Search results

The purpose of this paper is to meet Dr Claude-Hélène Mayer, Professor in Industrial and Organisational Psychology at the University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.

This is a qualitative positive autoethnographic case study. Mayer uses positive autoethnography to reflect on mental health, positive psychology and leadership across the life span. The first author also responds to ten questions.

Leadership can be developed and appreciated in others. Leadership can be a positive and transformative force that can assist and contribute to mental health and well-being. Positive leadership can be supported by developing wisdom, creativity, critical thinking and conflict and emotional management.

Qualitative research cannot be generalised. Positive autoethnography reflects the views and experiences of the author, in this case a transdisciplinary and transcultural researcher and practitioner.

Readers will find a range of practical recommendations as to how to develop mental health and leadership and stay positive in challenging times. Academic literature relating to practical recommendations is also shared.

Positive leadership has many social implications. It can be a constructive influence that impacts our lives and benefits our personal development, but also one that impacts the lives and benefits the personal development of other people.

In this original paper, Dr Claude-Hélène Mayer shares mental health, positive psychology and leadership experiences and recommendations. Leadership skills are of particular value in times of complex change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate diversity conflict intersections and how the meanings of diversity markers such as gender and race might be transformed. It highlights the resources of South African women leaders in higher education institutions for doing so.

This study proceeds from a social constructivist perspective, seeking to uncover narrated conflict experiences via a hermeneutical approach.

Women leaders in South Africa experience diversity conflict across multiple intersecting diversity markers, such as gender, race, ethnicity and class. They are united by inner resources which, if utilized, might bring about transformation.

Intersectional approach to diversity conflict is a viable means for uncovering positive resources for transformation across intersecting diversity markers.

Practitioners wishing to overcome diversity conflict should identify positive resources across intersecting diversity markers. This way, organizations and individuals might bring about transformation.

In societal environment wherein one diversity marker is institutionalized on a structural level, such as race in South Africa, diversity conflict might be enlarged beyond its actual scope, thereby becoming insurmountable. This needs to be prevented.

This paper studies diversity conflict intersections in a highly diverse societal environment in organizations facing transformational challenges and from the perspective of women leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect critically on the roles that women leaders in higher education institutions (HEIs) take on. Therefore, a systems psychodynamic view is used from a theoretical stance, while an autoethnographical methodology is applied to provide an in-depth emic view of, and reflections on, women leaders’ roles in the described context.

The study draws on the authors’ personal and organisational autoethnographical experiences as women leaders in HEIs in South Africa. Two women of different background reflect on their roles, and on becoming “containers” for certain issues within the described context over a period of time.

The autoethnographies show the roles women leaders take on within the organisations and how this relates to becoming a container for issues and underlying anxieties and fears that arise within the South African higher education system. The women leaders take on roles which contain fear and insecurities with regard to racial belonging, segregation and inclusion, national belonging, gendered roles, marginalisation and connection through self and others, authority and decision making.

The study is limited to autoethnographic experience descriptions of two academic women working in post-apartheid South African HEIs.

Presenting the self-described roles of two academics, the paper provides a critical perspective on issues of racialised and gendered roles, marginalisation and inclusion, authority and decision making, workplace stereotyping, gendering and racism, and thereby increases awareness about the impact of roles within the system’s context.

Presenting the self-described roles of two academics, the paper provides a critical perspective on issues of racialised and gendered roles, marginalisation and inclusion, authority and decision making, workplace stereotyping, gendering and racism, and thereby increases awareness about the impact of roles within the system’s context.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into cross‐cultural conflicts and their management in ecclesiastical organizations in Tanzania. It aims at increasing the understanding of these complexities from an emic perspective of employees with a Christian background, thereby providing in‐depth information on the topic. These new insights provide fresh ideas for further research on this topic in the Tanzanian context.

Qualitative data were selected from a more comprehensive case study carried out in multiple governmental, educational, ecclesiastical and economic organizations in Tanzania. The case study was based on phenomenological and interpretative paradigms and hermeneutical interpretations using qualitative methodology including in‐depth interviews and observation during field stays, as well as documentary and secondary analysis.

The findings show that senior management staff of ecclesiastical organizations function as mediators for conflicting parties to regain harmony and peace through third‐party intervention and spiritual self‐development. Mediation in ecclesiastical organizations is mainly used in relationship conflicts, employment conflicts and church re‐structuring processes. It supports the resolution of value conflicts between the conflict parties and the environment and at the same time re‐constructs religious and Christian values and concepts, such as the concept of “Shalom” and “creating lobe” and thereby re‐enforces spiritual integrity and the reality of the church.

The findings are not generalizable and are limited to this specific research context. Findings should be verified by follow‐up studies which expand the content, the context and the methodological approach of this study. These findings should be viewed as exploratory research findings and as highly contextual and sample‐bound.

The paper describes the practical implications for further research relating to future research topics for researchers interested in the field of cross‐cultural conflict management in ecclesiastical organizations in Tanzania.

The authors present original data and provide new insights into managing conflicts in Tanzanian ecclesiastical organizations through mediation.

This chapter contributes to building empirical evidence in the field of positive intercultural management (PIM) of new technological changes and diversity in transnational organizational settings. Findings from a study conducted at a transnational engineering company are presented, showing how managers manage technological innovation in the organization through PIM and leadership. A Four-Stage I4.0 Management Model is proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate insights into the identity construction and development of a selected single male individual in Cape Town, South Africa. It aims at increasing the in-depth understanding of the complexities of identity construction in a transcultural setting and provides emic perspectives on a micro-individual level over a period of ten years.

This research study is based on the post-modernist premise by considering phenomenological and interpretative paradigms most relevant. It is a longitudinal study, conducted with a single individual over a period of ten years by using various research methods as well as triangulation of methods, theories and data. Data were analysed through content analysis.

This research provides in-depth information on the struggle of a single person to construct and re-construct his identity and find answers to the question “Who am I?” in the multifaceted and hypercomplex transcultural environment of Cape Town. It shows the attempts to developing a coherent multiple identity over a period of ten years, reconstructing the past, creating the present and envisioning the future.

This research has practical implications for practitioners working with identity (development) in transcultural settings. It provides important in-depth information on “nomadic identities” for coaching, counselling or therapies in transcultural settings.

This paper provides new and original insights into long-term identity development of an individual in a transcultural urban space.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate insights into cross‐cultural conflict, identity and values amongst selected managers within a South African management context. It aims to increase the understanding of these complexities from an academic managerial perspective, thereby providing in‐depth information which can lead to the development of managerial training tools for improving diversity and conflict management in the described context.

The authors selected qualitative data from a case study that was conducted in the international South African automotive industry. The case study was based on the post‐modernist premise by considering phenomenological and interpretative paradigms most relevant.

Findings show conflicts in managerial communication and treatment, position and competition, organisation, race and gender and are often defined as “cross‐racial” conflict fuelled by the society's past.

The generalisability is limited to this specific context and needs to be proven by follow‐up studies which expand the context and the methodological approach of the study.

Practical suggestions address the implementation of training tools, coaching and counselling in cross‐cultural conflict management. They are anticipated to create awareness on managing the present challenges and are aimed at managers and international organisations investing in South Africa.

The paper provides new insights into the discussion on human resource management in a specific South African management context by referring to the highly important topics of cross‐cultural conflict, values and identities.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the dangers of Orientalist framing. Orientalism (Said, 1979/2003) shows how “the West” actually creates “the Orient” as an inferior opposite to affirm itself, for instance by using imaginative geographical frames such as “East” and “West” (Said, 1993).

Qualitative interviews were conducted with the members of a German-Tunisian project team in research engineering. The interview purpose was to let individuals reflect upon their experiences of difference and to find out whether these experiences are preframed by imaginative geographical categories.

Tunisian researchers were subjected to the dominant imaginative geographical frame “the Arab world.” This frame involves ascribed religiousness, gender stereotyping and ascriptions of backwardness.

Research needs to investigate Orientalist thought and imaginative geographies in specific organizational and interpersonal interactions lest they overshadow managerial theory and practice.

Practitioners need to challenge dominant frames and Orientalist thought in their own practice and organizational surroundings to devise a truly inclusive managerial practice, for instance, regarding Muslim minorities.

In times of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment in “the West,” this paper highlights the frames from which such sentiments might originate, and the need to reflect upon them.

The theoretical value lies in introducing a critical framing approach and the concept of imaginative geographies to perceived differences at work. For practice, it highlights how certain individuals are constructed as “Muslim others” and subjected to ascriptions of negative difference. By this mechanism, their inclusion is obstructed.