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This article describes how a collaborative class strategy and an introductory activity were used to develop students' thinking about business and management communication. The article focuses on teachers who want to integrate critical perspectives about business communication into their classes. A course ethos, learning groups, and an introductory activity were used to develop students' thinking about business and management communication. These strategies encouraged collaborative peer learning in a large bicultural/multicultural lecture environment and developed learning relationships typically found in a small class context. In addition, the activities produced ongoing lecture learning groups in which business students could question their "trained incapacities," boundaries, and assumptions gained from their experiences of communicating and managing relationships during these activities.

The intercultural divides in values, perceptions, and interpretations of concepts have been studied extensively by international business and intercultural communication scholars. Consequentially, much effort in university classrooms is spent on focusing on the differences between groups and on finding ways to "manage" cultural diversity. What is often missed is the common ground among cultural groups and the differences within what are presumed to be homogenous groups of students. To negotiate this complexity of diversity, we describe an initiative to foster "collaborative" student-led analyses of a case study to open up meaningful discussions around diversity.

An action research project, managed by a graduate student, resulted in the development of an academic website as an effective internal and external communication tool. The main focus of the investigation was to uncover the tacit knowledge held by staff in the Department of Management Communication through a series of in-depth interviews, a focus group, and informal conversations to facilitate the development of a website which effectively captured this knowledge. The cyclical nature of the action research methodology provided the flexibility to ensure that issues could be addressed as they arose; although the relative unfamiliarity of staff with action research methodologies created other barriers to be overcome. The key outcome for the staff was that they became aware of the extent of the tacit knowledge and resources available in the department; they valued these, and they utilised them effectively. The research highlights the different learning outcomes experienced by the student researcher, supervisors and departmental colleagues.

Critical theory has been a distinguishing feature of the communication research program at the Waikato Management School, but significant reflection is required to translate the theory into meaningful classroom experiences. The need for reflection comes from two key tensions in teaching management communication: One is the tension between teaching practical, career-focused skills versus critical and/or interpretive analysis; the second is the multicultural classroom environment where students, educated in a monocultural context, are exposed to other interpretations and critiques of their own cultural predispositions and values. In addition, there is no clearly defined notion of a management communication student in a graduate or MBA program. This article briefly describes the context of teaching management communication at the Waikato Management School and the key tensions experienced in that context. The authors then explain the concept of critical reflexive practice and its implications for teaching. Finally, they illustrate the framework through several critical incidents in the classroom.

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When refugees are resettled into a destination, refugee-focused service providers offer frontline services to ease refugees' experiences of trauma and marginalisation, providing advocacy and welcome through reception processes, translation services and multicultural centres. The degree and effectiveness of welcome given by these service providers are of importance to how quickly refugees feel they belong and can settle in their new society. This paper presents the findings of original research conducted with 34 refugee-focused service providers in New Zealand. Ketso, a creative, participatory tool was used as a community engagement method. The results indicate how these service providers felt the welcome, advocacy and support for refugees could be better organised to support the resettlement process. The barriers and challenges to the provision of welcome are discussed, and priorities identified to improve the refugee resettlement process and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically analyses the discourse of consumer choice embedded in health communication interactions between maternity-care providers and migrant ethnic Chinese mothers in New Zealand. Findings indicate that Chinese mothers, as the customers of the New Zealand maternity and health care services, are encouraged to “fit in” with the Western discourse of choice. However, the mothers’ cultural predispositions for childbirth and communication have a significant impact on the ways in which they respond to and resist this discourse. Drawing on theoretical insights from postcolonialism and Third World feminism, this article contributes to the study of intercultural health communication by examining cultural dilemmas in the discourse of choice that is often taken for granted in Western health contexts. In doing so, it builds a platform for an inclusive maternity care and health environment in multicultural societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to offer a consideration of hospitality in organizations, occupations and thresholds to illustrate the sociocultural dimensions of hospitality spaces. Our aim is to open up thinking around spaces of hospitality offered by organizational members, particularly those employees who work with the vulnerable 'other', across thresholds into homes and organizational spaces. Community social workers illustrate the practice of hospitality as they offer advocacy and inclusion for those individuals excluded from the wider community. The move towards professionalism has been argued as one way of establishing value, authority and confidence in the role of the community social worker and the decisions these individuals make in their work. However, critics have indicated that professionalism emphasizes practices of ideological control, norms and exclusion, in effect undermining key social work values, ethos and practice. Our results illustrate that community social workers developed asymmetric relationships of trust within their community and negotiated with other organizational members in order to create spaces for their work and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the civil and professional liability of lawyers for the will making and estate planning of clients based on the standard applied by Australian solicitors in New Zealand. It mentions that professional obligations and duties must be maintained for clients engaging will making and estate planning. Also outlined is the circumstances which liability may arise in tort in the will making and estate planning process.

This paper examines a new female academic's experiences of organisational induction within a New Zealand university. The study adopts Stanley and Wise's (1993) `feminist fractured foundationalist' framework which positions the teacher developer and new academic-participant as working together. The study illustrates how a 'conversational' approach (Ford & Ford, 1995; Ford, 1999) to organisational induction allows for the newcomer's emergent learning needs to be addressed with an experienced organisational veteran. In a feminist study, it is crucial that the account produces `knowing feminisms' (Stanley, 1997, p. 1) that are both action-orientated and analytical. The paper offers practical strategies for new female academics and teaching developers to facilitate socialisation and learning processes. It also identifies departmental and organisational change that resulted from the new employee voicing her concerns with the socialisation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Predation is a major factor in ecology, evolution and conservation and thus its understanding is essential for insights into ecological processes and management of endangered populations of prey. Here we conducted a spatially (main island through to offshore islets) and temporally (1938–2005) extensive meta-analysis of published nest predation rates in New Zealand songbirds. We obtained information on nest predation rates from 79 populations (n =4838 nests) of 26 species of songbirds belonging to 17 families. Nest predation rates increased from southwest to northeast and also across the last 60years (by 15–25% points in both cases). We identified a major impact of exotic mammalian predators. Nest predation was lowest in areas where no exotic predators were present (12.8%), higher in areas with ongoing predator control (33.9%), and highest in areas without control that had the full set of exotic and native nest predators (47.5%). Surprisingly, nest predation rates were higher in introduced as compared to native species. Our analyses demonstrated that human-caused factors (introduced predators and prey) overrode factors such as nest type and habitat identified as important in predicting nest predation in North America and Europe previously. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]