Amy Klemm Verbos

Native American Values and Management Education: Envisioning an Inclusive Virtuous Circle

Circles are symbols of interconnectedness. Behavioral circles can be vicious or virtuous. Many American Indians are caught in a vicious circle of exclusion from the purported benefits of Westernization, entrapment in its negative elements, and the ongoing undermining of their culture and thus their identities. Yet Native Americans, along with many indigenous peoples the world over, are holding fast to traditional values. Indigenous knowledge systems include spiritual orientations that, in the face of the social and environmental issues facing humanity, may provide an alternative set of values for generating life-enhancing business behavior. The authors introduce management educators to Native American values generally and specifically to four traditional Lakota values: bravery, generosity, fortitude, and wisdom. Management education might move toward to an inclusive, virtuous circle through respect for Native American values as an equally valid alternative to dominant management values.

“Coyote Was Walking. . .”: Management Education in Indian Time

The authors present a Coyote story to illustrate Native American perspectives on time, teaching, and learning. Coyote stories invoke Indian Time, a traditional Native American perception of time that progresses through events rather than minutes on a clock. Coyote, a trickster, wanders and investigates, interacting with animate creatures and inanimate objects. He inspires us to pursue creative, multidirectional approaches of understanding and reflective, self-discovered approach to learning. Whereas management and management education typically edify a single-time perspective, that of clock time, you may find wisdom in nonlinear Indian Time and reflective learning through timeless stories.

Indigenous wisdom and the PRME: inclusion or illusion?

Purpose – The Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) are a United Nations led initiative that includes a mandate to engage with voices generally marginalized in business classrooms. The voices of Indigenous peoples are among such marginalized voices. Inclusion of indigenous worldviews offer opportunities to enhance the capacity of the PRME to contribute to more just and sustainable management and development of humanity. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – PRME Principle One inspires opportunities to integrate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) and through this confluence, contribute to manifesting the espoused aspirations of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) – i.e. the transformation of poverty and environmental degradation toward universal human and environmental thriving. Findings – Greater attention to relational ethics through critical pedagogy encourages reflection on the paradoxes of the market logic that...

Being Native American in business: Culture, identity, and authentic leadership in modern American Indian enterprises

Tribally owned American Indian enterprises provide a unique cross-cultural setting for emerging Native American business leaders. This article examines the manner in which American Indian leaders negotiate the boundaries between their indigenous organizations and the nonindigenous communities in which they do business. Through a series of qualitative interviews, we find that American Indian business leaders fall back on a strong sense of “self,” which allows them to maintain effective leadership across boundaries. This is highly consistent with theories of authentic leadership. Furthermore, we find that leaders define self through their collective identity, which is heavily influenced by tribal affiliation and tribal culture. We add to the literature on authentic leadership by showing the role that culture and collective identity have in creating leader authenticity within the indigenous community.

Native American cultural influences on career self-schemas and MBA fit

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop two new constructs (career self-schemas and career locus) and present a conceptual model of the influence of Native American culture on MBA fit. Design/methodology/approach – Using a social cognitive lens on career theory, the authors examine the possible effects of cultural influences on the fit between Native Americans’ career goals and an MBA. Specifically, the authors propose that cultural factors contribute to career self-schemas inconsistent with Native American perceptions of business graduate education. Career self-schemas are an individual’s cognitive map of the self in his or her career. Findings – The conceptual model proposes that aspects of career self-schemas may explain lagging Native Americans’ MBA fit: the MBA is culturally inconsistent, and a community career locus. Research limitations/implications – The model needs to be tested empirically. This research has implications that extend beyond Native Americans to help explain the career asp...

Relational Mentoring Episodes as a Catalyst for Empowering Protégés A Conceptual Model

We take empowerment from tasks to relationships by introducing the construct of psychological empowerment in the context of mentoring episodes. We introduce a new perspective for examining psychological empowerment, derived from a protégé’s perceptions of relational impact, developmental meaning, interpersonal competence, and relational self-determination arising out of relational mentoring episodes. Empowered protégés are expected to be more proactive in their careers. By applying an empowerment perspective to relational mentoring, we propose a conceptual model to investigate critical interpersonal processes and to discover more about how developmental relationships work. Finally, our aim is also to further our theoretical understanding of relational mentoring episodes. This new direction holds exciting implications for career scholarship, human resource development (HRD) practitioners, and employees.

Employee social cognition and performance evaluation process reactions

Purpose – The paper uses social cognitive theory to explore reactions to performance evaluation processes as situated cognitions by examining the relationship between key elements of employees’ schemas about an organizational environment, preparation for evaluation, and these reactions. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Survey of 260 employees of eight organizations in a Midwestern US city. Findings – Job resource adequacy, communication adequacy, coworker relationships, and preparation time are significantly and positively associated with employee reactions to performance evaluation processes. Preparation time moderates the association between organizational context and employee reactions. Research limitations/implications – A social cognitive perspective on performance evaluation broadens the scope of extant research. This study is limited by cross-sectional design but opens the door to future experimental and longitudinal research. Practical implications – Performanc...

Transforming the Institutional Logic of the Centre through Indigenous Wisdom

We posit that the system for development intensifying globally is generated from what we are calling the Logic of the Centre, a set of values and interests expressed and imposed through market mechanisms underpinned by system-preserving instrumental ethics. We seek to contribute to the growing exposure of embedded contradictions and paradoxes internal to the Logic of the Centre that are more likely to come under examination when aspects of its taken-for-granted attractiveness are challenged in some way. We recognise that exposure of contradictions, conflicts and paradoxes in a system does not automatically bring systemic transformation. We persist in such exposure, however, as a starting point to move from observation to analysis and to support and amplify action. In support of this transformational scholarly mobilisation we draw on the work of Seo and Creed (2002) who invite exposure of contradictions and paradoxes as a form of praxis. We juxtapose the Logic of the Centre with contrasting ideas drawn from Indigenous ways of being in order to find conversations through which we may transform our relationships with each other, with Earth and with all her creatures. We offer an adaptation of a governance metaphor that might allow for integrity in the co-ordination of diverse values in our cohabitation on and with Earth.