief of

Corporate Communication: An International Journal and has written extensively, including Public Relations Strategy (2001) and Corporate Communication: Principles, Techniques and Strategies

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

PURE AND APPLIED

Edited by Sandra M Oliver

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor and Francis Group

© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;

individual chapters, the contributors

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted

or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafterinvented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0–415–33419–5

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005

ISBN 0-203-41495-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-68057-X (Adobe eReader Format)

(Print Edition)

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’scollection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

List of figures List of tables Notes on contributors Foreword

Preface Acknowledgements

PART I: CORPORATE COMMUNICATION AT NATIONAL LEVEL

1 Diversity programmes in the contemporary corporate environment

7 Strategic challenges for corporate communicators in public service

J Paulo Kuteev-Moreira and Gregor J Eglin

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

PART II: CORPORATE COMMUNICATION AT INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

8 Communication audits: building world class communication systems

Dennis Tourish and Owen Hargie

9 The Olympic Games: a framework for international public relations

Yvonne Harahousou, Chris Kabitsis, Anna Haviara and Nicholas D Theodorakis

10 Facets of the global corporate brand

T C Melewar and Chris D McCann

11 Differing corporate communication practice in successful and unsuccessful

companies

Colin Coulson-Thomas

12 Communicating with 1.3 billion people in China

Ying Fan and Wen-Ling Liu

13 Today’s corporate communication function

PART III: MANAGING IMAGE, IDENTITY AND REPUTATION

16 Reputation and leadership in a public broadcast company

Sandra M Oliver and Anthony Clive Allen

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

PART IV: THE FUTURE IS NOW

22 Visualizing the message: why semiotics is a way forward

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

2.1 Strategic employee communication model2.2 Three-phased communication strategy plan2.3 Sample SCT structure

2.4 Scorecard of current employee communication6.1 Munter communication theory

6.2 Assessment framework6.3 Ideal structure for CorpCom function model6.4 Organizational chart of a hypothetical company7.1 Internal audiences

7.2 A stakeholder environment10.1 Facets of the global corporate brand14.1 The wheel of integrated marketing14.2 Continuum of integrated corporate communication14.3 Integrated corporate communication assessment profile14.4 Completed integrated corporate communication assessment profile15.1 Tomita’s media gap

15.2 The changing face of Coca-Cola18.1 Monitoring the trust factor

18.2 Information costs and choices18.3 Likely causes of crises

18.4 A crisis impact model18.5 Elements of a business continuity plan18.6 The action stations framework: a co-dependency model18.7 First Interstate: normal organization

18.8 First Interstate: emergency organization18.9 Scotiabank’s incident response

18.10 Scotiabank’s approach to emergency management18.11 Scenario: phases 1 and 2

18.12 Scenario: phases 3 and 418.13 Scenario: phase 5

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

19.1 Information flows in an organization19.2 The flow of information to the outside world19.3 Cisco

19.4 Microsoft19.5 Tesco19.6 McDonald’s19.7 Crisis management plan22.1 Toyota

26.1 Trust in institutions, 200326.2 Brand evaluator: Europe, 200326.3 Brand evaluator: United States, 200326.4 Strategic decision making

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

2.1 Strategic objectives5.1 Which are the topics most important and relevant to PR research today?

5.2 Which subjects from the old study should still be included in the new set

of research priorities?

5.3 Which topics from the new list do you consider to be most important?

7.1 Categories of press reports9.1 Los Angeles 1984

9.2 Seoul 19889.3 Barcelona 19929.4 Atlanta 19969.5 Sydney 200012.1 Advertising industry turnover and growth12.2 Advertising expenditure by product category, 200112.3 Advertising expenditure by medium, 1997

12.4 Factors influencing the new name12.5 Names with potentially negative connotations12.6 Which is your most used marketing medium?

12.7 What kinds of events would you consider sponsoring or hosting?

12.8 What events have you sponsored in the past three years?

12.9 How did you build an association or link between the sponsored event

and your brand/company?

12.10 How did you integrate the event sponsorship into your marketing mix

or campaign?

12.11 What difficulties have you experienced in reaching the objectives?

12.12 Does event sponsorship offer you an advantage in the following factors

compared to traditional advertising?

12.13 What is your future strategy for event sponsorship?

12.14 What role does event sponsorship play in your integrated marketing mix?

12.15 Comments on the future development of event marketing in China12.16 Advertisement by branded product information

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

13.1 Corporate communication functions13.2 Meeting the press: some guidelines15.1 Top 25 US web properties by parent company15.2 Top 10 UK web properties

17.1 The best corporate reputations in the United States17.2 Primary industry

17.3 Revenue17.4 Corporate reputation18.1 Operational functions of banks18.2 Differences between routine emergencies and disasters18.3 International terrorism incidents, 1968–79

18.4 Nine steps to managing BCP performance18.5 Communication channels

20.1 Responses of senior-level, US PR and corporate communication professionals

to the question: ‘Do you agree the events of September 11, 2001, changed how your company communicates?’

20.2 Responses of senior-level, US PR and corporate communication professionals

to the question: ‘Do you agree the events of September 11, 2001, have had any impact on your organization’s public relations and communications function?’

20.3 Comparing mean scores between responses from October 2001 and

March 200220.4 Responses of senior-level, US PR and corporate communication professionals

to additional questions in March 200225.1 Functionality offered by language

25.2 Functionality analysis26.1 The world’s largest PR firms26.2 Industry sector: healthcare 2001 revenues26.3 Industry sector: technology 2001 revenues27.1 Ethics by profession

27.2 Business ethics courses

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

Anthony Clive Allen is attached to the Corporate Communication Directorate at the Royal Air

Force in London, UK

Albert Atkinson is an active consultant researcher and involved in the affairs of the Library

Board of Trustees and Chamber of Commerce, UK

Deborah J Barrett PhD lectures at Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University,

Texas, USA and directs the MBA communication programme

Gerald Chan is Public Affairs and Education Officer at the Institute of Public Relations, London,

UK and studying for a master’s degree in public relations

Colin Coulson-Thomas PhD is author of Transforming the Company (2002, 2nd edn), thirty

other books and reports, and is Chairman of ASK Europe plc

Krishna S Dhir PhD is Dean of the Campbell School of Business at Berry College, Georgia, USA;

formerly of CIBA-GEIGY AG in Switzerland and Borg-Warner, USA

Richard Dolphin lectures at the Northampton Business School, UK and is author of

Fundamentals of Corporate Communication (2000).

Gregor Eglin PhD lectures in strategic management at University of East London, UK with a

particular research interest in public service communication

Ying Fan PhD lectures and researches at Lincoln School of Management, UK.

Michael Goodman PhD lectures at Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA and is founding

direc-tor of the Corporate Communication Institute at FDU

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

Yvonne Harahousou, Chris Kabitsis, Anna Haviara and Nicholas D Theodorakis are

academics based at the University of Thrace, Greece, involved with the Organizing Committeefor the Olympic Games 2004

Owen Hargie PhD lectures at the School of Communication, University of Ulster, Ireland and is

co-author of Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research, Theory and Practice (2004).

Glenda Jacobs is a Research Fellow at UNITEC, Auckland, New Zealand, where she also leads

computer-mediated communication courses

Philip Kitchen PhD holds a professorial research chair and lectures at the University of Hull,

UK

Paulo Kuteev-Moreira PhD is Director of Communication for a privately managed public

hospital in Portugal and a researcher for a WHO-Europe-affiliated Observatory in HealthStudies

Jacquie L’Etang PhD lectures and researches at the University of Stirling, Scotland and is an

examiner for the Institute of Public Relations Membership Diploma examinations

Wen-Ling Liu PhD lectures at Hull University, UK on integrated marketing communication.

Chris McCann is Business Consultant for an energy company in Stockholm, Sweden.

Tengku Melewar PhD lectures at the University of Warwick Business School, UK.

Kevin Moloney PhD lectures at Bournemouth University, UK and is a research specialist in

government communication and pressure groups

Michael Morley is Special Counsel for Edelman Public Relations, New York, USA and author of

How to Manage Your Reputation (1998).

Sandra M Oliver PhD, General Editor, is founding Editor-in-Chief of Corporate Communication:

An International Journal; author of Public Relations Strategy (2001) and Corporate Communication: Principles, Techniques and Strategies (1997); and founding director of the international MSc in

Corporate Communication programme at Thames Valley University, London, UK

Liam Ó Móráin MSc is founder chairman of Moran Communication, Ireland with eighteen

years consultancy experience of communication and PR management

David Phillips chaired the UK PR industry Joint Internet Commission and is author of

numer-ous papers including ‘Online Public Relations’ and ‘Managing Reputation in Cyberspace’

Trang 14

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

David Pickton lectures and researches at De Montfort University, UK and is co-author of

Integrated Marketing Communication (2001).

Stephen A Roberts PhD lectures at Thames Valley University, London, UK and directs the MSc

Information Management Programme

Martin Sims lectures at St Mary’s College, London, UK and is a former BBC journalist who edits

Intermedia, the journal of the International Institute of Communication.

Don Swanson PhD is Chair of the Communication Department at Monmouth University, USA

and former President of the New Jersey Communication Association

Dennis Tourish PhD is Professor of Communication at Aberdeen Business School, Scotland with

over 50 publications in communication management

Richard Varey PhD is a Marketing Professor at the Waikato Management School, New Zealand,

who currently researches in managed communication for sustainable business

Reginald Watts PhD is a consultant and author of four books; formerly CEO of Burson

Marstellar and President of the Institute of Public Relations, London, UK

Donald Wright PhD is President of the International Public Relations Association and an

academic at the University of South Alabama, USA

Trang 15

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

Excellent corporate communication lies at theheart of industry, commerce and govern-ments’ abilities to build a democratic society,but this critical strategic role in organizationaltheory and practice rarely receives the duecommitment required for quality assurance inorganization life today

assembled the cutting edge views and ences of leading practitioners of the day withsome solid opinion pieces that have beenhelpful to a wide range of audiences andreaders including public relations practition-ers, opinion formers, media managers, adver-tising executives and others It was a source ofinformation and advice on a vast array oftopics brought together to represent the inter-disciplinary and multidisciplinary nature ofcorporate communication as a core businessdiscipline for senior executives in large multi-national companies, small-to-medium sizeenterprises (SMEs) and not-for-profit organ-izations alike

experi-Now in what philosophers like to call thepost-modern era, we see more clearly howthe new information technologies haverestructured the whole industry sector Itsimpact leads us to challenge what John Miltoncalls ‘conventional economic thinking,redefining how business is done and impact-ing to varying degrees every worker in the

global market place in a combination ofinterconnected phenomena embracing interalia, globalization, the transformative impact

of technology on organizational life (indeed

on the very nature of organizations), ful e-business models and the changing nature

success-of working life’ The new economy, he argues,

is ‘far too recent a phenomenon for any sensus to have emerged yet about what con-stitutes best practice’ but for corporatecommunicators and public relations consult-ants and practitioners worldwide, there is abelief that there is a set of best practices andthat adopting them leads to superior organ-izational performance and competitiveness.The concept of good practice has to beaddressed in accordance with contingencytheory No single best practice is universallyapplicable to all organizations because of dif-ferences in strategy, culture, managementstyle, technology and markets The challengefor operators is the inconsistency between thebelief in best practice and the notion of corp-orate communication as an intangible assetlimiting resource It is crucial to match corpor-ate strategy with corporate communicationpolicy and practice, but given that corporatecommunication is as the Institute of PublicRelations states the ears, eyes and voice of theorganization, the in-house practitioner has

con-a specicon-al responsibility for the overview of the

Trang 16

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

organization as a whole beyond that of thechief executive officer He or she is required

to advise, counsel, monitor and measureoperations in a reliable and consistent man-ner beyond the reductionist, functionalapproaches of corporate accounting or inte-grated marketing Indeed he or she alsoaccepts the role of boundary spanner inmonitoring not just relations between organ-izations and their stakeholders but beyond tothe value-added implications of policies andpractices within a wider democratic society

of best practice and best fit is limited by ‘theimpossibility of modelling all the contingentvariables, the difficulty of showing their inter-connection and the way in which changes inone variable have impact on others’ Manymanagement consultants have taken up thisview and been less concerned with best prac-tice and best fit to address more sensitiveprocesses of organization change so that theycan ‘avoid being trapped in the logic of rationalchoice’ So what we have tried to do with thisbook is to adopt the concept of bundlingwhereby the chapters are interrelated, comple-ment and support one another through themedium of quality research rather than mereopinion Sometimes referred to as a configura-

states that ‘implicit in the notion of a bundle isthe idea that practices within bundles are inter-related and internally consistent and that more

is better with respect to the impact on ance, because of the overlapping and mutuallyreinforcing effect of multiple practices’

perform-It is generally accepted that to overcomethese barriers to the implementation of corp-orate communication strategy a number of

argues that essential activities include: theconducting of a rigorous initial analysis, form-ulation strategy, the gaining of influential

support, assessment of barriers, preparation

of action plans, project manage tion and follow up evaluation All these activ-ities are basic and familiar to middle andproject managers, management researchstudents and PR campaign practitioners Thecorporate communication industry whichincludes public relations agencies and bluechip management consultancies have reliedheavily on developing the skills and tech-niques to carry out such activities in an essen-tially practical but research-based manner

implementa-Now, with the recognition of the growth ofthe global knowledge economy ‘the tradi-tional factors of production – land, labour and capital – pale into insignificance along-

corporate communicator is at the helm of this development It is the corporate com-municator who has to be fully aware of chang-ing environments, major trends, opportunities

or threats to the development or survival of anorganization The management of intellectualcapital has to be understood but is also has

to be applied through corporate tion operational strategies for it to be of added value to an organization The pure andapplied aspects of corporate communication

communica-as educational and training arecommunica-as of ledge and skill are inextricably linked Thefuture of corporate communication will con-tinue to depend on its tactical skills base but it

know-is beginning to redesign itself as a strong fessional vocation based on sound researchmethods In spite of the different names bywhich practitioners are labelled or definedwhether in-house or as external consultants,ignorance is not bliss Corporate communica-tion has moved away from the secular publicrelations approaches of the 1970s and 1980sand moved into new areas of political rolesand relationships between peoples and theireconomic environments

Trang 17

pro-‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

Although this book is a generalist one ittherefore brings together the pure and theapplied to further develop the profession and those in it and all who endeavour to be

a part of it in the future Most vocational grammes provided by today’s universitysector have learned to balance the demands

pro-of further and higher education, training andpractice albeit with some difficulty due to the demands of the university research assess-ment exercise in Britain and increasing gov-ernmental control of universities worldwide

The contributors to this book believe that the underpinning of specialist areas will lead

to a greater self-confidence in the face of vailing cynicism and pessimism about strat-egic corporate communication at local and global levels This book supports the multi-faceted roles that any corporate communica-tor plays, whether he or she be mentor,facilitator, monitor, co-ordinator, director,

roles represent a competing values frameworkwhich together establish competency in anymanagement field especially in corporatecommunication, public relations and publicaffairs Whether the practitioner/consultant is

at expert, proficient, competent, advancedbeginner or novice stage of a career, the com-

peting values framework is ‘grounded in doxical thinking – it forces one to think aboutthe competing tensions and demands that

para-are placed on [corporate communication]

man-agers in new ways’

The research presented in this book

sup-ports what Quinn et al calls ‘the need to use

paradoxical thinking to create both proaches to the management of opposites’.The corporate communicator is always at thecutting edge of ‘informing and transformingour future leaders’, even though ‘every area isunder siege’ because of the ‘crisis of confi-dence in accounting practices and corporatefiduciary principles In the twenty-first cen-tury, leaders are being challenged like neverbefore to resolve dilemmas around organisa-tional effectiveness, economic viability andpolitical and military security’ These chaptersare based on real research They are neitherdescriptive nor prescriptive but challengereductionist views of corporate communica-tion and provide persuasive evidence for thenotion that no organizational communicationstrategy equals no corporate strategy at all in

ap-a postmodern, mediap-ated internet erap-a

1 Foster, T R V and Jolly, A (1997) Corporate

Communication Handbook, London: Kogan Page.

2 Purcell, J (1999) ‘Best practice or best fit:

chimera or cul-de-sac’, Human Resource

Manage-ment Journal, 9(3), 26–41.

3 Delery, J E and Doty, H D (1996) ‘Modes of theorising in strategic human resource manage- ment: tests of universality, contingency and

configurational performance predictions’,

Inter-national Journal of Human Resource Management,

6, 656–70.

4 MacDuffie, J P (1995) ‘Human resource bundles

and manufacturing performance’, Industrial

Relations Review, 48(2), 199–221.

5 Armstrong, M (2001) A Handbook of Human

Resource Management Practice, 8th edn, London:

Kogan Page, 2, pp 32–52.

6 Sadler, P (2001) Management Consultancy: A

Handbook for Best Practice, 2nd edn, London:

Kogan Page, 1, pp 3–16.

7 Quinn, R E., Faerman, S R., Thompson, M P.

and McGrath, M R (2003) Becoming a Master

Manager: A Competency Framework, 3rd edn,

Chichester: Wiley.

Trang 18

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

In its 250th anniversary year, the Royal Society of Arts continues its mission to encourage arts,manufactures and commerce During the next six years, the RSA will focus on five key chal-lenges framed within a new Manifesto: to encourage enterprise, move towards a zero wastesociety, foster resilient communities, develop a capable population, and advance global citizen-ship These themes are going to tax the best hearts and minds in boardrooms worldwide, aswell as the communication and public relations profession itself, demanding a higher degree ofspecialist knowledge and skill than ever before

The publication of this book offers a powerful contribution to the range of projects we haveimplemented to support the Manifesto, including Visions of a Capable Society, IntellectualProperty, Shared Mental Modes, Sustainable Design and Global Citizenship Principles, tech-niques and strategies come together in this book from lead international researchers, academicsand practitioners to help us and the international business community to meet its obligationswith the help of the authors’ proven expertise and wise counsel

Sir Paul Judge

Chairman, The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce (RSA)

Trang 19

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

The General Editor is indebted to the following: Rachel Crookes and Francesca Poynter atRoutledge; Anna Leatham, Giuliana Taborelli, Mireille Jones, Jenny Johns, Khalda Ahmed andKay Ahluwalia for their skilled IT support throughout numerous drafts; and those friends, col-leagues and organizations who have willingly participated in putting together this scholarlycontribution to the corporate communication and PR discipline

The Editor and the publishers are grateful for permission to reproduce copyright materialand while every effort has been made to ensure that all owners of copyright material have beennotified, apologies are offered to any copyright holders whose rights may have unwittinglybeen infringed Should such an instance be identified, we would appreciate receiving relevantinformation We will undertake to rectify errors or omissions in future editions of this book

Acknowledgements

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

Trang 21

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

A glance around corporate America quicklyreveals new and diverse faces and the fact that successful corporate entities cross manycultural and international boundaries in theconduct of their business Most estimates offuture employment indicate that 75 per cent

of new workers will be other than white males

and that in 2010 white males will representless than 40 per cent of the American work-force (Arai, Wanca-Thibault, and Shockley-Zalabak, 2001) Corporate diversity pro-grammes and attitudes toward workplacediversity have evolved since the 1990s.Although this seems to be an age of increasing

This chapter examines diversity programmes from a number of direct researchresources developed and conducted by the author From focus groups made up of diver-sity personnel, interviews with middle managers and executive management personnel,observations of interviews with corporate diversity directors, through to observationsfrom interviews with human resource managers and corporate communicators Thestudy, and the essence of this chapter, shows the emergence from the observations ofcorporate personnel of some major corporate communication issues These issuesinclude the lack of dialogue regarding diversity, the nature of diversity training andperformance evaluation, the complexity of diversity issues, the managers’ role, and themove to integration and learning as the perspective to bring about effectiveness incorporate diversity programming

Trang 22

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

enlightenment regarding cross-cultural ties, there are numerous instances of concern

reali-In the later part of the decade of the 1990s

it became clear that diversity is not a word Those corporate managers, in the1980s and early 1990s, who believed diver-sity management was just another humanresources management fad were sadly mis-taken Diversity management as a conceptand an aspiration for management has

buzz-‘become deeply rooted in the US federalgovernment and has received bipartisan sup-port from both political parties’ (Ivancevichand Gilbert, 2000: 75) The economic statis-tics and demographic profile of the potentialcustomers and the new additions to the work-force mandate corporate awareness of the

realities of diversity Workplace 2000,

pub-lished by the Hudson Institute in 1987, waswidely quoted in the 1990s to predict theshifts But a powerful sense of presumptionfor the status quo workforce still persisted inthe subconscious of many middle-aged execu-tives It took the reality of market shifts, and

an increasingly diverse set of job applicants toforce awareness of the ‘demographic impera-tive’ that required corrective action in theform of diversity management programming(Cox, 1991) Many corporations have found itdifficult to maintain a diversity friendly image

in the wake of harsh criticism of past abuses

By 1995 The Economist reported that 75 per

cent of the fifty largest US companies haddiversity directors or managers Consequently

a macro view of diversity programming cates it has become an inherent part of corp-orate environs

indi-This discussion examines attitudes toward,and the focus of, contemporary corporatediversity programmes Managers and theirinfluence on diversity programming are at thenucleus of this discussion It develops from anumber of direct research resources developed

and conducted by the author Those resourcesinclude: six focus groups, made up of tendiversity personnel in each group, conducted

in a business financial services unit of aninvestment bank; interviews conducted withtwenty-six middle managers and eight execu-tive management level personnel in one of thelargest and most successful internationalinvestment banks; observations from inter-views with corporate diversity directors whohave a responsibility to keep diversity firmly onthe agenda of corporate policy; and observa-tions from interviews with human resourcemanagers and corporate communication man-agers who carry the responsibility for monitor-ing diversity programmes

Study of diversity personnel

At a micro level a focus group study of sity personnel and an interview based study

diver-of mid-level managers, from two differentunits of a large investment banking firm, pro-vide a snapshot of the attitudes and percep-tions of personnel in a white-collar industrythat espouses a commitment to diversity programming The units in these studies are

a part of one of the oldest American ment banking institutions, and it has histori-cally been a leader that defined the nature

invest-of that business As such, the firm conveys and maintains an image that has developedover a rich history The image of being aleader in the investment banking industry hasbeen exceptionally important to the firm Itdefines itself as a world-class company oper-ating in the fast-moving, highly competitivefinancial services marketplace, and realizesthat it must attract, keep and develop the very best people The CEO explains that: ‘Weare building for the next generation, not thenext transaction To do this we must be an

Trang 23

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

undisputed employer of choice.’ The firmappears to be committed to developing andmaintaining diversity at every level of thecompany

The data in this study was gathered over

a period of three months with the conduct ofsix one-half-day focus groups Each focusgroup was composed of a group of approxim-ately ten members of the banking group that provides financial services to businesses

The focus group participants were selectedbecause they fit into a protected category, i.e

historically minority status Consequently thissample included the minority personnel and

a cross-section of female personnel and sented approximately 10 per cent of the em-ployees in this nationwide unit of the bank

repre-This sample was intended to be inclusive ofdiversity personnel in order to focus on airingall the major issues that concerned these pro-tected groups Personnel were brought to thefocus group location from across the UnitedStates Two focus groups were conducted inPrinceton, New Jersey, and four groups wereconducted in Chicago

The executive in charge of the financial vices business unit that the focus groups weredrawn from made a point of coming to eachgroup and expressed his support for the diver-sity management project and this fact-findingresearch Participants were impressed with hissupport This was a key element to making thefocus groups successful It is clear that visibleexecutive support is an essential element forsuccess

ser-The participants in the diversity focusgroups seemed to appreciate the catharticexperience of talking about a subject that theyhad some uncertainty about Many lackedeven a basic knowledge of the diversity mis-sion of their corporation They were bothinterested and generally pleased to discussthis topic Several said they ‘never expected to

have an opportunity to discuss these sensitiveissues’

There were no major complaints that could

be labelled as unique to this corporate unit.Some participants, who had worked in otherunits of the firm reported that this unit wasmuch more diversity friendly than their previ-ous group Although this was a long-standingunit of more than six hundred members, therehave been no catalytic events in recentmemory in the unit that would serve as a flashpoint for concern over diversity The incidentsreported by the participants were generallynot egregious nor widely discussed by co-workers The negative incidents seemed to beconsidered as isolated incidents and notrepresentative of the attitudes and behaviour

of the majority of unit personnel

Most of the persons in the focus groupswere quite ignorant of what their companyhad done or not done with diversity initia-tives They had queries for information and in

a sense the focus groups became a form ofaction research because the participants’questions were answered and they receivednew information on what was happening.Eden and Huxham (1999) point out whyaction research has become ‘increasinglyprominent’ in the study of organizations whenthey indicate it is: ‘research which broadly,results from an involvement by the researcherwith members of an organisation over amatter which is of genuine concern to themand in which there is an intent by the organ-isation members to take action based on theintervention’ (p 272)

Developing and conducting the focusgroups was a prelude to further actionresearch It should be noted that this focusgroup process was a catalyst for an evolvingdiversity initiative that included the estab-lishment of a ‘diversity council’ to suggest and monitor future actions In this way the

Trang 24

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

participants had a sense of outcome from thefocus group project

Affirmative action was a frequent, but notparticularly comfortable subject in thesegroups They appreciate the goals of affirma-tive action but it can produce a somewhatuncomfortable paradox All of the participantsbelieve that the firm hired them because oftheir skill and experience To these personnelendorsing affirmative action might connotethat their hiring may have been the result ofsome preference Most of these people indi-cate that if in a pool of equally qualified can-didates there is a minority, at this point in thehistory of firm, the minority person should beselected Focus group participants em-phatically express the position that ‘no oneshould ever be hired who cannot do the job’

Discussants often mentioned the fact thattraditional methods of recruiting may notreach many persons who could be in a quali-fied minority pool It was frequently notedthat investment banking is dominated andstaffed almost completely by white males

The dynamic in the groups was stimulatingbecause participants were eager to make con-structive action proposals The following is alist of major suggestions made by the focusgroup participants They are included in noparticular order, but represent the major reac-tions of the sixty participants:

1 Work to maintain respect, regardless ofgender, ethnicity, or race

2 Maintain commitment to diversity andwork to increase heterogeneity

3 To assume that the whole group has aproblem is not fair Don’t try to fix what isnot broken Get in with the workforce andfix the real problems that are there

4 Provide meaningful diversity training Thisshould be a part of the orientation processfor new employees Continually reinforce

the principles and behaviours taught inthe training

5 Managers must be well and extensivelytrained in diversity management

6 The managers’ performance reviewshould include how well they managediversity This task of reinforcement andmaintenance of effective diversitymanagement falls upon the managers andthe respective styles that they model foreveryone else in the group

7 The firm needs to do a better job ofperformance reviews Managers need to

do a better job of letting you know what

to do to get promoted Help us with what

we need to learn and accomplish so that

we perform more effectively

8 In the interest of trying to promotediverse people, don’t just promote peoplebecause of their diversity status, forgettingtheir qualifications Don’t put someonesomewhere just to have a minority in thatposition

9 Career planning is important to everyone.Career counselling and advising is import-ant and it should be done This couldsolve some of the problem we have with

a high turnover rate The people we tend

to lose will be minorities who have lent opportunities elsewhere What aretheir opportunities here? They need toknow

excel-10 As this unit grows we need to do morementoring It is essential to have moretraining and mentoring for those whowant to move up to management

11 This unit must deal more effectively withthe problem of attrition If we lowered theattrition rate there would be fewer per-sonnel problems

12 As a matter of course do exit interviewsand listen to them Learn from the reasonspeople leave

Trang 25

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

13 Improve recruiting – go beyond puttingadvertisements in the paper Be more visi-ble at career fairs Go to a wider range ofuniversities to recruit

14 Take time while hiring Don’t do it tooquickly ‘Emergency hires’ can’t be donecarefully Go slow and get somebodyreally good for the job Go past the typical criteria for hiring Only using refer-rals won’t accomplish the diversity goals

Instead of looking at educational ground, look at their talent Look cre-atively at the past history of candidates’

back-work Even though I am at a lower levellet me do some hiring or at least be moreinvolved in the hiring process

15 Maintain, embrace and apply more of thequality of work–life policies that the firmbrags about Don’t offer policies, if man-agers don’t intend to use them Walk thetalk

16 Establish a diversity council and definewhat it will do It’s not going to work tojust talk about diversity This group should

be very active

17 Get individual groups of particular ity categories together for sessions likethis Blacks, Asians, women, etc See ifthey have more ideas to share when theyare only with persons with the same cate-gory If you want to get to the truth, dothis to get a definite sense of the peergroups

minor-18 Do a quarterly newsletter that highlightsdiversity features, and initiatives If it isput online attach it in an easy to find andread manner Overall we are in a growthmode and we need to be able to get toknow the new people

19 Report to us We want to hear the results

of what the groups said in these focusgroups

Study of mid-level managers

The second study that provides a view of theattitudes and perceptions of personnel in awhite-collar industry of investment banking isbased upon a focused set of ninety-minuteinterviews with twenty-five mid-level man-agers in the mutual funds division of the firm.The sessions focused both on informationgathering and coaching the managers Thisagain was a form of action research becausethe interview provided an opportunity toconduct a constructive dialogue on some

of the issues of concern to the interviewees.The focus of the interviews was on both theprocess of evaluation and the impact of deal-ing with a diverse workforce Topics includeddiscovery of diversity sensitivity, coachingpeople through difficult performance eval-uation sessions, working for candour, honesty,openness in performance managementsessions, maintaining a climate that is non-defensive, and the general problems thesupervisors faced in dealing with those whoreported to them

The performance evaluation issuesreported by the managers were as follows:

dif-ferent types of people is a challengingprocess Many are not sure of how theirperceptions fit within the context of thecultural background of those who comefrom very different cultures

feedback regarding the nature of my ership style I’m not sure how it fits arange of different people

peer and now I am her/his boss

Trang 26

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

critical objectives

who is evaluated as an exceptional former Helping them to see how they canadd value

dead-end job

thereof, of the new generation of staff

sense of morale to persons who have lowmorale

In this sample group the managers also hadconcerns about their personal performancefor which they sought discussion and advice:

my boss

he/she provides feedback to me

manage-ment and knowing how to ‘build yourskills and your personal franchise’

forming a new team

com-munication things I am doing that areeffective with my team

the conversations? Can we motivate byother than fear?

issue for managers To mid-level managersperformance evaluation is where they arechallenged to ‘overlook differences’ and treateveryone the same

Directors of diversity programmes

Diversity directors from six organizations wereinterviewed for their impressions of the status

of diversity management programming today

It was interesting to note that half of thisgroup were ‘professionals’ in the sense thatthey had worked with diversity management

in more than two corporations or governmententities The others were moved to this posi-tion in their corporation because of theirunderstanding and sensitivity to the issues Inall cases they were African–American female

or Hispanic, or a combination of these tures Although never directly queried, thereseemed to be an implicit question: ‘Does itrequire a person who is of minority status to

fea-be in this position?’ All would probably assert

it as an advantage because they talked abouthow they could relate from personal experi-ence to the subtle difficulties that diversitypersonnel in their organization were facing

There was a feeling among the diversitydirectors that legality provided the genesis ofthe department they worked in: ‘We saw aproblem, noted the increase in litigation overissues of equity and fairness and respondedwith this unit As the tendency increases foremployees to sue when they believe they arewronged, our unit is considered as a part ofthe remedy.’ They observe however that thatreality is both reassuring, for the continuedexistence of their unit, and troublesomebecause the legal perspective is only a portion

of the rationale for their programming Onedirector said that: ‘We are trying to do theright things for the wrong reasons.’ He goes

Trang 27

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

on to explain that legal issues and court ordersneed to be addressed; however the real impe-tus for his unit is the economic reality thecorporation must face: ‘There is an entire seg-ment of the population who are potentialclients that we are not reaching Suddenlymanagement has realized that to ensure thefuture of the corporation we need to get inter-ested in diverse customers and employ peoplewho look like the new customers.’ Othersnoted that the pool of qualified employeeswas becoming increasingly diverse and thatthat demographic pattern will continue toincrease They agreed that diversity manage-ment is an inescapable issue in the twenty-first-century corporate environment

The diversity directors who were viewed in this study often tend to speak inmetaphors to describe the true nature of thechallenges they see their organizations facingtoday in the American workplace Theybelieve that persons not from the dominantculture, usually referred to as diversity person-nel, ‘experience a longer runway to success’

inter-This connotes the reality for most of these sons: that they must adapt to the dominantculture that is thoroughly ingrained in thecorporate culture Often learning ‘the way we

per-do business around here’ is a necessary ponent for success Paradoxically the diversebackground, along with a divergent perspec-tive, that encouraged the hiring of a minoritycategory member, may be a disadvantage tothat new member in functioning with theexisting set of dominant culture co-workers

com-Odious overt expressions of bias are rareand are the easiest situations to handlebecause most organizations currently practise

a zero-tolerance policy for such issues Mostindividual problems that employees have inthe workplace are not considered as issuesrelated to diversity They are considered to beperformance issues In the pressured environ-

ment of the new decade ‘everyone must be aproducer’ It is the multiple outcomes of aperson’s labour that become the prime focus

of evaluation Rarely is a performance issueever discussed in terms of its root cause, whichcould be cultural; rather, it is treated as ameasurement issue It is the ‘bottom line’ thatcounts As one diversity official said: ‘Theyhave effectively removed the humanity fromthe equation of performance evaluation anddecisions on rifts.’

Women still substantially feel there is aglass ceiling In one large corporation thediversity director reports that: ‘When we did astudy of the most successful people we notedthat the most successful women over the age

of forty do not have children On the otherhand it is interesting to note that the mostsuccessful men over forty do have children.’Female executive interviewees repeatedlyindicate that they have to adapt to the corp-orate leadership style in order to be success-ful They need to ‘be as hard-nosed as acomparable man’ Lower-level women in theorganizations resent this tendency and pointout that ‘the most macho executives are thewomen who have had to be ruthless’ to get tothe top ‘She is tougher in her expectations of

me then she is of any of the men under her.’Typically when a female executive is con-fronted with this impression the response isincredulity: ‘Of course I’ve been tough andenforced high standards It is the only way tomake a mark as a leader in this corporate cul-ture I don’t see a distinction between maleand female leaders in that regard.’ Howeverthe same female executives will admit inprivate coaching sessions that over the yearsthey learned to modify their interactionpatterns to fit those of the males in the board-room In the environment of pressured deci-sion making, female executives will admit thattheir interaction patterns must fit ‘playing the

Trang 28

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

game’ according to the men’s rules, whilebeing vigilant ‘not to be seen as shrill or overlyemotional’

Are diversity units as proactive as they need

to be? The diversity directors would respondwith a resounding ‘no way’ Do they knowhow to approach the entrenched issues?

Some might say they are making progress

One feature that is required of persons in adiversity management position is that theymust have patience They recognize they areworking for cultural change and it is going tooccur over a significant period of time Theyrelate the fable of the tortoise and the hare

Small improvements will lead to eventualcultural change within the corporation Theybelieve in diversity training, but are guardedregarding its quality and impact As one said:

‘I haven’t met a soul in the firm who liked thediversity training we have.’ They doubt thatthe short segment of time devoted to diversitytraining enables the opportunity to make alasting impact They would rather do verylimited training than poor training that onlycreates and reinforces stereotypes Theyrecognize that the most important component

of the diversity training process is the level managers’ support and reinforcement of

mid-it ‘The persons who need real hard corecoaching on diversity management are themiddle managers who either don’t recognizethe need, or because of business pressures,won’t take the time for it They think sendingnew employees to a day-long diversity orien-tation will solve the problem.’ However as thefocus groups testified, and reported previ-ously, the managers are on the precipiceregarding diversity fairness perceptions andhave the greatest need to be informed, sensi-tized, and coached None of the diversitydirectors feel that their diversity programmesare approaching adequate cultural changeprogramming with mid-level managers

The directors, who have been in theminority position themselves, are aware that

‘minorities are often in less political positions’.This provocative observation implies that insome cases diverse executives are isolated to

‘safe havens’ where they are impacted less bythe shifting winds of corporate change A case

in point is the diversity executive who feels he

is safe from rifts because he is a high-profileminority within the diversity managementprogramme

Some diversity managers believe that

‘informal networks work in adverse ways forthe minority population’ The familiar exam-ple is: ‘If I don’t play or talk golf, I’m at a realdisadvantage.’ There is a strong sense that thequality and nature of organizational mem-bers’ relationships is a hidden element thatbears a great deal of weight during perform-ance evaluation and decisions on rifts andpromotions The questions can be as basic as:does the minority person have enough under-standing of the majority person’s value setand interests to carry on a satisfying conversa-tion; does the majority person have enoughsensitivity to recognize that not everyoneshares his/her value set and interests?

Diversity directors realize that because theyare expected to be cultural change agents theyshould be accountable for objectives that arelong term and very difficult to measure.However corporate leadership prefers consist-ent quantification of results Diversity man-agers dislike quotas just as much as theideological critic of affirmative action Theyrecognize that the quality of work life andsatisfaction with peer relationships may bemeasured by retention rates, but its impact onproductivity and quality decision making isvery difficult to measure Diversity directorssuffer from the corporate headquarters habit

of measuring results over a brief time span yet

Trang 29

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

they toil to make systemic changes that willtake years As a result, several of these direc-tors indicate that, for the health of theircareer, they have to think of this as a short-term one-to-three-year position: ‘Getting back

to an operational role where I can strate my ability to get results will be crucial to

demon-my career.’

The goal of all of the diversity directorswas, as one indicated: ‘weave diversity intothe everyday operation of the firm’ They had no illusions about the difficulty of thistask They knew they had to come up withtactical methods of accomplishing their mis-sion of inclusiveness This is a term that isembraced more forcefully than previous termssuch as tolerance and diversity, which cancarry negative connotations The new reality

is that since the workplace will be moreinclusive of a wider variety of employees andcustomers an ‘inclusive growth strategy’ isappropriate

Dimensions of difference

It is important to note at this point in the cussion that the persons in the studies rarelyplaced any theoretic frame on the diversityissues they discuss In interviews they canquickly embrace the interviewer’s conceptualframes to explain what they perceive andhave experienced, but there is an obviousdearth of their own application of such frames

dis-to their daily activities

Previous work by the author has focused onemploying programme objectives labelled

‘dimensions of difference’ (Swanson, 2001)

In the main, these can be construed as munication variables These provide a base-line for the action research discussed here Thedimensions provide a general way to bringnew concepts into interviews with the goal

com-of organizing and focusing some com-of the ticipants’ consideration of diversity In briefthey are the following:

par-A starting point is to employ one of themost widely applied value dimensions that

explains cultural distinctions: individualism–

collectivism (Fiske, 1991; Gudykunst and

Ting-Toomey, 1988; Hofstede, 1980, 1991;Schwartz and Bilsky, 1990; Triandis, 1995) Inthe instance of many managers, this valuedimension is highly applicable It enables ageneral view of how and why the subordi-nates the leader supervises may hold a differ-ent worldview and mindset from that of thedominant culture manager Ting-Toomey’s(1999) discussion of the distinction betweenindividualism and collectivism encapsulatesthe sort of concepts that can be applied:

Basically, individualism refers to the broad

value tendencies of a culture in ing the importance of individual identityover group identity, individual rights overgroup rights, and individual needs overgroup needs Individualism promotes self-efficiency, individual responsibilities, and

emphasis-personal autonomy In contrast, collectivism

refers to the broad value tendencies of aculture in emphasising the importance

of the ‘we’ identity oriented needs overindividual wants and desires Collectivismpromotes relational interdependence, in-group harmony, and in-group collaborativespirit

(p 67)

Applying three basic concepts, as awarenessobjectives, produces a framework for produc-

tive discussion The concepts are worldview,

mindset and intercultural communication petence Those concepts can be faulted for

com-being expansive, yet they are valuablebecause they broadly encompass elements

Trang 30

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

that assist the leader in perceiving why andhow significant differences exist

The first objective is to examine and

under-stand that a person’s worldview is a strong

determinant of their communication patterns

Worldview is a broad concept that generaliseshow a cultural group orients to the world(Aldefer and Smith, 1982) ‘Worldview refers

to the philosophical ideas of being’ (Jandt,1995: 214) Typically those orienting factorsmay be most of the following: How humannature is viewed as either good or evil Arehumans considered to be in control of theirdestiny, or do the forces of nature determinedestiny? How do humans differ from animalsand what role does spiritual belief play in life?

Managers are not surprised by the Sapir–

Whorf hypothesis that indicates the view of a particular speech community isreflected in the linguistic patterns they em-ploy They have repeatedly been told thatlearning another language is vitally important

world-But the sense that different language groupshave different cultural patterns is only a start-ing point for an initial awareness As Jay(1968) argues: ‘Bilingualism is not in itself theanswer to cultural understanding amongpeople An indispensable asset, it must be for-tified by the strongest possible sensitivityeducation With knowledge of the languagemust exist a similar knowledge of the social,religious and economic attitudes of a people’

(pp 85–6) The context of an individual’s life

is provided by a rich array of cultural factorsthat shape the individual perception of theworld ‘Context is a powerful organizer ofexperience’ (Seelye, 1993: 8)

The second objective is to examine the

managers’ mindset Although the term

‘mind-set’ does not seem to be very precise from asocial science perspective, it does have acommon sense understanding typified byWebster’s (1988) definition: ‘a fixed mental

attitude formed by experience, education,prejudice, etc.’ (p 862) Fisher (1988) select-

ed this term to headline his approach toimproving cross-cultural relations because:

‘Diagnosing mindsets as they relate toimmediate problems is a more manageableobjective’ (p 2) People are predisposed toperceive an issue that is at hand in a particularway because of a pattern of attitudes that has developed from their experience anddevelopment of social reality That powerfulattitude set may emanate from personalhistory that is influenced by culture For exam-ple assuming that a person values andemploys highly rational decision making overpersonal relationships and loyalty, may not be

an appropriate assumption Many managersare unaware of the mindsets of their sub-ordinates nor of their own personal mindset

as it relates to other cultures

The third objective is to consider skills of

intercultural communication competence This

multifaceted concept conveys a pragmaticsense that an individual’s personal com-munication characteristics will be assessed bythose they interact with in diverse settings.Interpersonal communication scholars (Lustigand Koester, 1999; Wiseman and Koester,1993; Spitzburg and Cupach, 1984) agreeand focus on the concept that competent per-sons must practise effective interaction skills,but they must also interact appropriately withthe people and the cultural environment,while striving to attain the goals of the com-munication The injection of the concept ofcompetence into the awareness of the learnerseems to indicate that some behavioural ele-ments of appropriate adaptation can belearned along with effective behaviours

The skill of appropriate interpersonal andintercultural sensitivity and adaptation is whatall managers should be expected to do One

of the key elements that some managers

Trang 31

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

reported was ‘knowing when to talk andwhen to listen’ In his discussion of construct-ing life through language, Shotter recognizesthis reality: ‘In some contexts – in offices,businesses, bureaucracies, educational estab-lishments, etc – knowing the order of talkrequired is a part of one’s social competence

as an adult’ (1993: 4) Kikoski and Kikoski(1999) designate the ‘order of talk’ as ashared common necessity for colleagues in aworkplace to have ‘social competence’

Discussion with this research sample ofmanagers, perhaps typical of any discussion ofintercultural communication competence,seems to be enhanced with greater clarity bythe awareness that worldview and mindsetare powerful synonymous determinants ofcommunication behaviour Thus these twoconcepts coupled with the aspiration of inter-cultural communication competence arevaluable organizing concepts for training

They also function as a useful organizing toolfor research interviews

Discussion

Most managers lack familiarity with

termin-ology that enables in-depth dialogue regarding

diversity Managers interviewed in this study

indicated that corporate organization bers rarely approach a quality of discussion ofdiversity issues that can be labelled as dia-logue Theorists and practitioners working tohelp groups accomplish dialogue indicate that

mem-it is qumem-ite difficult to achieve (Issacs, 1999;

Bohm, 1992; Senge, 1991) To illustrate thatdifficulty it is necessary to examine how theprocess of dialogue may be defined and oper-ationalized The capacity for conducting dia-logue includes three levels of interaction(Isaacs, 1999) First, in order to ‘build capac-ity for new behaviour’ members of a work

group need to focus on the skills of listeningcarefully and ‘listening together’, rather thanindividually If members can ‘suspend cer-tainty’ and begin to externalize thought, even

to the point of saying the unusual or lar, they have helped to open the dialogue.Second, in order to mobilise members’ ‘pre-dictive intuition’ the action patterns within thegroup must be considered Can they balanceadvocacy and inquiry? Can the group ‘mapthe systems’ of their interaction, i.e., develop

unpopu-a coherent representunpopu-ation of the overunpopu-allsystem of issues that are faced? Third, the

‘architecture of the invisible’ needs to beexamined This requires some boundary set-ting for the group’s interaction and a sense ofthe field or process environment of the dis-course When the nature of the dialogue field

is understood, then convening dialogue isbased on the nature of the process environ-ment and sensitivity to the ecology of thegroup Other members of the group implicitlyrealize that ‘the way we talk impacts the way

we think’, so there is a consistent concern withhow each individual talks The ultimate resultwill be ‘ignorance management’ Those thingsthat are not known, that participants areunaware of in specific terms, or deliberatelywithheld from the group, can become import-ant input into the synergy of the group It iswhen the third phase of dialogue occurs, thatincludes getting beyond not knowing what isnot known about each others’ perspectives,that the type of interaction and understandingoccur that can lead to building an inclusiveculture ‘Dialogue is about evoking insight,which is a way of reordering our knowledge –particularly the taken for granted assumptionsthat people bring to the table’ (Issacs, 1999:45) Diversity directors in particular believethat important progress can be made whenmembers of their organizations are able tohave dialogue on diversity issues Values and

Trang 32

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

interaction patterns are slow to evolve asD’Amica and D’Amica (1997) suggest in theirfuturist anticipation of work attitudes in thetwenty-first century: ‘Breaking through theinertia of entrenched patterns in both individ-ual behaviour and organisational systems hasshown itself to be much more difficult andlong-term than expected’ (p 6)

Diversity training has evolved through some

rough waters In 1988 diversity was not one

of the top forty training topics reported bycompanies in a Society for Human ResourceManagement study (Rynes and Rosen, 1994)

By 1998 a study by the same organizationreported that 75 per cent of the Fortune 500firms and 36 per cent of companies of all sizeshad some sort of diversity programme inprocess (Allen and Montgomery, 2001) In the1990s diversity became a hot topic and Loden(1996) reported:

Today, the myriad training programmes,planning councils, diversity audits, consult-ants, and organisation initiatives that pur-port to be changing corporate culturesoften seem to be focused more on generat-ing activity than results While awarenessand understanding have become a staple

of every organisation’s diversity strategy,many programmes to increase awarenessappear to be generating more heat but notmore light

(p viii)

The heat often comes in the form of a whitemale backlash by those who react to trainingprogrammes as ineffective For example onerespondent in this study indicated that: ‘Whitemen are blamed for all the problems I resentwhite male bashing We built and maintainthis company.’ This is a major obstacle thatdiversity programmes must overcome ‘Ineffect, positioning diversity so one group must

take blame for the past makes the ultimategoal – greater unity – impossible’ (Rasmussen,1996: 5) Typical training approaches, such asthose applied in most organizations consid-ered in this study, are very brief A half-day orfull-day training session raises some aware-ness and provides some rationale for change,but rarely begins to work with the broaderissues of diverse worldviews from diversecultures and the resultant mindsets that guide key elements of workplace behaviour.Thomas and Ely (1996) encapsulate this sort

of awareness:

Numerous and varied initiatives to increasediversity in corporate America have beenunder way for more than two decades.Rarely however, have those efforts spurredleaps in organizational effectiveness.Instead, many attempts to increase diver-sity in the workplace have backfired, some-times even heightening tensions amongemployees and hindering a company’sperformance It is our belief that there is adistinct way to unleash the powerful bene-fits of a diverse workforce Although thesebenefits include increased profitability, they go beyond financial measures toencompass learning, creativity, flexibility,organizational and individual growth, andthe ability of a company to adjust rapidlyand successfully to market changes Thedesired transformation however, requires afundamental change in the attitudes andbehaviors of an organization’s leadership

(pp 79–80)

Performance evaluation is a focus point for

diversity management programmes Mostperformance appraisal systems strive to makelegally defensible appraisals and this meansthat issues objectively covered by law be-come the focus (Smither, 1998) However, the

Trang 33

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

perception of the process by those who areaffected by it is key

Uncertainty regarding the impact of sity policy on evaluation of personnel takesvarious forms Minority personnel consistentlyare alert to any cues that they are not beingevaluated fairly in a manner consistent withthe evaluation of personnel from the domi-nant culture The majority culture personnelsometimes feel that they are being evaluatedmore harshly or ‘held to a higher standard’

diver-than those protected by affirmative actionprogrammes This is particularly true of whitemale middle-level managers This focusesattention upon the review process

Supervisors, who conduct periodic reviews,are uncomfortable with the review processwhen it applies to someone from another cul-ture It is particularly true of white male super-visors who say they must strive to be

‘politically correct’ in all of their statements

Some indicate that in the effort to ‘bend overbackwards to be fair, I am probably sugarcoating what I say’ ‘I know I have to docu-ment any problems; my expert reaction to anemployee’s sub-par performance is notenough in this environment I am sometimesuncertain of precisely how to proceed.’

Diversity personnel and mid-level agers desire greater certainty regarding how others are monitoring them Most of the literature on performance appraisalrecognizes the essential element of reducinguncertainty in the process However, that recognition is in the context of legality andobservable behaviour and does not generallyinclude the impact of various cultures onmindsets, perceptions, and its consequentbehaviour Specific issues of cultural differ-ences are usually neglected The US legalrequirements drive the process so that recom-mendations for legally sound appraisalsgenerally set appraisal criteria They tend to

man-include the recommendation that appraisals

be specifically job related, based on iour rather than individual traits, relate to spe-cific features not holistic assessments, andshould be something over which the subject

behav-of the evaluation has control (Barrett andKernan, 1987; Beck-Dudley and McEnvoy,1991; Bernardine, Kane, Ross, Spina andJohnson, 1995; Martin and Bartol, 1991;Veglahn, 1993) The literature also includesthe ubiquitous communication expectationthat the appraisal should be stated in descrip-tive/objective terms as opposed to subjec-tive/evaluative terms and that the appraisalmust be communicated clearly to the personbeing rated Theoretically uncertainty reduc-tion focuses on self-awareness and knowledge

of others (Berger and Bradac, 1982) Whenthe members are from divergent cultures therelationship strategies to reduce uncertaintymay be quite different (Gudykunst, 1988).Diversity is more complex than the oftenunspoken, but underlying, assumption aboutdiversity that it breeds conflict which canimpede work performance and reduce pro-ductivity This common perception is at odds with group theory, and the concept ofdemocratic decision making, that promotesthe clash of expressed ideas as an effectivemethod to work for answers to problems Theunderlying worldview and mindset of manyworkers from collectivist cultures, is alien tothe concept of expressed clash being valued intask relationships The cultural values of anindividual may well override the influence oftheir education and organizational environ-ment For example if a team member places ahigh value on harmony, even if she possessesinformational and worldview diversity, shemay not readily contribute to the groupdebate

Diversity is more complex than the easilyobservable distinctions of race, gender, age

Trang 34

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

and physical ability As the concept of sity evolves to fit the contemporary workplacewhere organizations have flattened struc-tures and moved to new team and work-group forms designed to increase synchronouscommunication, more complex categories ofdiversity are the focus of research For exam-ple Jehn, Northcraft and Neale (1999) did afield study of ninety-two workgroups applyingthree types of workplace diversity (socialcategory diversity, value diversity and in-formational diversity) They found it appropri-ate to question the typical hypothesis, taught

diver-as a bdiver-asic concept on group dynamics, thatheterogeneity in groups leads to better groupperformance, while homogeneity leads tobetter group process However, the reality ismore complex Their field study discoveredthat social category diversity could be medi-ated by task type and task interdependenceand that value diversity could be the most fre-quent impediment to group performance

Consequently, being alert to the impact ofdiverse value sets, reflected by worldview andmindset, is a key challenge to those who wish

to mobilize all of the human assets in a givendecision-making setting

Contemporary theorists have describedstrategic stages of the development of divers-ity programmes Allen and Montgomery(2001) define the stages simply as: ‘unfreez-ing’ the forces resisting change; ‘moving’ tocultural change; ‘refreezing’, or institutionaliz-ing the change; and the ‘competitive advan-tage’ that results In 1996 Thomas and Elydefined three paradigms to explain the evolu-tion of a diversity programme Initially, the

‘discrimination and fairness paradigm’ must

be satisfied Second, the ‘access and macy paradigm’ must be put in place, andreinforced Third, the programme must strivefor ‘the emerging paradigm’ that connectsdiversity to work perspectives Subsequently

legiti-the third perspective has been furlegiti-ther defined

as the ‘integration-and-learning’ perspectivethat enables dialogue on diversity issues tooccur (Ely and Thomas, 2001)

From the manager’s vantage point, is thegoal of the diversity programme to enforcelaw and expectations and support incrementalimprovements? Or is the goal to develop andmaintain a systemic programme that has adramatic impact on the corporate culture? It isevident from the reactions of interviewees inthis study that these are neither dichotomousnor mutually exclusive goals Whatever themission of the diversity unit is, high-levelexecutives must be involved and championthe programme ‘Top management supportfor diversity is certainly critical Managementneeds to begin the process of unfreezing thecurrent culture by changing the system withinwhich it operates’ (Allen and Montgomery,2001: 154)

Implications

This review of corporate members’ tions raises a variety of concepts that in theirapplication must be context dependent

percep-‘Organizational leaders also need to examinetheir internal and external environments toadopt an approach to implementation thatmatches their particular context or with a con-text they believe will emerge’ (Dass andParker, 1999: 78) There is no single best set ofconcepts or way of dealing with diversitymanagement Each organization inheres itsown unique demographic features

In any effort to understand the attitudetoward diversity programmes that exists in the contemporary corporate environment itseems that the appropriate focus is uponexecutives and their influence on the sort ofdiversity programming selected to fit their

Trang 35

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

organization Effective approaches to diversitymanagement are strategic and focused ongoals that are achievable

The key to the evolution of a diversityprogramme to an ‘integration and learning’

perspective, which produces cultural change,

is the ability to effectively talk through thedimensions of difference in the organization

An organization that develops the ability todiscuss diversity in a manner that approachesdialogue, will also accomplish better diversitytraining and performance evaluation

From the perspective of the corporate munication professional the existence of avalued and effective diversity programme

com-is a significant element to be communicated

to corporate stakeholders In order to reduceuncertainty for organizational stakeholders,the programme rationale must be clearlyexplained and reinforced A cohesive plan andprogramme is essential to anticipate andanswer the objections that arise from internalbacklash, stockholder alarm, and internalresistance to the allocation of resources todiversity programming In both the planningand the operationalization of the diversityprogramme a sense of high aspirations andtransparency should be evident

demo-in their corporation and the dimensions ofdifference that have an impact on members’behaviour Consequently, there is a challenge

to find ways of developing a mature standing of diversity within the corporatesetting Concepts such as individualism–collectivism, worldview, and mindset can beemployed to provide a basic conceptualiza-tion of difference in the attempt to improveintercultural communication competence inthe organization The promotion of truedialogue regarding diversity differences, theexistence of substantive diversity training, and application of diversity concepts in theconduct of performance evaluation are essen-tial elements of an effective diversity pro-gramme Corporations have made progress inaddressing the basic programme role of work-ing to eliminate discrimination and promotefairness The second role of ensuring ‘accessand legitimacy’ is also largely in place Butthere is a need to move to integration andlearning perspectives that will enable mean-ingful dialogue on diversity issues to occur

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

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‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

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Trang 38

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

The importance of change communication

Change is difficult, and organizational change

is particularly challenging, thus the hugeamount of research on managing organiza-tional change, usually called ‘change manage-ment’ What is change management? Somemight say that it is an oxymoron since change

is too unpredictable and chaotic to control

or manage However, good managers mustattempt to manage it Change management

is the executive skill or art of leading orsupervising the people involved in the trans-formation of or in an organization People are the heart of change management, andcommunication is at the heart of people

Nothing happens in an organization withoutcommunication As Eccles and Nohria say in

Beyond the Hype: Discovering the Essence

of Management, ‘Without the right words,

used in the right way, it is unlikely that theright actions will ever occur Without words

we have no way of expressing strategic cepts, structural forms, or designs for perform-ance measurement systems In the end, there

con-is no separating action and rhetoric’ (1992).Thus, without effective employee communi-cation and a rigid approach to communicationduring major change, a change programmehas little chance to succeed

Although much research exists on changemanagement, few of the articles or books give adequate attention to the change com-

This chapter illustrates an approach to change communication by using a best-practicemodel for employee communication called the Strategic Employee CommunicationModel

Trang 39

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

munication that accompanies any goodchange management programme; however, atleast communication does appear as one com-ponent necessary for a change programme tosucceed in most cases

For instance, in Kotter’s often cited (1995)approach to successful organizational trans-formations (‘Leading change: why transforma-tion efforts fail’), communication is listed asthe fourth of his eight steps:

produc-ing still more change;

Another frequently cited approach to changemanagement is the ten commandments ofexecuting change found in Kanter, Stein and

Jick’s The Challenge of Organisational Change

direc-3 separate from the past;

4 create a sense of urgency;

5 support a strong leader role;

6 line up political sponsorship;

7 craft an implementation plan;

8 develop enabling structures;

9 communicate, involve people, be honest;

10 reinforce and institutionalize change

In both of these examples, although the word ‘communicate’ appears in only one step, the role of communication is explicit in

most of the other steps For instance, howcould a manager create a ‘sense of urgency’without communicating messages that inspirethe necessity to act? How can managers cre-ate coalitions, without convincing people(through words) to follow them? How canmanagers institutionalize new approaches,without instructing people in expectedactions? And, of course, we could go on, butthese few examples demonstrate how com-munication is interwoven in all aspects of achange programme Obviously, without effec-tive employee communication, change isimpossible and change management fails

In ‘Leading change: why transformationefforts fail’, Kotter lists ‘under-communica-tion’ as one of the major reasons changeefforts do not succeed As he says, ‘Trans-formation is impossible unless hundreds orthousands of people are willing to help, often

to the point of making short-term sacrifices.Employees will not make sacrifices, even ifthey are unhappy with the status quo, unlessthey believe that useful change is possible.Without credible communication, and a lot of

it, the hearts and minds of the troops arenever captured’ (Kotter, 1995) Therefore,companies need to apply the same analyticalenergy and rigour to employee communica-tion and the design of their change communi-cation plan that they give to the financial andoperational components of any change pro-gramme

The strategic positioning of employee communication

Employee communication must play a egic role in an organization to work effectively.That strategic role means that communica-tion must be integrated into the company’sstrategy and recognized for its strategic

Trang 40

‘Well, I tried to swing the wheel——’ He broke off, and suddenly I guessed at the truth ‘Was Daisy driving?’ ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course I’ll say I was You see, when we left New York she was very nervous and she thought it would steady her to drive—and this woman rushed out at us just as we were passing a car coming the other way It all happened in a minute but it seemed to me that she wanted to speak to us, thought we were somebody she knew Well, first Daisy turned away from the wom- an toward the other car, and then she lost her nerve and turned back The second my hand reached the wheel I felt the shock—it must have killed her instantly.’ ‘It ripped her open——‘ ‘Don’t tell me, old sport.’ He winced ‘Anyhow—Daisy stepped on it I tried to make her stop, but she couldn’t so I pulled on the emergency brake Then she fell over into my lap and I drove on ‘She’ll be all right tomorrow,’ he said presently ‘I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her about that unpleasantness this afternoon She’s locked herself into her room and if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again.’ ‘He won’t touch her,’ I said ‘He’s not thinking about her.’ ‘I don’t trust him, old sport.’ ‘How long are you going to wait?’ ‘All night if necessary Anyhow till they all go to bed.’ A new point of view occurred to me Suppose Tom found

implications and effects Many managers seeemployee communication as a ‘black box’

Communication is either everything in theorganization (vision, strategy, business plan-ning, management meetings, informationflow, knowledge management, etc.) or it isnothing more than publications intended tokeep the communication staff busy and theemployees informed of the company news

Many managers see communication as simplyprocess, or the way to get information topeople, not as content, the meaningful mes-sages delivered by the process To be effective,employee communication must be bothprocess and content, which positions com-munication on more of a strategic level within

an organization

Effective employee communication must

be fully integrated into all aspects of a pany’s business It is integral to the strategy

com-as well com-as essential to communication of thatstrategy Effective employee communicationinforms and educates employees at all levels

in the company’s strategy, and it also vates and positions employees to support the strategy and the performance goals

moti-During change, communication becomeseven more linked to the strategic success

For effective employee communication ing major change, the change communica-tion must at a minimum accomplish thefollowing:

educate employees in the companyvision, strategic goals, and what thechange means to them;

com-pany’s new direction;

dis-cretionary effort;

may damage productivity; and finally,

strategic and overall performance provement goals

im-The strategic employee communication modeland change communication approach aredesigned to help management accomplishthese goals

The strategic employee communication model and best practices

The strategic employee communication model(Figure 2.1) helps clarify the strategic rolecommunication plays in the day-to-day suc-cess of any company as well as during majorchange and can help overcome the ‘every-thing’ and the ‘publication-limited’ percep-tions of communication The model and its components emerged from research intoseveral Fortune 500 companies to find out what really works when it comes to employee

exempli-fies each best practice exactly, the better panies demonstrate many of the best-practicedefinitions In a change programme, themodel and the best-practice definitions canserve as benchmarks against which to meas-ure a company’s employee communicationstrengths and weaknesses as well as a model

com-of effective change communications

The model captures all of the major ponents of employee communication, linkingthem to each other and to the company’sstrategy and operations Thus, it works analyt-ically to break employee communicationdown into manageable, recognizable parts;

com-at the same time, it shows how intertwinedand interdependent each part is when em-ployee communication is positioned strategic-ally as it must be to facilitate change The

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