A Māori Model of Leadership Practice

He Waka Hiringa (HWH) is a Masters of Applied Indigenous Knowledge offered as a programme of two years’ study by Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. The main pre-requisite for enrolment in to this graduate degree is for the student to be a master of their own practice, whatever that practice may be. In other words, they are already leaders in their own field of practice. My task is to help them clarify how they indigenise their practice; introduce them to academic processes to achieve the rangahau (research) around this and encourage them to create their own Models of Practice (MsOP) to guide them as they work with students or clients. In six years three cohorts of students have succesfully graduated through my encouragement in the development and approval of about 100 different new MsOP, each unique in its own way. These add to the use by graduates of HWH to models such as Whare Tapatoru ( Wi Te Tau Huata Snr. 1967, personal communication), Whare Tapawhā (Durie, M. 1984), Te Wheke (Pere, R. 1997) and Poutama Pōwhiri (Huata, P. 2011) to name a few well known MsOP. In terms of a Leadership MOP I have not seen a better model than that created by Te Wairere Te Pūāwaitanga o te Whakaaro Ngaia (my youngest child and daughter) to fulfil the requirements of her Masters in Management Communications and Te Reo Māori (Māori Language) graduate degree at The University of Waikato. I am going to use her MOP for leadership in competitive Kapa Haka[1] (Māori performing arts) as my model in this delivery with her permission. The title comes from a waiata-ā-ringa (action song) composed by one of her tuākana (older sisters), Te Ingo Karangaroa Ngaia, entitled ‘He Rākau Taumatua!’[2], for their whānau (family) kapa haka, Te Haona Kaha. [1] I use capital letters when talking about the art form and small letters when talking about a group that does the art form. [2] “He rākau taumatua” was first performed as a whakawātea by Te Haona Kaha kapa haka at the Tainui Waka Cultural Trust Regional Kapa Haka competitions in 2016.

It's in the Vault

This chapter is a case study of the rebuild of Shopify's internal wiki (intranet) and describes the approach of updating the wiki and explores the elements that made the project a success. The problems with the existing tool are presented along with the strategies used to remedy these issues and rebuild the wiki. The project harnessed Shopify's culture of trust, accountability, and transparency to create a tool authentic to the needs of the company. At the heart of the project's approach is the people, process, and technology trifecta that the project team was built upon. This cross-functional team intersected change management, communications, knowledge management, and developers. Readers of this chapter will learn the approach and methodology of composing a project team based on this trifecta and how it led to the successful rebuild of Shopify's wiki. Although Shopify had the opportunity to build its tool internally, this chapter is not a showcase of the tool; the focus is on the approach and strategies of the project team, which can be applied to any intranet-like project.

Evacuation or Shelter in Place in Assisted Living: Adherence to Emergency Evacuation Orders for Hurricane Dorian

Hurricane Dorian devastated parts of the Bahamas in 2019 with 185-mph winds. As it moved toward Florida, the state went on alert. This paper examines whether assisted living communities (ALCs) in affected counties evacuated or sheltered in place in the context of emergency management communications concerning evacuation. In 16 coastal counties, 66 ALCs were under mandatory evacuation orders, but 12 sheltered in place. Of 603 ALCs not under orders, 17 evacuated. Seven ALCs evacuated contrary to orders in one county, which issued a mandatory order Sept. 1, delayed it to Sept. 2 as Dorian weakened, and lifted it Sept. 4. Interviews with ALC administrators and emergency managers will be used to understand more about their decisions. Given prior findings that evacuation (versus sheltering in place) increases the mortality and morbidity risk of long-term care (LTC) residents, this research suggests a need for clearer LTC evacuation standards and communication. Part of a symposium sponsored by Disasters and Older Adults Interest Group.

Top management's communication in economic crisis and the firm's subsequent performance: sentiment analysis approach

PurposeIn economic crisis, where tensions create anxiety and test the emotions of the firms' shareholders, communication from top management is very crucial as it provides the reflection of the managers' interpretation of the firms' situation and potential strategies. The goal of this paper is to investigate the relationships between sentiment, as an aspect of emotions extracted from the letters to shareholders, managerial discretion and the firms' subsequent performance and performance trajectory during crisis.Design/methodology/approachA sentiment analysis was conducted to extract the sentiment from the letters to shareholders, which were collected from firms in two countries with different levels of managerial discretion (US vs. Japan). Hypotheses were developed and tested using a series of regression analysis.FindingsThe primary findings indicate that (1) managerial sentiment identified in letters to shareholders can potentially be related to the firm's subsequent performance in the economic crisis, and (2) managerial discretion moderates the relationship between managerial sentiment and subsequent firm performance.Practical implicationsWhen the managerial discretion is high, firms' shareholders can use the sentiment in top management communications to gauge whether the firms' situation would be improving in the near future.Originality/valueThis study expands the current research on sentiment analysis and firm performance to the context of economic crisis by suggesting that managerial sentiment can be substantially provoked as firms are facing with stressful economic conditions. The study also highlights the moderating role of managerial discretion on the firms' subsequent performance.

Health services restructuring in Alberta and the 2009 pandemic influenza—An untimely concurrence

In the last 12 years, every Canadian province and territory has undertaken significant health services restructuring, with the pace of change accelerating recently. When the H1N1 Pandemic Influenza (PI) hit Alberta in the spring of 2009, the province had just begun a restructuring of health services of a scale unprecedented in Canada. The new province-wide entity, Alberta Health Services (AHS), was faced with mounting an effective response to a global communicable disease outbreak during a time of great organizational flux. In this retrospective, the authors reflect on challenges and opportunities presented during the AHS PI response related to the coordination of public health, laboratory services, emergency and disaster management, communications, and health services delivery. Lessons learned are shared that may be helpful to other provinces and territories as they continue to evolve their systems, so that they may be better prepared to respond to an untimely event such as a pandemic.

Shareholders’ perception of management communications in annual general meetings: narrative or not?

This study investigates management communications in annual general meetings (AGMs) from a narrative perspective. This study evaluates the effective elements of AGMs from the shareholder’s viewpoint. According to the theoretical framework, the authors developed a conceptual model and extracted the suggested narrative model for the first time. The shareholder’s perception was measured through a questionnaire survey containing three sections – narrative, audience, and narrator – with 32 indicators from 151 shareholders measuring shareholders’ opinions about AGMs in Iran. The results indicate that although shareholders do not consider the AGM communications made by management board as a narrative, they obtain relevant information with a logical flow in AGMs, and believe that these relations are useful. The characteristics of the management board impact on the persuasiveness of their communications. The results supported the mediating effect of AGM communication between managers and shareholders

Terrorist Propaganda After the Islamic State

Tactical and technological innovations of one terrorist group often cross-pollinate into other groups with wildly different ideologies and from geographically diverse combat theaters. The aim of this chapter is thus to examine the potential imitation/emulation dynamics that extremist groups (both jihadist and other) might enter following the “success” of the propaganda produced by the Islamic State (IS). The chapter looks at two aspects of this problem: first, to what extent did IS innovate or imitate while producing its propaganda, and, second, how likely is it that IS’s propaganda will constitute a source of imitation for today’s and tomorrow’s violent groups? Drawing on what organizational psychology, business management, communications science, and terrorism studies say regarding creativity and innovation, the chapter highlights the drivers of IS’s innovation and thereby considers the likelihood of their being replicated elsewhere.