Understanding the Future of Native Values at an Alaska Native Corporation Gail Cheney Antioch University - Phd Program in Leadership and Change
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Antioch University AURA - Antioch University Repository and Archive Student & Alumni Scholarship, including Dissertations & Theses Dissertations & Theses 2014 Understanding the Future of Native Values at an Alaska Native Corporation Gail Cheney Antioch University - PhD Program in Leadership and Change Follow this and additional works at: http://aura.antioch.edu/etds Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons, Leadership Studies Commons, and the Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons Recommended Citation Cheney, Gail, "Understanding the Future of Native Values at an Alaska Native Corporation" (2014). Dissertations & Theses. 81. http://aura.antioch.edu/etds/81 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Student & Alumni Scholarship, including Dissertations & Theses at AURA - Antioch University Repository and Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations & Theses by an authorized administrator of AURA - Antioch University Repository and Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. UNDERSTANDING THE FUTURE OF NATIVE VALUES AT AN ALASKA NATIVE CORPORATION GAIL CHENEY A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Ph.D. in Leadership and Change Program of Antioch University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February, 2014 This is to certify that the Dissertation entitled: UNDERSTANDING THE FUTURE OF NATIVE VALUES AT AN ALASKA NATIVE CORPORATION prepared by Gail Cheney is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Leadership and Change. Approved by: ____________________________________________________________________ Carolyn Kenny, Ph.D., Chair date ____________________________________________________________________ Mitch Kusy, Ph.D., Committee Member date ____________________________________________________________________ Jon Wergin, Ph.D., Committee Member date ____________________________________________________________________ Thomas Thornton, Ph.D., External Reader date Copyright 2014 Gail Cheney All rights reserved Acknowledgments It is with great humility that I acknowledge and thank those who have helped me complete this dissertation. Each person listed provided at least one and sometimes multiple types of support ranging from technical and academic expertise to personal encouragement, inspiration, and unrelenting carping as required. I would like say, “Howaa” (Thank You) in my Haida Language to my committee chair, Carolyn Kenny. Professor Kenny guided without pressure, questioned through true curiosity and helped ensure that I approached this project with the right intention as well as appropriate research structure. Professor Kenny led by example, as a humble and generous teacher and mentor. Each member of my committee deserves appreciation as well, I appreciate the time, commitment, academic engagement, and encouragement each member provided throughout this process. Most especially, I would like to thank the late Dr. Robert Textor for his willingness to share the research method he developed, the Ethnographic Futures Research Method, for me to use in this study. Dr. Textor himself taught me the method as well as served for a time on my dissertation committee. In addition, Dr. Textor allowed me to include the materials he used when teaching this method as part of this final dissertation. I believe this method will be very useful in Indigenous Research into the future. Gunalcheesh (Thank You) in my Tlingit Language to Sealaska Corporation. Sealaska provided funding for several years of my Ph.D. program and allowed me to complete this dissertation research within and on the topic of integrating Native values into the corporation. I thank the community of Kake, Alaska, all my relatives, for providing the motivation to i continue in my studies. My thanks to my parents for their love and support. My father, I thank for helping me to learn to be objective and to look at the world through multiple lenses. To my mother, thank you for the constant tie you provide to my culture, my family, and my community. To my sister, thank you for challenging me to always find a better way. To my husband, thank you for everything, for the time you relinquished so I could work as well as study, for the encouragement you gave without fail and for the vision that you had that I could complete this accomplishment. Although, I can go further and thank many others, I want to close with my inspiration from my grandparents. From my grandmother to earn an education and from my Grandfather who said, “We walk in two worlds, we must take the best of both.” ii Abstract This dissertation frames the first step on a journey toward understanding the current and future place that Native values have in an Alaska Native Corporation, a context of value conflict, resolution, adaptation, and change. My dissertation strives to answer the question, “What is the future of Native Values at Sealaska?” To carry out this study, I utilized the Ethnographic Futures Research Method (EFR) developed by Dr. Robert Textor. EFR, as a method, asks individuals to envision a pessimistic, optimistic, and probable future along with strategies to move the probable future more toward the optimistic vision. EFR is an innovative and unique way to study Native values at a corporate organizational level. I expected the process to result in a collective vision of what Sealaska could be like in 15 years if Native values are integrated as envisioned based on individual interviews and collective discussion of aggregated interview scenario compilation. However, instead it provides the foundation of that strategic foundation for the future of Sealaska. This research revealed a set of tangible, culturally relevant options that can now be discussed and developed into a focus for the future of Sealaska as well as a proposed process to reach that agreement. The dissertation strives to provide meaningful long- range strategic objectives to weave into the evolutionary strategic plan. This dissertation is accompanied by a MP4 video file that is referred to within the text. The video outlines motivation for author’s selection of the topic. The electronic version of this dissertation is at Ohiolink ETD Center, http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd iii Table of Contents Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................ i Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..ix List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. x List of Supplemental Files ............................................................................................................. xi Chapter I: Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 The Purpose and Importance of Research ...................................................................................... 1 Dissertation Question ...................................................................................................................... 3 Researcher Positioning .................................................................................................................... 4 Literature Review Overview ........................................................................................................... 8 Structure of Dissertation ................................................................................................................. 9 Scope and Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter II: Literature Review ....................................................................................................... 11 Alaska Native Corporation Research-Literature Review ............................................................. 11 Indigenous Values/Alaska Native Values ..................................................................................... 17 Values Conflict at the Organizational Level ................................................................................. 20 Search Strategy ............................................................................................................................. 20 Gaps in Values Research .............................................................................................................. 21 Definitions and Taxonomies ......................................................................................................... 23 Defining Values. ....................................................................................................................... 23 iv Work Values.. ........................................................................................................................... 25 Cultural Values. ........................................................................................................................ 26 Dimensions of Values. .............................................................................................................