The purpose of this study was to show support that certain cultural characteristics of an individual could be identified based on the region where that individual was born and raised. These cultural characteristics were identified and defined, and strategies on understanding these cultural characteristics were reviewed. This study revealed that by focusing on this understanding, trust can be established quickly and it is this trust that is the basis of building any type of relationship. Several different macrocultural systems were examined in this study. These included the United States, Asia, Central and South America, India, the Middle East, and the European Union cultures. These are the largest and the fastest growing regions of the world as well as the locations where most of the newly established business relationships are being formed. / The study examined each macrocultural system individually by giving some background information on the culture and reasons for their recent explosive economic growth. Upon review of this study, any individual should be able to approach others with the realization that, with some degree of confidence, cultural characteristics of the individual being pursued can be predetermined based on a number of factors. The ability to recognize these factors facilitates a cultural competency that includes the skills and qualities that enable successful outcomes to happen in business contexts where different cultures are interacting. This predetermination will provide a type of blueprint to an individual's thoughts, tendencies, and even buying patterns. / These strategies will reveal ways of sidestepping everyone's natural tendency to say "no." By providing this insight into predisposed behavior patterns, most individuals will tend to lower their natural defense barriers and a smooth and effective conversation will follow. Personality types are recognized during or after a conversation, but cultural characteristics can be determined prior to the start of any conversation. Oftentimes, it is too late to try and figure out a personality type to adjust your sales approach or strategy in the middle of a conversation. There are ways to recognize cultural characteristics and incorporate certain strategies simply by knowing where a prospect was born and raised, as well as knowing their ethnicity. / by Walter N. Burton III. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web. FboU

by Ling Ho-Ming, Desmond, Yeung Yuk-Lam. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-75). / Questionnaire also in Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.i / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS --- p.ii / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii / LIST OF FIGURES & TABLES --- p.vi / Chapter CHAPTER I --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Problem Statement --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Purpose of the study --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Hypotheses of the Study --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3.1 --- Hypothesis 1 --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3.2 --- Hypothesis 2 --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3.3 --- Hypothesis 3 --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.4 --- Hypothesis 4 --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.5 --- Hypothesis 5 --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3.6 --- Hypothesis 6 --- p.7 / Chapter 1.3.7 --- Hypothesis 7 --- p.7 / Chapter CHATPER II --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1 --- Development of Videoconferencing --- p.8 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Type of Videoconferencing System --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Application of Videoconferencing System --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Benefits and Costs of Using Videoconferencing --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2 --- Videoconferencing in China --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Background --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Market Situation --- p.26 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Industry Players --- p.26 / Chapter CHAPTER III --- METHODOLOGY --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1 --- Scope of Study --- p.29 / Chapter 3.2 --- Research Design --- p.33 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Mail survey --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3 --- Sampling Plan --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Target population --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Sampling method --- p.35 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Judgment sampling --- p.55 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Sample size --- p.35 / Chapter 3.4 --- Instrument --- p.36 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Questionnaire --- p.36 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Pilot test --- p.37 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Data Collection --- p.37 / Chapter 3.5 --- Data analysis --- p.38 / Chapter CHAPTER IV --- RESULTS --- p.40 / Chapter 4.1 --- Exploratory Research --- p.40 / Chapter 4.2 --- Descriptive Research --- p.40 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Respondents' Background Characteristics --- p.41 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Perceived Degree of Agreement on Benefits of VC --- p.45 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Perceived Importance of Selection Criteria --- p.46 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Factor Groupings of Benefits --- p.47 / Chapter 4.2.5 --- Factor Groupings of Criteria --- p.49 / Chapter 4.2.6 --- Relationship Between Overall Employee Size and Office(s) Using VC Equipment --- p.51 / Chapter 4.2.7 --- Relationship Between Average Annual Sales Revenue and Office(s) Using VC Equipment --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.8 --- Difference in Perceptions Between VC Using Companies and Non-VC Using Companies --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.9 --- Difference in Perceptions Between Companies Planning to Purchase VC and Companies Not Planning to Purchase VC --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.10 --- Comparison of Mean Scores for Different Years of Establishment of Shanghai Office --- p.53 / Chapter 4.2.11 --- Comparison of Mean Scores for Different Sized Companies --- p.53 / Chapter 4.2.12 --- Comparison of Mean Scores for Companies with Different Average Annual Sales Revenue --- p.54 / Chapter CHAPTER V --- "DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS" --- p.55 / Chapter 5.1 --- Discussion of Survey Findings --- p.55 / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Respondents' Background Characteristics --- p.55 / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Discussion of Benefit Factors --- p.57 / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Discussion of Criteria Factors --- p.58 / Chapter 5.1.4 --- Relationship Between Overall Employee Size and Offtce(s) Using VC Equipment --- p.61 / Chapter 5.1.5 --- Relationship Between Average Annual Sales Revenue and Office(s) Using VC Equipment --- p.61 / Chapter 5.1.6 --- Difference in Perception Among Various Respondents' Characteristics --- p.62 / Chapter 5.2 --- Conclusions --- p.63 / Chapter 5.3 --- Recommendations --- p.65 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Attractiveness of VC Industry in China --- p.65 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Suggested Market Positioning --- p.66 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Suggestions for Future Research Studies --- p.71 / REFERENCES --- p.73 / APPENDIX 1 --- p.76 / APPENDIX 2 --- p.77 / APPENDIX 3 --- p.79 / APPENDIX 4 --- p.83 / APPENDIX 5 --- p.84 / APPENDIX --- p.85 / APPENDIX 7 --- p.86 / APPENDIX 8 --- p.87 / APPENDIX 9 --- p.88 / APPENDIX 10 --- p.89

Managing and transferring knowledge within a corporation becomes the ultimate key for survival in the Knowledge Age. Internal knowledge is often unique and lays the foundation for a company’s competitiveness. Effective and fast knowledge transfer (KT) is particularly critical to KIFs such as IT consultancies, R&D based companies or firms in the software industry. Intrafirm KT is a complex undertaking though and a number of initiatives fail. Therefore, achieving optimal KT is a compelling need. The aim of this thesis is to explore what kind of process-oriented framework helps create optimal KT practices in a KIF by applying and adapting the Scrum management and control practices. Scrum was initially formalised for the development of software and can be used to manage complex projects. Enhancing Scrum to enable intra-firm KT represents a novel approach, involving diverse roles across a team of employees and making use of their respective capabilities. The work makes a contribution to knowledge by introducing clearly defined KT process steps and documentation tools - underpinned by motivational practices, transparency and accountability of individual employees to find ways for them to impart their knowledge. It proffers an extension to existing frameworks and models. The study could be highly relevant for practitioners concerned with intra-firm KT for two reasons. Employing the newly developed approach helps investigate appropriate organisational contexts and, more importantly, provides a practical set of tools to assist with the task of enabling KT. The form of a case study within a KIF, a consultancy firm focussed on digital business transformation, has been chosen as the foundation for the inquiry. The research strategy is rooted in a participatory paradigm. Qualitative data captured in the company were specifically developed through participatory action research (PAR). Documentary analysis, non-participant observation, and open-ended interviews ahead of iterative action-reflection cycles contributed to providing new learning for a team of highly qualified Knowledge Workers (KWs). Overall the team of consultants that was the focus of this case study believes that knowledge in the firm will be transferred faster and sustainably by employing practices of interaction and adaptation within a knowledge-friendly and motivational environment. The time required to phase new consultants into existing projects, where KT was indispensable, was reduced significantly by 50% from four to two weeks. The research suggests that the newly developed process-oriented framework can greatly improve KT practices in a KIF by applying practices of gathering data and information (Aggregating), prioritising them (Featuring), reviewing KT progress (Reviewing), and utilising newly acquired knowledge (Doing). The key findings of this work, the AFRD-process and the AFRD-framework, were subject to an audit by an expert panel from the Fresenius University of Applied Science in Munich, Germany, and practitioners in a machine engineering company in Augsburg, Germany.

Organizations are continuously confronted with decision-making in their daily business practice. Information technology plays a key role, supporting and automating decision-making processes, enabling the flow and distribution of information and knowledge and enhancing collaboration and exchange across the entire organization. Both, decision-making and information technology combine social and technological aspects of collaboration and collective action within a socio-economic system. Social media technologies such as corporate social networks, collaborative projects, instant messengers, content sharing platforms, blogs, micro-blogs, rating and voting systems, influence how human beings collaborate, build communities, exchange information, and jointly create content. This thesis combines aspects of social and behavioural science, collective decision-making and information technology into a qualitative research project. The main objective of this thesis was to explore and to gain a deep understanding of the implications of the integration of social media technologies to enhance collective judgement and the complex decision-making processes within corporate and less formal contexts. Therefore, this research identified real, potential and perceived benefits, disadvantages and barriers of social media integration in collective decision-making processes. The outcome focusses on evidence to establish whether social media technologies are capable of advancing the collective decision-making process. This study applied an exploratory qualitative research approach, which incorporated semi-structured interviews, multiple case studies and documentary data. Three case studies built the foundation of the field research conducted over a period of nine months, resulting in thirty semi-structured interviews. For each investigated site, ten individuals from various departments and different roles participated in thirty to forty minutes, semi-structured interviews recorded at their premises. Documents shared by the interviewees such as internal presentations, videos, meeting minutes and communication notes added to the overall data set. The key findings can be divided into three focus areas, (a) social media within a business environment and organizational readiness, (b) social media and collective action in business such as mass collaboration and problem solving and (c) social media integrated in collective decision-making derived from the benefits, disadvantages and barriers identified. Real benefits surfaced in the area of communication, interaction, involvement, reproducibility, aggregation and the independence of physical presence. From a communication perspective, the decision-making process benefits from utilizing different channels to convey and present information. These communication channels facilitate synchronous and asynchronous interaction, engaging different parties such as stakeholders, committees, experts, management and other participants in the process. Since the information created is continuously captured and stored, social media adds the benefit of reproducibility to the collective decision-making process. Rating and voting functions aggregate thoughts, opinions, and monitor, at an early stage of the process, tendencies and reflective developments in the group. Finally, rating and voting mechanisms build a collective choice acknowledged by a majority of a business collective. Social media relieves the requirement of physical presence in a collective decision-making process utilizing the corporate Intranet and the Internet. This adds flexibility to the selection of the participants and provides a basis of employee engagement from small to large-scale endeavours. Potential benefits relate to some extent to the explored real benefits. They focus on motivation of social interaction and collaboration, building relationships, enhancing the flow of information and fostering a reflective culture capable of collectively solving problems. From an organizational behaviour perspective, these benefits are capable of stimulating employees to engage in organizational topics, and utilizing organizational intelligence by sharing knowledge and experience to support collective decision-making. Perceived benefits include enhanced communication, interaction, involvement, and acceptance, variety of opinions, engaging employees in collective actions and integrating experts. Perceived disadvantages concentrated around social interaction. They manifested as distraction, losing focus on objectives, biased information, and loss of control, opinion manipulation, information overload and a less formal nature of the process. Barriers were identified in the area of abuse of personal information, additional workload in the daily business, unclear benefits, refusal to share knowledge, lack of trust about the information created and presented, manipulation of opinions, and continuous availability. The results of the thesis provided the evidence that utilization and integration of social media in the collective decision-making process depend on organizational readiness, which relates to the context. Social media application differs from the application in the Internet since social conformity, cohesion and internal competition influence participation and outcome. This means, the ability to integrate employees in collective action and the utilization of social media requires, besides acceptance of the new technology, a culture of openness, and willingness to share, engage and contribute. Therefore, this research suggests, from a managerial perspective, focussing on collective action capabilities, utilizing social media as an enabler to connect employees, to stimulate interaction, participation, and capture and support the information flow during a decision-making process. Recommendations for future research suggest analysing organizations in longitudinal studies to explore how they gain advantage of collective action concerning aggregation of knowledge using social media as a platform.

This diploma thesis is dedicated to research and understanding of business communication strategies and tools used in Russia. It studies strengths and weaknesses of the local business communication tools with respect to the specifics of the Russian market, while providing detailed analysis of business communication strategy of a large Russian company.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on December 21, 2009). Thesis advisor: Dr. Dae-Young Kim. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--Saint Mary's University, 2009. / Includes abstract. Supervisor: Kevin Kelloway. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-75).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 320-333). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-100).

With the rapid growth of bilateral trade between China and Africa in the past decade, more and more Africans are coming to China to seek what they see as appealing business opportunities. Guangzhou, the economic centre in Southern China, has become the largest enclave for Africans. It is estimated that there are about 100,000 Africans living and doing business in Guangzhou. This large number of Africans in Guangzhou has drawn the attention of many researchers. However, current research on Africans in Guangzhou focuses predominantly on sociological and ethnographic aspects. Although the issue of communication problems has been brought up frequently, little has been investigated in depth about actual communication, especially the actual language use between Africans and Chinese. This thesis analyzes the English-based contact language used in the marketplace between Africans and Chinese in Guangzhou. It has two main focuses: first of all, by analyzing the results from a questionnaire survey, it provides a socio-cultural and linguistic profile of the Africans in Guangzhou as well as the Chinese who has constant contact with the Africans; second, it examines several major language features based on actual language data collected from real-world communication in the marketplace. On the basis of these socio-cultural and linguistic features, I argue that the speech form between Africans and Chinese in the marketplace in Guangzhou could be regarded as a rudimentary pidgin, which has the potential of developing into a pidgin in the future. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy