Discursive Leadership: Exploring the "Black Box" Challenge in Transcultural Leadership Studies
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University of San Diego Digital USD Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2019-05-19 Discursive Leadership: Exploring the "Black Box" Challenge in Transcultural Leadership Studies Christopher Patrick Brown University of San Diego Follow this and additional works at: https://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations Part of the Discourse and Text Linguistics Commons, International and Intercultural Communication Commons, Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons, and the Leadership Studies Commons Digital USD Citation Brown, Christopher Patrick, "Discursive Leadership: Exploring the "Black Box" Challenge in Transcultural Leadership Studies" (2019). Dissertations. 146. https://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations/146 This Dissertation: Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Digital USD. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital USD. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DISCURSIVE LEADERSHIP: EXPLORING THE “BLACK BOX” CHALLENGE IN TRANSCULTURAL LEADERSHIP STUDIES by Christopher Patrick Brown A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2019 Dissertation Committee Fred Galloway, Ed.D. Robert Donmoyer, Ph.D. Afsaneh Nahavandi, Ph.D. Robyn Walker, Ph.D. University of San Diego University of San Diego School of Leadership and Education Sciences CANDIDATE’S NAME: Christopher Brown TITLE OF DISSERTATION: DISCURSIVE LEADERSHIP: EXPLORING THE “BLACK BOX” CHALLENGE IN TRANSCULTURAL LEADERSHIP STUDIES APPROVAL: _____________________________________, Co-Chair Fred J. Galloway, EdD – _____________________________________, Co-Chair Robert Donmoyer, PhD - _____________________________________, Member Afsaneh Nahavandi, PhD - _____________________________________, Member Robyn Walker, PhD ABSTRACT The increasingly globalized U.S. workforce includes significant numbers of adult immigrants integrating into the North American professional sphere. As such, it is important to have concrete ways to study and interpret different cultures’ thinking about teamwork, and their models of enacting shared leadership and communication in a multicultural context. Since 2006, hundreds of millions in federal grant funding has been invested in university-based language and culture programs focused on training government personnel and heritage populations in the languages and cultures of the Middle East and Central and Southeast Asia. Little is known about the performative strengths and challenges of the culturally diverse project teams that so often staff these grant programs. Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants’ understanding and definitions of constructs like leadership, authority, and teamwork, are not well represented in contemporary leadership studies scholarship. Given this, there are few actionable best practices to implement when leading or working in and among culturally diverse teams. To address this issue, the study analyzed and compared 12 participants’ perceptions on the nature of leadership, authority, teamwork, and communication in both their cultures of origin and in their experiences in the U.S. It also examined participants’ workplace discourse produced in the performance of group decision-making tasks. The study entailed analyzing video and audio recorded (a) one-on-one qualitative interviews and (b) group decision-making meetings —with and among Arabic, Afghan, Chinese, and Persian language and culture instructors participating in a federally funded teacher-training program at a public university in the southwestern United States. Interview data were analyzed qualitatively, focusing on participants’ cultural definitions of leadership, authority, teamwork, and professional communications. The group meetings were studied using discourse analysis techniques; the quantitative discourse analysis results were compared with themes that emerged from the qualitative interviews. The results strongly suggest culture’s ability to constrain or liberate individuals’ and groups’ productive participation in team interactions. The discourse data reinforced several important qualitative findings —and also suggested practical implications for leading culturally diverse teams. The overall findings affirm the utility of discourse analysis as a method for studying transcultural leadership, while also highlighting the non-monolithic nature of world cultures. DEDICATION For Leonora, Santiago, and Mateo. As much as this is a product of the mind, it is also very much a product of your hearts. For all the unwavering love, support, and encouragement you have shown me throughout this long process, and always, I cannot offer enough gratitude. I will never stop trying to show you what an amazing gift you all are to me. You have my deepest love, always. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Understanding and communicating across cultures has been an itch I have been trying to scratch for most of my life. When I was 14 years old, an exchange student from Colombia moved into the house next door to me. For a boy growing up in a town of about four thousand people in rural western Michigan, this was a watershed moment of linguistic and cultural awakening. I had begun studying Spanish in school a couple of years prior, and since my new neighbor’s English was not always up to the task of helping her either understand things fully or getting her point across, I began to see first- hand how my still nascent language proficiency could be of value in the real world. When we had our first fight, however, it was not language that broke down; it was culture. The situation I describe above, of relationships built on the use of language, and challenged by the mysteries of culture, repeated numerous times in my life since. In both the professional and personal spheres, communicating effectively across cultures has been both my heartfelt imperative, and an occasional Achilles heel. For this reason, perhaps beyond all others, I have spent the past several years working on this project. I hope the investment of time, energy, and passion is evident. Of course, I am far from the only person who has made significant investments in this project. I need to begin by offering profound thanks to my committee members. Fred Galloway, Ed.D., has been my advisor from the very start of my time in the program. Through hiatuses, readmissions, and many a real life twist and turn along the way, Fred has been a mentor and a friend on all fronts, academic, personal, and professional. I owe a great deal of my progress and relative success in this program to Fred’s genuine and supportive approach to teaching, advising, and most recently co-chairing my dissertation vi committee. The truly unique thing about Fred is that he never fails to account and advocate for his students’ wellbeing in a personal sense. As gifted as he is in the academic domain, it is this persistent care for his students as real people that has struck and influenced me the most in my nearly a decade of work with him. Fred, for all these things, as well as the ones I have certainly failed to mention here, I thank you with all my heart. Of similar influence and support has been Bob Donmoyer, PhD. I was a student in three courses with Bob, and I was positively blown away in each case by his impressive command of all things scholarly, as well as the great pride and care he takes in being an excellent teacher. Of even greater impact, at least for me personally, was Bob’s tremendous commitment and skill as a reader and reviewer of my coursework. I have never sent a draft of my work to Bob without receiving detailed, insightful commentary and suggestions on how to improve and clarify my writing and, by extension, my thinking. Better yet, when the feedback Bob gave was complex, he never failed to make time to meet face to face. These sessions were always helpful, and most often I would leave feeling inspired and empowered to do my best work. Bob, thank you for everything. You have made my experience in SOLES and DLS one of the most positive growth experiences of my life. Studying culture and its relationship to leadership would have not been possible for me without the guidance and support I have received from Afsaneh Nahavandi, PhD. Afsaneh’s own work is significant in the field, and I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity I have had to not just read her work, but to discuss it with her in person. It is truly incredible to me that I have also been fortunate enough to be one of her teaching vii assistants in a Masters-level Organizational Theory course, to present with her at conferences, and to work as part of the Individual Cultural Mindset Inventory (ICMI) project under her leadership. Afsaneh, your generosity and collaborative spirit are among the strongest I have encountered in my nearly two decades of graduate studies. Like so many other students who have had the great good fortune to know you, I owe you so much that I will never be able to repay. I only hope to take advantage of every opportunity to emulate your example that should come my way. Thank you, Afsaneh. Using discourse analysis to study leadership and culture was something I knew I was interested in, but the “how” of it was daunting to me until I encountered the scholarly work of Robyn Walker, PhD, and her colleague Jolanta Aritz, PhD. When I read their co- authored book, Leadership Talk: A Discourse Approach to Leader Emergence, my eyes and mind were abruptly opened. It was like a ray of hope for my aspirations to do a project like this one. Anyone who has ever wanted to undertake a methodologically novel or ambiguous dissertation project will understand that I am in no way exaggerating. When I saw that both Robyn and Jolanta were on the faculty at the University of Southern California, I reached out to express my admiration for their work and to see if they would be willing to meet with me. Not only did they agree to meet, but Robyn generously offered to read my work, even my essays for coursework, and I was fortunate and honored that she accepted my request to participate on my committee.