Have they learnt to interrupt?: Comparing how women management students and senior women managers in Australia perceive workplace communication dilemmas

Purpose - Changing language ideology and the decreased popularity of overt feminism suggest that aspiring female managers may be less influenced than senior women managers by the gender of the speaker in evaluating whether specific communication strategies are effective and probable. The study investigates this issue. Design/methodology/approach - 255 second-year female management students evaluated strategies for the same workplace dilemmas as senior women managers (Barrett 2004). Findings - For short and medium term dilemmas students, like senior women managers, regarded masculine communication strategies with a feminine element as effective. They were less influenced by the speaker\u27s gender than senior women managers in evaluating the strategies\u27 probability. But when seeking promotion, students avoided some strategies they considered effective, and believed men would use. Students\u27 confidence as communicators affected their personal choice of strategy. Research limitations/implications The study investigated a limited number of dilemmas and sought information about a limited number of demographic factors, limiting the results\u27 generalizability. Nevertheless it suggests future women managers could learn from their senior counterparts if they want to advance at work. Future research - Future research should investigate whether future male managers\u27 reactions to these dilemmas are similar to women students and senior managers, and whether scenarios using female dyads yield similar results. Cross-cultural extensions of the research are also possible. Originality/value - This is the first study comparing aspiring and senior women managers\u27 reactions to classic workplace communication problems. The findings show similarities between aspiring managers and their senior sisters, but also differences which could affect aspiring managers\u27 career success

Five tips to get the most out of your workday

Getting a lot done each day is about more than just having the right productivity tools and setup. It’s about taking care of your body and mind, and this starts even outside of the workplace. We all need strategies for increasing productivity; here are five to get you started

Educating Teachers about the Complex Writing Processes of Preschool Students (Project)

Preschool teachers traditionally view young children’s written literacy development as a linear continuum that progresses from making scribbles, to lines, to letter strings, to invented, and finally, conventional spellings on paper. This project seeks to change preschool teachers’ perceptions of children’s writing development to encompass a more broadened definition of literacy. On the path from emergent to conventional writing, young children naturally negotiate and mediate a number of symbol systems in order to make sense of their worlds and create meaning as they come to understand the complexities and intricacies of the writing process. Exploration of these symbol systems is a crucial step for children to come to understand written language. Unfortunately, with a push for teaching basic skills in the preschool classroom in preparation for the demands of kindergarten, the focus in most classrooms does not lie in an appreciation for these multiple symbol systems. This project, professional development for preschool teachers, will equip educators with knowledge of young children’s complex meaning-making processes and with practical resources, methods, and ideas for the classroom that are sensitive to children’s diverse paths to literacy

Succession at Buchanan Transport

Family firms have all the challenges of any business and, because they are run by families, they have to contend with the blurring of boundaries between family, management and ownership systems. Textbooks such as Poza Family Business point out how conflicts are likely to arise around ownership succession in family firms, and the need to manage succession so as to enhance the interests of family and business. This case provides an opportunity to consider the intertwined nature of family and business problems in the succession process of a family firm which, despite steady growth earlier in its history, is now characterized by family conflict and falling performance. How should the conflicts, aspirations and potential contributions of family members be handled alongside the pressing business issues confronting the firm? The Instructor\u27s Manual sets out a sequence of discussion questions that allow students to build a comprehensive understanding of the issues, enabling them to advise the primary decision-maker in the case. It also suggests other teaching approaches such as using the family genogram to predict likely family business problems, using debating topics to generalize from the case, and comparing the actual outcome of the case with students\u27 recommendations for action. The case is intended for a graduate or advanced undergraduate course in family business

Case study: the al-Awadhi brothers: the story of two Emirati entrepreneurs

For centuries, families of transnational Sunni Arabs, or Persians both Sunni and Shiite, have migrated from southern Iran to the Arab coast of the Persian Gulf. In fact, Iranian groups living on the coast of the Persian Gulf have generally looked more to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) than to Iranian groups inland (Potter, 2009). They have maintained a dual existence , owning houses in two or more countries and speaking multiple languages (Nadjmabadi, 2010). This has been a source of economic benefit to both Iran and the UAE, at least until the recent political unrest in the region. Many Iranians and Emirati citizens of Iranian origin in Dubai and other UAE cities come from towns in the department (shahrestiin) known as Larestan, and from towns in the Iranian province of Hormozgan. These populations are generally called Larestani, from the name of the region, or by the name of their town of origin: Evazi, Khonji, Bastaki, etc. In the UAE they are also described by the interchangeable Farsi terms: Khodmooni and Achami; the former means of our own kind , or in a broader sense those familiar to us . These Farsi terms emerged in the Arab areas of the Persian Gulf and show the strong mutual attachment of Larestani transnational immigrant families and UAE native families