Judging Expertise Through Communication Styles in Intercultural Collaboration

Recent research on expertise management calls for more attention to the role of communication in expertise recognition. Cultural differences in communication styles can complicate communication of expertise and consequently make expertise recognition more difficult in mixed-culture groups than in same-culture groups. This article reports results from a two-phase study (348 Chinese and non-Asian U.S. citizen [NAUSC] students in the first phase, and 24 four-person groups that consist of both NAUSC and Chinese students in the second phase) on the role of communication styles in intercultural collaboration. The results suggest that for both Chinese and NAUSC students, conversational control, tenseness, task-oriented communication, and confidence are important cues influencing expertise judgment, but perceived expertise and actual expertise may be unrelated to each other.

Labor of Love: Amateurs and Lay-expertise Legitimation in the Early U.S. Radio Field

Many actors claim to be experts of specialized knowledge, but for this expertise to be perceived as legitimate, other actors in the field must recognize them as authorities. Using an automated topic-model analysis of historical texts associated with the U.S. amateur radio operator movement between 1899 and 1927, we propose a process model for lay-expertise legitimation as an alternative to professionalization. While the professionalization account depends on specialized work, credentialing, and restrictive jurisdictional control by powerful field actors, our model emphasizes four mechanisms leading to lay-expert recognition: building an advanced collective competence, operating in an unrestricted public space, providing transformational social contributions, and expanding an original collective role identity. Our analysis shows how field expertise can be achieved outside of professional spaces by non-professionalized actors who master activities as a labor of love. Our work also reveals that lay-expertise recognition depends on the interplay between collective identities and collective competence among non-professional actors, and it addresses the shifting power dynamics when professional and non-professional actors coexist and strive for expertise recognition.

Recognizing Expertise

Previous research has demonstrated the critical role communication plays in a group’s ability to recognize its expert members. This study looks broadly at the different forms of communication that might influence expertise recognition and considers how structural, relational, and communicative factors are related to individuals’ success in having their expertise recognized by other group members. In addition, we advance a view of expertise recognition in terms of expertise sharing and consider the circumstances under which an individual’s self-perceived expertise is likely to match the perceptions of other group members. Drawing on survey data from 99 employees at a financial services company, we find that it is communication practices, and not structural influences, that primarily relate to group members having their expertise recognized by coworkers. The findings extend theory that views attributions of individuals’ expertise in organizations as a communicative phenomenon that emerges through work practices.

Determinants of PE Teachers Career Intentions

One of the cause’s célèbre in the field of education has been teacher attrition; Physical education (PE) is no different. Some PE teachers are leaving the profession because they encounter stress and dissatisfaction in their profession. The purpose of this study is to determine the aspects that keep PE teachers happy and remaining in the profession. Seven job satisfaction factors were identified with principal component analysis and logistic regression models used to study the likelihood of teachers’ intention to stay in the profession. Those PE teachers who intended to stay in teaching were more satisfied with the resources, work community, their own expertise, recognition of teaching, manageability of work, students, as well as the quality of work. It was also found that satisfaction and commitment to teaching were strong predictors for staying in the profession. For early career teachers, manageability and quality of work were the factors that were strongly related to their intention to stay in the profession.