Joanne E. Cooper

The Development and Consequences of Trust in Student Project Groups

Student project groups are a popular teaching tool used by marketing and business instructors. Despite the merits of group projects, trust often breaks down, and a valuable opportunity for learning may deteriorate into disharmony and personal frustration. Using literature on teamwork, student project groups, and trust, as well as qualitative data gathered from 135 undergraduate business school students, the authors develop a model of the determinants and consequences of a climate of trust within student project groups. In particular, they consider the attributes and behaviors students consider when judging the trustworthiness of fellow group members, the perceived consequences of distrust within groups, and facilitating tools or activities that help foser group trust. Findings provide a number of interesting insights for instructors.

Emotional Intelligence and the Qualitative Researcher

In this conceptual article, we explore the idea of refining the role of the researcher. Using emotional intelligence as a framework, we synthesize methodological writing about the role of the researcher and ways to enhance the connection between humans in qualitative research. Emotional intelligence can strengthen the ability to connect with participants, skillfully listen during the interview process, and more clearly understand the lifeworlds participants articulate.

Cross cultural training programs: Advice and insights from experienced trainers

Abstract Cross-cultural training programs are formal efforts to prepare professionals to work in cultures other than their own or with individuals from different cultural backgrounds. The purpose of this study was to uncover the often tacit knowledge of those experienced trainers who conduct such programs. Ninety-four professionals with from 8 to 45 years experience in cross-cultural interactions shared their advice through interviews or a mailed survey. Each participant answered seven questions that reflect their early experiences—what they wished they had known earlier in their careers; what they would change in their programs, given the chance; and candid advice they would share with a novice trainer. Advice concerning the administration of cross-cultural training programs fell into five major categories: 1) needs assessment and evaluation; 2) purpose and goals; 3) program planning and design; 4) implementation; and 5) techniques to increase the effectiveness of training programs. Advice about less tangible issues a novice needs to implement and support successful training programs includes: the acculturation process, understanding the audience; and the role of politics in conducting training. The final set of recommendations concerns personal career goals and objectives of a successful trainer. To conclude, the authors acknowledge the diversity of thinking on the roles of trainers and make suggestions for training programs that involve both experts and novices. Cautions for novices entering the field and disagreements among mentors on a variety of issues are discussed. Controversial topics include: when to conduct training, traditional vs. experiential training, evaluation procedures, how to use games and simulations, the ethical use of other peoples materials, and appropriate “comfort level” of trainees. Finally, the studys participants voiced their support for a formal mentor system to enhance cross-cultural training programs. Through all the comments, advice and warnings shared by participants, there was a general excitement expressed about the challenges and rewards of being a cross-cultural trainer.

Journal‐keeping and academic work: four cases of higher education professionals

This study examines the journal‐keeping methods of four higher education professionals. Framed in the literature of adult learning theory, the study’s purposes were twofold: to describe the work‐related journal‐keeping practices of these educators and to examine the professional and personal benefits of journal‐keeping. Findings indicate that these professionals use their journals in four ways: to create conversations with themselves about their work and their lives; to organize their work experience and demands; to adapt unique and individual journal‐keeping practices to match their current needs; and to review and reflect on overall, long term career goals and organizational directions. Through the journal, these adults cope with the complex external demands of work life, enabling them to inhabit multiple roles, maintain balance and to see the larger picture in their lives and organizations. These adults believe that taking the time to journal leads to a more organized and meaningful professional life.

Using narrative in the study of school administration

The use of narrative, which has informed the study of teaching, has only been applied in a limited manner to studies focusing on school administrators. This study of the journal‐keeping practices of school principals provides a glimpse into the use of narrative as a possible methodological strategy for understanding the stories of administrators. It begins to define how personal values, political pressures, and organizational concerns are translated into actions that are intended to solve day‐to‐day school problems. It illuminates tacit knowledge of how administrators sort through their often chaotic lives. Implications of the study for future research are examined.

Lord of the Flies Community College: A Case Study of Organizational Disintegration.

Abstract: This interpretive case study examines the organizational disintegration of a community college which had experienced a sudden loss of leadership. Its culture both contributed to and prevented organizational chaos. The essay addresses how leaders can honor the culture and mission of educational organizations and simultaneously work to transform them.

Journal Keeping for Administrators.

This study examines the journal-keeping processes of senior- level administrators in education, business, and non-profit organizations. Based on interviews with them, the authors report that journal keeping is a reflective practice which aids in sorting through administrative chaos and discovering meaning, generating possible solutions to problems, and documenting the past. These findings have implications for knowing and learning in the lives of present and future administrators in higher education.

A New Agenda for Higher Education: Shaping the Life of the Mind for Practice (review)

tor. Given the strong indigenous movements in Canadian, U.S., Australian, South American, and New Zealand education—especially in the last decade—and the rapidly expanding cultural and socioeconomic diversity of students attending postsecondary education worldwide, I was surprised not to see identity as a factor in curricular development processes. This omission was especially problematic since all of the processes that the book employed assumed roots in a scholarship of teaching and learning. One part of some of the curricular development processes being facilitated included a discussion of the “ideal graduate” with its associated exploration of values, knowledge, and skills that curriculum should facilitate in students. Yet as a person raised within Mestiza (Indigenous and Latino) cultural epistemologies, I felt a chill resulting from dominant cultural epistemologies being characterized as universal. Universalizing students and faculty denies the rich identity diversity among populations from Western epistemological roots and usually excludes those whose epistemologies have not traditionally served as a foundation of curricula. Many curricular and pedagogical structures and processes derive from cultural, gender, socioeconomic, nationality, and other identity worldviews far from the epistemologies of growing populations of our students with the result that our students often feel like “guests in someone else’s house.” Experiences of teaching and learning are not framed in their natural ways of learning or being (Ibarra, 2001; Rendón, 2009; Viernes Turner, 1994). I would have liked to see a systematic inclusion of difference rather than a common striving toward an ideal or universal student in curricular processes and frameworks.