Brent D. Ruben

Behavioral assessment of communication competency and the prediction of cross-cultural adaptation☆

Abstract This study explores the relationship between interpersonal and social behaviors and patterns of success and failure in cross-cultural adaptation. Seven interpersonal communication skills often mentioned as being important to cross-cultural adaptation were studied: empathy, respect, role behavior flexibility, orientation to knowledge, interaction posture, interaction management and tolerance for ambiguity. For each dimension, behavioral observation indices were developed. Following a week-long predeparture training program, behavioral assessments were made on these dimensions for each person in a group of technical advisors and spouses assigned to two-year postings in Kenya. One year later, an in-the-field follow up study was conducted to assess shock dynamics, psychological adjustment, and vocational and interactional effectiveness of these individuals. Comparisons of pre and post-test measures indicated that each of the focal dimensions predicted patterns of success and failure in adaptation with varying degrees of adequacy. These results and implications for further research, and cross-cultural training and selection, are explored in the final section of the article.

Simulations, games, and experience-based learning: the quest for a new paradigm for teaching and learning

This article provides an overview of the evolution of experiential instruction theory and practice from its popular emergence in the late 1960s through the present period. Simulations, games, and other experience-based instructional methods have had a substantial impact on teaching concepts and applications during this period. They have also helped to address many of the limitations of traditional instructional methods, seven of which are discussed in the article. In addition to influencing classroom instruction, experiential methods have come to provide a pervasive and largely taken-for-granted foundation for a wide range of endeavors across many fields. Still, many of the limitations of the classic paradigm continue as vital and largely unresolved challenges today, and there remains much important work to be done to translate insights about experience, teaching, and learning into common practice.

Leadership Development as a Systematic and Multidisciplinary Enterprise.

Abstract Leadership development is a fundamental responsibility of colleges and universities. In this article, the authors present the theoretical foundation of an innovative initiative, as well as criteria for assessing leadership development programs in higher education. They use the Student Leadership Development Institute at Rutgers University as a case study for demonstrating that leadership development initiatives should be systematic, multidisciplinary, and research oriented and have several experiential components.

Guidelines for Cross-Cultural Communication Effectiveness

Among cross-cultural trainers and researchers, considerable attention has been fo cused on problems individuals encounter in adapting to new cultures or subcul tures. For the many volunteers and professionals who live and work in a cross- cultural setting, the question of how to effectively transfer knowledge and skills to persons of different cultural backgrounds is an equally great concern.

The communication-information relationship in system-theoretic perspective

There is a growing recognition that information and communication are interrelated in very fundamental ways. The disciplines of Communication and Information/Library Studies have a long tradition of common interests and concepts—a tradition that has provided what might be termed a “scholarly push” toward increasing interdisciplinary linkages between the fields. But the intersection of Communication and Information Studies cannot be explained only, or even largely, in terms of “scholarly push.” Far more crucial to growing interest in the communication-information relationship is the momentum and rhetoric of the marketplace. These forces give urgency to the need for frameworks that clarify the theoretical relationship between communication and information by identifying similarities and differences, exploring ways in which differences may be complementary and/or supplementary, and facilitating theoretical integration in general. This article addresses these issues from a system-theoretic perspective.

Communication Theory and Health Communication Practice: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same1

This article considers one of the most fundamental concerns of health communication scholars, educators, and professionals—the relationship between communication theory and health communication practice. Assertions about the important role of communication in health care—as both problem and potential solution—have become increasingly common, as have discussions of theoretical advances in communication and health communication. That said, the fundamental challenge of improving provider–patient communication, and health communication outcomes more generally, persists—and, indeed, appears to be resistant to change. Inadequacies in the articulation and translation of communication theory for health care practice represent a substantial part of the problem. Scholars of communication embrace the complexity and nuanced nature of the process. However, when communication concepts are appropriated within health care discourse and practice, the complexity and nuance are often glossed over, favoring instead simpler, information-exchange perspectives. The changing health care and wellness landscape, with its growing range of health information services, sources, and settings, is unlikely to alleviate the consequences of this translation problem; rather, it threatens to exacerbate it. This article examines these issues, provides illustrations of situations that are emblematic of the translational gap, and highlights concepts that may help to enrich the contribution of communication theory in health care, health education, and professional practice.

Communication and conflict: A system‐theoretic perspective

The nature and functions of conflict, its role with regard to fundamental individual and social life processes, and its theoretical relationship to communication are explored from a system‐theoretic perspective. Based upon this framework, a distinction between conflict and para‐conflict is indicated, and it is suggested that the latter is characteristically the object of study in speech and communication.

The Center for Organizational Development and Leadership at Rutgers University: A Case Study

The problem and the solution. Although colleges and universities are highly regarded for academics, they are also broadly criticized for inefficiency, indifference to external constituencies, and resistance to change. Helping institutions address the underlying causes of these problems while maintaining the commitment to academic excellence is the fundamental challenge facing organizational development programs in higher education. This article provides a brief case study of one such effort: the Rutgers University Program for Organizational Development and Leadership.

Understanding the Communication-Information Relationship Levels of Information and Contexts of Availabilities

This article explores the communication-information relationship from a system-theoretic perspective. Two basic systems principles and six propositions are presented to provide the foundation for a consideration of this relationship. The authors propose three distinct, yet mutually defining conceptions of information: Informatione, environmental information that has potential but has not yet achieved actualized significance for a living system; Information, internal appropriations and representations of environmental and cultural information transformed and configured for use by a living system; and Informations, socially and culturally created, negotiated, validated and sanctioned appropriations, representations, and artifacts. Within human systems Information, is of central concern for understanding the linkage between communication and information. However, an understanding of Information, may only be conceptualized in terms of a triadic and mutually defining relationship among the three levels of information identified. The article discusses how information identified at one level moves or is motivated to another for use by the organism. Examination of the movement of information between levels reveals the inherent communicative properties of information in use.

Leadership as Social Influence An Expanded View of Leadership Communication Theory and Practice

Communication is a topic frequently linked to leadership; however, the linkage often is limited to a view of communication as a tool to be employed by leaders in efforts to achieve particular purposes. The aim of this article is to provide a more expansive view of the communication process and its current and potential contributions to an understanding of leadership theory and dynamics. The article begins with an exploration of the ways that the study of communication intersects with the study of leadership itself, and then explores a number of communication concepts that are particularly important to the study and practice of leadership, but which have yet to be fully examined. As offered in this article, communication is considerably more than a leadership tool or strategy. Rather, it is an orientation, a world view, a way of understanding leadership that focuses more broadly on the process of social influence itself.