workplace interaction
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2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David West Brown ◽  
Michael Laudenbach

Abstract This study explores how email is partly shaped by writers’ positions within a corporate structure. This stylistic variation is measurable at scale and can be described by messages’ rhetorical organizations and orientations. The modeling was carried out on a subset of the Enron email corpus, which was processed using the dictionary-based tagger DocuScope. The results identify four stylistic variants (Trained/Technical Support, Decision-Making, Everyday Workplace Interaction, and Engaged Planning), each realizing distinctive combinations of features reflective of their communicative functions. In Trained/Technical Support emails, for example, constellations of words and phrases associated with informational production and facilitation are marshaled in fulfilling routine guidance-seeking and guidance-giving tasks. While writers’ positions motivate stylistic tendencies (e.g., members of upper-level management compose a majority of their messages in the Decision-Making style), all writers avail themselves of a variety of styles, depending on audience and purpose, suggesting that learners might benefit from developing adaptable communicative repertoires.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mariana Lazzaro-Salazar

<p>The field of workplace communication continues to grow, and globalisation has encouraged researchers to focus on the phenomenon of intercultural interaction in multi-cultural workplaces. Usually, but not exclusively, framed within the constructs of Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory, intercultural studies have typically concentrated on instances of miscommunication taking a partial, one-sided account of intercultural workplace interaction. Differing social norms for what constitutes politeness have been a major focus of debate into the merits of politeness theory. Overlapping speech, in particular, is one aspect of workplace interaction that has been long neglected in the field of intercultural workplace interaction research. Moving away from the traditional views in the field, the present study takes a positive stance on the study of the interplay of interactional norms of politeness in intercultural face-to-face workplace interaction and investigates how people from different ethnic backgrounds undertake relational work in naturally-occurring workplace exchanges. As the analytic framework, rapport management (developed by Spencer-Oatey) provides a useful reconceptualisation of linguistic politeness with a greater focus on negotiated interaction. The analysis focuses on the role of overlapping speech in this context of interaction guided by two research questions: 1) how does overlapping speech function in workplace interactions in New Zealand? and 2) how are these overlaps intended and 'perceived' by culturally different interactants? To this end, the data for the present study were drawn from two meetings in a large educational institution in New Zealand. In the first phase of data collection, two meetings were video and audio recorded, from which representative extracts containing overlaps were chosen for analysis. In the second phase, individual stimulated recall interviews were held with the participants with the purpose of eliciting participants' intentions and perceptions regarding the use of overlaps. The findings suggest that this group of instructors operate as a Community of Practice (CofP) rather than as ethnic individualities with shared assumptions and expectations regarding the appropriate use of overlaps to cooperatively construct meaning in interaction. This CofP, it was noted, is also strongly oriented towards the maintenance and enhancement of social harmony in their workplace interaction, which influences the use of overlapping speech as a communicative strategy employed to this end. Overall, the study demonstrates that considering intercultural communication from the perspective of rapport management can provide positive insights into how people from different ethnic backgrounds do relational work as they construct meaning in interaction.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Mariana Lazzaro-Salazar

<p>The field of workplace communication continues to grow, and globalisation has encouraged researchers to focus on the phenomenon of intercultural interaction in multi-cultural workplaces. Usually, but not exclusively, framed within the constructs of Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory, intercultural studies have typically concentrated on instances of miscommunication taking a partial, one-sided account of intercultural workplace interaction. Differing social norms for what constitutes politeness have been a major focus of debate into the merits of politeness theory. Overlapping speech, in particular, is one aspect of workplace interaction that has been long neglected in the field of intercultural workplace interaction research. Moving away from the traditional views in the field, the present study takes a positive stance on the study of the interplay of interactional norms of politeness in intercultural face-to-face workplace interaction and investigates how people from different ethnic backgrounds undertake relational work in naturally-occurring workplace exchanges. As the analytic framework, rapport management (developed by Spencer-Oatey) provides a useful reconceptualisation of linguistic politeness with a greater focus on negotiated interaction. The analysis focuses on the role of overlapping speech in this context of interaction guided by two research questions: 1) how does overlapping speech function in workplace interactions in New Zealand? and 2) how are these overlaps intended and 'perceived' by culturally different interactants? To this end, the data for the present study were drawn from two meetings in a large educational institution in New Zealand. In the first phase of data collection, two meetings were video and audio recorded, from which representative extracts containing overlaps were chosen for analysis. In the second phase, individual stimulated recall interviews were held with the participants with the purpose of eliciting participants' intentions and perceptions regarding the use of overlaps. The findings suggest that this group of instructors operate as a Community of Practice (CofP) rather than as ethnic individualities with shared assumptions and expectations regarding the appropriate use of overlaps to cooperatively construct meaning in interaction. This CofP, it was noted, is also strongly oriented towards the maintenance and enhancement of social harmony in their workplace interaction, which influences the use of overlapping speech as a communicative strategy employed to this end. Overall, the study demonstrates that considering intercultural communication from the perspective of rapport management can provide positive insights into how people from different ethnic backgrounds do relational work as they construct meaning in interaction.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 211-220
Author(s):  
Marcus Farr ◽  
Andrea Macruz ◽  
Alexandre Ulson

AbstractThis paper investigates the role technology and materials play in making meaningful connections between people, architectural space and the workplace. It indicates that design can synergize with responsive technology and material systems to leverage new power for future workplace interaction design. We have created a spatial prototype paired with a series of simulations that act as a proposal to stimulate workplace interaction. The project employs a responsive ceiling that combines a fluid computational pattern with temperature-responsive bi-material laminates with thermochromic coatings and electrically programmed micro-controllers. The project is then connected to a computer code that computes readings based upon ongoing interactions with humans wearing body sensors. The methodology categorizes the simulation results into aroused states and calm states. As the computational patterns and colors change, we are made aware of the relationships between space, technology, and the human sensorium. This conversation brings insight into how we can design more effectively for workplace interactions.


Leadership ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 174271502110158
Author(s):  
Magnus Larsson ◽  
Jonathan Clifton ◽  
Stephanie Schnurr

The concept of authentic leadership is increasingly the focus of much leadership scholarship, and many have called for a review of the basic assumptions that underpin it. Taking an interactional approach to authentic leadership (AL) and using naturally occurring workplace interaction as data, we seek to question two basic assumptions of AL scholarship, namely (1) that authentic leadership emanates from the atomized leader and (2) that there is a causal logic to it so that authentic leadership behaviours are the cause of follower outcomes. Addressing the research questions – what is the nature of the empirical phenomenon that is called AL and where can this be ontologically located? – our findings indicate that these two fundamental assumptions that underpin current AL research are not justified. Rather, what is taken to be AL is better understood as a collective and collaborative achievement, which can neither simply be attributed to the leader nor can the leader’s actions alone lead to follower outcomes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 753-776
Author(s):  
Jonas Risberg ◽  
Gustav Lymer

While it is recognized that instruction between co-workers is a central component of everyday workplace interaction and learning, this study investigates the ways in which such instructional events are practically initiated in interaction. We analyse recordings of everyday work at a radio station, where journalists prepare and broadcast local news. In our data, a distinction can be made between two interactional contexts from which instructional interactions emerge: searches, where one party is looking for a suitable helper; and established interactions, where the initiation of instruction is prefigured by immediate prior interaction. A further finding is that these two contexts are associated with two different ways of initiating instruction. Direct requests are used in established interactions. In searches, we instead find questions regarding the other person’s procedural knowledge – what we term know-how questions. We finally discuss the ways in which instructional configurations are assembled without reference to institutionally defined instructor/instructed roles.


Leadership ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 546-567
Author(s):  
Lise D Arvedsen ◽  
Liv O Hassert

Leadership-in-interaction is a somewhat underdeveloped area of research which to date has concentrated on talk-in-interaction to the detriment of other modalities. Consequently, this paper seeks to illustrate how social actors make use of different modalities to accomplish leadership, which we conceptualize as the creation of direction, alignment, and commitment. Through multimodal conversation analysis this paper explores interactions between actors in virtual contexts, a particularly interesting empirical setting as the context offers specific constraints on everyday workplace interaction. By zooming in on the interaction using transcripts of naturally occurring interaction, we find that the accomplishment of leadership, direction, alignment, and commitment, in a constrained virtual context can appear mundane. However, at the same time the accomplishment of leadership calls for the mobilization of several multimodal resources (both talk and information and communication technology objects). The analysis makes it evident that the actors mobilize objects to draw on their situated affordances, in the accomplishment of direction, alignment, and commitment. With a fine-grained analysis of naturally occurring data, we illustrate that leadership is a collective achievement. We also expand the understanding of leadership in practice, especially in virtual contexts, by demonstrating how actors utilize objects and verbal resources in the co-production of leadership.


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