Canchu Lin

Demystifying the Chameleonic Nature of Chinese Leadership

This article provides a survey of the scholarly literature on Chinese culture and leadership. Chinese culture has mainly been conceptualized as Confucianism, collectivism, and communist ideology in the literature. The influences and implications of each of the three value systems have been examined in the context of leadership practices. Future directions in this area of research have been discussed.This article provides a survey of the scholarly literature on Chinese culture and leadership. Chinese culture has mainly been conceptualized as Confucianism, collectivism, and communist ideology in the literature. The influences and implications of each of the three value systems have been examined in the context of leadership practices. Future directions in this area of research have been discussed.

Why university members use and resist technology? A structure enactment perspective

This case study investigated university members’ use of and resistance to a communication information technology system in a higher education organization. This case study utilized the technology enactment framework to examine structure enactment in university members’ technology use and resistance. We found that the following structures were enacted in organizational members’ interactions with the system: maximum use, enhancing teaching, augmenting service, limited use, and resistance. Besides providing empirical evidence to the enactments of inertia, application, and change, this case study added a new enactment type, i.e., resistance, to the existing enactment typology. The findings provided empirical support to the structuration principle—the enabling and constraining nature of structure. Important implications were addressed with respect to adoption and implementation of technology in higher education institutions.

Measuring Mao Zedong Thought and Interpreting Organizational Communication in China

This study examines the impact of Maoist (Mao Zedong Thought; MZT) influence on organizational communication practices in the Peoples Republic of China. The authors developed an instrument from a thematic analysis of Maos writings. Findings from the thematic analysis were used to create an instrument to measure MZT from an organizational communication perspective that was subsequently tested in a survey of more than 400 mainland Chinese employees working across 15 different organizations. Results suggest that MZT can be measured with some confidence with respect to reliability and validity. The results also suggest that MZT influences organizational communication practices to varying degrees in various mainland Chinese organizations. The findings are especially useful in todays global market for understanding organizational communication practices in China as well as other cultures.

Studying Chinese culture and conflict: a research agenda

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a research agenda for studying Chinese culture and conflict.Design/methodology/approach – Publications on Chinese culture and conflict are searched and reviewed to identify conceptualizations of Chinese culture and key findings on conflict.Findings – A review of the scholarly literature on Chinese culture and conflict suggests that Chinese culture has been mainly conceptualized as Confucianism and collectivism. Inadequacies of such conceptualizations and their negative effects on empirical research on Chinese culture and management and organization in China have been addressed.Research limitations/implications – Limitations were not being able to get an exhaustive list of research publications on Chinese culture and conflict.Practical implications – The paper helps to reduce stereotypes about Chinese conflict management stemmed from previous researchOriginality/value – On the basis of recognizing the importance of past research, new directions for research...

Organizational Website Design as a Rhetorical Situation

While a significant amount of attention and interest has been directed to investigate the communicative functions of organizational websites, little research has been done to examine how internal organizational communication shapes organizational website design. This study employs the theory of rhetorical situation to examine the impact of internal organizational communication on website design. Specifically, it has examined a few organizational website design case studies from the perspective of rhetorical situation and has analyzed a case about website design by a Chinese student organization on a US college campus. Both the examination and analysis show that organizations and designers must communicate effectively in the process of identifying and thereafter transforming organizational objectives into effective website features. Both theoretical and practical implications for organizational website design are addressed in the paper

Subculture, Critical Mass, and Technology Use

This study investigated the use of an information communication technology (ICT) system by organizational members in a higher education institution. Besides providing empirical support to critical mass theory in predicting technology use in organizations, the findings of this study revealed a cultural foundation of the theory. More specifically, this study found that technology use by supervisors and task interdependence contribute to technology use, and that organizational members from different subcultures perceive technology use by supervisors and task interdependence differently.

The Rhetorical Plasticity of the Dead in Museum Displays: A Biocritique of Missing Intercultural Awareness

Using rhetorical analysis in the form of an autoethnographically informed biocritique, this study applies and expands the concept of rhetorical plasticity to examine the popular museum exhibit Bodies: The Exhibition, which is arguably the most controversial of a series of contemporary museum exhibits that feature deceased human bodies that have been plasticized and entertainingly displayed for public viewing in museums in cities worldwide. We investigate how rhetorical tropes, such as biological and health discourses that pleasantly effuse reason, and fun action poses, operate synergistically to invite audiences into a forgetting of cultural awareness and personal biography in exhibits that display unknown Chinese bodies to Western audiences.

The Constitutive Rhetoric of Democratic Centralism: a thematic analysis of Mao's discourse on democracy

Employing the theoretical framework of constitutive rhetoric, this paper explores Chinese conceptions of democracy by examining Mao Zedongs speeches and writings. This rhetorical examination seeks to show how democracy is understood, defined, and conceptualized in China. Several themes from Maos most famous speeches and writings are discussed in the light of his concept of democratic centralism. The rhetorical analysis supports the notion that Chinese communism includes democracy, as purported by Mao; however, this culturally unique form of democracy (i.e. democratic centralism) does not match the representative form of democracy employed in the West. Understanding that democracy is conceptualized distinctly by Chinese communist followers of Mao may provide insight for future international studies and relations.

Structuring Interactions With Technology: A Social Identity Approach

Abstract This case study investigated social construction of technology from the perspective of social identity theory. Four pre-existing social categories were found to be important sources of social influence: professional, organizational, departmental, and disciplinary identities. Additionally, an emerging social category (cross-unit and cross-discipline faculty and staff committees and learning groups) influenced technology use as well. Organizational members drew on structural elements from these five sources in their social construction of an information communication technology system. Theoretical as well as practical implications were addressed with respect to technology use. The findings helped to show how social identity influenced people’s interpretations of technology and then use and non-use of technology. It is suggested that organizations make efforts to identify all possible social identities that may influence technology use and non-use.