Glossary

Active Listening: transmitting the message from the sender, and taking action to help someone say what she or he actually means

Autocratic Leaders: directive leaders, allow little input or discussion from subordinates

Behavioural Management Theory: theory developed by Chester Barnhard, uses the concepts that approaches to the workplace should be in the interest of the company and the workers; workers are viewed as psychological and social beings

Boundary Dynamic: delicate boundary between strategy, stakeholder management, and organizational management

Bounded Rationality: the notion that the challenge of complex issues that leaders cannot fully grasp makes them unable to be rational about the situation, and incapable of understanding an alternative

Brainstorming: the generating of a variety of solutions or possible outcomes for an effective decision

Broadcast Media Transmission: follows a one-to-many approach (e.g., a newscast)

Bureaucratic Theory: theory, developed by Max Weber, that explains the formal hierarchy in organizations in which tasks are delegated

Business Ethics: an applied ethic that focuses on real-world situations in the environment where transactions occur

Canadian Human Rights Act: Canadian, federal act passed in 1985, which requires all individuals to have the opportunity to pursue life and work without being discriminated against because of race, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and other issues

Charisma: compelling interest or charm

Charismatic Leadership: leader who uses charisma to influence members within an organization to bring about change

Checks and Balances: within an education context, when the students check and balance the outlines from the professor, and the professor checks and balances the expectations of the students

Civil Rights Act: federal act passed in the United States in 1964, which proposes the prohibition of discrimination in public places (e.g., schools, government building)

Classic Entrepreneur: inherent drive to start a business based on an original idea

Code of Ethics: piece of organizational legislation that provides employees with the knowledge, expectations, responsibilities, and behaviours toward fellow employees, customers, and suppliers

Coercive Power: leader who uses negative outcomes to achieve results

Cognitivism: identifying mental processes: internal and conscious representations of the world

Communication Process: when a communicator encodes a message and a receiver decodes the message

Communication Richness: the effectiveness of communication media dependent on the communication tool used

Communication: the act of relaying messages, either verbal or non-verbal, from one person or entity to another person or entity through signs, symbols, and syntactics

Communicative Media Transmission: a many-to-many approach (ie.g., YouTube Live Stream)

Competing Values Framework (CVF): an awareness check for an organization regarding corporate culture

Confirmation Bias: the idea that our initial beliefs are given more attention, and pay less attention to beliefs outside of our world view

Connectivism: the belief that knowledge is created beyond the level of individuals, and that knowledge through a network of connections is continuously changing

Consensual Leaders: encourage discussion, requires parties to make final decisions

Constructive Feedback: making sure feedback is useful, and following up to ensure the learner is progressing

Constructivism: the belief that all knowledge is subjective in nature, constructed from reality, and mutually agreed upon in a consensus

Consultative Leaders: encourages discussion; leader retains final authority over decision

Contingent Reinforcement: used when desired behaviour is exhibited, relating to a team reaching a quarterly goal, or daily working within the mission, vision, and values of an organization

Corporate Culture: focuses on the values of an organization, and relates to its socio-environmental characteristics

Corporate Governance: the different relationships a manager will have within an organization

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): a form of self-regulation, where firms take action and create initiatives to help people and the environment

Cross-Functional Teams: members within different groups who work together on a project

Cultural Iceberg Model: developed by Edward T. Hall, follows behaviour and external beliefs (the top of the iceberg, seen) are supported by values, thought patterns, and internal beliefs (below the surface, unseen)

Cultural Intelligence: a competency that allows individuals from cultures to function effectively in other cultural environments

Decision-Making: the action of thinking through a process and coming to a consensus, either personal, or collaborative, and following through with that action

Decoding: during the communication process, the receiver accepts the encoded message as an interpretation

Delegating: the use of other individuals in a collaborative situation to handle tasks that have initially been brought to attention

Democratic Leaders: a leadership style that embraces input from all members and puts decisions to a vote

Deontology: the concept that ethical individuals will meet their duties as obligated by society

Departmentalization: maintaining control of different structures with an organization

Devil’s Advocate: provides an alternate view, or a challenge to an individual’s logic on a decision

Direct Communication: the use of communication tools through the direct words used with literal interpretations

Direct Report: a member, within an organization, who is directly higher than a particular individual (i.e. the owner is the direct report of the CEO)

Discrimination: the unjust treatment of different categories of people or culture

Diversity: the identity-based differences between people

Division of Labour: the breakdown of work into well-defined tasks made to be manageable

Dynamic Forces: the different forces that can affect organizations in a global marketplace (e.g., economic, legal-political, technological, socio-cultural, natural)

Economic Forces: forces that pertain to an organizations role within its national or global economy

Educational Policy: creation, implementation, and revision of educational factors, such as class size, teacher education, teaching methods, and curriculum

Effective Communication: when a manager tells an employee something using jargon or colloquialisms, the employee understands completely and carries out the task

Electronic Grapevine: the grouping of different electronic mediums connecting organizational members in many different ways

Emotional Intelligence: Goleman’s definition: the ability to “manage ourselves and our relationships effectively”

Entrepreneur: someone with vision, drive, creativity, and committed to taking on risk to start a business for profit

Entrepreneurial Culture: mixture of personality and management, identified by those who create not only businesses, but the culture that surrounds it

Epistemology:  the philosophy of the justification or nature of knowledge (Hofer and Pintrich )

Equity Theory: organizational learning theory, developed by J. Stacy Adams, based on the logic of social comparisons, when perceived inequality is a motivating state, and people have different interpretations of equity

Escalation of Commitment: when leaders and managers remain committed to a poor decision, or find it hard to remove themselves from it rationally

Ethical Leadership: enacting of ethical values central to organizational alignment

Ethics Self-Governance: performance guidelines requiring high ethical standards and social responsibility

Ethics: code of moral principles that set the standards of good and bad, right and wrong

Expectancy Theory: organizational learning theory, developed by Victor Vroom, that motivation comes from three separate factors: expectancy, instrumentality, and valence

Experiential Learning: coined by John Dewey and perfected by David Kolb: empirical experience playing a role in the learning process

Expert Power: a leader’s ability to have extensive knowledge in one or more areas within an organization

Formal Organization: set of relationships and responsibilities set from upper management to subordinates

Formal Teams: a group designed to ensure that personal development is the most important goal of formal learning

Globalization: the phenomena that organizations move out of a local or national influence, and expand to have a global influence

Goals: an organization’s general aims as expressed in public statements

Goal-Setting Theory: an organizational learning theory developed by Edwin Locke, that goals can be motivating if they are properly set (planning) and well managed (execution) through four outlines: direction, clarity of expectations, reference for feedback, and foundation for self-management

Group-Think: when one person uses his or her power in a group process, and individuals remain silent so as not to disturb the peace (i.e., going along with what the individual thinks as a group)

Hawthorne Effect: the organizational phenomena that employees in a workplace work better, and are generally happier, when management is concerned about their welfare

Human Relation’s Theory: a theory developed by Mary Parker Follet, that humans have a more satisfying life through work, and that they solve conflicts through a process of democracy and conversation

Human Rights: an ethical concept that the human race has the right to live, have freedom, and pursue happiness

Hybrid Classrooms: a transmission approach to delivering course content, either separately or with connection, face-to-face and online

Hygiene Factors: the nature of a job that is unsatisfying

Immediate Reinforcement: positive feedback right after the action

Indirect Communication: the use of non-verbal behaviours and implications to convey meaning within the communication process

Individual Needs: the concept of deficient psychological or physiological needs of an individual

Influence: the ability to have an effect on a person, ability, or situation within an organizational structure

Informal Organization: run as a network of different individuals with evolving relationships

Informal Teams: a group designed to ensure that the organizational task is the most important goal of informal learning, and the the learning outcome is secondary

Information and Communication Technology (ICT): a medium designed to develop deep learning in students and educators through the use of technology (e.g., computers, Internet)

Innovation: the advancements and new developments of processes or products within an organization

Inquiry-Based Learning: when a leader provided help, but the learner explores her or his own themes, develops actions, and comes to conclusions

Interdisciplinary: the combining of two different specializations and augmenting them into a process

Interpersonal Communication: individuals who share ideas about the company’s incentives and discuss their personal feelings to others within the organization

Intrapreneur: someone who has the freedom to develop new products and ideas under the guidance of an employer

Job Design: scope, depth, and specialization of the job,  relating to job simplification, rotation, enlargement, and enrichment

Job Enlargement: the increase of task variety by combining two or more tasks that were previously assigned to different workers

Job Enrichment: the practice of expanding job content through depth to create more opportunities for satisfaction

Job Rotation: the increase in task variety by periodically shifting workers between jobs

Job Simplification: standardizing work procedures and employing people in well-defined and highly specialized tasks

Justice: ethical concept of what is fair according to the prevailing standards of society

Laissiez-Faire Leaders: a leadership style where leaders leave the control to their employees, so long as it remains within existing company ethics and standards

Leadership Characteristics: specific traits within one leadership style, where projects are planned to achieve goals

Leadership: the social relationship between two or more people who depend on each other to attain certain mutual goals in a group situation

Learning Organization: an organization that fosters growth and learning, and continues growth into the future

Legitimate Power: leaders who use their heightened positions within an organization as an influence

Long-Term Memory: a passive approach regarding a series of data links retained in our minds

Macropreneur: business based off of an original idea that starts small, and grows into a major corporation; business is based on personal satisfaction and pursuing profit

Management: the process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the activities of employees in combination with other resources to accomplish organizational objectives

Mechanistic Organization: run as top-down hierarchies with formal rules and a narrow span of control

Michigan Studies: research done at the University of Michigan where actions are identified as job-centered behaviours and employee/member-centered behaviours

Micropreneur: business based off of an original idea, starts small and stays small; business is based on personal satisfaction and lifestyle

Motivation Needs: the ability to use action within an organization to account for the persistence to do work

Multiculturalism: the process of ethnic pluralism within a state or society through legal, social, and economic factors

Multipreneur: someone who starts a series of companies

Nonverbal Communication: the transmission of communication without reading or writing

Normative Ethics: the field of ethics of how one ought and should act

Ohio State Studies: research done at the Ohio State University, which developed the behavioural structures of consideration and initiating structure

Online Collaborative Learning (OCL) : the model of learning where learners are supported to work together, create knowledge, invent, innovate, and develop the  conceptual knowledge needed to solve problems, all while engaging in modern technology, and working in that technology collaboratively

Oral Communication: the exchange of messages that are spoken and listened to

Organic Organization: run as a flat span of governance with flexible rules and a participatory model of decision making

Organization: collection of people with a common purpose and aligned goals

Participative Leaders: shared leadership that allows input from individuals, and brainstorms discussion about organizational issues

Philanthropy: the helping or donating of money to promote the welfare of the less-fortunate

Planning: creating an outline to guide operations in a direction of a mission, vision, and values

Positive Reinforcement: the action taken upon by a leader to reward someone for doing good work

Power: the ability to influence someone, within an organization, to get something done that needs to be completed

Project-Based Learning: providing a student, in a classroom setting, with a sense of responsibility and ownership in conducting projects with other students

Reasonable Accommodation: in employment legislation, the employer must make a wholesome attempt to allow for differences among the workforce

Referent Power: a leader’s ability to use charisma to garner admiration from peers

Reward Power: a leader who gains influence through the use of rewards within an organization

Satisfier Factors: the nature of a job that is satisfying

Scientific Management Theory: theory, developed by Frederick Taylor, that claims that  organizational task completion can be improved through scientific engineering and mathematical analysis

Self-Awareness: the inherent knowledge of one’s character, emotions, and motivations

Self-Efficacy Theory: organizational learning theory, developed by Albert Bandura, that suggests an individual feels self-efficient, or personally capable, when performing a task

Self-Managing Teams: sets of teams with autonomy who are given authority as to how they go about their tasks

Short-Term Memory: active approach to learning in the moment

Small Businesses: defined by certain characteristics, such as: physical space, economic annual revenue, and social makeup (e.g., number of employees)

Social Entrepreneurship: defined by J. Gregory Dees,  adopting an organizational mission to create and sustain social values and pursue new opportunities to serve it

Socio-Cultural Forces: the values, beliefs, customs, and traditions of different people regarding race, religion, gender, and other socio-cultural backgrounds

Stakeholders: the individuals or groups who are affected by the organization (e.g., employees, vendors, customers, and shareholders)

Strategic Giving: philanthropy tied to the organization’s corporate-social responsibility (CSR) of mission, vision, and values

Subordinate: a member within an organization, who is in a lower rank than another individual (i.e., the CEO is a subordinate to the founder/owner)

Sustainability: the organizational practice of hiring local labour, creating new jobs, developing industry sectors, providing business and learning skills, helping to decrease the country’s debt and improving the  standard of living

Theory X: theory developed by Douglas McGregor that managers believe that subordinates dislike work, lack ambition, do not take responsibility, and prefer to be led rather than lead

Theory Y: theory developed by Douglas McGregor that managers believe that subordinates are willing to work, accept responsibility, and are capable of self-control and self-direction

Time Constraints: when there is little time available to collect information with rationality and make an effective decision

Timeline: a given, set time to complete a task in order to be successful

Transactional Leadership: leadership that changes styles, adjusts tasks, and allocates rewards to achieve a positive influence

Transformational Leadership: leadership that heightens aspirations and shifts people and organizations to new levels

Treaty of Amsterdam: the European Union’s anti-discrimination law, enacted in 1997

Triple-Bottom-Line: three p’s, profit, people and planet, used to measure a level of organizational accountability towards ethical, social, and environmental causes

Tuckman Stages of Group Development: developed by Bruce Tuckman, describes the stages of forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning within organizational groups

Utilitarianism: an ethical concept that people should act, and decisions should be made to reflect the greater good for the greatest number of people

Virtual Teams: cross-functional groups that are computer-orientated, rather than face-to-face

Visionary Leaders: those who heighten aspirations through emotional and intellectual attractions

Whistle-Blower: an individual who exposes wrongdoing by an employer or by other employees, often motivated by the public interest

Workplace Diversity: the identity-based differences of processes or outcomes within a work environment

Written Communication: the use of email messages, texts, reports, and other annotations relayed from messenger to receiver for precise information