Define difference.
A social construction that has been used to classify human beings into separate value-based categories.
Explain how difference is not natural, but socially constructed.
- Difference is connected to power, meaning that those in power construct differences that create systems of enfranchisement and disenfranchisement.
- All differences are not created equal. Each pair in a binary system of differnece is characterized by a dominant, more highly valued pole and a subordinate, less-valued pole (e.g. white/black, heterosexual/homosexual).
- Difference contrasts with and complements what is defined as normal.
- Difference is communicatively constructed, meaning that differences are produced and maintained through various forms of talk, texts, and interactions.
Define whiteness.
A set of institutionalized practices and ideas that people participate in consciously and unconsciously.
What does it mean to “interrogate whiteness”?
Interrogating whiteness highlights the processes through which whiteness itself is both obscured as a category and the norm against which organizational life is defined.
Describe the various ways in which sexuality functions in organizations.
- Employees’ bodies and sexuality have for a long tiem been a focal point of control for organizations.
- Everyday organizational life teems with sexuality.
- People are sexual beings, and despite bureaucracies’ best efforts to monitor and restrict its expression we do ont check our sexuality at the door when we go to work.
- Sexuality is worth our consideration as a form of difference because, increasingly, organizations are not so much attempting to eliminate employee sexuality from the workplace as exploit it as a potential way to increase productivity.
What are two different forms of sexual harassment?
- Two forms of sexual harassment are a hostile environment and quid pro quo.
- A hostile environment is a form of sexual harassment where conduct directed at a person because of her or his sex or sexuality unreasonably interferes with the person’s ability to perform her or his job.
- quid pro quo is a form of sexual harassment in which the harasser demands sexual favors with the promise of preferred treatment regarding employment or evaluation.
Define leadership.
Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts toward goal setting and goal achievement.
What are four leadership styles? Examples of each?
- Four leadership styles are impoverished, country club, team leader, and middle-of-the-road.
- Impoverished leaders have low concern for both production and people.
- Country club leaders have high concern for people, but low concern for production.
- Team leaders have high concern for both production and people.
- Middle-of-the-road leaders compromise a position that maintains the status quo by focusing on production without overlooking team morale.
Define the trait approach.
- Argues that the qualities of a leader are embodied in his or her innate personal characteristics - physique, intelligence, and personality.
- Leaders are born, not made.
Define the style approach.
Argues there is a specific set of skills managers can learn to become effective leaders.
Define the situational approach.
Views contextual factors such as the structure of the task at hand, the power of the leader, and the size of the work group as shaping the leadership approach adopted.
Name the various perspectives in the “new leadership” tradition.
- A view of leadership as symbolic action. The leader is conceived as a manger of meaning.
- The emergence of “transformational leadership” and a “neo-charismatic” organizational context.
- A greater focus on “followership,” where the role of the follower in leadership processes is more thoroughly examined.
- A shift away from the formal aspects of leadership to a study of leadership as an everyday, infromal process.
- A view of leadership as a socailly constructed phenomenon rather than an objectively existing set of behaviors.
- The questioning of the very idea of leadership as commonly understood.
Define symbolic action.
- Focuses on the ways the leader is able to frame and define reality for others.
- Leadership is conceived as a process of interaction rather than a thing.
Define transformational leadership.
- The active promotion of values to provide a shared vision of the organization.
- Leader and members are bound together in a higher moral purpose.
- The leader raises the aspirations of followers such that they think and act beyond their own self-interests.
Define followership.
- Leaders do not exist without followers; most people are followers most of the time.
- Exemplary followers are highly committed to the organization, self-managing, and willing to provide honest, independent, and constructive critique to leaders.
Define critical communication perspective.
- Rejection of leader- or follower-centric view of leadership.
- Focus on leadership as dynamic communication process involving everyone.
- Leadership is socially constructed through communication.
- A “post-heroic” view of leadership, with a focus on power and control and possibilities for leadership as resistance.
Define brand.
The total constelation of meanings, feelings, perceptions, beliefs and goodwill attributed to any market offering displaying a particular sign.
Explain the historical context in which branding arose.
In the second half of the 19th century branding emerged as a revolutionary way for companies to market their products to an increasingly literate working population.
Define the floating signifier effect.
Literally any meaning or quality - can be attached to any object, product, company, or person.
Explain brand meaning.
Such meanings are extremely carefully constructed, and sometimes literally billions of dollars (e.g. the pharmaceutical industry) are spent on the careful development of such meanings.
Describe the relationship between branding and identity.
- Consumption provides us with a sense of psychological and emotional security and provides connection to the world and other people.
- Corporations do not want us simply to buy products; they want us to enter into a relationship with a brand that we see as an expression of who we are as people.
Define emotional branding.
- A term used by marketers to describe efforts to connect brands to customers in an “emotionally profound way.”
- A strategy to strengthen the “brand relationship” to customers.
Define murketing.
A marketing strategy that attempts to integrate brands into the expression of individual identities by blurring the distinction between marketing and everyday life and popular culture.
Define entrepreneurial self.
- The increasing expectation that company employees will brand themselves through constant performance of a carefully nurtured professional identity that visibly contributes to the company’s bottom line.
- Involves an increasing blurring of the professional and private self.
