SAGE Journal Articles

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Journal Article 1: Merritt, A. (2000). Culture in the cockpit: Do Hofstede’s dimensions replicate? Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology31, 283–301.

Abstract: Survey data collected from 9,400 male commercial airline pilots in 19 countries were used in a replication study of Hofstede’s indexes of national culture. The analysis that removed the constraint of item equivalence proved superior, both conceptually and empirically, to the analysis using Hofstede’s items and formulae as prescribed, and rendered significant replication correlations for all indexes (Individualism-Collectivism .96, Power Distance .87, Masculinity-Femininity .75, and Uncertainty Avoidance .68). The successful replication confirms that national culture exerts an influence on cockpit behavior over and above the professional culture of pilots, and that “one size fits all” training is inappropriate.

Journal Article 2: Yang, W. (2012). Small talk: A strategic interaction in Chinese interpersonal business negotiations. Discourse & Communication6, 101–124.

Abstract: This empirical research provides an insight into the management of small talk (ST) and its interconnection with interpersonal relations in business negotiations, drawing on the study of its pragmatic allocation, modes and functions in business contexts. By examining ST applications in three interpersonal relationships (business stranger, friend and partner), the author explores how the interactional patterns of ST are associated with communicators’ interpersonal cognitive processes, demonstrating why ST should not be deemed ‘small’ in task-oriented contexts. The findings yield that ST constructs an integral, and even essential, part of business communication for various social and professional purposes. Its allocations, topic typologies and move systems in negotiations are not randomly positioned, selected and developed, but strategically organized and interpersonally related. As a meaningful, politic and intentional activity, ST reflects business people’s social and professional cognition, relational negotiation, and interactive frame, forming communicative primitives that are used in the underlying negotiation, the rapport management in negotiation and cultural disciplines for business people.

Journal Article 3Sobre-Denton, M. S. (2012). Stories from the Cage: Autoethnographic sensemaking of workplace bullying, gender discrimination, and White privilege. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography41, 220–250.

Abstract: This autoethnography examines white privilege and systemic discrimination within contexts of my experiences as a white woman encountering workplace bullying, presented and examined on three levels. In sections marked “Then,” I integrate my own memories of my employment at AAA. In sections titled “Now,” I analyze my experiences through three interpretive lenses: first workplace bullying, then cultural enactments of gender discrimination, and finally white privilege theory to reinterpret the organizational dynamics that took place at AAA. In a section called “Next Time,” I present descriptions of what I would do differently given what I know now in the form of two letters. Throughout, I engage in self-investigation and self-implication. In short, through weaving together the past, present, and future of my experiences, sensemaking, and theoretical prose, I examine the intersections of race, class, and gender in workplace bullying behaviors, to make sense of my experiences and to help others.