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MA/PhD Theses Abstracts of Current Students & Alumni |
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McEwen, Brian (Ph.D)., An action anthropology perspective on change in a leadership development organization (Angrosino), 2003.
Action anthropology, one of the classic modes of intervention from the
applied
literature, served as the critical framework for this research. One ofthe
value-explicit
approaches, action anthropology is most closely aligned with Sol Tax
and his associates
in their work with the Fox Indians near Tama, Iowa during the 1950's.
The Fox fit the
mold of traditional anthropology. They were a native American group,
culturally distinct
from the surrounding dominant, white, midwestern society.
In contrast
to that setting, this research took a less traditional approach by \
studying a leadership development organization in the urbanized region
of Hills borough
County in western Florida. The members of this agency lived in the local
community and
had distinguished themselves by achieving various forms of authority.
This choice of
research community was in the spirit of Laura Nader's challenge that
anthropologists
should "study up." By focusing on the action style's interest
in cultural values in order to
facilitate a group's self-determination, this research was conducted
as an exercise in
organizational values clarification. The practical purpose was to help
this group address
long standing problems of member recruitment, engagement and retention.
The research methodology included review of anthropological literature
on the topics of
leadership and values, in order to confirm the discipline's interest
in and emphasis on
those key concepts. Because the studied agency traditionally recruited
its members from
both business and government, literature on leadership and values was
reviewed from
those two disciplines as well. Additional research methods included archival
research,
participant observation, interviews, a survey, and a focus group. Throughout
the research,
the action approach was maintained to facilitate the group's self-determination.
The literature indicated a broad range of perspectives on leadership.
This anticipated
the potential for both co-cultures within the group, as well as the group's
difficulty
reaching consensus on organizational values and goals relative to leadership
and its
cultivation. In fact, consensus was more easily reached than expected.
Recommendations
generated through the process by its participants were seen to be utilized
by the group's
board of directors and these were implemented in the following annual
training class.
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