Developing as a learning organization : a Hong Kong case of sensegiving and career contracts

I discuss a qualitative case study of a Hong Kong-based utility company where commercial imperatives drove, but also circumscribed, development toward ‘Learning Organization’ (LO) ideals. The case illuminates the paradox of promoting greater openness and creativity through top down sensegiving, as many managers and professionals participated in collective development towards LO ideals, but were seduced into what nearly became a propaganda trap. The case also highlights the importance of honouring psychological contracts, in that a covenant with the workforce, which leveraged the company’s dominant industry position, restored an atmosphere of mutuality with a marginalized rump. Noting that the focal company may have been blessed with relatively munificent circumstances, I conclude by identifying four viability tasks that aspiring LOs may need to perform continually in order to forestall resentment and disillusion

Assessing Community Impact after Service-Learning: A Conceptual Framework

Service-learning integrates experiential learning with community service, yet its community impacts have not been systematically studied. This may reflect the lack of a conceptual model for impact assessment, and failure to investigate the end-beneficiary’s perspective. This study proposes a tripartite model, in which the community impact of service-learning is analyzed from three perspectives: that of the community partner, the end-beneficiary, and the service-learning intervention itself. The model identifies three impact domains salient for the community partner: the level of capacity for service; goals and value achieved; and new knowledge and insights gained. For impact domains salient for the end-beneficiary, the model utilises the needs fulfilment matrix developed by Max-Neef (1991), along with the concept of quality of life. It is argued that the model can accommodate the community impact generated from the community partner, the end-beneficiary and their interactions.Lau, KH.; Snell, R. (2020). Assessing Community Impact after Service-Learning: A Conceptual Framework. En 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (30-05-2020). https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd20.2020.10969OCS30-05-202

Conceptual Framework for Assessing Process Variables Salient for Service-Learning Experience

[ES] Service-learning is an established pedagogy which integrates experiential learning with community service. It has been widely adopted in higher education around the world including in Hong Kong, yet the key ingredients that determine its successful impacts for its stakeholders have not been fully assessed. This study reviewed the past literature, which indicates the key ingredients that may be found in successful service-learning programmes. We identify six key ingredients: students provide meaningful service; the community partner representative plays a positive role; effective preparation and support for students; effective reflection by students; effective integration of service-learning within the course design; and stakeholder synergy in terms of collaboration, communication and co-ownership. In order to obtain an inter-subjectively fair and trustworthy data set, reflecting the extent to which those key ingredients are perceived to have been achieved, we propose a multi-stakeholder approach for data collection, involving students, instructors and community partner representatives.Snell, R.; Lau, KH. (2020). Conceptual Framework for Assessing Process Variables Salient for Service-Learning Experience. En 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (30-05-2020):53-61. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd20.2020.10976OCS536130-05-202

Citizenship in organisations : the good, the bad, and the fake

The paper reports a qualitative, interview-based study of organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) as perceived in non-subordinate colleagues by 20 Hong Kong Chinese managerial, professional and white-collar staff. Interviewees drew on their own observations of, and inferences about, specific workplace incidents to illustrate differences between authentic OCB on the one hand, and faked (pseudo-) OCB, which entailed colleagues feigning or espousing OCB while actually not transcending basic in-role requirements or even violating requirements. Faked counterparts were found for a wide range of OCB sub- types. A variety of cases of simple absent OCB and simple anti-OCB, which typically involved cover-up but not pretension to engage in OCB, were also found. Core generic definitions were developed, grounded in case material. While noting the inherent context- specific and value-laden nature of judgements about OCB, the study pointed toward the existence of a set of bipolar continua, with dysfunctionally excessive OCB at one extreme and anti-citizenship at the other

Antecedents, moderators and examples of representational predicaments at three Hong Kong sites

Employees suffer representational predicaments if they feel that they bear invisible burdens and/or make invisible contributions. This feeling implies a belief that dominant authorities in the organization are embracing unfavourable prevai1ing images of employees (PIEs) that are incongruent with salient work-life space domains. Qualitative interviews at an insurance agency branch and an on-line database provider indicated embedded human resource values characterized by aggressive instrumentality, small circle and top down govemance, and expectations of employee deference and silence. These values reflected the Hong Kong human resource govemance environment: absence of labour rights and protections, and cultural assumptions of large power distance, high masculinity and networkorientation. Our grounded model proposes that these antecedents led to representational climates that were not characterized by high-fidelity meritocracy, in tum exposing employees to the risk of representational predicaments. Individuals\u27 compatibility with embedded values and their relational proximity to dominant authorities appeared to reduce this risk, while proximal appreciation/support and diligent beliefs appeared to offset distress arising 企om representational predicaments. At a third site, the administrative side of a tertiary education institute, dominant authorities\u27 non-conformist values and best practice open govemance benchmarking appeared to moderate the impact of the Hong Kong human resource govemance environment, leading to relatively high-fidelity meritocracy and less risk of representational predicaments

Developing an instrument to measure representational predicaments at work

Employees with representational predicaments believe that authorities\u27 impressions of their workplace contributions or circumstances are unfavourablyincomplete or inaccurate. A literature review suggested four hypothesized types of representational predicament: two, disregarding of non-canonical work, and disregarding of job-related stressors, characterized primarily by unfavourable invisibility; two, negative spotlighting and unfair canonical presumption of guilt,characterized primarily by unfavourable visibility. This study developed an instrument to measure prevalence of representational predicaments. Qualitative interviews confirmed the hypothesized variables, but exploratory factor analyses identified a different set of four emergent subscales. Of these: two, being neglectedand negative spotlighting, indicated representational predicaments; two, fair recognition of work, and fair treatment of alleged mistakes, indicated their absence.Further research into the relationship between individualized consideration and representational predicaments is suggested

The edge of the young Galactic disc

In this work we report and discuss the detection of two distant diffuse stellar groups in the third Galactic quadrant. They are composed of young stars, with spectral types ranging from late O to late B, and lie at galactocentric distances between 15 and 20 kpc. These groups are located in the area of two cataloged open clusters (VdB-Hagen~04 and Ruprecht~30), projected towards the Vela-Puppis constellations, and within the core of the Canis Major over-density. Their reddening and distance has been estimated analyzing their color-color and color-magnitude diagrams, derived from deep $UBV$ photometry. The existence of young star aggregates at such extreme distances from the Galactic center challenges the commonly accepted scenario in which the Galactic disc has a sharp cut-off at about 14 kpc from the Galactic center, and indicates that it extends to much greater distances (as also supported by recent detection of CO molecular complexes well beyond this distance). While the groups we find in the area of Ruprecht~30 are compatible with the Orion and Norma-Cygnus spiral arms, respectively, the distant group we identify in the region of VdB-Hagen~4 lies in the external regions of the Norma-Cygnus arm, at a galactocentric distance ($\sim$20 kpc) where no young stars had been detected so far in the optical.Comment: 45 pages, 11 eps figure, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Learning service leadership through service-learning : anxieties, opportunities and insights

Lingnan University (LU) is one of 8 tertiary institutions in Hong Kong that have received sponsorship for undergraduate students to acquire knowledge and develop attributes relating to service leadership. Service leadership may be conceptualized as leadership for service, exercised through distributed authority, aimed at identifying and meeting genuine needs of service recipients. Building on prior experience of embedding service-learning projects into discipline-based credit bearing courses, in term 1, 2012-13, LU introduced service leadership through service-learning into four courses. A predominantly qualitative, critical-incident approach was adopted to study processes of students’ learning on these courses. Data were collected through open-ended team reflection and self-reflection pro-formas, a peer review rubric, and focus group meetings. Findings suggest that service-learning projects can be powerful vehicles for learning and practicing service leadership attributes. Positive learning outcomes reported by students included: increased skills of oral communication, relationship building, time management and problem solving; and greater personal discipline, emotional intelligence, empathy for disadvantaged people and cross-cultural awareness. Students mentioned the importance of mutual care and support in teams, of formative feedback from host agencies/enterprises; of being appreciated by end service recipients; and of turning cultural diversity among team members into a powerful resource. We shall draw on an established model of competence development (Robinson, 1974; Wilhelm, 2011) to analyze students’ reported experiences. In terms of unconscious learning needs, students seemed relatively insensitive to the particular expectations of gatekeepers in their host organization and the constraints that they were facing, and rather than attempting to understand nuances and tensions within the service recipient habitat/ecosystem, they tended to fix their attention on the concerns of end-user service recipients. In terms of conscious learning needs, some teams became aware of the inadequacy of the traditional autocratic leadership paradigm, but appeared not to fully grasp the principles and practices of distributed leadership, while some students noticed service leadership qualities in other team members that they perceived were lacking in themselves. In terms of conscious competence, some students came to recognize their own talents in certain areas through taking initiatives to overcome difficulties. We discuss implications

Ethical issues concerning the experience of representational predicaments at work

Representational predicaments refer to situations in which job incumbents believe that dominant authorities are holding incomplete or otherwise incorrect work-related assumptions about them. We carried out qualitative interviews with a diverse and gender-balanced sample of 55 Hong Kong Chinese job incumbents, from whose perspective we identified three broad categories of representational predicament: (1) doing unvalued work; (2) doing thankless work; and (3) being subject to distorted representation. Each category of representational predicament was reported both by female and male informants, with females reporting more representational predicaments than males. Stories of unvalued work referred either to unnoticed and unvalued work, which entailed voluntary care work, or to noticed but unvalued work. Stories of thankless work fell into four subcategories: carrying out a superior’s request believed to be illegitimate; pacifying uncivil service recipients; dealing with subterranean internal obstacles; and conducting informal negotiations with troublesome service recipients/suppliers. Stories about being subject to distorted representation fell into six subcategories: being publicly ridiculed or humiliated; having flaws spotlighted but merits downplayed; receiving misattributed blame; being subject to false or misleading uncorrected allegations; suffering prejudicial stereotyping; and receiving reprimands perceived as unfounded. All but two of the representational predicament stories alleged or implied at least one type of ethical problem that concerned breaches of interpersonal justice; violations of, or threats to procedural justice; or indifference toward, or neglect of, the ethics of care. It is inferred that representational predicaments are symptoms of poor ethical climates