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PS 064
Reflexive Practices Leadership Teams Employ to Manage Communication Challenges
E. Hedman
1
1
University of Jyväskylä, Department of Communication, Jyväskylä, Finland
This study focuses on leadership team communication. Leadership teams, whether they are boards, executive teams, or management groups, are often
regarded as the most powerful groups within an organisation. Their communication can have a vast impact on the entire organisation and its future.
Leadership teams can face various communication challenges that are multifaceted and contradictory, and that can pose a barrier for effective teamwork.
These challenges are related for instance to the shared tasks, forms of communication, leadership, decision-making and participation in leadership team
communication (Hedman & Valo, 2015). Team reflexivity is considered to be the key to team effectiveness. Reflexivity has been associated with a number
of positive team outcomes, such as performance and innovation. It has also been claimed that reflexive teams are more able to respond to changing circum‑
stances than non-reflexive teams. Previous studies of team reflexivity have identified different activities that can boost reflexivity. For example, collective
reflection, error management and feedback behaviour have been highlighted as reflexive practices in teamwork (Savelsbergh et al., 2009). Therefore, it can
be concluded that the ways leadership teams manage the communication challenges they face broadly matters and has implications for further developing
reflexivity. The suggested presentation builds on previous research conducted for a doctoral dissertation. The aim of the study is to understand the ways
leadership teams manage their communication challenges. The presentation aims at answering the following question: What kind of ways and practices
do leadership teams employ in order to manage the communication challenges they face? Furthermore, this study seeks to understand the reflexive ways
of managing communication challenges. The data presented here consist of interviews of leadership team members from different international compa‑
nies operating in different industries. The analysis of data focused on identifying the ways leadership team members manage communication challenges.
The data was analysed thematically: all references regarding the management of communication challenges were collected and formed into themes.
The findings of the study indicate that leadership teams manage occuring communication challenges in various ways. They use for example practices such
as instant feedback, separate conflict discussions or avoidance. The findings also show that the leadership teams develop different methods and techniques
for running more effective meetings, experimenting different behaviours and providing effective feedback. The study suggests that employing reflexive
practices to manage communication challenges is crucial for effective leadership teamwork.The practical and theoretical relevance of studying reflexivity in
the context of leadership teams are presented. Finally, practical implications for leadership team development will be further discussed.
PS 065
Robots as New Media – Exploratory Studies in Acceptance and Social Incorporation
J. Hoeflich
1
, A. El Bayed
1
1
University of Erfurt, Department of Media and Communication Studies, Erfurt, Germany
Over the next decade, social robots / SRs (robots aimed to perform tasks in cooperation and communication with humans) as new media will change our
everyday life in a wide range of fields through their domestication. Given that, it is crucial to look at the images associated with SRs and the approval of their
social incorporation. To address this subject matter, two pre-studies and two main studies were conducted. The first qualitative pre-study was aimed at
learning how social representations of SRs look like, when the second rather investigated about the degree of acceptance of SRs in various parts of social
life. In both pre-studies, the participants (n=26) had limited knowledge about robots and therefore their representations were imagination based.The find‑
ings suggest that SRs are frequently graphically represented as they appear in the fictional context compared to robots developed in reality. Furthermore,
the results revealed the acceptance of SRs in contexts linked to mechanical processes as opposed to more social ones (e.g. medical care, teaching). After
being confronted with images of existing SRs, the participants’ acceptance and openness increased to include some of their social uses. However, it only
rose until the SR got very human-like to dramatically drop and cause their complete rejection (See the uncanny valley by Mori (1970, 2012)). Coming to
the first main study, based on a quota sample in a central European country, we researched the perception and acceptance of SRs using a quantitative
questionnaire (n=130). The results showed a more positive behavior toward SRs by respondents with earlier contact with these compared to those with
no previous experience. Additionally, younger and more educated people showed more acceptance toward SRs. It was also proven that the more complex
the functionalities of a SR were and the more interactionally and physically human-like it was, the less accepted it was. The second main study was aimed
at implementing a triadic relationship with a SR in an experimental setting, by inviting eight sets of two participants (4 male pairs, 4 female pairs) to inter‑
act with our WowWee Robosapien. The participants were asked to teach the robot different tasks while they articulated their thoughts aloud. The results
showed that the reactions to our SR were expressed by assigning human attributes and characteristics to it. The robot was socially incorporated and became
a part of the communicative triad via social interaction. To sum up, these four studies give an account into the representations of robots. It was shown that
these representations change depending on one’s age, education and above all interactional experience with robots. As we communicate about and with
SRs, these representations arise and evolve, subsequently unearthing the social facet of these machines, and transforming them hence to socially perceived
and ideally accepted entities. As the scope of our current set of studies remains limited, further research should seek to confirm the earlier findings in various
contexts – including real-life settings – and deepen the knowledge about the perception, the acceptance and the social incorporation of SRs.