Relating Intercultural Communication Sensitivity to Conflict Management Styles,Technology Use,and Organizational Communication Satisfaction in Multinational Organizations in China

This research examines intercultural communication sensitivity in relation to other organizational communication factors in China branches of multinational corporations. We found minor differences existed between Chinese employees with overseas living experience vs. those without any overseas living experience with respect to their intercultural communication sensitivity, conflict management style, technology use, and organizational communication satisfaction. Chinese employees with a higher level of intercultural sensitivity were more satisfied with their organizational communication, tended to use control and solution-oriented conflict management styles, and used different communication technologies in organizational settings.     

Revisiting the Kuen Cheng High School dispute: contestation between gender equality and ethnic nationalism discourses

Abstract

By contextualizing the birth of modern Chinese women’s education as well as Kuen Cheng Girls’ High School (KCGHS) in the ethno nationalistic movement in pre‐independence years, and revisiting the dispute over changing KCGHS into a co‐education establishment in the Chinese education movement background in the post‐independence era, this paper illustrates the paradox of Chinese ethno nationalism, that took expression in modernization since its inception. The dispute over converting Kuen Cheng also shows how women’s education, a product of Chinese ethno nationalism as expressed in modernization and an appeal for equal treatment, has unexpectedly become a drive for democratization, equal treatment and pluralization from within the Chinese education movement in the post‐independence era, and thus makes the idea of gender equality not incompatible with ethno nationalism and Chinese education.     

Resources mitigating the impediment of discrimination to the acculturation success of students migrated to Hong Kong

While discrimination against immigrants and resources for them likely influence immigrants’ acculturation success, how various resources moderate the influence of discrimination has not been clear. Achievement and social integration are indicators of acculturation success. From structural-functionalist theory, resources that mitigate the adverse influence of discrimination are likely to be those functional to the host society or its social integration. Earlier social integration with the host society thus may be a crucial determinant of acculturation success, partly by mitigating the adverse impact of discrimination. Conversely, resources such as welfare reception, affiliation with an organization in the home place, and fluency in the language of host society may aggravate the detriment of discrimination. These expectations are sustainable with a study of secondary school students who migrated from the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong. Among the 1243 students, 416 had come to Hong Kong within 2 years. The supportive findings indicate that acculturation success in the face of discrimination would require early social integration into the host society and disconnection from the home place. Importantly, while fluency in the host language appeared to be conducive to acculturation success, it aggravated the adverse effect of discrimination on the success. Hence, communication in a discriminative context would be dysfunctional to the operation of host society.     

Ecological Influences on Chinese Migrant Mothers’ Integration with Hong Kong

The present study uses an ecological model to understand how personal, interpersonal, and environmental factors contribute to migrant mothers’ employment readiness and their perceived integration with the host society. In the literature, successful employment, especially for recent arrivals, has proven to be important in the acculturation process. Little work has taken into account how various personal characteristics, relational factors (e.g., social capital), and neighborhood features make their contributions simultaneously. To enrich the work, this study employs survey data on 433 Chinese migrant mothers living in three low-income neighborhoods of Hong Kong. Results are supportive of the ecological model. They are favorable to the strengthening of social capital and workplace accessibility as a way to champion migrant women's integration with the host society.     

Family Types and Children's Socio-Communicative Style: A Chinese Investigation

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of family types and gender on children's socio-communicative style in Chinese culture. Three major findings were generated. First, family types affect children's socio-communicative style. Children from consensual and pluralistic family types tend to be more assertive and responsive than children from protective and laissez-faire family types in Chinese culture. Second, Chinese children are more responsive than assertive, and significant gender differences are found in responsiveness, but not in assertiveness. Chinese daughters are more responsive than sons, but they do not differ in assertiveness. Last, the Socio-Communicative Style Scale and the Revised Family Communication Pattern Instrument conform to the two-factor model with a Chinese sample.     

The disposition of hierarchy and the late Qing 'discourse of gender equality'

The global success of the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings franchises has become an entry point for the flow of Western fantasy texts into Taiwan, a society that, over many decades, has been a stronghold for traditional Chinese wuxia texts. While Western concepts, themes and ‘worlds’, are coming to Taiwan, wuxia, defined as fantasy in this essay, in return is making an inroad into Western popular culture. By considering local traditions, reception and consumption habits, this essay analyses the market potential for international fantasy on the island, and provides a theoretical background for understanding the dynamics of this genre in one particular cultural location.     

Discourse on guomin (‘the citizen’) in late Qing China, 1895∼1911 1

Abstract

The term guomin is found in Chinese texts from an early period. However, as commonly used today – as a modern political concept of special value and significance – guomin belongs to a political vocabulary adopted by Chinese intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from Japan’s new usages. The goal of this essay is to explain how this important concept was formed and what it signified. The term guomin has basically conveyed two levels of meaning since the late Qing. In essence, the term is similar to the English word ‘citizenship’, and it reveals a kind of awakening of a new political consciousness on the part of Chinese intellectuals since the late Qing. Through the discourse of guomin, they began to emphasize the subjectivity of each individual in the national political process, along with all of their rights and duties. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the criticisms and reflections of Chinese intellectuals about traditional politics, society and culture, and thought have basically developed along the lines of the logic of ‘turning subjects into citizens’. However, the pursuit of a strong nation‐state under a civil crisis sparked by foreign pressure marked the historical conditions that generated the modern Chinese guomin discourse. Limited by this kind of ‘national identity,’ the discourse and construction of guomin since the late Qing have never been able to escape the shadow of the state. Under these ideological conditions, guomin could only become a means of the nationalist project for survival; it could never become an autonomous and universal category. Guomin, as it turns out, has been, and still remains, ‘the people of the state’.     

Free Trade and Print Culture: Political Communication in Early Nineteenth-Century England

This article highlights the potency of traditional popular print culture as a form of political communication for one of the pioneering campaigns of the nineteenth century: the free trade agitation of the 1840s. Contributing to recent debates about Victorian political communication, it challenges the view that the spread of literacy and print replaced a more traditional, inclusive, hybrid style of communication. The use and adaptation of broadside culture that blurred literacy, orality and visuality proved to be a more effective means of communicating free trade to popular audiences than ‘modern’ methods of political communication such as official newspapers or mass propaganda. Joseph Livesey, the most successful free trade populariser, was able to bridge the gap between free trade and Chartism, by drawing on elements of radical print culture, while seeking to shift them onto a more respectable trajectory. Livesey and cheap free trade print culture anticipated the shift from popular radicalism to popular liberalism in political culture and popular politics that occurred after 1850.     

A communication approach to the acculturation process: A study of Korean immigrants in Chicago

This paper explores a theoretical and methodological basis for studying foreign immigrants' acculturation processes from a communication perspective. Communication patterns of immigrants are conceptualized on three levels — behavioral, attitudinal, and perceptual. The behavioral level of communication includes the immigrant's participation in communication channels of the host society as well as the ethnic community. The perceptual level refers to the immigrant's cognitive structure in perceiving the host society. The attitudinal level is examined by the immigrant's affective-evaluative orientation toward the host society. The three levels of communication patterns were empirically investigated in a survey of 400 randomly selected Koreans in the Chicago area. The communication variables were assessed through composite scores using questionnaire items that were tested for reliability. The results show an overall linear trend in the immigrant's interethnic communication with Americans, positive attitude toward Americans, cognitive complexity in perceiving the American society, and satisfaction level. A simultaneous increase is observed in the immigrant's interpersonal communication with Americans and with other Koreans. The immigrant's use of ethnic media rapidly decreases over the years while that of American media steadily increases. Findings are discussed in comparison to previous studies of foreign immigrants and students and to sociological theories of acculturation of minority groups.     

Communication Experiences and Adaptation of Mainland Chinese in Hong Kong and Hong Kong Chinese in Mainland China

In-depth interviews were conducted for 203 Hong Kong Chinese in Mainland China (HIM) and 198 Mainland Chinese in Hong Kong (MIH), followed by two-level theme analyses, to examine their communication experiences and adaptation. The two groups were found to be dissimilar in terms of socioeconomic status, purpose of migration, and process of adaptation. Many HIM tended to evaluate the new environment from a “new workplace” view, mentioning adjustment and communication at workplace. Most MIH, on the other hand, used a “new home” approach, expecting a happy life with good income. The major challenge for most HIM was getting used to a less developed physical environment and an organizational culture with lower efficiency and work ethics. For most MIH, the main source of hardship came from insufficient protection for workers’ rights and interests. Hong Kong is more urbanized with superficial relationships while the Mainland society is more communal, nurturing long-term relationships.     

Yin Xiaofeng： Wonder of Behavior

Behavior art is an artistic genre of post-modernism flourishing in the 1960s and 70s in the West, and it has been imitated, explored and developed by avant-garde Chinese contemporary artists ever since the late 1980s. Some of them devote themselves so wholeheartedly to pursue and experiment it tnat graoually they have out their unique style and attracted attention home and abroad. Yin Xiaofeng, a gifted young artist from Chengdu, dramatically demonstrates the wonder and power of behavior art by harmoniously contrasting the ancient and the contemporary, the traditional and the modern, the Chinese and the Western, with his wit, his thought, his body and those rubbles buried in ruins for thousands of years...[第一段]     

Independence and obedience in the United States and Japan

Are some Americans and Japanese beginning to think more similarly about independence and obedience? Middle-class adult respondents from the suburbs of Chicago and Tokyo (U.S.: 43 males and 54 females: Japan: 71 males and 80 females) were surveyed about their sex-role values. This report focuses on two values which have been recognised as constituting fundamental differences between Japanese and Americans: personal independence and obedience. The survey used a metric multidimensional scaling technique called Galileo^®. Analyses of the data and results of other comparative studies suggest that any convergence taking place between the two societies is occurring primarily within American society. There is growing evidence, including the findings of this study, that Americans are moving away from their traditional stress on the importance of the individual in society. The Japanese respondents did show a more liberal conceptualization of the ideal woman with respect to obedience, however, there was no indication that this less traditional image of women extended to their other traditional roles in society.     

Culture and Classroom Communication: A Pilot Study in the Post-Soviet Republic of Armenia

Using participant observations and informal interviews, the study examined whether and how classroom communication in Armenia reflects Armenian culture and history, including the Soviet influence for close to seven decades and Armenia’s transition from one socio-politico-economic system to another, followed by internationalization of education and globalization. Findings of the study revealed three major themes that have impacted the classroom communication style: courtesy, immediacy, solidarity. While consistent in some ways with Soviet communism, these themes may have also been influenced by Armenia’s traditional and family-centered culture and history which predate Soviet communism, as well as by internationalization of education and globalization.     

Verbal and nonverbal indices of the communicative performance and acculturation of Chinese immigrants

This paper develops a theoretical framework for examining the acculturation process of immigrants. Focusing on communication variables, it suggests five levels of analysis for assessing acculturation as a continuous rather than dichotomous variable: the speech act level, ritualistic communication, strategic communication, the organization of conversational discourse, and verbal information processing. Examples from research on Chinese communication are utilized to illustrate important differences between Chinese and Americans at each level of analysis. The use of this perspective offers the twofold promise of improving our understanding of “acculturation processes” in general as well as our understanding of the particular everyday communicative actions of immigrant groups. Research on Chinese communication patterns using this perspective will increase our knowledge of Chinese and American interrelations, in addition to providing insight aimed at developing better indices of acculturation of Chinese in the United States.     

‘Wandering men’ no longer wander around: the production and transformation of local homosexual identities in contemporary Chengdu,China

Abstract

This paper focuses on the production and transformation of homosexual identities in Chengdu under the background of Chinese society in transition. From a constructionist perspective, I complicate the identity construction process by examining the interaction of three male homosexual identities found in the local context – piao piao, tongzhi, and gay. While gay men in present‐day Chengdu often use piao piao, tongzhi, and gay interchangeably, these terms entail different cultural references and political connotations. I argue that the piao piao identity serves as a critical linkage between the traditional imagination of male homosexuality and the modern gay identities, while the tongzhi identity facilitates the shift of Chinese homosexuality from behavior to identity, and contributes to the development of gay communities in present‐day China.     

The Media Archaeology of File Sharing: Broadcasting Computer Code to Swedish Homes

What form did file sharing take before the internet’s usage became mainstream, and what practices from that period remain? This article examines a Swedish radio show that broadcast listener-contributed computer code in the mid 1980s. It applies a combined theoretical framework of intermediality and sharing theory and argues that this combination is central to the analysis of piracy and social change. The results indicate an interesting paradox in terms of pushing and pulling content as the practice relied on both in public broadcasting as well as with contributing media users. As such, the case of Datorernas värld prefigures how peer interaction and sharing relies on more centralized and controlled channels of communication. The article historically situates themes such as intermediality, surveillance, gender representation, and piracy and provides a piece of computing history that is topical but, strangely, critically ignored.     

Coping with Nonverbal Communication in Public Service Interpreting with Chinese Immigrants

Nonverbal communication (NVC) plays a key role in face-to-face interactions. This article explores how nonverbal communication affects interpreter-mediated interactions between Chinese immigrants living in Catalonia and local public service providers. It presents data obtained from a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with public service interpreters and intercultural mediators, and analyses their experience in coping with nonverbal cues that are the potential source of misunderstanding. Special attention is to the examples of the Chinese smile and absence of eye contact. The conclusions discuss the implications that nonverbal communication may have in defining the role and functions of public service interpreters.     

When feminism encounters New Documentary Movement: an uncompleted academic discussion

This article starts with the “encounter” between feminists in the “International Symposium on Chinese Women and Visual Representation” and Chinese documentary filmmaker Xu Tong’s Wheat Harvest, and explores the viewpoints and standpoints of feminist actors. With the analysis of the similarities and differences between the independent documentary perspective and the feminist stance, the author elaborates more deeply on why Chinese female directors do not have the consciousness of “feminism.” China’s independent documentary shows how the issue of feminism in China is intertwined with China’s various complex socio-political issues. The way of Chinese documentary filmmaker as “living with the bottom rung” is a kind of practical behavior that seeks truth by integrating itself with it. This requires great courage and idealism, as well as social experience. The bottom layer is where the dark side of the society exists which is beyond the law and morality. The question raised is precisely how to promote the development of feminism and documentary together to work for an equal and just society itself. The more urgent task of Chinese feminism is how to rethink the relationship between the reality of China and feminism, and how to re-establish effective dialogue and cooperation with various critical forces in this society. In the historical perspective of the feminism development of China over one century, gender and women's issues have never existed in isolation, but have moved forward with various social and political movements. How to re-examine this historic heritage to face China's problems and crises today is an uncompleted answer that China's feminism must hand over.     

Measuring Communication Styles in the Malaysian Workplace: Instrument Development and Validation

The aim of the present study is to access communication style in the Malaysian workplace through the development and validation of a communication scale appropriate to the Malaysian workplace. The analysis involved data from 200 state development employees, and construct and criterion-related validation using data from 510 employees, representing three organizations in Malaysia. The results provided support for the use of language (pekerti) and communication and interaction (bicara) as crucial communication dimensions for the Malaysian workplace, which are identified from the item-generation procedure.