Kathleen J. Krone

Approaches to Managerial Influence in the People’s Republic of China

This study identifies approaches to managerial influence in the Peoples Repub lic of China and examines the reflection of cultural themes in these approaches. Forty-eight factory directors from state-owned enterprises completed a survey in which they reported what they would say to workers in obligatory and nonoblig atory work situations. Descriptive coding was used to develop message category systems for each situation. A more interpretive form of analysis was used to identify how the cultural themes of values, political ideology, and changing managerial roles were reflected in the influence approaches reported. The interrelated cultural values of group-centeredness, hierarchy, and face concern were reflected most often, followed by political ideology and changing manager ial roles. Results reveal how managerial influence in China is best understood within the relational, political, and economic contexts in which it occurs.

Exploring the emergent identities of future physicians: Toward an understanding of the ideological socialization of osteopathic medical students

This project brings contextual factors to the forefront of socialization research by investigating how medical ideology relates to the formation of the identities of students of osteopathic medicine. In particular, we investigate their attitudes toward, the role of communication and the expression of emotion in health care delivery. Through in‐depth interviews with students about their vocational development experiences, we began exploring their emergent identities as future practitioners of osteopathic medicine. Three themes emerged from a constant comparative analysis of data including (a) selecting osteopathic medicine, (b) encountering osteopathy, and (c) students’ emergent identities. These themes, and their respective sub‐themes, are discussed in terms of the story they tell about the role of technology, as developed and practiced through the scientific method, in the rationalization of professional identities.

Managerial Communication Practices in Chinese Factories: A Preliminary Investigation

This paper presents the results of a preliminary study of selected managerial communication practices in Chinese factories. Members of a delegation of Chinese managers visiting the U.S. were interviewed to explore: (a) the extent to which Chinese factories conform to a bureaucratic model of organization, and (b) factory director communication within these organization. Of particular interest were their upward and downward communication practices, and their methods for persuading and motivating workers and managing conflicts with problem employees. The results of our investigation reveal a distinctive form of bureaucracy operating within these factories. Moreover, we describe patterns of managerial communication practices that can be traced to cultural context, Chinese ideology and organizational structure of the state-owned factory in mainland China.

Effects of Leader-Member Exchange on Subordinates' Upward Influence Attempts

This research examined the extent to which subordinates’ perceptions of supervisory relationship quality affected how frequently they use different types of tactics in their self‐reported upward influence attempts. Based on their responses to the Leader‐Member Exchange Scale (1982), three hundred and thirty‐seven respondents from five different organizations were classified into an in‐group or out‐group supervisory relationship. As a part of a larger study, a typology of upward influence messages was created based on the extent to which: (1) the means employed to attempt influence are open or closed, and (2) the desired outcomes are openly expressed or left undisclosed. The resulting dependent variable consisted of three types of tactics: open persuasion, strategic persuasion and manipulation. MANOVA results indicated that in‐group subordinates used significantly more open persuasion and strategic persuasion, and significantly less manipulation in their upward influence attempts than did out‐group subordi...

Managerial Emotionality in Chinese Factories

Managerial emotion may be experienced and handled differently when reason and emotion are understood to be continuously (e.g., Eastern cultures) rather than dichotomously (e.g., Western cultures) related. Using a social constructionist perspective, this study investigated emotionality among directors from 48 different factories in the Peoples Republic of China. Social, moral, and material/economic situations were identified as sources of pleasant and unpleasant managerial emotional experience. Thought-feeling continuities were identified in how the managers described their emotional experiences. Both pleasant and unpleasant emotions were experienced very intensely and were managed in ways that both conformed to and departed from cultural ideals. Managerial emotions appeared to be best handled by thinking through them rather than by venting or suppressing them.

Overcoming the Dichotomy: Cultivating Standpoints in Organizations through Research

Feminist standpoint theories are seldom used by researchers. One possible reason is the ongoing debate between postmodern theorists and feminine standpoint theorists. The debate has been constructed in bipolar terms such that the issues are perceived as mutually exclusive. However, bipolar assumptions are damaging to women, both in general and in organizations. We contend that feminist standpoint theories should theorize similarities, material reality, and communal agency while being sensitive to differences, multiple realities, and individual agency. A study of academic women is used to illustrate how standpoints can develop around similarities while respecting differences. Using a creative narrative, participants’ organizational standpoints were developed around the common experiences of invisibility, overvisibility, isolation, energy dissipation, and a desire for community. Cultural differences, idiosyncratic differences, and differences in the evolution of a consciousness of oppression are discussed.

Chaos, Reports, and Quests Narrative Agency and Co-Workers in Stories of Workplace Bullying

This study examined narratives targets of workplace bullying told about their difficult work experiences along with how co-workers were framed in these narratives. Three different narrative types emerged from their accounts: chaos, report, and quest narratives. Co-worker responses of support or lack thereof were related to the construction of various narrative forms and the level of narrative agency evident in target accounts. The study has important implications for the difference co-workers can make in a target’s ability to withstand bullying and narrate his or her experience.

Women Managers and Gendered Values

In this study we interviewed 30 women managers to better understand ways in which they experience gendered values and behavior in organizational leadership and their responses to those experiences. The results, based on a constant comparison, thematic analysis, indicate the emergence of surprisingly strong and similar perceptions among the 30 women that there are distinct feminine and masculine power orientations in leadership communication with corresponding sets of gendered values: (a) open/closed and (b) supportive/intimidating. Their most common responses were: (a) rejection of masculine power, (b) self-doubt and blame, (c) competence, (d) confrontation, (e) isolation, and (f) resignation. These women judge masculine values to be harmful, overpowering, and ineffective and view feminine values much more favorably, yet they see themselves as isolated in both their values and numbers. Focusing on this sense of isolation, we suggest renewed discussion of ways in which women managers can connect through support for one another, and we offer to that discussion a suggestion for action-oriented networking.

Emotional Intelligence as Organizational Communication: An Examination of the Construct

A large volume of research on emotions in organizations has been produced in the last number of years. This important body of literature has one major limitation: There is no recognized framework from which the literature can be viewed in a holistic manner. This article creates such a framework by reconceptualizing emotional intelligence using a communication orientation. To accomplish this task, we discuss the strengths and limitations of current conceptualizations of emotional intelligence, propose a new model of emotional intelligence, and then place the current literature on emotions in organizations within that model. In this way, both the constructive and destructive possibilities of emotional intelligence are explored.

Structuring constraints on perceptions of upward influence and supervisory relationships

This research examined the effects of centralization of authority on employees’ perceptions of the likelihood of attempting upward influence and their perceptions of supervisory trust and leader‐member exchange. Three hundred and sixty‐two employees from five different organizations responded to a questionnaire that assessed perceptions of centralization, attitudes toward upward influence, leader‐member exchange and supervisory trust. Consistent with earlier formulations, centralization was operationalized as perceptions of participation in decision making and job autonomy (Hage, 1980; Hage & Aiken, 1967). Results revealed that both job autonomy and participation in decision making significantly affect subordinates’ attitudes toward attempting upward influence and the levels of trust and leader‐member exchange they report concerning their supervisory relationship. The results are used to support the argument that centralization of authority acts as a structuring process in organizations to the extent that...