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Employing participant observation methodology, this paper analyzes a 4-hour meeting held among the representatives of a large religious organization in Taiwan. The analysis focuses on the influence of seniority on the Chinese decision making process. Five components of decision making proposed by Stewart (1985) and Kume (1985) were used for the purpose of analysis. The findings extend the Chen and Starosta (1997) argument that although seniority, as the locus of power and authority in Chinese society, is normally used to reinforce and perpetuate Chinese cultural values, it may be abused for gaining personal interests. The abuse of senior power, as this case shows, leads to paralysis of the decision making process. Findings demonstrate the dynamic and complex nature of decision making in terms of its dialectic relationship with culture. A person's behavior is the mirror of his/her culture. Culture provides a set of thinking patterns that leads to a specific way of action. Intercultural communication scholars should undertake research on deviations from cultural value orientations. Chung (1996) proposed a model of multilevel cultures for Chinese decision making; Hwang (1997) proposed a model of conflict resolution in Chinese society. The two models deserve a further examination for future research. (Contains 27 references.) (Author/CR) more...

Karaoke (singing along to music videos) has swept Taiwan with such force that many people go to singing schools to improve their singing. Three cases in this paper demonstrate how the ethos, or credibility, of the singer is a combination of initial and derived ethos. Who the singer is tends to determine how much attention he or she receives initially. During the performance the ethos can be derived from the difficulty implied in the adopted method of singing (singing without recorded accompaniment, singing with recorded accompaniment only, and singing with recorded accompaniment and vocal), the difficulty of the chosen song, and/or his or her linguistic versatility (whether a singer can sing in different dialects and languages). In a society where the after-dinner speech is often substituted for by after-dinner karaoke, the ethos of the "singer" can be an issue as important as, if not more important than, the ethos of the public speaker when communication processes within it are analyzed. (Eleven references are attached.) (Author/SG) more...

Investigates changing interpersonal relationships in contemporary Taiwanese society through an examination of popular books on interpersonal skills and communication, translated from American and Japanese sources. Analyzes the modern cultural constructs of "self,""relationship," and "communication" from the perspectives of these books, as contrasted with traditional Chinese views of relationship and communication. (SR) more...

Compares how faculty in two academic organizations (an American university faculty and a Chinese faculty in Taiwan) evaluate levels of communication satisfaction within their organizations. Finds the difference in satisfaction level statistically significant. Suggests that social/cultural characteristics may affect communication in the transnational corporation and other types of cross-cultural, cross-national organizations. (PA) more...

Describes Confucianism, identifying it as a major cultural factor explaining the economic success of Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Explores the impact of Confucianism on the organizational communication in these nations, based on four key principles of Confucian teachings: the hierarchial relationship, the family system, "Jen", and the emphasis on education. (SR) more...

Twenty-eight senior staff members at the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC) and 60 senior staff members at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) were surveyed regarding the frequency and importance of their work-related face-to-face, telephone, and written communication. Analyses of the communication networks showed that AVRDC emphasized face-to-face interaction, while IRRI gave greater relative attention to the telephone and writing. Both centers had organizational structures and used communication mechanisms that enabled the staffs to function effectively in research tasks requiring intense cooperation and coordination. Network and statistical analyses suggested that staff size was an important factor both in determining which channels served communication needs best and in influencing the mechanisms that kept communication frequency within tolerable limits. (Author/RL) more...

Focusing on the effects that research on the Taiwan family planning program has had on social change, both in the intergration of research findings into national action programs and in the dissemination of these ideas to other Asian countries, this report discusses five individual case studies and presents a summary and analysis of the research data. The first case illustrates how an action-oriented research program served as a base for the national expansion of an individual program and describes the organizational setup and approaches that expedited research utilization. A communication-oriented study with clear objectives, stressed in the second case, demonstrates the value of a single agency, the importance of feedback, the value of building on previous research, and the benefits of communication among research and staff members. The third case describes a nonfertility incentive plan, its regional implications, and the role of foreign aid in implementing the plan. The final two cases illustrate, respectively, reasons why contraceptive research findings are not applied and the value of giving close attention to feedback from field workers and consumers of the service. (MAI) more...

To determine formal principles of discourse processing and production, a study reviewed theories in various disciplines related to language and/or thought and thereby rationalized an approach of quantitative matrix analysis to the problems caused by discrepant discourse structures encountered in second language learning. Statistical analyses of newspaper editorials from the People's Republic of China and Taiwan revealed that language (English versus Chinese) and political stance (communist versus capitalist) respectively influenced discourse structures. Structures affected were length of clauses, relationship of propositions within paragraphs (subordinate, coordinate, superordinate), relation of subtopics to main topics, and amount of detail in subtopics, among others. These results indicated that language learning should be examined at the discourse level and in context, and that teachers and researchers should be aware of these discrepant discourse structures that can be envisaged in the matrix analysis. (Nine statistical tables and four figures are included, and a sample of the matrix analysis of a text is appended.) (Author/SKC) more...