Matching Items (14)
Description
In response to the rapid rise of emerging markets, shorter product lifecycles, increasing global exchange and worldwide competition, companies are implementing `sustainable development' as a mechanism by which to maintain competitive global advantage. Sustainable product development approaches used in industry focus mainly on environmental issues, and to a certain extent on social and economic aspects. Unfortunately, companies have often ignored or are unsure of how to deal with the cultural dimensions of sustainable product development. Multi-nationals expanding their business across international boundaries are agents of cultural change and should be cognizant of the impact their products have on local markets. Companies need to develop a deeper understanding of local cultures in order to design and deliver products that are not only economically viable but also culturally appropriate. To demonstrate applicability of cultural appropriate design, this research undertakes a case study of food systems in India specifically focusing on the exchange of fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV). This study focuses on understanding the entire supply chain of FFV exchange, which includes consumer experiences, distribution practices and production processes. This study also compares different distribution channels and exchange practices and analyzes the pattern of authority between different players within the distribution network. The ethnographic methods for data collection included a photo-journal assignment, shop-along visits, semi-structured interviews, a participatory design activity and focus group studies. The study revealed that traditional retail formats like pushcart vendors, street retailers and city retail markets are generally preferred over modern retail stores. For consumers, shopping is a non-choreographed activity often resulting in exercising, socializing and accidental purchases. Informal communication, personal relationships and openness to bargaining were important aspects of the consumer-retailer relationship. This study presents cultural insights into interactions, artifacts and contexts relevant to FFV systems in India. It also presents key implications for the field of design, design research, cultural studies, consumer research and sustainability. The insights gained from this study will act as guidelines for designers, researchers and corporations interested in designing products and services that are culturally appropriate to contexts of production, distribution and consumption.
ContributorsDhadphale, Tejas (Author) / Giard, Jacques (Thesis advisor) / Boradkar, Prasad (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The People's Republic of China's inexorable ascendancy has become an epochal event in international landscape, accentuated by its triple national ceremonies of global significance: 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, 2009 Beijing Military Parade, and 2010 Shanghai World Expo. At a momentous juncture when the PRC endeavored to project a new national identity to the outside world, these ceremonial occasions constitute a high-stake communicative opportunity for the Chinese government and a fruitful set of discursive artifacts for symbolic deconstruction and rhetorical interpretation. To unravel these ceremonial spectacles, a public memory approach, with its versatile potencies indexical of a nation's interpretive system of social meaning, its normative framework of ideological model, and its past-present-future interrelationships, is contextually, conceptually, and analytically diagnostic of a rising China's sociopolitical constellations. Thus employing public memory as a conceptual-methodological matrix, my dissertation focuses on the prominent texts in these ceremonies, excavates their historico-memorial invocation and sociocultural persuasion, and plumbs their discursive agenda, rhetorical operation, and sociopolitical implication. I argue that the Chinese government deliberately and forcefully strove for three interrelated communicative objectives at these three ceremonies--re-imaging, re-asserting, and re-anchoring its national identity as an ancient, emergent superpower. Yet in contemporary Chinese context, its discursive (con)quest to recast its leadership as a historically continuous, culturally orthodox, and ideologically legitimate regime has always been compromised by its mythologized historical representation and hegemonic rhetorical reconfiguration, countervailed by its political and ideological fragility, and contested by domestic and global publics. Besides its contributions to the current conversation on the PRC's ceremonial phenomena, discursive formations, and communicative dynamics, this dissertation further offers its diagnosis and prognostication of this projected leading country in the 21st century.
ContributorsGong, Jie (Author) / Brouwer, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Wu, Xu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation examines the organizational discourse of business meetings in a Kuwaiti financial organization (Innovative Kuwait Co., pseudonym) and an American non-profit trade organization (Global Phoenix, pseudonym). Specifically, I explore the discourse and social identities, agency, and power used in staff members' task-oriented business meetings (Bargiela-Chiappini & Harris, 1997). The study is based on ethnographic business meetings data collected during eight months of fieldwork in 2010, 2011 and 2012. I used three major qualitative methodologies: observation, audio recording, and feedback focus group. In this study, I propose three research questions: 1) How does agency of staff members reflect membership in the corporate culture of an organization as a whole? 2) How is power used in relation to agency in business meetings? And 3) How are discourse and social identities of staff members enacted in business meetings? The analyses of ethnographic and fieldwork data demonstrate similar and different business linguistic behaviors in the two companies. In Innovative Kuwait Co., male managers are responsible for opening and closing the meetings. They also perform power by using language directives and suggestions directed to staff members. In contrast, female staff members in the Kuwaiti company participated insignificantly in meetings and produce more nonverbal cues. However, in one meeting, a female manager organized the discussion by controlling topics and giving directions. In Global Phoenix, female managers outnumber their male counterparts; therefore, agency, power, discourse, and social identities are performed differently. Female managers are responsible for opening and closing the meetings and for organizing the overall discussions. Additionally, female and male staff members participate equally and they interrupted their colleagues less frequently compared to staff members in Kuwait. Interestingly, American staff members laugh and joke more together than staff members in Kuwait. The findings of this dissertation will contribute to existing linguistic literature on business discourse and the examination of social meanings and structures in organizations, explaining how language shapes the actions and relationships of business staff members. This dissertation will also encourage business people to become mindful of the role of language and language training in developing and maintaining the corporate culture of their organizations.
ContributorsAlHaidari, Fatma M. (Author) / Adams, Karen L (Thesis advisor) / Prior, Matthew (Committee member) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation explores South Asian American (SAA) emerging adult daughters' roles as their parents' reluctant confidants and mediators of conflict. Using Petronio's (2002) communication privacy management theory (CPM) as a framework, this dissertation investigates daughters' communicative strategies when engaged in familial roles. Findings from 15 respondent interviews with SAA women between the ages of 18 and 29 reveal daughters' intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for role-playing within their families, such as inherent satisfaction and parental expectations, respectively. Additionally, findings highlight daughters' use of coping and thwarting strategies after they become the recipients of their parents' unsolicited private information. Namely, daughters engaged in coping strategies (e.g., giving advice) to help their parents manage private information. Likewise, they enacted thwarting strategies (e.g., erecting territorial markers) to restore boundaries after their parents (the disclosers) violated them. Consequently, serving as parental confidants and mediators contributed to parent-child boundary dissolution and adversely affected daughters' well-being as well as their progression toward adulthood. This study provides theoretical contributions by extending CPM theory regarding reluctant confidants within the contexts of emerging adult child-parent relationships and ethnic minority groups in America. Practically, this study offers emerging adult children insight into how they might renegotiate boundaries when their parents change the relationship by disclosing personal information. Information gleaned from this study provides SAA emerging adult daughters with an understanding of the ramifications of prioritizing their familial roles and being a reluctant confidant, in addition to potential avenues for remediation.
ContributorsNemmers, Geeta Khurana (Author) / Alberts, Janet K (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Christopher, F. Scott (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Abstract Piecing Together Peace: Do AIESEC International Internships Promote Global Peace by Fostering Individuals' Cosmopolitan Identity Eryn Spence The mission and vision of AIESEC (L'Association Internationale d'Etudiants dans les Sciences Economiques et Commerciales or the International Association of Students in the Economic and Commercial Sciences) are conducive to the cration of cosmopolitan sensibilities in the program's participants. Cosmopolitanism was first posited as an ideology by Diogenes of Sinope, and since this time, numerous forms of cosmopolitanism have eveolved, mainly focusing on the promotion of the idea of global citizenship, rather than allegiance to a single nation, group of people, or cultural ideology. This paper seeks to address AIESEC's success in promoting these sentiments in participants who take on international interships designed to foster cross-cultural relations and understanding on an individual level.
ContributorsSpence, Eryn (Author) / Peskin, Victor (Committee member) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2011-05
Description
This dissertation examines the artistic side of dialogic interventions through a meeting designthat combines music-making and storytelling. I facilitated six dialogues across four
collectives with 20 participants. During the dialogue, each participant played a musical
instrument called the handpan while simultaneously telling a story. Within two days of the
meetings, participants described their experience of the dialogue through qualitative
interviews and drawings. Findings show that fusing art with dialogue facilitated trust by
creating conditions for relaxation, playfulness and presence. The dialogue also invited
invitational reflexivity and relationality, which may contribute to group flourishing. The
majority of participants felt heartfelt connections during moments of emotional
convergence. Those who did not connect to anyone experienced uncontrolled mental noise
and cautiousness. The study shows how the fusion of art and dialogue may
facilitate trust, dialogic moments, and relational outcomes that could contribute to the
relationality and inclusivity of a collective.
ContributorsDurón Delfín, Florencia (Author) / Tracy, Sarah J (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Barge, Kevin J (Committee member) / Rohd, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Film and emotional contagion: audiencing, witnessing, and performing the Lingua Franca of compassion
Description
Utilizing visual semiotics and performance theories as a backdrop to inform a discussion regarding entertainment education and community dialogue, this study explores a unique case of compassionate communication being enacted at the most crucial moment – facing a school shooter at the height of a critical juncture. Through narrative film techniques and dramatism, a recreation of the real-life event was re-framed and distilled into a documentary-style film to showcase to general audiences for the purpose of dialogue catalyzation and elicitation. The film acts as a provocative statement for the process of conducting a Civil Dialogue® with the viewing audience. Qualitative analysis of 12 dialogue groups and 15 individual interviews (primarily college students) explores the impact film has on viewers’ perceptions, their participation in dialogue, and the role of affect when it comes to communicating with others. Findings suggest a positive correlation between film, emotional engagement, and dialogue participation, with significant impact on viewer’s perceptions and indications of influencing anticipated future behavior. Additional findings and analysis reveal a cultural master narrative of “fight or flight” syndrome, and a tendency toward spectacle or doing things “for show.” Novel concepts such as visual capital and performative cognition emerge to inform a new arts-based method and the development of a theory referred to as the Tuff-Hill Phenomenon.
ContributorsFisher, Rosalie Michelle (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Committee member) / Olson, Clark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This dissertation aimed to identify the factors that facilitated the friendship initiation, development, and maintenance between Taiwanese and Chinese students and the influential relationship among those factors. Nine Taiwanese and nine Chinese students studying at one Taiwanese university were recruited for this study. The Chinese students were in Taiwan for at least two years. The participants were friends with the other party for at least 8 months. This study was divided into three stages. In the first stage, participants were required to provide factors that facilitated their friendship with the other party. Fifty ideas were collected. In the second stage, participants were asked to clarify those factors and then categorize those factors. Fourteen categories were identified in this stage. The participants, then, voted on factors that affected their friendship formation, development, and maintenance with other party. Fifteen factors were voted the highest among those factors. Those 15 factors were imported into interpretive structure modeling (ISM) software for the next stage. In the third stage, 18 one-on-one interviews were conducted, and 18 ISM diagrams were generated. ISM provided a method to identify the influential relationship among those factors. According to the results, the friendship formation model was proposed. Five stages were identified in this model: exploring, matching, engaging, deepening and bonding.
ContributorsChen, Tzu-Chiao (Author) / Broome, Benjamin (Thesis advisor) / Martin, Judith (Committee member) / Romero, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
ABSTRACT
This study sought to inform the curriculum of crew resource management (CRM) for multi-pilot flight deck operations. The CRM curriculum requires continued reexamination to ensure safe flight in the changing demographic of flight decks in the US. The study calls attention to the CRM curriculum’s insufficient inclusion of robust training components to address intercultural communication skills and conflict management strategies.
Utilizing a phenomenological approach, the study examined the communicative experiences of African American female military and airline transport pilots on the flight deck and within the aviation industry. Co-cultural theory was used as a theoretical framework to investigate these co-researcher’s (pilots) experiences. A parallel goal of the investigation was to better understand raced and gendered communication as they occur in this specific context—the flight deck of US airlines and military aircraft.
The researcher conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews and shadowed two co-researchers (pilots) for a period of days and built a relationship with them over the course of one year. Eight years of preparation working in the airline industry situated the researcher for this study. The researcher collected stories and interviews during this time immersed in industry. The data collected offers initial insights into the experiences of non-dominant group members in this unique organizational environment.
The study’s findings are reported in the form of a creative
arrative nonfiction essay. This effort was twofold: (1) the narrative served to generate a record of experiences for continued examination and future research and (2) created useful data and information sets accessible to expert and non-expert audiences alike.
The data supports rationalization as a co-cultural communication strategy, a recent expansion of the theory. Data also suggests that another strategy—strategic alliance building—may be useful in expanding the scope of co-cultural theory. The proposed assertive assimilation orientation identifies the intentional construct of alliances and warrants further investigation.
This study sought to inform the curriculum of crew resource management (CRM) for multi-pilot flight deck operations. The CRM curriculum requires continued reexamination to ensure safe flight in the changing demographic of flight decks in the US. The study calls attention to the CRM curriculum’s insufficient inclusion of robust training components to address intercultural communication skills and conflict management strategies.
Utilizing a phenomenological approach, the study examined the communicative experiences of African American female military and airline transport pilots on the flight deck and within the aviation industry. Co-cultural theory was used as a theoretical framework to investigate these co-researcher’s (pilots) experiences. A parallel goal of the investigation was to better understand raced and gendered communication as they occur in this specific context—the flight deck of US airlines and military aircraft.
The researcher conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews and shadowed two co-researchers (pilots) for a period of days and built a relationship with them over the course of one year. Eight years of preparation working in the airline industry situated the researcher for this study. The researcher collected stories and interviews during this time immersed in industry. The data collected offers initial insights into the experiences of non-dominant group members in this unique organizational environment.
The study’s findings are reported in the form of a creative
arrative nonfiction essay. This effort was twofold: (1) the narrative served to generate a record of experiences for continued examination and future research and (2) created useful data and information sets accessible to expert and non-expert audiences alike.
The data supports rationalization as a co-cultural communication strategy, a recent expansion of the theory. Data also suggests that another strategy—strategic alliance building—may be useful in expanding the scope of co-cultural theory. The proposed assertive assimilation orientation identifies the intentional construct of alliances and warrants further investigation.
ContributorsZirulnik, Michael L. (Author) / Alberts, Janet (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin (Thesis advisor) / Gutkind, Lee (Committee member) / Orbe, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This study aims to deepen the understanding of how Third Culture Kids (TCKs) receive and maintain long-term perceptions of positive identity. The literature review surveys bodies of research related to Third Culture Kids, intercultural communication conceptions of identity, and communication strategies of identity management. The research framework is a response to Martin and Nakayama’s (2010) call for a dialectical approach to the study of intercultural communication, and reflects an interpretive/critical/activist dialectic paradigm.
This qualitative multi-method research project gathered survey, interview, and visual data through online platforms. Participants were TCKs over age 40 who self-selected as having a positive identity. A modified grounded analysis revealed several key findings connected to agency development, choice making, communication filters, and framing of positivity. Factors contributing to characteristics of a positive identity included sending organization, total number and frequency of moves, and degrees of difference among their cultural contexts.
This qualitative multi-method research project gathered survey, interview, and visual data through online platforms. Participants were TCKs over age 40 who self-selected as having a positive identity. A modified grounded analysis revealed several key findings connected to agency development, choice making, communication filters, and framing of positivity. Factors contributing to characteristics of a positive identity included sending organization, total number and frequency of moves, and degrees of difference among their cultural contexts.
ContributorsJung, Amy Christine (Author) / Broome, Benjamin (Thesis advisor) / Martin, Judith (Committee member) / Tracy, Sarah (Committee member) / Cottrell, Anna (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016