This paper explains how organisational myths and stories are vehicles of communication management (Kaye 1993; 1994). Contemporary scholars (eg Brown 1992; Boje 1991b) have argued that stories and myths are not only important communicative tools for learning within organisations but also powerful media for bringing about changes in people and in the culture of their workplace. People-associated changes include ways in which professional relationships and interpersonal communication are affected. In turn, the effects of mythologising and storytelling on organisational behaviour and communication are likely to have further-reaching consequences in shaping the culture of human systems.

Myth-making in organisations involves the identification of heroic and legendary archetypes. Such archetypes often serve as exemplars or role models for people-in-systems. The telling of stories involving heroic role models can have a marked influence on the shaping of communication between managers and their staff. Often the exploits of heroes become embellished through repeated oral versions. Stories gradually acquire a mythical quality or status. Significantly, the incorporation of stories into an organisation's culture will depend a lot on the credibility of the storyteller. When managers are perceived to have high credibility, they have a powerful means of helping those they supervise to learn, to achieve professional goals, and thus to contribute to the strategic growth of their organisations.

In this paper, myth-making and storytelling are considered to be specialised facets of communicative competence and analysed in terms of the Adult Communication Management Model (Kaye 1993; 1994). Attention is given to the effect of myth-making and storytelling on the covert ‘shadow-side’ culture of human systems. It is argued that the understanding and management of shadow-side communication is an integral component of effective organisational behaviour and survival. It is also proposed that such understanding and the ability to manage shadow-side communication is closely related to managers' awareness of prevailing myths and stories within their organisations. Finally, it is argued that managers who are skilled storytellers have the opportunity to help their staff develop communication abilities in a workplace conducive to learning.

Business in New Zealand is increasingly global in nature. Additionally, the domestic workforce reflects a unique blend of cultural groups. These factors highlight the need for managers to understand the cross-cultural nature of their task. In this article we review the research on cross-cultural management that has been conducted in New Zealand. Findings in seven topic areas of management (job satisfaction, motivation and performance, absenteeism and turnover, leadership, communication, group behaviour and employee adaptation) are discussed. We then identify areas that might benefit most from research attention.

This research was supported in part by the Carnegie Bosch Institute for Applied Studies in International Management. The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Kerr Inkson and John Deeks on earlier versions of this manuscript

The increasingly multicultural nature of the business environment has become widely recognised as a management issue (Adler and Ghadar 1990). New Zealand is neither a large target market (population under 3.5 million) nor is it the headquarters of a large number of multinational corporations. However, because of its geography, it is dependent on international business for its quality of life. Additionally, its unique domestic cultural environment provides a dramatic back drop for cross-cultural management. These two dimensions make cross-cultural management a particularly salient issue in New Zealand.

Our study examines the nature of Australian business leadership. Various extant concepts of leadership are reviewed in terms of current trends in Australian business leadership. Some of these concepts are used in the development of the Corporate Leadership Descriptor (CLD), and its sub-scales, namely the Leadership Operations Scale (LOS), Leadership Attributes Scale (LAS), and Job Outcomes Scale (JOS). Data were collected over a three year period from a variety of executive samples. Major findings indicate that key leadership functions focus on direction setting, team building, problem solving, and change agent responsibilities. Recommendations for further research and application of the CLD are provided.

Emanating from some of the major business failures of the 1980s has been a growing disquiet at the absence of a concern for ethics in the business community. A possible cause for the apparent immorality of actions taken by some businesses is the absence of ethics from the training programs provided to business managers and professionals. It may be that whilst some practices of the 1980s were those of immoral persons, the wider and underlying problem is one of amoral behaviour. That is, our business system operates without an ethical base, and this occurs, in part, because business ethics is excluded from the curricula of the institutions responsible for the training and further education of business managers and professionals.

The successful introduction of business ethics into the curricula requires a sufficient body of academics who believe that the learning of business ethics is both necessary and possible. Research data shows that few Australian universities have a formal program in business ethics. This paper reports an exploratory examination of the attitudes of business academics toward the need for inclusion of ethics in the business curriculum. The response to the survey suggests that while there is, as yet, no centre of concentrated will and ability to set the process of curricula change in motion, there is widespread interest and recognition of the need. Several constraints are identified, including the instrumentalist ethos of our institutions.