Group dynamics and communication
in culturally diverse work groups
Cultural cooperative ExClaM!
An intrinsic case study
Julia Mahns
Master’s Thesis
Arts Management
Sibelius Academy
University of the Arts
Helsinki
Spring 2014
Hehhehe
ABSTRACT
Thesis
Title
Group dynamics and communication
in culturally diverse work groups
Thesis
Number of pages
104
Cultural cooperative ExClaM!
An intrinsic case study
Author
Julia Mahns
Semester
Spring 2014
Degree programme
Arts Management
Abstract
The aim of this study is to investigate the group dynamics and communication in the
cultural cooperative ExClaM! (Experience Classical Music!) between September 2011
and December 2013. The theoretical framework begins with an overview of relevant
theories from the field of group dynamics and continues by focusing on communication
theories. Special attention is paid to theories of intercultural communication and
computer-mediated communication.
The three members and co-founders of the group are Giorgia Ghizzoni from Italy,
Katariina Nyberg from Finland and Julia Mahns from Germany. The cultural
cooperative ExClaM! was officially registered in Finland in April 2012. Three big
projects have been organized under the name of ExClaM!: two concert seasons and one
community-building project.
This thesis is the result of a qualitative single-case study research. The data for this
intrinsic study has been derived from participant observations, focused interviews and
documents such as emails and press articles. The data analysis proceeded in four stages
including deductive as well as inductive methods. Main findings are connected to the
correlation of formal and informal group functions. Moreover, it is shown in what way
conflicts have brought this group forward and have led to important norms increasing
work effectiveness and improving communication. Also an assimilation to each other's
communication styles was found too. It was important to notice the interlacement of
upbringing, culture and communication affecting the use of English language in the
group. Finally, insights were gained on how geographical distance forcing the group
members to use computer-mediated communication, affects the group dynamics and
communication as well as the group identity.
Keywords
Group dynamics, group development, work groups, intercultural communication,
cultural diversity, computer-mediated communication, project management, language,
geographical distribution, classical music.
Additional information
www.exclam.fi
2
Table of contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Background of the study
1.2 Problem formulation
1.3 Aim of the study
1.4 Research approach
1.5 Structure of the thesis
2. Theoretical framework
2.1 Groups and group dynamics
2.1.1 Defining groups
2.1.2 Group dynamics
2.1.2.1 Small groups and triads
2.1.2.2 Group formation and development
2.2 Communication in culturally diverse work groups
2.2.1 Communication
2.2.2 Cultural diversity
2.2.3 Intercultural communication
2.2.4 Geographically distributed work groups
and computer-mediated communication
3. Research method
3.1 Methodological approach of the study
3.1.1 Qualitative case study
3.2 The case: ExClaM!
3.2.1 The members
3.2.2 The projects
3.3 Data collection
3.3.1 Participant observation
3.3.2 Interviews
3.3.3 Documents
3.4 Data analysis
3.5 Critical reflections on the research process
4. Analysis and results
4.1 Group development
4.1.1 Forming
4.1.2 Storming
4.1.3 Norming
4.1.4 Performing
4.2 Different perspectives on group communication
4.2.1 General communication development
4.2.2 Intercultural communication
4.2.3 English language and communication styles
4.3 Intercultural and mediated communication
3
5
6-7
7-9
9-10
10-11
11
12
12
12-15
15-17
17-18
18-23
24
24-25
25-26
26-30
30-34
35
35
35-36
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36-38
38-42
42-43
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43-44
44
44-46
46-48
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49
49-52
52-56
56-60
60-63
64
64-67
67-68
69-71
71-77
4.4 External influences on the group
4.4.1 Support by Sibelius Academy
4.4.2 Other supporters
4.4.3 Success and failure
4.4.4 Press coverage
5. Conclusions and discussion
5.1 Defining ExClaM! as a group
5.2 Group development of ExClaM!
5.3 Communication in ExClaM!
5.3.1 Intercultural communication in ExClaM!
5.3.2 Geographical distribution and computermediated communication in ExClaM!
5.4 Discussion
5.5 Further research
References
Appendix
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93-95
1. Introduction
"Imagine a cozy café in an old stationary building in the very center of Helsinki, sofas
everywhere, a warm light and the taste of Sicilian specialties on your tongue. The
interior design tells many stories, there is grass on the floor in little gardens, and old
charmful streetlamps, so you wonder, am I inside or outside? And then out of
nowhere, musicians of a string quartet start to play from different corners of the cafe
to then combine to a beautiful classical music piece…"
This dream was what we shared from the moment we met and was the beginning of it
all. The thought of presenting classical music in new contexts, new surroundings and
new combinations excites us ever since and motivates us to keep developing and
spreading our concepts in this field. That way we wish to touch and excite audiences
of all ages and backgrounds to let classical music become for them a source of
inspiration, energy and joy.
The thesis at hand is the result of a qualitative case study research into the field of
group dynamics and communication in culturally diverse work groups. It analyzes the
case of the cultural cooperative ExClaM! (Experience Classical Music!). This group was
founded in Helsinki, Finland, in January 2012 with the purpose of finding new ways to
present classical music. The co-founders and members are Giorgia Ghizzoni from Italy,
Katariina Nyberg from Finland and Julia Mahns from Germany, three Arts
Management students at Sibelius Academy during this time. It was found that many
different aspects influenced the group dynamics and communication between
September 2011 and December 2013.
During the short yet intense time period between Spring 2012 and Fall 2013, in which
three big projects took place, it has been especially interesting to observe the group
developments in terms of working together effectively and the continuous improvement
of the communication processes. Concerning this case study, I have found it
particularly intriguing to see if and in what way our cultural backgrounds affected the
group and how we managed to handle challenges and problems that arose during this
time. When we founded the cooperative we were already friends, which adds an
additional level of research in terms of group dynamics to this case. Furthermore, the
opportunities and difficulties that come along with the geographical distribution of a
group cannot be ignored in this context just as external influences on a group should be
taken into consideration. In short, analyzing those aspects retrospectively has
motivated me to use this as a case for my research.
5
1.1 Background of the study
The cultural cooperative ExClaM! (in Finnish: kulttuuriossuuskunta) was founded by
Giorgia Ghizzoni, Katariina Nyberg and Julia Mahns on April 16, 2012 and was
officially registered on June 5, 2012 in Helsinki, Finland with the registration number
24737365. Katariina, Giorgia and I met in the Arts Management Master's program at
Sibelius Academy (in the following: SibA), which we started in September 2011. With a
musical background, each of us soon began to exchange ideas about classical music, its
beauty and complexity and today's concert traditions in this field.
In January 2012, Giorgia then presented her idea of a Classical Music Café to Katariina
and myself. As a result, we started to develop this idea further and presented it to some
relevant people in Helsinki. The café should combine tasty Sicilian food with the
possibility to enjoy classical music, chamber music in particular, in a relaxed
atmosphere, creating, thereby, a connection between the musicians and the audience.
While spending many hours at the Helsinki Music Centre (in the following: HMC), soon
the idea began to take shape that “Makasiinit”, a destroyed building located next to
HMC would suit this concept. However, after meetings with the city of Helsinki, former
executive vice president and general manager of the Nokia Corporation Networks
Business Group Sari Baldauf and financial advice by Hannu Ojala and Yritys Helsinki,
we understood that this undertaking would present too big of a risk at this point in our
careers and that it would be extremely difficult to realize financially. Instead, Sari
Baldauf in particular encouraged us, in this initial phase, to start by concentrating on
our artistic concept to see how we could begin with that.
At the same time, we received support and encouragement for our ideas and business
initiative by Tanja Johansson (born: Vilén), who leads the Arts Management program
at SibA. After she had been talking to Gustav Djupsjöbacka, SibA's rector at the time,
we were asked to start an investigation project which would research into how Sibelius
Academy could organize profitable concert activities in HMC during the summer
months. This investigation was essential as the HMC had just opened in the fall of 2011
and a concept for summer activities was not yet in existence at that time. We began the
investigation in March 2012. With the consultancy of Prof. Matti Kukkonen (Hanken
University), we then chose the company form Osuuskunta (cooperative) for ExClaM!
which included Katariina, Giorgia and me as the three members. We appointed
Katariina CEO of ExClaM! even though this is optional in a cooperative. The name
ExClaM! had already come up earlier as Katariina's idea and arose as a result of several
brainstorming sessions to find a suitable name. A cooperative can generally be formed
by a minimum of three people and each member has one vote in association meetings.
6
The liability of the members is limited to their investment of share capital
(http://www.infopankki.fi/en/living-in-finland/work-and-enterprise/starting-abusiness/company-forms). A further definition is given on the Yritys Suomi website: “A
cooperative is suitable for expert entrepreneurs such as those providing cultural and
well-being services […]. For example, each member of the cooperative can carry out
his/her own job and the cooperative just takes care of billing, bookkeeping and
marketing“ (https://www.yrityssuomi.fi/osuuskunta). At this point, we were not sure,
yet, what kind of activities and projects we would carry out with ExClaM!, which is why
we liked this comparably loose company form.
Before officially founding ExClaM!, Prof. Matti Kukkonen advised us to appoint an
accountant for ExClaM!'s activities. In April 2012, we appointed Kirsi Vihanto as our
accountant knowing that she has a lot of experience in working with people in the
cultural field. Since then, she has been taking care of our finances for the summer
concerts 2012 and 2013, the Opera Game and other general financial and tax issues.
We, however, have been taking care of ExClaM!'s bank account (active since July 2012)
and the money transactions ourselves. Additionally, writing and filing invoices falls into
ExClaM!'s tasks too.
1.2 Problem formulation
Groups play an important role in people's private as well as professional lives. The
various groups that people belong to affect the individual members, and those members
affect the way that the group functions (see e.g. Forsyth, 2006, p. 10). In order to work
efficiently and to remain intact as a group, it is therefore important to understand
certain group processes and as well as one's individual behavior in a group setting.
Moreover, in the context of a group, it is possible for the members to reflect on their
ways of working, behaving and communicating, their strengths and weaknesses and
how they might learn from the other members on how to improve their individual
skills. In general, it is therefore relevant for any group member to have a look at the
group dynamics as well as the group development over time.
In the cultural field, more specifically the field of Arts Management (in the following I
am going to use this term interchangeably with the term cultural management), the
situation of working in groups, often small work groups, is very common. Generally, the
group size has to be taken into consideration when analyzing group processes (see e.g.
Shaw, 1971, p. 4). Moreover, an important part of the work in the cultural field is more
or less project-based. This means that the project groups often work together in
comparably short and intense time periods, sometimes part company again in between
7
the projects or form a new group for the next project.
Additionally, communication is not only one of the most important parts of people's
lives, but in a group context especially is very intertwined with the group dynamics
affecting how the group functions. Furthermore, with globalization, open borders in
Europe as well as improvements in communication technology, in the cultural field as
well as in many other professions, culturally diverse work groups become more and
more common. Different languages, communication styles and cultural backgrounds
can present additional challenges in effective group communication (see e.g. McGrath,
Berdahl and Arrow, 1995, p. 33) and make it necessary to acknowledge and understand
each other's cultural backgrounds for the group to function (see e.g. Forsyth, 2006, p.
10).
When groups are culturally diverse, it can also lead to the situation that the group
members may be more widely distributed geographically for shorter or longer time
periods. This means that the group members cannot always meet face-to-face, but have
to use other media such as email, phone or skype to communicate with each other.
Depending on the richness of the media used (see e.g. Daft and Lendel, 1986, p. 560),
this computer-mediated communication, which is the term that I am going to use in the
course of this thesis, affects the way a group functions and develops. For instance, a
lack of face-to-face communication can affect work relationship and cause
misunderstandings and conflicts as findings in communications indicate (see e.g.
Armstrong and Cole, 1995, p. 188). Among many other factors that can affect the
dynamics and communication in a group are the situation of the group members being
friends as well as colleagues, leadership and responsibility and personal characteristics
of the group members.
Indeed, many of the above mentioned factors affecting group dynamics and
communication in culturally diverse work groups can be observed in ExClaM!. As an
underlying prerequisite for the following analysis, it is important to mention that
ExClaM! is a project-based company. Although we have worked together also in
between our three main projects, usually less than during project periods, it cannot be
seen as an every-day work environment. As we are a cultural cooperative, we work
mainly with projects related to music and the arts, but also projects related to culture in
broader sense. ExClaM! consists of three members and can therefore be considered a
small group (Shaw, 1971, p. 4). In this particular case, three as a number of group
members, has to be taken into consideration when analyzing the group processes (see
e.g. Simmel, 1955).
8
The cultural diversity of ExClaM! becomes clear in the knowledge that Giorgia was born
in Italy, but has also lived in the Netherlands and U.S.A. as well as spent a fair amount
of time in Canada during her childhood. Katariina was born in Finland, but has lived in
Austria and Germany during her childhood and attended the German school in
Helsinki. I come from Germany and lived in Sweden for two years before moving to
Finland in 2011.
As we have three different languages as our mother tongues, English is our company
language, a second language for us all. During the first year of us working together, we
understood that our different styles of communication and of using the English
language caused some misunderstandings. All of us were already on a good level of
English when we met as we had to pass a TOEFL test in order to be accepted into the
Arts Management program and had been using English in international surroundings
before. Nevertheless, our styles of using written and spoken language appeared to be
quite different on occasion.
In addition, during project periods as well as preparation times, Giorgia, Katariina and
I have been located in different parts of the world for certain time periods of time and
therefore had to use computer-mediated communication such as email, Google drive or
Skype to stay in contact. Since getting to know each other in the fall of 2011, we are also
close friends and have shared many personal experiences in this group. Hence, we have
supported each other in our professional as well as our personal development. Even
though this situation does have many advantages, it also presents an additional
challenge whilst trying to separate friendship and collegiate working not to let personal
topics interfere too much with project tasks and vice versa.
The Arts Management program at SibA is designed to attract the future leaders of the
cultural field. Although not all students starting the program have the aim of taking on
a leading position in a cultural organization, the opportunity does exist. In the case of
Katariina, Giorgia and myself, I would assert that we all have a tendency for taking on
both a leading role and responsibility. We have a strong belief in our ideas and want to
make good decisions, but we also have to agree on many parts in a production and
make compromises. On top of that, as we all are co-founders and managing partners of
ExClaM!, it is safe to assume that emotional involvement with ExClaM!'s projects and
undertakings is high.
1.3 Aim of the study
With this study I aim to examine the group dynamics and the way the group
9
development phases have taken place in ExClaM!. In addition, I aim to examine what
role I and the other members have had in this process. In order to achieve this, I am
going to look at the way the group has developed over time. Furthermore, I am to
explore how the methods of communication have changed throughout this process. In
this context, I find it especially important to reflect on the conflicts and adaptation
processes that have arisen due to the way ExClaM! is composed of individual members,
aiming to gain insights in what way our cultural diversity is influencing the group
communication. In terms of geographical distribution and computer-mediated
communication, I also find it necessary to discover what misunderstandings and
problems may arise as a result.
With regard to ExClaM!, I believe that this study can help the members to understand –
retrospectively – the group processes and communication that have taken place and
use this understanding as a way of applying some of the insights for future project
work, either with ExClaM! or in other small groups. Moreover, I believe that the
individual members can gain new insights about their behavior in a group setting and
understand certain habits or phenomena better. Personally, I aim to gain new insights
about my own behavior and communication in a culturally diverse group. Ideally, this
study could also encourage other small project-based groups in the cultural field to
keep analyzing and improving their personal and professional interaction and to have
the patience of letting the group communication evolve and improve over time.
1.4 Research Approach
The research approach is a qualitative, intrinsic case study with ExClaM! and its three
members as a single case (Stake, 1995, p. 3). Data includes interviews and emails with
the group members, some other documents such as press articles as well as my
observations and personal experience since September 2011 until December 2013.
Relevant theories are summarized and applied mainly from the field of groups and
group dynamics as well as from the field of communication.
The main data collection method applied in this thesis is “participant observation”,
which on the one hand indicates that the observer is involved in the group himself, but
also expresses that he has access to data that would be hidden from an external
observer (see e.g. Yin, 1994, p. 88). Obviously, studying a group and being a member of
it myself also means having to study one's own behavior and personal development
during the given period of time. The importance of the former, especially regarding
different roles in a group, is emphasized by Bales (1970) who states that “the group role
of a given person is determined in part by all the other group members, the way they
10
behave, and the way they evaluate the acting person“ (p. 16). Moreover, Bales explains
that “the understanding of another personality, or a group, implies an understanding of
the self to some extent, since the self is always implicated in some way vis-a-vis the
other“ (p. 24).
A great part of the data includes my observations, impressions and memories of
situations, group behavior and communication issues, that I have not written down, but
that I recall in retrospective. Concerning this data collection method, Bales (1970)
points out that “retrospective impressions may be employed in the study of persons in
any group, and depend upon no written records“ (p. 22). The other important part of
the data is derived from emails, also comparing emails from different points in time
during our working period, from in-depth interviews with Giorgia and Katariina as well
as from press articles on ExClaM!
1.5 Structure of the thesis
To begin with, I will offer an overview of important theories in order to create the
necessary context and knowledge base for this case and the following analysis. The
theoretical framework starts with a chapter on groups and group dynamics continuing
with the topic of communication, more specifically intercultural communication as well
as computer-mediated communication, in the latter part.
In the methodological chapter, the research method of a qualitative case study is
described. Furthermore, this chapter presents the different methods of data collection,
and data analysis as well as critical reflections on the research process. Accordingly, the
analysis then concerns examples of group dynamics, group development and
communication in ExClaM! taken from the several data sources. Finally, in the
conclusions and discussions, the most relevant findings are summarized and connected
to some of the theories presented, limitations of the research are considered and
suggestions for further research in this field are given.
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2. Theoretical framework
First, the following chapter gives an overview of the history and some relevant theories
in the field of group dynamics. After presenting some definitions and general concepts
concerning groups, an important focus is on the development of groups. In the latter
part of this chapter, some of the main communication theories are presented, while
focusing in particular on theories in the fields of intercultural communication and
computer-mediated communication in distributed work groups. This theoretical
framework is necessary to create the possibility of later understanding and reflecting on
the phenomena and findings in the right context.
2.1 Groups and group dynamics
2.1.1 Defining groups
Lewin (1947), as one of the first researchers using the term group dynamics, defines a
group as a “dynamic whole which is characterized by a close interdependence of their
members” (p. 8). This is to be distinguished from a 'number of individuals who are
classified under one concept' according to the similarity of one of their properties”
(ibid.).
Also many other researchers in the field of group dynamics seem to have struggled in
finding an appropriate definition of a group. Cartwright and Zander (1968) find it
difficult to define the term “because of the multiplicity of properties possessed by
groups” (p. 45). Considering previous definitions by Brodbeck and Lewin however,
they emphasize the feature of interdependence among the group's members (p. 46).
Acknowledging various definitions, they conclude a list of features that seem to be
especially important for groups:
a) they engage in frequent interaction
b) they define themselves as members
c) they are defined by others as belonging to the group
d) they share norms concerning matters of common interest
e) they participate in a system of interlocking roles
f) they identify with one another as a result of having set-up the same model-object or
ideals in their super-ego
g) they find the group to be rewarding
h) they pursue promotively interdependent goals
i) they have a collective perception of their unity
j) they tend to act in a unitary manner toward the environment (p. 48).
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Summarizing the definition of a group in one sentence, Arrow, McGrath and Berdahl
(2000) see it as “a complex, adaptive, dynamic, coordinated, and bounded set of
patterned relations among members, tasks and tools” (p. 34).
Correspondingly, Forsyth (2006) defines a group as “two or more individuals who are
connected to one another by social relationships” (p. 3). As there are many definitions
for groups, Forsyth too names the connections between the individual members as a
critical element to define a group (p. 2). He further summarizes how different
definitions express the nature of the connection between the group members, which
some describe as a form of interdependence while others see it as a certain form of
organization or emphasize the mutual influence (p. 5). In any case, the group members
must be connected on a social level, which distinguishes groups from categories, that
are, instead, defined as an “aggregation of individuals who share certain qualities”
(ibid.).
Similarly, Bartol and Martin (1994) conclude that “several strangers who happen to
leave by the same door at the theater or who can be found studying in the same section
of a library do not constitute a group” (p. 468) as neither of the criteria of
interdependency, interaction and influence to pursue a common goal is fulfilled.
Interestingly, Bartol and Martin also point out the difference between groups and
organizations explaining that “groups typically do not engage in systematic efforts to
the same extent as organizations and may or may not produce good or services” (ibid.).
Finally, Cartwright and Zander (1968) name three circumstances under which a group
is formed:
a) A group may be created deliberately by one or more people in order to accomplish
some objective
b) A group may be formed spontaneously by the people who come to participate in it
c) A collection of individuals may become a group because they are treated in a
homogeneous way by other people (p. 54).
As a matter of fact, most individuals prefer to live in groups although human beings are
able to survive on their own (Forsyth 2006, p. 5). Starting from the most common
group form, the family, most people are members of many different groups. Charles
Horton Cooley (1998, note: the original writings are from the beginning of the 20 th
century) stresses, first and foremost, the importance of “primary groups” which are
characterized by “intimate face-to-face association and cooperation” and are
“fundamental in forming the social nature and ideals of the individual” such as the
family, children's playgroup, neighborhood communities and many others. These
groups do not have to be merely harmonious; instead they can be of a competitive
13
nature but usually with an underlying sympathy and common spirit (p. 179). Obviously,
these groups are primary in a sense that they give the individual “his earliest and
completest experience of social unity” (p. 181).
Furthermore, groups can be distinguished between formal and informal groups. A
formal group is described as a group “officially created by an organization for a specific
purpose” (Bartol and Martin, 1994, p. 469) and includes the subcategories of command
and task groups. A command group consists of a “manager and all the subordinates
who report to that manager” (ibid.). A task group on the other hand, that can be either
permanent or temporary, is defined as a “group created for a specific purpose that
supplements or replaces work normally done by command groups” (p. 470).
Informal groups are commonly “established by employees, rather than by the
organization, to serve group members' interests or social needs” (ibid.). In some cases,
an informal group can have the same members as a formal group, “as when members of
a work group begin to have lunch together” (ibid.). The two types of informal groups
are called interest and friendship groups, of which the interest group is defined as an
“informal group created to facilitate employee pursuits of common concern” (p. 471)
and the friendship group as an “informal group that evolves primarily to meet
employee social needs” (ibid.). Although usually evolving from a formal group, an
informal group may well be informal from the start and later turn into a formal group.
Already Schein (1970) emphasized that “the tendency toward informal groups can
almost always be assumed to exists because of the nature of man” (p. 82). An additional
group form that is mentioned by Schein is the psychological group, which he defines as
“any number of people who (1) interact with one another, (2) are psychologically aware
of one another, and (3) perceive themselves to be a group” (p. 81). Schermerhorn
(1986) indicates further that most informal groups qualify as psychological groups
while many formal groups do not (p. 361). Above all, Schein explains that most groups
have formal and informal functions, which is why he believes that his definition of
psychological groups is useful to integrate organizational goals and personal needs (p.
85).
According to Barton and Martin (1994), to understand the factors that affect work
group behavior, groups should be seen as “systems that use inputs, engage in various
processes, or transformations, and produce outcomes” (p. 473). Those inputs include
the factors of group composition, member roles and group size, in the processes, group
norms, group cohesiveness and group development are relevant and in the outcomes,
group performance, member need satisfaction and future work group compatibility
play an important role (ibid.).
14
Finally, Bartol and Martin mention the “entrepreneurial team” as a group type that
focuses on “new business either by pioneering completely different types of endeavors
or by devising novel products and services that are congruent with existing lines of
business” (p. 488).
In my further analysis I am going to use the term “work group” as a way to distinguish
this type of group from a “team”. The term team is often used for a group within an
organization, formed to accomplish a specific goal (see e.g. McGrath et al., 1995, p. 21
or Hinds and Bailey, 2003, p. 616). In this research, ExClaM! presents the organization
itself, which is why “work group” is more applicable here. Additionally, when referring
to theory, “group” seems to be the more general term being used and can be applied to
various fields of people's lives, which will make my analysis relevant on a broader scale.
A definition of a work group is given by McGrath et al. (1995), indicating that it must
have three functions, a production function, a member support function and a group
well-being function (p. 18) that are carried out by four modes of activity including
project inception or goal selection activities, technical problem-solving activities,
political or conflict resolution activities, and execution or goal attainment activities (p.
18 f.). While avoiding to use the word “team” in my own writings it appears in
numerous quotes and references, from which I am not excluding it as it applies to my
group research in those cases.
2.1.2 Group dynamics
“Groups are systems that create, organize, and sustain interaction among
members. Group members get into arguments, talk over issues, and make
decisions. They upset each other, give one another help and support, and take
advantage of each other's weaknesses. They rally together to accomplish
difficult tasks, but they sometimes slack off when they think others will not
notice. Group members teach each other new things; they communicate with
one another verbally and nonverbally, and they touch each other literally and
emotionally. Group members do things to and with each other”
(Forsyth, 2006, p. 10).
As a distinct field, group dynamics began at the end of the 1930s in the United States of
America. Among the first researchers this term was associated with was Kurt Lewin
(1890-1947), who popularized it and made significant contributions to both research
and theory in group dynamics (Cartwright and Zander, 1968, p. 7). Some of the
conditions that supported the rise of group dynamics were a supportive society,
developed professions and, especially, the development of social sciences towards the
end of the 19th century (p. 11). An important part of the latter were discussions
15
concerning the reality of groups and its phenomena, such as the group mind, about
which the debate reached its climax in the 1920s (p. 12). Allport (1927) believed that
such concepts as a group mind do not really exist. “This error is the attempt to explain
social phenomena in terms of the group as a whole, whereas the true explanation is to
be found only in its component parts, the individuals” (p. 3). He argues that "we are in
danger of being misled into thinking that it is a crowd mind rather than the minds of
individuals which is accountable for these phenomena” (ibid.).
Strongly opposed to Allport's opinion, Lewin (1947) emphasized the reality of group
phenomena in his article Frontiers in group dynamics: “There is no more magic
behind the fact that groups have properties of their own, which are different from the
properties of their subgroups or their individual members [...]” (p. 8). He claims further
that in social research the personality of individual members, the group structure,
ideology and cultural values as well as economic factors have to be taken into
consideration (p. 9).
Cartwright and Zander (1968), who continued Lewin's research, clarify that the term
“group dynamics” has been used for three different fields since the 1930s. The term
first became popular during World War 2 and in this context refers to a “political
ideology concerning the ways in which groups should be organized and managed” (p.
4), in which a democratic leadership is emphasized specifically. Secondly, the term has
been used for a number of techniques utilized in training programs to “improve skill in
human relations and in the management of conferences and committees” (ibid.).
Thirdly, it can refer to “achieving knowledge about the nature of groups, the laws of
their development, and their interrelations with individuals, other groups, and larger
institutions” (ibid.). In this thesis I will focus on the third understanding of the term. In
addition, Cartwright and Zander (1968) emphasize the interdisciplinarity of the
research
on
group
dynamics,
to
which
sociologists,
psychologists,
cultural
anthropologists as well as political scientists have contributed (p. 6). Techniques on
group research had already started to develop since the 1850s with the rise of
experimental psychology (p. 13). In the late 1930s, powerful statistical methods were
elaborated, that were important for the behavioral sciences to progress (ibid.).
Different methods influencing the progress of group dynamics started to develop
during this time as well. First, experiments on individual behavior in groups, in which
various studies were made on people's change in behavior when working alone or in a
group, were conducted by Triplett, Moede, Allport and Dashiell (ibid.). Other
researchers such as Gordon, Watson and Shaw investigated the question as to whether
individuals or groups did the better job concerning specific tasks (p. 14).
16
Secondly, in the field of controlled observation of social interaction, according to
Cartwright and Zander (1968), it was first in the 1930's in child psychology when
“serious attempts to refine methods of observation, so that objective and quantitative
data might be obtained, occurred [...]”, in which important figures were Goodenough,
Jack, Olsen, Parten and Thomas (p. 13 f.). Thirdly, in the field of sociometry, data is
obtained by asking questions of the group members, of course only to the extent of
which “the individual is able and willing, to report.” As a method for gathering this
information, a researcher named Moreno developed the sociometric test in 1934 which
provided “valuable information about interpersonal attractions and repulsions among
any collection of people” (p. 14).
Between 1937 and 1940, Lewin, Lippitt and White investigated group atmosphere and
leadership styles and its influences on the group and on the individual at the Iowa
Child Welfare Research Station. This was an influential work in the emerging field of
group dynamics. Under the leadership of an adult, groups of 10- and 11- year old
children met regularly for several weeks with the adult creating the group atmosphere.
Accordingly, a democratic, autocratic and laissez faire type of leadership and its effects
on the group were investigated (Cartwright and Zander, 1968, p. 17 f.).
2.1.2.1 Small groups and triads
The size of a group, referring to its number of members, can affect the group dynamics
in various aspects. Apart from the extensive research on groups, research on small
groups first became a distinctive field in social psychology in the beginning of the 20 th
century, even though there had been some publications on it already in the late 19 th
century by Triplett, for instance (Arrow et al. 2000, p. 11). Later on – the field was
partly neglected between 1960 and 1980 – small group research started to gain more
importance again, especially in several areas of social and behavioral sciences (p. 12).
Lewin (1948) additionally indicated that ”[...] the smallness of the group makes its
members very interdependent” (p. 88).
Describing the difficulty in defining a small group Shaw (1971) explains that there is no
clear line drawn between small and large groups. While “a group having ten or fewer
members is certainly a small group; one with thirty or more members is definitely a
large group” (p. 4). He thereby indicates that groups with between ten and thirty
members are difficult to categorize clearly. Moreover, Shaw points out that the
distinction between “small” or “large” does not necessarily depend merely on the
number of group members, but also on the level of relatedness among the members
(ibid.). This means if all members are closely related to one another and work towards a
common goal, even a group with 30 members could be considered a small group. He
17
however mentions that this distinction usually does not present a problem as the
majority of research concerns groups with five or fewer members (ibid.).
In fact, there has also been some research on the differences of groups with even and
odd numbers. Research indicates that groups of even numbers can always divide into
two equal parts with the effect of no majority (Bales and Borgatta, 1955, p. 404). On the
other hand, this situation can lead to a deadlock in even numbered groups while odd
numbered groups might form a majority and minority and reach decisions more easily
(ibid.).
Especially relevant in the context of this research are the peculiarities of the triad as a
group, particularly in comparison to the characteristics of a dyad. Simmel (1955) points
out this difference by explaining that “where three elements, A, B,C, constitute a group,
there is, in addition to the direct relationship between A and B, for instance, their
indirect one, which is derived from their common relation to C” (p. 14). This, he
describes, can be an enrichment for the group as the third element “offers a different
side to each of the other two, and yet fuses these different sides in the unity of its own
personality”. On the other hand, Simmel adds that this indirect relationship can also
disturb the direct one by adding that “no matter how close a triad my be, there is always
the occasion on which two of the three members regard the third as an intruder […], the
sensitive union of two is always irritated by the spectator” (ibid.).
Reinforcing Simmel's hypothesis, also Bartol and Martin (1994) point out a difficulty in
groups of three, stating that “there is a tendency for the group to split into a 'twoagainst-one' situation” (p. 476).
2.1.2.2 Group formation and development
Recognizing that little research had been done on group development and change over
time Tuckman (1965) developed a model on small group process development
including the stages of forming, storming, norming, performing (p. 396). Noticing later
on that other researchers had added a final termination stage to group development
models, Tuckman and Jensen (1977) decided to add a fifth stage to their model as well.
The adjourning stage includes the task completion and termination of the group (p.
426). In the context of this thesis however, I decided to focus only on the first four
stages of group development as they seem most important to apply to the development
of ExClaM!. Furthermore, a termination of the group has not taken place. In the
following, the first four stages are presented in detail, adding perspectives of various
researchers on group development.
18
Forming (testing and dependence)
Regarding the interpersonal development in the forming stage, the initial phase of
group development, group members discover here what interpersonal behaviors are
accepted and pay attention to the other's reactions. Referring to the task activity
development this period is seen as a task orientation phase, where group members
identify the task and decide how it should be dealt with (Tuckman, 1965, p. 386). What
Shaw (1971) emphasizes is that the group development - in terms of organization and
structure, especially regarding the social structure - usually proceeds rapidly in the
beginning phase (p. 101).
In every group it is important to look at what members the group is composed of and
in what way this affects the group processes (see e.g. Forsyth, 2006, p. 10). As the
members get to know each other's behaviors and characteristics in this phase, this
aspect is crucial to understand the further group development. Moreover, when group
members come from different cultural backgrounds, this can be an additional aspect to
take into consideration (see e.g. Gudykunst and Kim, 2003, p. 4). Above all, it is
relevant in this context to have a look at the motivation for people joining groups.
Generally, the reasons of a person being attracted to a group, a prerequisite to develop
the motivation to join a group, can be manifold. Summarizing different lines of
research in this field, Cartwright (1968) proposes the following variables that determine
a person's attraction to a group:
a) his motive base for attraction
b) the incentive properties of the group
c) his expectancy
d) his comparison level (p. 96)
Cartwright (1968) points out that often similarity, but also dissimilarity can be a source
of attraction among group members (p. 99). Also, it is commonly observed that people
join groups to fulfill certain needs, among the most important, the need for affiliation
(see e.g. Shaw, 1971, p. 6). Later on, in the norming stage, the motives for joining a
group are replaced by the motives to remain part of the group.
Storming (intragroup conflict)
In the second stage, the storming stage, group members often become hostile to
express their individuality and to resist the group structure formation leading to a lack
of unity as a common feature (Tuckman, 1965, p. 386). Furthermore, group members
react emotionally to tasks showing a discrepancy between their personal orientation
and what is demanded by the task (ibid.). Obviously, these reactions often lead to
19
conflicts in this phase (ibid.).
Ungerleider (2008) defines conflict as “a struggle, or state of disharmony or
antagonism, or hostile behaviors, resulting from contradictory interests, needs or
beliefs, or mutually exclusive desires” (p. 212). In fact, he points out that although
conflicts can prevent effective communication and collaboration, it can also lead to a
creative tension that is necessary for important changes in a group (ibid.). Through
conflicts, group members can express needs and problems that might not be dealt with
otherwise. Therefore, Ungerleider (2008) explains that groups engaging with conflicts
directly “deepened communication and honest self-examination can lead to creative,
positive energy” (p. 213). One important distinction is commonly made between task
conflicts connected to resource distribution or procedures of facts and relationship
conflict connected to feelings and values, for instance (ibid.).
Especially when team members are also friends, affective (or relationship) conflict
seems to be more likely to arise (Hinds and Bailey, 2003, p. 618). Referring to studies
in this field of research, Hinds and Bailey point out that “because bonds of friendship
are built on trust, expressing affective conflict may be perceived and more readily
accepted”. Furthermore, it is suggested that “these teams also are better able to harness
the conflict to improve task performance” (ibid.).
Norming (development of group cohesion)
In the norming stage, group members accept the group and its members' peculiarities,
the group becomes an entity, new norms are established and task conflicts are avoided
to ensure harmony (ibid.). As the task activity development, Tuckman (1965) mentions
that an open exchange of relevant interpretations takes place in this phase (p. 387).
A group norm is generally defined as a behavior that is expected of the group members
(Schermerhorn, 1968, p. 370). Furthermore, Schermerhorn explains that norms are
rules or standards that guide the behavior of the group members (ibid.) while Forsyth
(2006) specifies that “norms within a group are defined and renegotiated over time,
and conflicts emerge as members violate norms” (p. 13). What is more, norms help the
group members to predict one another's behavior and to avoid chaos (Schermerhorn,
1986, p. 370). According to Schermerhorn, one of the most important norms in a group
is the “performance norm” describing the work effort each group member is expected
to contribute to the group task (ibid.). Other norms in work groups can for example
include honesty, punctuality, quality, relationships or personal development (p. 370 f.).
Specifically, Bartol and Martin (1994) point out that sources of norms can be explicit
20
statements, critical events, carryover behaviors or primacy which they define as “the
tendency for the first behavior pattern that emerges in a group to establish group
expectations from that point on” (Bartol and Martin, 1994, p. 480). Referring to
complexity theory, Arrow et al. (2000) suggest that groups become more complex over
time as the “number and variety of patterned regularities in the structure and behavior
of the group increase” (p. 39).
After having examined the issue of people's motivation to join a group in the forming
stage, in the norming stage it is important to look at the reasons why group members
want to remain part of a group and what is commonly called group cohesiveness.
“Cohesiveness, in this case, refers to the degree of motivation of members to stay in the
group” (Byrnes, 2009, p. 248). This can be achieved through, for example, time
limitation in which a certain goal shall be reached. If the goal is reached within the time
limit “the group usually feels some sense of collective accomplishment, which is a way
of building cohesiveness” (ibid.).
Forsyth (2006) defines the term of group cohesion as “the strength of the bonds linking
individuals to the group, feelings of attraction for specific group members and the
group itself, the unity of a group, and the degree to which the group members
coordinate their efforts to achieve goals” (ibid., p. 14).) Referring to the positive effects
groups can have on their members, he further explains that “groups also provide their
members with the means to accomplish goals that they could never achieve alone; they
provide their members with knowledge, skills and abilities” (p. 10).
According to Arrow et al. (2000) groups have three main functions:
a) to complete group projects
b) to fulfill members needs
c) to maintain system integrity, while this function emerges from the first two (p.47).
It is explained further that members of groups with “high system integrity are both
willing and able to invest energy into carrying out group projects and addressing
member needs” (ibid.).
Moreover, Bartol and Martin (1994) point out that “performance levels of group
members tend to be more similar in highly cohesive groups. This is because members
of such groups tend to avoid either letting the group down by underperforming or
showing up other group members by performing at a significantly higher level” (p. 481).
Furthermore, they emphasize that some factors have a positive effect on group
cohesiveness as “similar attitudes and values make it easier for individuals to
21
communicate, find common ground, and develop mutual understandings” (p. 482 f.).
But also external threats or great successes can increase group cohesiveness (p. 483).
Finally, Bartol and Martin (1994) suggest that “cohesiveness is much easier to attain
when groups are relatively small [...]” (ibid.).
Presenting an additional perspective on group cohesivess, Cartwright (1986) finds it
important to point out that the forces which determine whether a member wants to
remain in the group include not only the group's attractiveness, but also available
alternatives and “forces against leaving the group that result from costs associated with
leaving or from other restraints” (p. 92). He further suggests that, in general,
“attraction to group for a given individual will depend upon his assessment of the
desirable and undesirable consequences attendant upon membership in the group” (p.
95). Cartwright and Zander (1968) also report about research showing that “the degree
of group unity affects member's reactions to group success or failure” (p. 49).
Looking at group cohesion from a psychological perspective and regarding the needs
that groups can fulfill for its members, H. Schein (1970) lists the psychological
functions of groups that they may provide for their members:
a) An outlet for affiliation needs [...]
b) A means for developing, enhancing, or confirming a sense of identity and
maintaining self-esteem [...]
c) A means of establishing and testing reality [...]
d) A means of increasing security and a sense of power [...]
e) A means of getting some job done that members need to have done […]” (p. 84 f.).
Other research has shown that membership and reference groups affect the attitudes of
an individual. Reference groups are “groups in which [someone] aspires to attain or
maintain membership” (Siegel and Siegel, 1968, p. 74) These two group types can be
identical “when the person aspires to maintain membership in the group of which he is
a part” (ibid.).
Performing (Functional role-relatedness)
In the performing stage, role structure is now an instrument that can be directed at the
task, the group is problem-solving and the members relate to one another as social
entities. The emergence of solutions as well as constructive attempts at successful task
completion play an important role in this phase (Tuckman, 1965, p. 387). In this fourth
stage of group development, roles establish among group members, a topic that is
closely connected to the way a group is composed. Bartol and Martin (1994) define a
22
role as “a set of behaviors expected of an individual who occupies a particular position
in a group” (p. 475).
Shaw (1971) points out that researchers have identified three different aspects of role,
namely the expected role, the perceived role and the enacted role (p. 244 f.). While the
enacted role is defined as “the set of behaviors an occupant actually carries out”, the
perceived role describes the way someone believes he should behave in his role. The
expected role is the behavior of the person holding a given position that is expected of
him, which usually is agreed upon by the occupant, but also by other members of the
group and often the larger society (p. 244). He explains that group dysfunction and
conflict can be increased because of the differences between those three role aspects (p.
245).
In their article “Functional roles of group members” Benne and Sheats (1970) have
classified the member-roles into three groupings: group task roles, group building and
maintenance roles and individual roles (p. 31). The group task roles can help a group to
solve problems, accomplish goals and support its development. Those include roles of,
for instance, the initiatior-contributor, information seeker, information giver,
coordinator, orienter and energizer (p. 31). The second category is described as group
building and maintenance roles, which are not connected to a specific task, but help
the work effectiveness of the group as well as the interpersonal relations between group
members. To this grouping belong the roles of the encourager, the harmonizer, the
compromiser, the gatekeeper, the standard setter, the group observer and the follower
(p. 32). Finally, the individual roles that are defined as “attempts by group members to
satisfy individual needs which are irrelevant to the group task [...]” and can hinder
group effectiveness include among others the aggressor, the blocker and the
recognition-seeker and the dominator (p. 32 f.). It is pointed out that leaders as well as
members of the group may take on different roles at all times (ibid.).
When discussing the possible roles a person can have in a group, the discrepancy of
having the role of a friend and the role of a colleague should not be ignored. As
mentioned in the storming phase, when it comes to conflicts, the line between task
conflict and relationship conflict can be blurred when both roles are prevalent.
Referring to Tuckman's model Shaw and Barrett-Power (1998) believe that the four
group development stages can occur several times during a group's life. This can for
example be the case, when a group returns to forming activities after a storming phase
to “re-establish a sense of social cohesion and attraction to one another” (p. 1311).
23
2.2 Communication in culturally diverse work groups
2.2.1 Communication
“By communication is here meant the mechanism through which human
relations exist and develop – all the symbols of the mind, together with the
means of conveying them through space and preserving them in time. It
includes the expression of the face, attitude and gesture, the tones of the voice,
words, writing, printing, railways, telegraphs, telephones, and whatever else
may be the latest achievement in the conquest of space and time”
(Cooley, 1998, p. 100).
Similarly, Griffin (2008) defines communication as “the mechanism teams use to
transfer knowledge, provide information, set direction, understand each other as
individuals, ask questions, make decisions, take appropriate action, and simply relate
to one another” (p. 175). A more basic definition of communication is given in the
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2000): “the activity or process of expressing
ideas and feelings or of giving people information” (p. 243).
As one of the most important communication models developed, Shannon and Weaver
(1967) presented their model first in 1949. According to this model, a desired message
is selected by the information source, changed by the transmitter into the signal,
which is then sent through the communication channel to the receiver (p. 7). Finally,
the receiver changes the transmitted signal back into a message and delivers it to the
destination (ibid.). During this process, noise such as distortions of sound or errors in
transmission can be added that were not intended by the information source (ibid.).
Referring to this traditional model of communication Griffin (2008) explains further
that the noise, for instance values, assumptions or emotions, influences the content and
meaning of the message being transferred (p. 167).
As summarized in chapter 2.1.2.1 there has been some research conducted on the
peculiarities and processes in small groups. As mentioned previously, Shaw (1971) sees
a group with less than ten members as a small group, and one with more than thirty
members as a large group, while indicating that everything in between is difficult to
categorize (p. 4). While many other researchers seem to have struggled to clearly define
a small group, I suggest to focus on Shaw's definition of two to ten members when
focusing on communication processes. Just like Shaw (1971) has pointed out, it is not
only the number of members, but also their interpersonal relations that determine
whether a group can be seen as a small group (p. 4). However, the reason for this
limitation is the increased complexity in communication that occurs when comparing
24
for instance a group of three (triad) to a group of twenty members. In any case, this is
to be kept in mind during the latter part of this chapter.
2.2.2 Cultural Diversity
Although the term diversity is often used in the context of demographic diversity
(gender, ethnicity, race, age) a group's membership composition can be diverse in
relation to many characteristics of human beings such as psychological diversity
(values, beliefs, knowledge) or organizational diversity (tenure, occupation, hierarchy
level) (Jackson and Ruderman, 1995, p. 3).
Although it is, in reality, impossible to separate the attribute of national origin from
factors like upbringing, family structure or personal characteristics entirely from one
another, in the following I intend to emphasize, especially, the effects of cultural
diversity on group communication. While cultural diversity is officially defined as “the
existence
of
a
variety
of
cultural
or
ethnic
groups
within
a
society”
(http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/cultural-diversity),
in the context of this research, I am acknowledging the additional influences of other
cultures that the members of a culturally diverse group have been exposed to while
living or spending time abroad. Moreover, it should be kept in mind that even when
making the effort to concentrate mainly on the situation of group members coming
from different countries, other factors influencing behavior and communication often
correlate with cultural diversity. Those factors include, for instance values, beliefs,
knowledge, interpersonal skills, that have been elaborated over time and been exposed
to cultural, but also environmental and personal influences. This also means that, for
instance, a diversity in values in a group can be due to cultural differences, but does not
have to be, which illustrates the difficulty to clearly separate cultural diversity from
other influencing factors (see e.g. Gudykunst and Kim, 2003, p.6).
There have been controversial discussions on the effects of diversity, more specifically
cultural diversity, on the effectiveness in teams. Gibson and Gibbs (2006) have
conducted some research on the effects of national diversity on team innovation and
have presented in their findings that in teams with a psychologically safe
communication climate (identified through interviews with team members, captured
by terms like: empathy, openness, understanding) (p. 469), national diversity was not
as much of a challenge and was sometimes even reported to be an asset. At the same
time, national diversity was perceived as disturbing and innovation (captured by
novelty, improvement, unprecedented) (ibid.) was low in teams without this
communication climate (p. 473).
25
In the following, I will focus on two major topics within the field of communication in
culturally diverse work groups. Starting with a review of intercultural communication
research, the subject of the latter part of this chapter is computer-mediated
communication of geographically distributed groups, a topic that cannot be omitted
when dealing with distributed teams.
Finally, as I see communication as embedded within the field of group dynamics and
group development, I am mainly focusing on and later analyzing the communication
among the group members. Nevertheless, in some situations, interviews with an
external interviewer for instance, as well as in some written documents, it would appear
that the inside and outside communication overlaps. This is is why there are parts in
which a clear separation impossible.
2.2.3 Intercultural communication
“Culture consists of shared ways of thinking, feeling and behaving rooted in
deep-level values and symbols associated with societal effectiveness, and
attributable to an identifiable group of people. Culture may manifest at
different levels including national and organization, may take several forms,
and may evolve over time.” (Halverson and Tirmizi, 2008, p. 23).
To define intercultural communication, it can be noted that it commonly refers to
exchanging
information
between
people
from
different
cultures
(http://www.internations.org/magazine/intercultural-communication-15409).
Apart
from general communication theories and processes already presented, the additional
aspect of culture seems to increase the complexity of communication processes
between people (ibid.). When discussing culture and intercultural communication,
various researchers refer to the so-called “Iceberg model of culture”, Hall and Schein,
for instance. The metaphor of the iceberg has been applied by various researchers in
the fields of psychology, pedagogy and communication. The cultural model suggests
that the hard facts or what is visible (for instance language, music, food, clothing or
gestures) is only the smallest part of a different culture and that a large part of the
cultural iceberg including for instance values, beliefs, attitudes and norms is actually
hidden from your view (cp. Douborapade Ogbuigwe, 2013, p. 41).
Another basic model of culture to be mentioned here is the so-called “onion” model.
Like
an
onion,
you
can
“peel
culture
and
strip
down
its
layers”
(http://www.internations.org/magazine/intercultural-communication15409/defining-culture-2). More specifically, similar to the iceberg metaphor, the
26
outermost layer is what you can see, hear and touch such as artifacts, products and
rituals. The second layer then consists of systems and institutions while the third layer
includes beliefs, norms and attitudes. And finally, those beliefs are built on the core of
the onion, the basic values of a culture (ibid.). Obviously, this core of the onion is the
most influential element in this theory, which is why it has been further divided into
five dimensions. The dimensions are identity or individualism vs. collectivism,
hierarchy or power distances, truth, gender or masculinity vs. femininity and virtue
(ibid.). In the dimension of trust, it is often about uncertainty avoidance vs. uncertainty
tolerance in different cultures. There are some cultures in which people want to know
what is appropriate and right. As an example, Germany is mentioned as a “classic case
of an uncertainty-avoidance culture”. On the other hand, people from uncertaintytolerance cultures can be more connected to spontaneity, flexibility, and relativity
(ibid.).
It is nowadays possible for people from industrialized countries to communicate with
any other person from an industrialized country by email, phone or skype within
minutes and even face-to-face within hours (Gudykunst and Kim, 2003, p. 3). Within
any country, members of different racial and ethnic groups exist and interact with one
another. Furthermore, in this globalized world, some people decide to live in a different
country than their country of birth while others are forced to leave their homeland for
various reasons. This means that “in a world of international interdependence, the
ability to understand and communicate effectively with people from other cultures
takes on extreme urgency” (Gudykunst and Kim, 2003, p. 4).
Regarding the workplace, to accomplish effective work in a multicultural group, people
have to understand each other's ways of communication (p. 4). Comparing humans to
other animals, it becomes obvious that it is the development of culture, being passed on
from one generation to another, that separates us from other species (ibid.). This also
shows the interlacement of culture and communication as we are raised in a certain
culture which language, rules and norms we learn at an early age (ibid.). As a
consequence, when we communicate with people from other cultures we face different
languages, rules and norms (ibid.). However, we cannot make generalizations that
communicating with people from our own or a different culture is either easier or more
difficult (ibid.).
Correspondingly, Schein (1970) summarizes that “for any effective work to occur, there
must be a certain amount of consensus on basic values and on a medium of
communication. If personal backgrounds, values, or status differentials prevent
communication, the group cannot perform well” (Schein, 1970, p. 88). He points out
27
that when facing a conflict of values in a group, it is important to “provide the group
enough common experience to permit a communication system and a climate of trust
to emerge” (Schein, 1970, p. 88).
Accordingly, Griffin (2008) again refers to Shannon and Weaver's traditional
communication model pointing out that “when you move across cultures, the layers
and content of filters increase and become more complex” (p. 177). The term “filters” is
used interchangeably here with the term “noise”. In intercultural settings, noise can
include, for instance, prejudices, language differences, directness of the message or
formality of speech, making the communication more challenging (ibid.).
Obviously, how we are raised affects the way we interact with other people. As we
understand the world based on the sum of our experiences, Jensen (2003) points out
that “it is impossible to ignore one's experiences. That is an important fact in
intercultural communication” (2003, p. 6). In general, Gudykunst and Kim (2003) see
the understanding of the other culture, which they call cultural relativism, as one
major factor in effective intercultural communication (p. 4).
In fact, McGrath et al. (1995) propose a multicultural model in which demographically
diverse group members are regarded as having diverse cultural identities that “reflect
differential sociohistorical experiences and, hence, are likely to be associated with
actual differences in expertise, in values, and in habits” (p. 30). The model includes the
factors of heterogeneity of underlying attributes, member expectations about one
another, and power relations (p. 32). Additionally, group members recognize those
cultural identities, which often include different power and status, giving more
influence to members of dominant cultures in the group context and carrying
expectations regarding attributes and behaviors that are associated with them (p. 30.).
In this sense, Ely and Thomas (2001) point out that the effect of cultural identity
diversity on the work group's functioning is moderated by the diversity perspective,
meaning the members' beliefs and expectations about cultural diversity that are
predominant in a group (p. 234). Additionally, Gudykunst and Kim (2003) explain the
importance of symbols in communication in connection with cultural background and
individual experiences stating that “one of the defining characteristics of culture is the
agreement among the people who share a culture on the general meaning of symbols”
(p. 6). However, they emphasize that two people never attach the same meaning to a
symbol as “the meanings we attach to symbols are a function of our cultures, our ethnic
groups, our families, and our unique individual experiences [...]” (ibid.). Nevertheless,
the agreement on those meanings within one culture in generally more likely (ibid.).
28
The meaning of symbols used in communication is closely related to the issue of
interpretation as already Shannon and Weaver (1967) have discovered in their
mathematical theory of communication (p. 7). Again, our cultural and personal
background strongly affects the way we transmit and interpret messages, which, as a
consequence, means that two people can never transmit or interpret a message in the
same way and that we are unable to transmit meanings (Gudykunst and Kim, 2003, p.
6). This inability to transmit meanings is also due to the ambiguity in our language and
the many factors included in the communication process; how the message is
expressed, for instance, the channel, the interaction, the situation among many others
(ibid.).
In the book “Hidden differences” Hall and Hall (1990) have described the differences
between high and low context cultures, defining the context as “the information that
surrounds an event and is inextricably bound up with the meaning of that event” (p. 7).
They explain further that “the elements that combine to produce a given meaning –
events and context – are in different proportions depending on the culture” (ibid.).
This, they state, makes it possible to order cultures into low and high context
categories. By quoting Hall's publication from 1976, the book “Beyond culture”, Hall
and Hall give the following definition of these categories: “A high context
communication or message is one in which most of the information is already in the
person, while very little is in the coded, explicit, transmitted part of the message. A low
context communication is just the opposite; i.e., the mass of the information is vested
in the explicit code” (p. 8). Accordingly, Japanese, Arab or Mediterranean people
belong to high context cultures, in which they do not require or expect much in-depth
background information. Instead, it is “their nature to keep themselves informed about
everything having to do with the people who are important in their lives” (ibid.). On the
other hand, Americans, Germans, Scandinavians and other Europeans are categorized
as low context people. Hall points out that one big challenge in communicating is to
“find the appropriate level of contexting, which is customary at home and abroad” (as
cited in Hall and Hall, 1990, p. 11). Making certain adjustments, Hall concludes, is
naturally easier in your home country than in the communication with people from
other cultures (ibid.).
As Gudykunst and Kim (2003) have described, the language, our mother tongue, is
closely connected to the rules and norms we grow up with, which together can be
defined as our cultural background (p. 4). As mentioned at the beginning of this
chapter, due to globalization we often find ourselves interacting or working with people
who have a different cultural background to our own. This often implies that the other
29
person has a different language as a mother tongue. As a consequence, in many parts of
the world, English language has developed as the main language for communication
between people from different national backgrounds. In a work setting of multinational
groups, people aim, therefore, to achieve effective communication even by using a
second language. Depending on the level of English language skills, effective
communication can occur but can also cause conflicts or misunderstandings. This
additional factor has to be considered when dealing with intercultural communication
issues.
2.2.4 Geographically distributed work groups and computermediated communication
Geographically distributed work groups are defined mainly by the aspect that its
”members are separated by distance and forced to rely on technologies to mediate their
communication and collaborative work” (Hinds and Bailey, 2003, p. 616). Research in
this field has shown that there is a difference in communication and relationships
depending on if they happen in a face-to-face situation or across electronic media (see
e.g. Armstrong and Cole, 1995, p. 188). In this part I am reviewing some research on
distributed work groups and computer-mediated communication as certain aspects of
this will be relevant for the analysis later on. However, I do not want to go as far as
focusing only on literature, in which virtual teams defined as people who have never
met each other and never worked with each other face-to-face, are subject of the
research.
Daft and Lengel (1986) define in their Media Richness Theory, which they developed in
1984, information richness as “the ability of information to change understanding
within a time interval” (p. 560). They explain further that “communication transaction
that can overcome different frames of reference or clarify ambiguous issues to change
understanding in a timely manner are considered rich” (ibid.). Communications, on the
other hand, “that require a long time to enable understanding or that cannot overcome
different perspectives are lower in richness” (ibid.). They have classified the media in
order of decreasing richness, starting with face-to-face communication followed by
telephone, personal documents such as letters and impersonal written documents and
at last, numeric documents (ibid.). The reasons for face-to-face communication being
defined as the richest medium are manifold. It creates the possibility of immediate
feedback facilitating equivocality reduction and making it possible to check the
interpretation. Furthermore, the body language and tone of voice provide multiple cues
and the content of the message is expressed in natural language (ibid.).
Daft and Lengel point out that low richness media on the other hand can be “effective
30
for processing well understood messages and standard data”, but is “less appropriate
for resolving equivocal issues” (ibid.). In their research, Daft and Lengel worked with
the underlying assumption that two complementary forces influence information
processing in organizations: uncertainty and equivocality. Based on the definition of
other researchers, uncertainty is seen as the absence of information meaning that
uncertainty decreases as information increases. Equivocality, instead, is defined in this
context as confusion and a lack of understanding, that arises for instance in
organizational decision-making (p. 556 f.).
Nowadays, many corporations work with employees across distances, using
communication technology to connect them all (Armstrong and Cole, 1995, p. 187),
while distance remaining a “very real dimension in human relations” (ibid.). As
research by Armstrong and Cole (1995) has shown, the two main problems in
distributed teams seem to be misunderstandings in communication and strangely
escalating conflicts (p. 194).
Computer-mediated communication (also: mediated communication or technologymediated communication) is generally defined as “any human communication achieved
through or with the help of computer technology” (Thurlow et al., 2004, p. 15), more
specifically concerning “human interpersonal communication on, through and about
the internet and web” (p. 16). As it seems to be most relevant in this context, I will
focus mainly on email and skype communication. Referring to Daft and Lengels theory
(1986), email communication would be considered lower in media richness as it lacks
of immediate feedback and doesn't provide multiple cues for understanding. It however
can be effective for transferring standard data as well as understood messages (p. 560).
Skype on the other hand, would be considered richer than email communication, most
probably also richer than phone communication, as the possibility of the video call
provides additional cues for understanding and interpretation such as facial
expressions or tone of voice (ibid.).
Järvenpää and Leidner (1999) focus, amongst others, on the question of whether trust
can exist in global virtual teams and state that most related literature suggests a
negative response to this question (p. 792). This assumption, however, relates mainly to
groups that hardly ever meet face-to-face. Maznevski and Chudoba (2000) define
“global virtual teams” as groups that
a) are identified by their organization(s) and members as a team;
b) are responsible for making and/or implementing decisions important to the
organization's global strategy;
c) use technology supported communication substantially more than face-to-face
31
communication;
and d) work and live in different countries (p. 473).
Although this definition does not apply perfectly to the case at hand, certain aspects of
it have been relevant in ExClaM!'s projects, when the main communication has been
through communication technology, although a lot of face-to-face time as a group has
been spent in general during other time periods. Also, as mentioned in chapter 2.1.1,
the word “team” can be misleading in this context as ExClaM! is not part of a bigger
organization.
In fact, Maznevski and Chudoba (2000) present - as one of the main findings in their
research on global virtual teams - that in effective global virtual teams the interaction
incidents are distributed in a repeating pattern of regular face-to-face meetings with a
high interaction intensity that is followed by weeks of less intense interaction (p. 483).
Furthermore, they emphasize propositions such as “the more complex the message
content of an incident, the more rich the medium appropriated and the longer the
incident's duration” (p. 485) or “the higher the task's level of interdependence the more
communication incidents will be initiated” (ibid.).
Maznevski and Chudoba (2000) stress that “the greater the organizational and
geographic boundaries spanned by a global virtual team's members, and the greater the
cultural and professional differences among team members, the more complex the
team's messages will be” (p. 486). Additionally, they point out that “the stronger the
shared view and relationships among global virtual team members, the less complex
the team's messages will be” (ibid.). Moreover, they describe the meaning of the rhythm
of regular face-to-face meetings “ serving as a heartbeat, rhythmically pumping new life
into the team's processes before members circulated to different parts of the world and
task, returning again at a predictable pace” (p. 486) and that are devoted to higher level
decision processes, complex messages, and relationship building (p. 489). However,
they acknowledge that this rhythm can be increased or decreased under certain
conditions (p. 488), especially depending on the shared view of tasks, strong
relationships and commitment among the team members (p. 489).
Hinds and Bailey (2003) have presented an analysis which explains how geographical
distribution can provoke team-level conflict. In particular, they have examined how
“being distant from one's team members and relying on technology to mediate
communication and collaborative work impacts team members” (p. 615). In their
analysis, they claim that geographical distribution has an impact in all kinds of group
conflicts mentioned in recent organizational studies, namely task, affective and process
32
conflicts, due to a lack of shared context for instance (p. 616 f.). While acknowledging
the advantages of distributed teams that sometimes are the ”only viable option to
achieve organizational goals”, Hinds and Bailey
also point out that those will be
diminished by the risk of conflict caused by distance and technology (ibid.).
As mentioned above, Hinds and Bailey (2003) argue that distance can create a lack of
shared context which, in turn, can heighten conflict as it makes it more difficult to
develop a mutual understanding. Moreover, a lack of shared context can have the effect
that team members conform to different norms, for instance behavioral norms, as the
members do not share the same social setting. This may then lead to task or affective
conflicts (p. 617). What is more, they point out that opportunities which promote
familiarity such as casual encounters, unplanned conversations and multipurpose
interactions give team members the possibility to get to know each other's
personalities, concerns and work habits. Therefore, Hinds and Bailey suggest that a
lack of familiarity can lead to process conflicts (p. 617 f.).
Also, friendships and long-term relationships within a group are generally easier to
establish when people ”casually encounter one another and interact spontaneously” in
face-to-face situations (p. 618). As opposed to their suggestion that geographical
distribution can provoke team-level conflict they also mention that distributed teams
often experience less friendship and therefore less emotional conflict (ibid.).
Summarizing several lines of research Hinds and Bailey (2003) further suggest that
geographically distributed teams are culturally more heterogeneous than traditional,
collocated, which leads to more task and affective conflict (ibid.). Finally, although it
seems to be more obvious that distance influences task conflict, they point out that
distance heightens affective conflict as task conflict results in more affective conflict in
distributed work groups with low trust. They claim that the group members are more
likely to “others' intentions and make attributions that do not adequately account for
situational factors” (ibid.).
Referring to various studies regarding the use of communication technologies, Hinds
and Bailey (2003) emphasize that “mediated communication appears to negatively
impact the ability of teams to build and maintain strong interpersonal relationships” (p.
619) including effects such as reduced cohesion and consensus or less sharing of
relational information can cause affective conflict ( p. 620). Obviously, the issue of
information transfer has to be raised too in the context of geographically distributed
teams. Problems or misunderstandings can arise, for example, due to an uneven
distribution of information or even the exclusion of one or more members from
communications (p. 621).
33
In order to decrease the negative effects of distance in work groups, Hinds and Bailey
(2003) suggest increasing face-to-face meetings, sharing contextual information,
creating similar contexts such as standardized work processes and systems, ensuring
familiarity of team members with the technology and choosing the technology that
serves the group best and is most appropriate to complete the given task (p. 625).
I have now presented a theoretical framework which includes research from the fields
of group dynamics and communication, intercultural communication and mediated
communication in particular. I have, thereby, provided the scientific and terminological
basis for the following analysis.
34
3. Research method
3.1 Methodological approach of the study
3.1.1 Qualitative case study
In qualitative research, empathy plays an important role as Stake (1995) explains:
“qualitative research tries to establish an empathic understanding for the reader,
through description, sometimes thick description, conveying the reader what
experience itself would convey” (p. 39). He continues by emphasizing that while
quantitative researchers see a unique case as an error, in qualitative research an
important aim is the particularity of the case (p. 39).
To explain why case studies are commonly chosen as a research method, Yin (1994)
indicates that “in general, case studies are the preferred strategy when 'how' or 'why'
questions are being posed, when the investigator has little control over events, and
when the focus is on a contemporary phenomenon within some real-life context” (p. 1).
He distinguishes between explanatory, exploratory and descriptive case studies (ibid).
This distinction is clarified further by Babbie (2004). The explanatory approach applies
when “why questions” concerning certain phenomena should be answered in the
research (p. 89 f.). On the other hand, in exploratory studies, the researcher usually
examines a new interest or a persistent phenomenon that is valuable in social scientific
research (p. 87 ff.). And, finally, in descriptive studies, the researcher observes and then
describes his observations while usually continuing to why the phenomena exist (p.
89). Before starting my research, I did not make a specific preposition, but decided on
an exploratory strategy (Yin, p. 21) to examine phenomena and patterns inside
ExClaM! with regard to group dynamics and communication in small groups. There
are, however, elements of a descriptive study, too.
Furthermore, the research at hand can be defined as an “intrinsic case study” (Stake,
1995), because my interest is mainly to learn about this particular case and not about
other cases or a general problem (p. 3). Even when studying only one case,
generalizations can be drawn from it, for instance when “certain activities or problems
or responses will come up again and again” (p. 7). Stake however points out that more
important in a case study not generalization, but particularization with an emphasis on
understanding the case itself (p. 8). Moreover, Yin (1994) defines a case study as an
empirical inquiry that “investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life
context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not
clearly evident” (p. 13). He points out, however, that a case study should not be
confused with an ethnography or participant observation (p. 12).
35
The four major major case study designs are called single-case (holistic) designs, singlecase (embedded) designs, multiple-case (holistic) designs and multiple-case
(embedded) designs (p. 38 f.). If a design is embedded or holistic depends of the units
of analysis that are used (p. 41 f.). I have chosen a single-case design for this research
because of the uniqueness of the case. This means that, in this context, the single-case
study design has not been chosen as a critical or revelatory case (p. 39 ff.). The
uniqueness also justifies the decision against a multiple-case study, which requires a
“replication logic” and therefore would not have satisfied the rationale. Additionally, a
multiple-case study would have required resources and time beyond the scope of a
Master's thesis (p. 45).
Furthermore, this study is an embedded single-case study as it includes several units of
analysis (p. 41) and focuses also on the smaller units of analysis such as the individuals
in the group in contrast to a holistic design, in which “only the global nature of a
program or of an organization” is examined (p. 42). It would, however, become a
shortcoming of the embedded design were no research to be done at the larger unit of
analysis and instead focus only on the subunit level (p. 44).
In general, one of the main challenges in case study research is that the data collection
processes are not routinized and continuous interaction between the theoretical issues
and the data is required (Yin, 1994, p. 55). Finally, regarding the issue of interpretation,
Stake (1995) emphasizes that “the qualitative case study researcher tries to preserve the
multiple realities, the different and even contradictory views of what is happening” (p.
12).
3.2 The case: ExClaM!
3.2.1 The members
ExClaM! is a cultural cooperative that consists of three members: Giorgia Ghizzoni,
Katariina Nyberg and Julia Mahns. In order to give an idea of the group composition, I
will briefly present the members with their cultural and professional backgrounds.
Giorgia Ghizzoni was born Carpi, Italy, in 1988 where she lived until the age of
nineteen. From the age of eight, however, she spent nine summers in summer camps in
Canada as well as in the U.S.A, where she became accustomed to the English language
as well as Canadian and American culture. During her Bachelor studies in Business
Economics and Cello performance, she lived in Rome and Utrecht. After graduating
from both programs, she moved to Helsinki in the fall of 2011 in order to participate in
the Arts Management Master's program. In order to gain work experience in the Arts
36
Management field, she had done internships at several music festivals and a classical
music agency before coming to Helsinki.
Katariina Nyberg was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1983. Both of her parents are
Finnish citizens. With her father working as an ambassador, the family lived in
different places during her childhood; one year in Bonn and three years in Vienna,
where she learned the German language. In 1995, the family returned to Helsinki,
where she attended the German school, from which she later graduated. In 2001, she
spent a year in New Zealand as an exchange student. Katariina holds a Master of
Science (Engineering) degree in Information Networks from Aalto University
(Helsinki) and also joined the Arts Management Master's program in the fall of 2011. In
her free time, she has sung and played the cello for many years. Before starting the Arts
Management studies, she too had already gained considerable experience in events and
concert organization.
Julia Mahns was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1986, and grew up in northern
Germany. After studies in music pedagogy in Hanover, she moved to Gothenburg,
Sweden, in 2009, where she completed her Bachelor degree in classical violin in 2011
and learned the Swedish language. Before moving to Helsinki in the fall of 2011 for the
Arts Management Master's program, she gained field-work experience at the
Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in northern Germany.
Both Giorgia and Julia took Finnish language courses during the first year of their
studies but the combination of studying and taking part in different working projects
soon took up too much time for them to give their whole attention to learning the
Finnish language fluently. As a result, they both have a basic to medium level of Finnish
language skills nowadays. During the first weeks of our studies in Helsinki, Giorgia,
Katariina and I soon realized that we all have a background in and strong passion for
classical music. Furthermore, we discovered that we shared a similar vision connected
to presenting classical music in new contexts which would excite audiences who would
not normally attend a classical music concert. We saw this as a counter-movement to
the existing concert traditions, in which we have often found that the connection
between the performers on the stage and the audience has not been as powerful as we
would have liked. All of these initial discussions and thoughts led to first the Classical
Music Café idea and, later on, to our three big projects as described in the following
part of this chapter.
Apart from talking about our business ideas in the field and spending a lot of time
together during the Arts Management classes, we also became close friends during this
37
initial phase of planning and discussing. The language of communication in the group
has been mainly English from the beginning. However, when Katariina and I
communicated without Giorgia being present, we usually spoke German with each
other.
Apart from working with ExClaM! we all continued to gain more experience in the field
in different jobs and internships. During our period of study, Giorgia worked at the
Eilat Chamber Music Festival (Israel) as well as in internships at the Alliance Artist
Management (NY) and Carnegie Hall (NY). Katariina, on the other hand, worked as a
producer in several projects for Sibelius Academy, at the Savonlinna Opera Festival
and, more recently, was a trainee at the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. From 2012
to 2013, Julia worked as a producer for Martin Wegelius Institutet in Helsinki as well as
did an internship at the press office of Berlin Philharmonic in spring 2013. She is now
working full-time as a trainee in press and PR for the Laeiszhalle and Elbphilharmonie
Hamburg.
The variety of our cultural backgrounds makes this case especially interesting in terms
of cultural diversity and intercultural communication. Furthermore, it becomes evident
that the most important aspect to focus on here is not only our citizenship, but the
various cultural influences that we have all been exposed to.
3.2.2 The projects
The investigation for SibA, which I mentioned in the introduction, later turned into an
actual implementation of the research results. SibA asked us to organize a concert
season as a pilot project in the summer of 2012 in the main concert hall of the HMC.
This became ExClaM!'s first big project: the Summer Lunchtime concerts at the
Helsinki Music Centre – Sibelius Academy talents perform. The concert season
consisted of nine concerts, each with a duration of forty-five minutes, taking place
during July 2012. It was the opening year of the HMC, which is why the season was
aimed mainly at tourists visiting Helsinki and its new concert house in the summer. We
presented five chamber music shows as well as two jazz and two folk concerts as we
wanted to give a platform to several music genres for the musicians of SibA. In the
chamber music shows, we started exploring the concept of new interdisciplinary
concert formats as a result of our previous discussions to create new ways for audiences
to experience classical music.
As I had already taken the lead in the previously mentioned investigation at the outset,
and as Giorgia and Katariina were working elsewhere in the summer, I also was given
38
the leadership of the concert season. The situation that Giorgia was working in New
York (U.S.A.) during the
main preparation time of the project (she was back in
Helsinki for the second half of the concert season) and that Katariina was employed at
the Savonlinna Opera Festival, presented a big challenge for me in managing this
project. I had never been responsible for such a project and therefore felt insecure in
this position. Moreover, being on my own with this sort of responsibility meant to make
many decisions alone, always have the big picture in mind as well as all the small tasks
that needed to get done. At the same time, it was a very valuable learning experience for
me.
Regarding the artistic concept, we were passionate about the idea of stimulating various
senses of the audience members and giving them the possibility to make personal
connections with the music and the artists on stage. Therefore, we scouted not only
musicians, but also actors, who took on the role of a “communicator” between the
audience and the musicians by leading the visitors through the specific topic of each
show, including small, interactive experiments. The New York based interdisciplinary
composer Keren Rosenbaum was our artistic adviser for those “chamber music shows”
as we first called the interdisciplinary concerts. Later on, in our second concert season
in 2013, we decided to call the chamber music shows Holistic Concert Experiences, in
which the aim was to consider the entire concert experience important for the audience
to be able to make a connection to the music. In 2012, we soon decided to leave jazz and
folk musicians with the responsibility of designing their own concerts. Often, they are
more used to talking to the audience and thereby creating a connection with the former
than classical musicians. In addition to that, with ExClaM! we were mostly interested in
exploring a way to make classical music as a complex art form more accessible.
In working with the ensembles and actors in this season, we started the creative
processes by having brainstorming sessions with the musicians and actors trying to find
a theme for each show, which would then help the actor to lead the audience through
the program. In some of the shows, there were even small parts in which the audience
could actively participate in those themes.
The season was financed by the Development Centre of Sibelius Academy and
organized in collaboration with SibA and HMC. Therefore, we had three supervisors
from SibA: Tanja Johansson, Matti Jordman and Sami Ylisaari, who we could call on
for advice at all times and who strongly supported our ideas. They did, however, allow
us to work more or less autonomously on this project In the end, this project was a
great success with an average audience attendance of two hundred and twelve visitors
per concert. More than that, it seemed to be a well-received experience for the
39
musicians and the actors as well as a valuable experience for ExClaM!.
Being excited about the success of this season and feeling confident that we were on the
right track with our concept, we presented a thorough report to Sibelius Academy after
this season, including valuable feedback from the audience derived from audience
questionnaires. We had collected the data during the season knowing about its
importance for future projects. Moreover, the season was documented on video (see
Appendix). Already in the fall 2012 we started to talk to Sibelius Academy about the
possibilities of a continuation of the season and also started to apply for other available
funding.
Our second project, the CAFETERIA Opera Game - A playground in three acts, was
initiated as a community-building game to bring together the students of the three Art
Universities, the theater school (TeaK), the school of fine arts (Kuva) and Sibelius
Academy (SibA) as the schools were about to be merged to the “Art University Helsinki”
in 2013. It is a game that encourages community-building and stimulates the creative
self through an active-listening environment and was developed by Keren Rosenbaum,
while ExClaM! acted as a producer and facilitator. Keren creates compositions in a
genre she developed, called Reflexive Music, and has lately begun to compose
communities by creating playfully innovative environments. Giorgia took on the
leadership of this project. The three acts took place in the three cafeterias of TeaK, Kuva
and SibA in November 2012 and involved around 500 participants. It was financed by
a grant of the Art University for projects that would foster a community between the
three art schools.
The game consists of four levels:
LEVEL 1 (Focus on your own self): "Can you hear what you eat?" / "How do you eat
your treat?" / "How do you treat your eat?"
LEVEL 2 (Exploration of surrounding space): "Rock your chair" / "Rock your glass" /
"Rock the table"
LEVEL 3 (Transition to sociability): Tell a friend: "What's on your tray?" / "What's
behind you?" / "What's inside you?"
LEVEL 4 (Gamer got committed making the game): "Write your own instruction. Make
it. Trade it!"
In all 4 levels, the idea is that people express the instructions by means of their chosen
expression tool, such as sound, image movement. Additionally, a group of so-called
conductors was going around the tables with suggestions written on their hands, such
as “longer”, “louder”, “faster”, “loop it” and so on.
40
In terms of this project, I was not as involved as I was in the concert seasons, which is
why it seems more appropriate for me to focus mainly on the group dynamics and
communication during the concert seasons and ExClaM!'s operational work in
between.
After various grant applications, sponsor acquisition and discussions with Sibelius
Academy, we were very thankful to have the opportunity to organize our second concert
season, ExClaM!'s third big project, the Summer Day Concerts 2013. It was especially
thanks to the support of SibA's rector Tuomas Auvinen that we were commissioned this
second season in cooperation with the academy. This time, the number of concerts
increased to fifteen and the name of the season was changed due to an agreement with
the Helsinki Music Centre on the communication strategy. We presented ten Holistic
Concert Experiences of which each show was performed twice due to preparation which
was time-consuming. Two jazz and two folk concerts were on the program too. In this
project, Giorgia and I decided to share the leadership; she took on the role of Artistic
Director while I became Managing Director. We had decided to give ourselves these job
titles in order to divide the responsibility for the respective main tasks. Once again,
during some parts of the project preparation time, we were not able to work face-toface, but were located in different cities: Giorgia lived in New York from middle of
January until the end of March, I was in Berlin in April and May and Katariina lived in
London from March to September. In the “hot phase”, however - concert season from
June 26 to July 26 - during June and July, Giorgia and I were both living and working
in Helsinki. Katariina supported us from London as much as she could.
Artistically, we wanted to further develop our concept of Holistic Concert Experiences
by bringing different art forms together with classical music. This time, we scouted for
contemporary dancers from the Theater School (TeaK) who would then develop the
shows together with the classical musicians. Similar to 2012, we left the folk and jazz
musicians to design their own concerts without our input. We started the season with a
two-day-long Active Listening Playground (in the following ALP) workshop open to all
musicians participating in the season and held by Keren Rosenbaum, who has created
this method. The workshop had the purpose to create a community of the artists in the
Summer Day Concerts 2013 as well as to give the musicians and dancers an idea of the
artistic sense of the season. The ALP is a safe and encouraging environment that
induces an authentic listening experience, promotes self-expression and original
creativity for all involved. Individuals experience a personal contribution to a
community (small or large), while being inspired to truly play. The listening that occurs
leads to action, and both listening and action empower the participants, and encourage
them to experience greater possibilities in their lives outside the Playground (cp.
www.exclam.fi/alp).
41
In developing the holistic concert experiences, we started the creative processes with
the ensembles and the dancers by having informal meetings to brainstorm and talk
about the possibilities and ideas for their show. The aim was to find a theme or a red
line for each show that was in some way connected to the repertoire and the artists.
Later on, in the rehearsals, Giorgia and I acted as coaches, trying to see the shows as a
whole and keeping an eye on the red line of the respective specific theme. In that, it was
our aim to create a safe environment in which all artists felt safe to express their
opinions, to let the brainstorming flow, to suggest a direction by asking relevant
questions and to provide an external point of view.
Although we had divided the roles of Artistic and Managing director in this season to
emphasize responsibilities, many of our tasks overlapped and we supported each other
accordingly. Sami Ylisaari, who had already supported us from SibA's side in 2012, also
acted as our supervisor in this second season. Moreover, Alicia Burns, a classical singer
from U.S.A., who had already been involved in the Opera Game project in the fall of
2012, was hired as a marketing assistant. This was mainly to support Giorgia while I
was working in Berlin in April and May and during the preparation period before the
start of the season.
We have also worked with ExClaM! in between these three projects, for example on
grant applications, post-project reports, university projects within the Arts
Management education as well as constantly refining and reevaluating ExClaM!'s
mission and vision, improving our website and promotional material and networking in
the cultural field. The group, however, work has usually been more time intensive
during specific projects.
3.3 Data collection
For a case study, six sources of evidence can be used including documents, archival
records, interviews, direct observation, participant observation, and physical artifacts
(Yin, 1994, p. 78). In the case of ExClaM!, I used interviews (conducted via skype),
participant observation and documents (emails and newspaper/magazine articles) in
my data collection. I have paid attention to using multiple sources of evidence, to
creating links between the research questions, the data and the conclusions in order to
maximize the study's quality (p. 78). The reason why I have not included phone
conversations is that this is a medium that we usually only used for short exchanges of
information and therefore did not seem relevant enough in the context of this research.
Reflections on skype conversations are included, instead, in the participant observation
data as well as in the interviews. As mentioned in chapter 3.1.1 I decided to use an
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embedded single-case study design for this research for reasons stated previously.
3.3.1 Participant observation
In my participant observation of the group I am not using notes but the memories that
I have from observing our group processes during the two years and three months
between September 2011 and December 2013. This is due mainly to my own
involvement in the group work, but also connected to the situation that I only decided
on my exact topic of research in the fall of 2013. I am aware of the fact that I am biased
as a participant observer in this setting and have taken this into consideration during
the data analysis.
In fact, Yin (1994) points out that this can be one of the main problems - the potential
bias of the researcher who is not only involved himself but also has the difficulty of
taking sufficient notes as a participant observer (p. 89). However, he goes on to
mention that “the technique […] can be used in everyday settings, such as an
organization or other small groups” and points out that among the advantages are the
possibility to access data that otherwise would be inaccessible, experiencing reality
from inside the case study and the ability to manipulate small events (1994, p. 88).
Similarly, Patton (1990) indicates that “the participant observer can also discover
things no one else has ever really paid attention to” (p. 204).
Regarding observation in general as a method of scientific inquiry, Patton (1990)
summarizes the selectivity of human perception by pointing out that “what people see
is highly dependent on their interests, biases, and backgrounds” in connection to their
culture, early childhood socialization and value systems (p. 200). He explains, however,
that using observational methods “requires disciplined training and rigorous
preparation” of the researcher, which can increase the validity and reliability of the
observational data (p. 200 f.). Generally, the purpose of observational data should be to
“describe the setting that was observed, the activities that took place in that setting, the
people who participated in those activities, and the meanings of what was observed
from the perspective of those observed” (Patton, 1990, p. 202).
3.3.2 Interviews
Interviews in case study research are often open-ended, meaning that respondents can
be asked for facts as well as for opinions and his or her own insights, which can then be
the basis for further questions. Another possibility is to conduct focused interviews that
last for a short period (e.g. an hour) and in which the interviewer follows a certain set of
questions, even though the interview can still be open-ended (p. 85).
43
In this case, the two interviews were mainly of a focused nature with a prepared set of
questions. However, they were open-ended as well because in some cases the personal
insights of the interviewees led to further questions. The interviews with Giorgia
Ghizzoni and Katariina Nyberg were conducted via Skype. Both took place in October
2013, lasted around one and a half hours and were recorded. I did not take additional
notes during the interviews in order to be able to fully focus on the conversation with
the interviewees. In general, I tried to keep my personal comments and opinions to
myself during the interview. However, when I felt that expressing my opinion, asking a
further question or commenting on the answer would lead to a discussion or relevant
new information in the context of my thesis, I did so.
Significantly, the answers that the interviewees gave are very personal. They have given
me a lot of relevant material but also forced me to consider just how many of the most
private answers I can and want to use for my analysis. This is to avoid exposing anyone
or making all dynamics in ExClaM! public. Before the official publication of the thesis,
the interviewees have been asked for their approval in terms of their interview material
which has been included.
3.3.3 Documents
“For case studies, the most important use of documents is to corroborate and augment
evidence from other sources” (Yin, 1994, p. 81). However, they should be used carefully
and it should not be assumed that they are always accurate or lack of bias (ibid.). I have
chosen to include three email exchanges between the three group members as
documents. The main purpose of analyzing these email documents is to show the
development of our written communication within the group as well as looking at the
communication from an intercultural point of view.
Finally, I chose excerpts from two press articles as documents because they give an
outside perspective of ExClaM!. This is necessary because it also affects the members'
identification with the group and therefore the group development. One article is from
the biggest and most renowned Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, the other one
is from Rondo Classic, an important Finnish classical music magazine.
3.4 Data analysis
The data analysis proceeded in four stages. In the first stage, I analyzed the participant
observations in a deductive manner, using Tuckman's group development model of
four stages as a means of structuring the data. In order to also embed the perceptions of
Giorgia and Katariina on the group development, I included parts of the interviews as
44
well. This was critical to gain an overview of the whole process and the different
perspectives on ExClaM!'s group development.
In the second stage, I analyzed the interviews in an inductive manner with the aim of
understanding the different perceptions of the group members on our development in
terms of communication. I therefore subdivided this part, focusing on general
communication, intercultural communication as well as mediated communication.
There is a continuous correlation between these three parts, however, which is why this
division should not be seen as a clear-cut separation. The data in this stage was derived
mainly from the interviews, but also, in parts, from my observations. This stage of the
analysis gave me the possibility to see how our group communication has changed and
developed since the beginning.
In the third stage, I analyzed the email documents mainly focusing on the topic of
mediated communication, especially due to geographical distance, in correlation with
intercultural aspects. Obviously, before going into the cultural aspects, this analysis
also includes a general point of view on communication. In order to complement the
findings from this data analysis with the perceptions of Giorgia and Katariina on this
topic, I included parts from the interviews as well. The data was analyzed in an
inductive manner. This part of the analysis was essential in order to understand the
inseparability of mediated and intercultural communication in this particular context.
In the fourth stage, I added an external point of view to the analysis by having a short
look on how ExClaM! has been perceived as a group from the outside and how support,
success and other external factors may have influenced the group identity and
development. The data was derived from press articles on ExClaM!'s work that have
been published in 2013. Moreover, I complemented this data with my observations. I
believe that this final analysis stage underlines the findings of the first three stages. In
the conclusions and discussions, I contrasted, connected and compared the results
from the different stages of the data analysis in order to increase the validity of the
study.
In general, by combining the different data analysis methods, a multifaceted picture of
the group processes and communication within ExClaM! is presented in this study.
Obviously, the observational data has been the most subjective data in this analysis. It
however has also been the most detailed and elaborated presenting descriptions of
phenomena and situations with information that would not have been possible to
derive from any other data. Collecting and analyzing different kinds of data from the
interviews has been essential for me to also put my own observations into a broader
context and has given me the possibility to gain new insights on our group processes by
45
understanding Giorgia's and Katariina's point of view too.
Analyzing data from the email documents has increased the validity of the analysis
displaying the written communication “black on white”. It has given me the chance,
thereby, to connect this data with the group members' perceptions and feelings on this
issue. Finally, including a short analysis of an external point of view on ExClaM! and
how this has influenced the group has created a greater understanding of the internal
group processes. Connecting observational data with data derived from press articles
has added additional aspects to the analysis, which are valuable.
3.5 Critical reflections on the research process
During the entire time period that I am analyzing in this research, I have been a
member and managing partner of ExClaM! and have been involved in all the projects.
Hence, I have been part of the group dynamical processes during this time as well as
the communication developments. Also my observations during this time period,
internal documents as well as the interviews with Giorgia and Katariina, have given me
the possibility of analyzing these processes from a very close point of view. Obviously,
my involvement in the group as well as the fact that my two colleagues are also close
friends of mine make this case study very personal to me. The advantages of having
deep insights as a participant observer in this case concerning, for instance, the detailed
available data are evident. At the same time, I am aware of the fact that because of my
role I am strongly biased as a friend, colleague and member of the group. Nevertheless,
in the analysis I am constantly trying to take a step back from my personal role in order
to consider the happenings from a researcher's point of view.
In any research design, four aspects of quality should be maximized:
a) construct validity
b) internal validity
c) external validity
d) reliability (Yin, 1994, p. 34)
Following the definition by Yin, validity describes “a measure that accurately reflects
the concept it is intended to measure” (ibid.). To increase construct validity multiple
sources of evidence, chain of evidence and to have key informants review the draft of
the case study report can be used as tactics (p. 34 f.). In this study, multiple sources of
evidence include also interviews and email documents apart from my participant
observations. Additionally, to increase construct validity, the other two group members
have reviewed relevant parts of the analysis. Regarding the chain of evidence in this
46
study, it was paid attention to consider findings and results of my early observations
also in the subsequent data collection process in order to connect the different
perspectives and in that way analyze the data consistently.
Regarding internal validity, which is only an issue in explanatory case studies that are
concerned with causal statements, pattern-matching, explanation-building and timeseries analysis can be helpful tactics (p. 35). As this study is categorized as an
exploratory study, this, however, does not apply to the case at hand. Concerning
external validity, which describes the problem of how to know whether “a study's
findings are generalizable beyond the immediate case study”, it is important to
remember that case studies rely on analytical generalization as opposed to statistical
generalization (e.g in survey research). However, theory generalization is not done
easily and should be tested through replications first (p. 36). External validity in the
case study at hand is maximized by making relevant analytical generalizations trying to
understand how the observed phenomena and patterns within this group could be
found in other similar group constellations as well.
And finally, to maximize the quality of reliability errors and biases in the study should
be minimized and the repeatability of the study (e.g. if another researcher would follow
the same procedures and executes the same case study, he should arrive at the same
findings) should be ensured. Obviously, especially in participant observation the
researcher is strongly biased as the way he feels affects what he observes and he might
misinterpret what he sees (Babbie, 2004, p. 141). What is helpful in maximizing
reliability, therefore, is a thorough documentation of the research procedure, e.g. by
using a case study protocol or database (Yin, p. 36 f.). In order to maximize reliability in
this study, the research procedure and data collection was thoroughly planned
beforehand. What questions were asked in the interviews and under what conditions
they were conducted has been documented.
Concerning the participant observation it is difficult to ensure the repeatability of the
study as a participant observer is affected by the way he feels and by his relationship to
the other group members, which can lead to misinterpretations of the collected data
(cp. Babbie, 2004, p. 141). The documents used in the analysis, emails and press
articles, were carefully chosen and it has been documented thoroughly from where they
have been derived. In this case, another researcher could easily follow the same
procedures. It is however questionable if he would arrive at same findings as I
connected the data from the documents with participant observation data. This means
that he would not own the same broad knowledge on the group development and
communication in ExClaM! necessary to arrive to the same results.
47
Another important way to strengthen a research design is the use of triangulation,
defined by Patton (1990) as “the combination of methodologies in the study of the same
phenomena or programs” (p. 187). Patton claims that it is possible to achieve
triangulation in qualitative research by “combining different kinds of qualitative
methods, mixing purposeful samples, and including multiple perspectives” (ibid.).
Denzin (as cited in Patton, 1990) presents the four basic types of triangulation: 1) data
triangulation (using a variety of data sources), 2) investigator triangulation (several
researchers), 3) theory triangulation (several perspectives to interpret the same data),
4) methodological triangulation (multiple methods) (Patton, p. 187).
More specifically, according to Patton (1990) data triangulation includes
1) comparing observational data with interview data
2) comparing what people say in public with what they say in private
3) checking for the consistency of what people say about the same thing over time
and
4) comparing the perspectives of people from different points of view […] (p. 467).
Accordingly, he points out the importance of combining interviewing, observation and
document analysis in social science fieldwork as “studies that use only one method are
more vulnerable to errors linked to that particular method than studies that use
multiple methods in which different types of data provide cross-data validity checks”
(p. 187 f.). As another possibility, investigator or analyst triangulation “helps reduce
the potential bias that comes from a single person doing all the data collection and
provides means of more directly assessing the reliability and validity of the data
obtained” (Patton, 1990, p. 468). Related is also the triangulating analysts strategy,
where several persons “independently analyze the same qualitative data and then
compare their findings” (ibid.). The third type of triangulation, theory triangulation,
uses different theoretical perspectives to look at the same data, which is to “understand
how findings by different assumptions and fundamental premises” (p. 470). Finally,
methodological triangulation, such as the combination of qualitative and quantitative
methods, is defined as a form of comparative analysis (Patton, 1990, p. 466).
In my study, I applied mainly data and theory triangulation as way of strengthening
the research design. Concerning data triangulation, observational data has been
compared with interview data as well as documents and the perspectives of people from
different points of view, in this study the perspectives of the three group members, have
been compared and connections have been made. With regard to theory triangulation,
the data has been looked at from various theoretical perspectives.
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4. Analysis and results
4.1 Group development
To begin with, I am analyzing my observations of the group dynamics and group
development inside ExClaM! during the given time period (September 2011-December
2013). In order to structure these observations, I am using Tuckman's group
development model of four stages as a frame (see chapter 2.1.2.2) including the stages
of forming, storming, norming and performing. To present also the perceptions of
Giorgia and Katariina I am including parts of the interviews with them that relate to
either of the group development stages.
4.1.1 Forming
When we meet someone for the first time it often depends if there is some level of
attraction or interest towards the other person that makes us decide if we are willing to
start some sort of relationship with him or her, may it be personal or work related.
In fact, I had met Giorgia already at the entrance exam for the Arts Management
program in Helsinki in May 2011. We had only had a brief chat after the exam, but we
certainly felt some sympathy for each other and also stayed in touch until the beginning
of the studies after we had both been informed that we had been accepted to the
program. Then, when we met in Helsinki in the beginning of the studies in the fall of
2011, it was not surprising that we quickly became friends. Another connection between
us was probably the fact that we were both foreigners in Finland too.
When I asked Giorgia in the interview whether she still remembers the process of how
we got to know each other in the beginning, she described her memories:
“in that moment when you arrived, directly we went to a concert [...] with Pekka
Kuusisto at Musiikkitalo, we were both so excited about him and that already
meant a lot to me. And I thought you were so open about things, I remember
that time that we went to listen to the concert, you asked me things about my
financial situation or you were being very open about yours. And that for me
was so new, like I had been embarrassed and closed-up about my financial
situation for such a long time and I was like 'oh god, that person is so open, I
want to learn that from her.' Pekka and this openness started telling me that I
could be friends with you.”
Also with Katariina, there was an obvious connection from the very beginning of the
studies as she was the only one in the class speaking German and had been living in
Germany and Austria for a while. It also seems that there was the necessary level of
attraction and empathy which would allow us to become friends. The fact that we were
49
connected through the German language was also emphasized by Katariina in the
interview saying that “we have our German bond which I think adds to it, that we have
our own relationship because we have our own language, outside from Giorgia, like we
have our one-to-one relationship as well.” Between Giorgia and Katariina the
friendship started in a different way as Giorgia recalls,
“there was this one time, […] it had been a bad day for me, and the phone rings
and it was her, and she [Katariina] says 'Giorgia, how are you doing?' and I said
'well, not so great' and she was like 'well, me too, I spent an awful day, but I
heard about this secret party, it's so cool'. And then she made me dress up like
in the 30s, that was the theme of the party, and we created two alter-egos for
ourselves and we went to this party in Suvilahti, and we had the time of our lives
and with those second personalities [...], that's when I understood that I could
also like Bretzel [nickname for Katariina]. We shared this thing of being silly
and being serious in the silliness.”
Telling about her relationship to Giorgia, Katariina explains that “with Giorgia, I
actually see a lot of myself in Giorgia, same temperament, same, but different, there are
similarities.” The connection between the three of us was somewhat not too surprising,
particularly because we were among the few people in the Arts Management group
(consisting of fifteen students) who had a classical music background and were very
passionate about this art form; Giorgia and I as previous music students and Katariina
as a hobby musician and frequent concert-goer. Part of the attraction towards each
other also was maybe connected to the thought of combining our different skills and
experiences too, which could become a powerful asset. Moreover, we felt we could learn
from each other.
During the fall of 2011 we started to get to know each other but as friends and study
colleagues first of all. We went to concerts, completed group tasks together at school
and met in our free-time. We had already expressed our ideas and thoughts about the
classical music world in the Arts Management classes and also in some conversations
between us three, but the first time we actually exchanged ideas about the classical
music concert traditions and about creating something together was in January 2012.
Giorgia had initiated a meeting with Katariina and me to share her thoughts and ideas
concerning a Classical Music Café. During this first formal meeting, we seemed to
notice that we are thinking along the same lines and felt the urge to create something
new in this field. As for the question of why she chose us to share these first ideas with
Katariina and me, Giorgia reports “I am an impulsive person, I felt very good about you
both and I felt that energy was flowing and that something clicked with you when this
50
idea came up and we already started developing it without even knowing what was
gonna happen.” From then on, we met several times to continue the brainstorming and
eventually presented our plan to Tanja Johansson at the end of January 2012. As for
the question in the interview as to why we found each other and started working
together, Katariina explains her point of view:
“I guess its the dream part. It's that we have the same dream. That's the
founding stone, because if you look at personalities and capabilities [...] it would
have been more likely that I would work with Kiki [Kirsi Ylimutka, another
friend and study colleague in the Arts Management program], but it's the love
for classical music and the same dream about creating a new way to experience
classical music as an alternative to what is there already, kind of new ways of
doing things in general in classical music, like artist management as well. And
also, just adding more creativity to the artistic process in smaller classical music
performances, like chamber music.”
Furthermore, Katariina reports her observation on the relationship between Giorgia
and me, “I think you and Giorgia found each other more, because you kept on doing
group work all the time together in Arts Management, but I really didn't want to do
that, because I wanted to do it with all the different people more.” At this time, around
January 2012, we started to schedule meetings with different people in Helsinki for
advice and for taking our idea forward. In those meetings, we had the chance to already
get to know each other, in terms of behavior in a business setting and not only between
the three of us.
I remember, when we were preparing for our first meetings, that we already gave
different roles to each other depending on what seemed to be our main strengths and
characteristics. In that sense, we often decided that I should start the meeting with an
introduction using my diplomacy and politeness in order to gain the trust of our
partners, then Giorgia would continue to talk about the artistic ideas in her expressive
and inspiring manner, and Katariina would conclude with important facts and figures.
That way, we also ensured that each would have an equally important role in the
meetings.
When it became clear that we would start working with the investigation of possible
summer activities at the HMC for Sibelius Academy (February 2012), it was a group
decision that I should lead this project. We can argue that this was a point in which
there was a bigger change in the group dynamics as I had not been in a leading position
before. It presented a challenge for me to have the overview and responsibility for a
51
project, to delegate tasks to my colleagues and to identify with the role of a leader. In
the beginning of the investigation, as tasks and communication increased, we got to
know each other better, also in terms of skills, characteristics, communication habits
and cultural differences. During this time period, we still needed to identify the tasks
and how to complete them effectively as many aspects in this project were new to us.
On top of that, we were not yet used to working closely together as a group. In meetings
with others as well as between the three of us, we started to discover which behaviors
were accepted and observe the others' reactions to the former.
I remember a discussion with Giorgia in the initial period of this investigation, in which
she told me that she felt insecure about her tasks at that moment and that she did not
think that I was behaving as a leader by delegating tasks, summarizing the situation or
checking on completed tasks, for example. In fact, both Giorgia and Katariina
expressed the wish of me taking on a more active leadership role. At this point, I
understood that I should embrace the opportunity to develop my leadership skills in a
work setting. With the need for more communication, the risk for misunderstandings
and misinterpretation also increased and we soon started to recognize differences in,
for example our styles of writing emails and reports. I am going to describe those
differences in more detail in my analysis of the documents.
At the end of March 2012, we received the task of implementing our investigation
results by organizing the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 at the Helsinki Music
Centre, and we started with the plans to form a cultural cooperative (registered in April
2012). I was then appointed also the leader of the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 as
Giorgia and Katariina would not be in Helsinki during part of the summer. Until this
appointment, I felt that I had been working mostly in the background of Giorgia as the
initiator of ideas and Katariina as the Finn and tech-specialist in our group. Therefore,
leading this project presented a challenge and a great opportunity for me to define my
role within ExClaM! as well as develop my managerial skills.
4.1.2 Storming
We can argue that the first storming phase began somewhere during this time.
Personally, I remember that I was insecure before the official founding of the
cooperative questioning if this was the right thing to do. I was not sure if the
composition of this group was fruitful as I had noticed big differences in our ways of
working, our characteristics and communication. To me in seemed like recognizing
those differences made me doubt the unity of the work group at this point.
Furthermore, the first bigger personal disagreements and conflicts seemed to happen
52
during this time, presumably due to different levels of involvement in the work group
and the friendship group. It seems that in some personal disagreements, emotions also
interfered with the tasks to be completed and, naturally, as we were friends and
colleagues, those different roles became mixed up while we tried to discover ways to
separate them. In fact, this first storming phase was only one of several more to follow.
The first bigger group conflict took place when we started planning the Summer
Lunchtime Concerts 2012 with the situation of Giorgia living and working in New York
for most of the time and Katariina working full-time at the Savonlinna Opera Festival
for the entire summer. While Giorgia was able and willing to support me as much as
she could from New York, Katariina had made it rather clear from the beginning that
she could not be too involved in the management of this concert season. Nevertheless,
before the start of the season, Giorgia and I asked Katariina to perform a task for us
that we could not have completed without her as it was connected to Finnish language
skills. After agreeing to help us with this task, Katariina delivered a result to us that was
not up to the quality standards that Giorgia and I had been expecting from her. For her,
it had been a matter of time constraints as well as insecurities concerning her Finnish
writing skills that had led to this result. At this point, it was a big struggle for her to
communicate to us this lack of time and other insecurities. This event was critical and
led to several group discussions concerning quality and standards as well as honesty
about what we can or cannot do. Although this second storming phase seemed like a
catalyst for us all to reconsider ExClaM! as a group, it also seemed to be the start for us
to realize the importance of establishing some sort of norms for the future in this
matter.
Giorgia, for instance, has also observed how the conflict-solving processes within
ExClaM! have changed and effected our ways of communicating,
“I remember there were many disagreements at the beginning with Bezzi
[nickname for Katariina] and we [Giorgia and Julia] were really considering if
this partnership was gonna work or not. But then, that was the first case, in
which it started going well, because we started actually communicating deeply.
So, I remember in that occasion in particular, we had so many things to hold
against her, but in the moment in which she said, 'listen girls, this is the one
thing in my life that is challenging me enough to make it interesting for me and
I am not ready to give up', I think this was a good enough reason for both of us
to keep our arms open and to keep the collaboration alive and we could relate
and everything. I think that's where it started.”
53
This situation was also the first moment in our group work, when we clearly faced a
two-against-one situation. With Giorgia and I being responsible for the Summer
Lunchtime Concerts and working closely together, Katariina was much less involved in
the process and had a lot of work to do in Savonlinna, which already created some sort
of isolation from the group for her. Then, when Giorgia and I criticized her for the
result she had delivered, it reinforced her feeling of us two being against her. Giorgia
and I on the other hand were disappointed by the situation and were not sure if we can
be able to trust and rely on Katariina in the future. Furthermore, this incident made us
doubt if Katariina still wants to be involved with ExClaM! in the future. In the
interview, Katariina expressed her point of view on this conflict situation:
“[...] I experienced that you guys had established a really strong working bond
together and it was like you two against me and kind of aggressively yelling, or I
felt it very aggressively, that situation. It was doubled with my own guilt of not
being able to help out with the summer, and then also I felt I was completely
incompetent [...]”.
We had several group meetings first on skype and later face-to-face concerning this
matter to understand what had happened and to figure out how we wish to work with
each other in the future. Somehow this felt like going back to the forming stage and
none of us was sure how we would continue working with ExClaM!. It became clear that
we had to discuss some important issues first.
In fact, I only realized during the last months, also because of the interview with
Katariina, how deeply she had actually been affected by the situation when Giorgia and
I paired up against her. It had affected her for a long time after the event. That is also
the reason why Katariina expressed her strong opinion on this matter in the interview:
“if the two of you group together, I feel like an outsider, but I have also noticed
that when I'm part of a pair, it feels so strong when you're really in good terms
with one and not in good terms with the other, but its always so bad for the
other, because the other, the outsider, is always the underdog, and it's not good,
it does so much to you, it's like 'Kindergarden-excluded feelings' […].”
She emphasizes that this is something we should keep in mind in ExClaM!. Personally,
I feel that Giorga and I did not realize on that occasion how much power we, as a pair,
had over the third person, Katariina. In addition, as Katariina was in London for six
months for her trainee-ship at the Philharmonia Orchestra in 2013, she was, once
again, somehow excluded from the group as Giorgia and I were working together
54
closely to prepare and implement the Summer Day Concerts 2013. This situation,
however, seemed clearer than in the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012, as Katariina
had communicated even more clearly that she was very busy with her job in London
and could not be involved much with ExClaM!'s work during this time. More
importantly, she had explained to us beforehand, with which tasks she could help us
and which tasks she would rather not to be bothered with. It seemed like, we had in
general arrived at a higher level of trust within the group so that we could say things
like “I don't have time to check or do this now, but I trust you with your work.”
Because Giorgia and I were working closely together again in 2013 and Katariina was in
London, this underlying fear of Katariina to find herself in a two-against-one situation
seemed to still present itself in the fall of 2013. This became evident in a short
discussion in ExClaM! concerning an important meeting in Copenhagen. We were
discussing whether Giorgia should go to the meeting alone as she had made the initial
contact with the person concerned, whether two of us should go or even three of us
instead. There were arguments for and against all of these options. We all seemed to
agree that it might be a bit extreme if three people were to go to meet this one person.
But when Katariina heard of the suggestion that only Giorgia and I would go, she
reacted strongly, which later made me understand that this brought back her fear of
being excluded from the group. Katariina also describes this situation in the interview:
“I think also that fear kind of manifested itself from the thought that only you and
Giorgia would go to this interview in Copenhagen, cuz then I would feel outside again
and be like 'Katsi [nickname for Katariina] is not competent enough to go to the
meeting'.”
In general, we recently noticed in a face-to-face meeting in November, in which we
spoke about some conflicts within the group, that there seem to be some major
differences in each person's conflict-solving processes. Katariina and I had already
noticed earlier on that Giorgia often had an appropriate, but somewhat standard
answer to feedback or criticism that was given to her including a “thank you for the
feedback” and a promise to work on the problem. Just in this meeting it was the first
time when Katariina and I understood why this sort of reaction was problematic for
us: this answer somehow seemed to prevent an open discussion of the problem or
conflict at hand and did not give us the chance to discuss and solve the conflict together
with Giorgia. Instead, Giorgia would go home with the feedback, wanting to handle the
problem alone and finding a solution for herself. Then she would come back to us with
the “ready-made” solution. This ready-made solution has given Katariina and me the
feeling of being excluded from the conflict-solving process.
55
However, after identifying this pattern of Giorgia when it comes to dealing with
conflicts or problems, there is the other extreme where problems are put on the table
and are discussed openly in order to solve the conflict together. This is something that
Katariina and I seem to be more prone to as this is the way conflicts were dealt with in
our families and social upbringing. We then asked Giorgia why she would rather find
the solution on her own and not discuss conflicts with the entire group. She explained
that she does not like the situation of being rude or somewhat violent to each other
while trying to solve conflicts, which was sometimes her impression in our group. She
felt that she could not handle the tones and concepts of our discussions, feeling too
sensitive to that kind of feedback from people she loves. Referring to her own
background, openly discussing a conflict in that way and trying to solve it together is
something that has not been a common behavior in her family. Moreover, she reported
that she does not want to bother the other person with her anger and therefore prefers
to solve the conflict on her own. This difference in dealing with conflicts shows how
much our socialization and cultural upbringing has shaped our behavioral patterns.
4.1.3 Norming
The norming phase in ExClaM!'s group development, or at least certain parts of it,
began at an early stage. As all of us are self-reflective and culturally aware personalities,
we recognized differences and conflicts early on, feeling the urge to discuss these and to
improve in handling them. As a very distinct example of us consciously establishing
norms, I suggested a rule to Giorgia around February 2012 that she should not call me
after 10.00 pm. This was a reaction to the fact that she sometimes had called me
around 10.30 pm or 11.00 pm to talk about a work or a school related topic. I felt that I
needed to draw this line in order to end my working day at 10.00 pm the latest as I was
already having long working days.
Furthermore, we started establishing rules for our group communication during this
phase. As we all had very different styles of writing emails, for instance, we felt the need
to assimilate these styles in order to work more effectively together (this will be
analyzed in the document analysis). Moreover, in face-to-face or Skype meetings as well
as in emails, we established the norm of trying to separate personal or “gossip”
information from work related information. This happened as a reaction to Katariina's
especial wish for shorter and more structured emails from Giorgia, which she perceived
as too long and in which she found it difficult that the work related content was mixed
with personal content. With us being close friends as well as colleagues, this was
possibly one of the most important issues in our group development and a valuable
learning point and is something I am going to focus on more detailed in the analysis of
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documents.
What is more, during the first months of us working as a group and meeting important
people from the field to receive advice concerning our plans with the Classical Music
Café, it became evident how differently we were behaving in meetings. Sometimes this
resulted in situations where Giorgia, with her rather extrovert personality, would
dominate the meeting while Katariina took a role that was almost as strong. With these
two very strong, extrovert personalities, it was sometimes difficult for me, as I am more
introverted, to be heard and find that moment of silence in which I could jump in to
express my opinions as well.
I remember talking about this issue with Giorgia and Katariina already at an early stage
of our collaboration, which was important for me. However, it seemed to be difficult to
find a real solution for this problem as they believed that I should “take” the space to
express myself by simply interrupting them while for me interrupting someone seems
like an impolite behavior, and I felt, instead, that they should “leave” the necessary
space for me. Nowadays, as we have had more time to get to know each other and have
been in many different meetings together, it seems like we have found a good balance of
how to communicate as a group, so that everyone has her role and has the possibility to
express her thoughts on those occasions. And although we already started to talk and
discuss about our roles in the group at this stage, we continued this process of finding
our place in the group, which later on, in the performing stage, seemed to lead to
clearer and more defined roles.
In the interview, Katariina reflects on the development of our roles in the group:
“at least my role has changed from 'oh Bezzi [nickname for Katariina] should be
the leader' to more the role of an outside consultant and Giorgia from the
innovating visionary to the sales woman of ExClaM! and then you from the
silent secretary to the big boss, that we both respect and fear. “
In 2013, Giorgia and I continued the process of learning how to conduct ourselves in
meetings or rehearsals. In fact, after I had repeatedly felt that I did not get the chance
to talk as much as I would want to in interviews (such as interviews with journalists), I
expressed this feeling to Giorgia and together we came up with a rule for interviews
that we could simply start by answering one question each. Then, if one of us still
wanted to add something to the answer, that was possible too. This sort of frame for
talking made the interviews not only more comfortable for me, but seemed to make
them more structured and showed our interviewer that we are all on the same level in
ExClaM!.
57
Especially the first big conflict that I described above - with Giorgia and I criticizing
Katariina for the way she fulfilled her task and her feeling excluded from the group presented the opportunity for us to discuss our individual involvement in the group and
the importance of honestly communicating how much time each of us can or cannot put
into a certain task or project. This was something essential for all of us to learn,
especially as we were all eager to improve our skills in different internships as well as
other jobs.
This shows how closely connected the norming phase is to the ways of communication
in a group, which I am focusing on in more detail in the document analysis.
Additionally, it seems like in our case the norming and performing phase took place
simultaneously. As we worked together more intensively, we established more and
more norms in our ways of working and communicating. And nowadays, even though
we have already worked together in several bigger projects, there are always new issues
to discuss in terms of group dynamics and communication which often lead to new
norms as we all have the wish to work effectively and to keep developing personally.
In the norming phase, we also got to know each other's personalities better and
elaborated on ways to interact with one another. Katariina expresses in the interview
what she has noticed between the three of us:
“both of you are not so task oriented, maybe Giorgia is a little bit more task
oriented as well, task oriented is a bit wrong. But somehow, you guys tend to
think more about the energy between people and emotions and the way to say
things, which I haven't had to think about so much previously […], when you
work with guys from technology that's really not an issue, you talk about things,
you don't talk about emotions and it's really relaxing in a work environment […]
when you can just focus on the things […]. You both are very big personalities in
your own way, Giorgia's personality is very extroverted and very loud, very
dominating, but I am also very dominating, so either we fight together or I
ignore it if it becomes a problem, but you are not dominating. So its a very
interesting dynamic going on there.”
On comparing her and my personality, Giorgia describes her perception on how we
have worked together:
“certainly, we are very similar and very different in very different ways. For
instance, while doing the very same thing, for example this summer when we
were coaching the summer day concerts, I think my perception and your
58
perception complemented each other perfectly. Because you are more visual and
you had those ideas like the “combination of colors” and all the ones that we
mentioned and the ones that we didn't, and maybe I had more of I don't even
know what. But we have two different perceptions and these things contributed
to having such complete shows and so many layers to it.”
A very important part of the norming phase is the level of cohesiveness that is prevalent
in a group. For me, despite all discussions and struggles happening in this group, one
important motivation to stay in the group was the fact that I always felt I could learn
something new. Especially as a leader of the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 when I
had to take the responsibility for this production I noticed that I am in fact successful
when it comes to managerial tasks and that I am good at keeping an overview over the
important processes. Thereby, I improved as a manager and communicator and gained
new confidence in the role of a leader.
Additionally, while working with Giorgia and Katariina, I learned a lot of new skills
from them as we all seem to have different talents, knowledge and experience to add to
the group. Above all, I noticed that I kept improving my communication, intercultural
communication, conflict-solving and general behavior in group settings. Finally, in a
cooperative like this, it is actually possible for us to realize our own ideas, that were also
strongly supported by Sibelius Academy in both concert seasons and the Arts
University in the Opera Game. Before I came to the Arts Management program, I did
not really know, what I am good at or what I want to work with in this field. From the
beginning of working with ExClaM!, I was very inspired by our ideas and our work as it
showed me that this could be something I would want to work with in the future.
Also, Giorgia and Katariina have reported that working with ExClaM! has given them
the opportunity to grow and develop professionally as well as personally. Moreover, it
seems that it has been something important to us all to support each other in working
on our weaknesses. Looking back, I see this unique situation as one motivational factor
in of all of us remaining part of the group. This became apparent, for instance, during
the first big conflict with Katariina while she was in Savonlinna in 2012. After this
conflict and Katariina's honest statement about her insecurities and difficulty to
communicate her time constraints, I became aware of the value of this collaboration
between us three, how crucial it is for my personal development and that we should all
embrace this challenge to learn from each other. More than that, it showed me that
Katariina was not simply uninterested in ExClaM! or unconcerned with the quality of
our tasks, but was in fact struggling with the situation.
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Regarding her personal development in ExClaM! Katariina summarizes the situation
from her point of view:
“working with ExClaM! has for a very long time put me in a very challenging
position, where I have really had to work with a lot of my own issues about
communicating and interacting with work colleagues. I usually have done work
where its very self-sufficient, where you don't have to work in teams, so that has
taught me a lot. Or if I've worked in teams, I have always had the upper game,
but not in ExClaM!, because each one's input is so important and equally
important, that is very interesting, I feel that I am really working with equals.”
On the other hand, it seems like remaining part of this group also meant a lot for our
professional development as Giorgia reports,
“ExClaM! gave me confidence in the situations in which I don't know what will
happen. I can handle it, but that's not even the fact, they are good, and they
allow for more creativity and for more possibilities than situations in which I
actually know exactly what I want and exactly what will happen. Same is for
every single Summer Day Concert that we elaborated with the artists. We just
got a team together, the only thing we knew was the repertoire, that's all. I think
that's really an invaluable lesson from ExClaM! to me personally.“
In fact, it seems as though also our close friendship is one possible motivation for us
remaining part of the group, revealing itself, for instance, on occasions where any of us
has personal or professional problems and can trust the others to support her in solving
or improving the situation. I am going to focus on this hypothesis in more detail in the
performing phase.
4.1.4 Performing
In the performing stage of a group's development, the role structure usually becomes
clearer. Already during the previous stages of ExClaM!'s group development we started
talking about our different roles in the group. In the performing stage, however,
although creating some struggles and discussions, our roles seemed to become more
defined. In fact, it has been expressed many times by Giorgia and Katariina, but also by
people outside the group, that my role seems to have changed the most during these
roughly two years, especially due to the leading position I took in 2012, while the
others' roles have been more steady.
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At the beginning of working with ExClaM! I had not yet had a lot of experience in the
Arts Management field, least of all as a producer or in a leading position. In hindsight,
the situation of Giorgia and Katariina being away for internships during most of the
summer of 2012 gave me the possibility o leading the Summer Lunchtime Concerts
2012 and was a great opportunity for me to develop as well as to change and establish
my role in the group. In general, I feel that this situation made me identify more easily
with ExClaM!, possibly because I had not only the responsibility for the concert season,
but also for ExClaM! as a brand during this time. Obviously, this was not exactly the
best situation for me to find my place in the group, as we were not actually a physical
group in the same place that summer. However, I gained confidence in my skills and
importance in the group while working alone (with Giorgia online in New York) for a
while. Then, when Giorgia came back for the second part of the concert season it felt
easier for me to work together with her. In the interview, Giorgia describes her
perception of our roles in the group:
“I think, the one [role], which has changed the most, is yours [Julia's], that got
defined the most. At the beginning you were more of a 'fac totum' [from Italian:
meaning a person, who takes care of various tasks in an organization], of course,
you were the only one there, so you had to do everything. And this year, of
course you were still a 'fac totum', meaning that for instance the shows we
always did together, and everything we did together, except for some tiny
things, but its a matter of lead and who has the last word in what. You got more
oriented to some other things. But Bezzi's [Katariina's] role has been more
consistent than yours and mine as well, possibly.”
Even though the position in the first concert season gave me a lot of self confidence and
made me feel as an important part of ExClaM!, I still kept questioning my place in the
group. When Giorgia and Katariina were back in Helsinki in the fall of 2012 and we all
started to work together again, I remember one ExClaM! group meeting during that
time in which I expressed those doubts towards Giorgia and Katariina. This seemed to
be the moment in which I realized that both of them saw my importance and role in the
group much clearer than I was able to see it myself.
When reflecting on our roles in ExClaM!, an issue that cannot be ignored is the
situation regarding us being friends as well as colleagues. As I described in the forming
stage, at first we were friends before we actually started to work together. As I see it,
this double-role can cause difficulties but it does also have its advantages. From my
point of view, this very strong bond between the three of us professionally and as
friends was an important factor, giving me a feeling of safety and regularity in Finland.
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Knowing that I would meet Giorgia and Katariina almost every day, at least in
university times, has made this friend and work relationship a very intimate one. On
the other hand, being so close with Katariina and Giorgia might also have limited my
possibilities of forming close relationships with other people from our class, for
instance. Nevertheless, we can argue that I would not have had the same kind of
support in developing personally and professionally if they had been only my colleagues
and not my friends. As I see it, the development I was able to make since the beginning
of 2012 was possibly due to their understanding of my weaknesses as friends and their
support in a work setting so that I had the chance to improve.
Summarizing the advantages of having your friends as colleagues, Giorgia expressed in
the interview that
“first of all you are never really worried that you loose your job, meaning that,
[…] when you are friends like we are, we have different relationships among
ourselves, but still, it's unconditional love. So whatever can happen, but we're
always ready to just say it, and to say 'hey, you are really stepping on my foot, do
you realize that? If it was someone else I would just kick him out of the
company, but as it's you, I know that you can improve, because I believe in you,
so lets get this straight'.“
Additionally, Giorgia reports that she likes how her work develops her also as a human
being, stating that she is not sure if it would happen in the same way if we were not
friends and seeing this as “a challenge and an adventure on both professional side and
human side.”
Spending all the time together has been pointed out as one disadvantage of being
friends and colleagues by Katariina in the interview, however. In her opinion, this is
“not so healthy because sometimes you are frustrated and tired and you want to
step out of it, so you can refigure and regroup again for the next challenge,
where you just have to push on. So the friendship needs to either be able to take
the fact that you want to step out sometimes and you want to have your own
time and own space or then you work very intensely together.”
She does, however, point out that there are, in fact, a lot of start-ups where it can be
beneficial when friends work and create something together. At times, I became
frustrated when we were working together and were supposed to get a task done, and
would continuously switch between work and talking about personal topics. This made
it difficult for me to concentrate on the task, which is why I at some point requested
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some sort of separation of work related and personal topics. Also Giorgia remembers
my frustration over this,
“I remember especially at the beginning, that you were very frustrated that we
would go into gossip at all times and waste so much time for doing things that
could have been very short. So it was very good that you required closed
working times and then in the breaks we could maybe gossip a bit or in the end
we could go get Pizzas […].”
In fact, this was another norm we have established over time. It seems like we all
became aware at some point that sometimes it is necessary to try separating these roles
in order to work efficiently or to solve conflicts. As Katariina describes it,
“what I think we are quite well working at all the time is that we can change
roles, like 'this is work, I just have to say it straight' […], that's something I still
have to work on, being able to really say everything I mean, like just say it, and
not think 'I hope I don't offend someone'.”
Furthermore, she points out that she does not actually trust that Giorgia and I can
separate the roles completely as we have been working together so tightly and expresses
that “this was also tied to my fear, when it was at some point an option that you and
Giorgia would go to that interview [in Copenhagen] together, I was like 'are you really
able to separate your roles as friends and colleagues, are you?'.” As much as I
sometimes find it necessary to separate work and personal things, after some time of
working with ExClaM! I also started to recognize the importance of having informal
meetings as friends. Especially in times, when we have been working very intensively
together, we often organized a friends-hangout in the evening or a brunch, in which we
would just be together as friends instead of colleagues.
Personally, I have noticed in moments in which we were not working together
effectively or if there have been conflicts in tasks, that I have felt the need to meet with
Giorgia or Katariina or both in an informal setting as friends. From my point of view,
this always helped to establish new personal trust with them, which then also affects
the trust in the performance setting. For me, this is mostly about trusting the others to
work on the given tasks in the best way they can and communicate difficulties or
conflicts in the best way they can. Moreover, I have often suggested those “friends
meetings” on Skype when we have not had the chance to meet face-to-face. In addition
to the new trust this builds, it also seems to always remind me of the friendship we
have, no matter what is going wrong in the work setting at that time.
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4.2 Different perspectives on group communication
The communication in our group has developed and improved in many different ways
during the time we have been working together. In this part of my analysis I am
therefore focusing on different aspects of communication within ExClaM!. I divided
this part into three sub-categories including general communication development,
intercultural communication as well as the possible effects of computer-mediated
communication. The data I am analyzing in this chapter is derived from the interviews
with Giorgia Ghizzoni and Katariina Nyberg.
4.2.1 General communication development
In both interviews the interviewees expressed clearly that they have noticed a strong
development regarding the general communication in our group. Katariina summarizes
what she thinks has been part of this development as follows:
“we've learned to communicate with each other. Overcoming cultural
differences, overcoming personalities, getting to know each other, getting to
know each other's strengths and weaknesses, learning how to communicate to
avoid misunderstandings. Understanding how to avoid assumptions, even
though they are still there, working with assumptions, trying to realize that, ah I
assumed there.”
As a consequence, she points out the importance of self-reflection in connection with a
development in communication;
“[...] if you're self-reflecting, you understand what's wrong with the
communication and what bits of information you haven't given, what bits of
information you haven't received, so I think we've all learned to self-reflect on
how well the communication goes and also to say it out loud then as well.”
Giorgia, on the other hand, stresses the significance of getting to know each other on a
personal level in this context,
“[...] we know each other much more right now, I think as friends and as
colleagues, we know what works and what doesn't, to talk to each other and to
get good things out of each other. Or, you know, this is were friendship really
works, we also know what we're struggling with at the moment and this creates
on the one side sympathy and on the other side a capability of going around it
sometimes. And saying 'hey, I know you are dealing with a lot, but let's also
64
remember that you committed to this, this, this and that', so it gives us more
honesty and everything and capabilities.”
It is evident how important the connection between being friends and informal
communication is in this type of group. Also Katariina makes this connection in the
interview: “[…] when you're friends, there is a lot of informal communication going on
and a certain trust is built and this way you can work really well together, or the
communication can almost be telepathic.“ She continues to explain that her experience
with Giorgia was that their communication was almost telepathic at a time when they
were in a good place in their friendship. She however has noticed that when you are in a
bad place as friends it can hinder the work and decision-making processes a lot, for
instance, with decisions that do not make all group members happy.
It is interesting to note what Katariina observed in the communication between Giorgia
and myself in times when we worked very closely together, for instance in the summers
of 2012 and 2013,
“what I observed with you and Giorgia was that you formed a very strong bond
where you communicate all the time, and the level of communication is so high
that you know all the time what is going on, the latest developments, almost
what the other one is thinking. That is how it seems from the outside. When you
are able to be together, and have a lot of time together, the level of
communication becomes more immediate and working is easier and more
efficient. “
While thinking more on the significance of informal communication in a group,
Katariina reflects on a lesson she learned during summer 2013 in the context of
ExClaM! as well as at her trainee-ship with London Philharmonia Orchestra. While
working with ExClaM! she describes: “I now learned that the informality works as a
good glue for communication on a formal level“ and that for example informal Skype
meetings seemed to have helped with that. Just as well, she recalls that this is also what
she learned in London,
“if you have this informal way of communicating with somebody, […] that
actually lowers the barriers of asking questions, of asking someone for their
input, of working together, […] you learn more on when is the right time to ask
or if that's a good question to ask […].”
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When dealing with the topic of communication it seems almost impossible not to reflect
on the issue of trust. That is why I asked the interviewees to describe what trust means
for them in the context of communication. Katariina expresses that two types of trust
are especially important for her in this group, firstly “the trust in that you yourself will
be respected by the others” and secondly, “trust in abilities in general, that the other
persons know themselves really well and are able to communicate them [their abilities]
really well”. She also admits that she still has problems in communicating her time
management issues, which is something she wants to work on, “so that you guys can
trust that when I say 'I can do it' or 'I can't do it', because now I often say, I can maybe
do it, and it's not good enough, because then you cannot trust either option. Trust
comes with communication.” Giorgia too describes what trust in ExClaM! means to her
and how she thinks it has developed over time:
“it's been a constant exploration also of this word or this concept for me […]. For
the time being, maybe I could define it as the certainty that all of us will always
be engaged in telling the others whats not working for them. And also the
confidence in a parallel way that the others will never hold your personal things
against you.”
In fall 2013 and as a consequence of the new situation for ExClaM! - with Giorgia and
Katariina living in Helsinki and me living in Hamburg - we established a monthly board
meeting called “Circle of Trust”. What sounds like a funny name for a business meeting
at first, actually describes what is important to all of us; namely to have a regular time
for this group in which we share new developments or project plans, but also
communicate honestly how much we can and want to be involved with ExClaM!
activities at that point and in what way. In the interview, Giorgia describes what the
Circle of Trust means for her:
“I think the Circle of Trust is a very good example. What we talked about, like
when you clearly said in this moment 'I am going to take my time to do my
thesis', that's fine and I said I need your green light to do ExClaM! stuff. And
you can say, 'yes, go, but we want to keep an eye on you'; and that's honesty and
that's trust for me […].”
Furthermore, she points out that it is a good platform of communication,
“like when is it the case to contact the other two, even in a project where one of
us is working by herself or what is the task division and how much commitment
can each of us put in this very moment and how to go about it, so it was a very
66
honest communication about it and I think it clarified a lot.”
On the other hand, Katariina emphasizes the importance of the Circle of Trust in terms
of group dynamics, avoiding in particular the two-against-one situation that I described
in the storming stage,
“I want the Circle of Trust to be circle, and not two and one, like a form of a
circle, more than a triangle. That we have at least once a month a moment,
where each one is in their own place […] so that there is no us as a pair, but
three mes. To have that periodically, the three mes. Because that's a way for you
step aside the business that's going on, but being heard at least once a month
about your opinion on the way things develop.”
What is interesting is that it seems like the name Circle of Trust for this monthly board
meeting in fact supports us in daring to use this occasion as a moment to express our
honest feelings and thoughts. Just from this fall, I actually recall that Katariina as well
as Giorgia have said a sentence like “as this is called the Circle of Trust, I really want to
be honest with you guys now.”
4.2.2 Intercultural communication
Especially in terms of intercultural communication it has been interesting to hear the
perceptions of Giorgia and Katariina on our development. Katariina describes in the
interview in what way she thinks she has changed or adapted her communication style
when working with Giorgia and me, “I guess I have changed a little bit how I
communicate to Giorgia by complementing her need for exclamation marks and
outbursts. I sometimes imitate it to complement or reference it.”
Moreover, Katariina points out how especially important it is in intercultural
communication to be aware of the fact that the others might not be able to understand
one's point of view as they do not have the same cultural background and experience.
This, she continues, is also related to the way we communicate our point of view, for
instance instead of saying “that's the way it is”, expressing it more like, “I am of the
opinion, and I think it's because of […] this experience or that experience” […].
Explaining this further, she reflects on the course of Intercultural communication
skills in our Arts Management studies:
“I think that's something we have also learned from Arts Management or
especially from the intercultural skills, when we realized that there are inside of
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us encoded ways of going about things and the others don't possess the same
encoding, like we [encode] it in our cultural way and everyone from the other
culture doesn't have the keys to decode it the right way. And then there is
misinterpretation and misunderstandings, and I think we have learned that very
well in the intercultural skills, that how can we make our feelings and thoughts
clear in a kind of culture-neutral way. Or in a way that from any culture you can
understand it, by exemplifying it, putting it out there and leaving so much for
interpretation, so that's a technique for communicating.”
Both interviewees were asked if they remember a situation when they have felt
misunderstood by the other members because of their cultural background. While
Giorgia recalls that whenever there were “misunderstandings about some words or
things, we would always go to word reference or third parties and we would dig into it
so that the real message would come out”, Katariina has a culturally more difficult
perception on this topic telling that she has definitely felt misunderstood at times. She
remembers some examples:
“Finns talk less about a process that's undergoing, because they just want to do
it and then when it's finished to talk about it. But I have learned a big lesson on
that, also in Britain, that it's so much easier if you just keep on communicating
about a process that is not finished yet and it's really good to keep that up, that
communication, it's also an engineer-state of mind: I want to finish my product
and then I give it to you and then it's perfect and then you can look at it.
Unfinished products need to be looked at as well.”
In this context, Katariina once again, points out the importance of the course in
Intercultural Communication skills, which later made her understand that this issue is
connected with her cultural background which is why she couldn’t complement
Giorgia's and my need for that kind of communication during an unfinished process.
Apart from feeling misunderstood in the context described above, Katariina has not
always felt culturally understood in her task-oriented nature,
“I felt a little bit misunderstood when I haven't expressed emotions, because I
don't feel so comfortable in always doing that, especially when I am working, I
like to put them aside and not to talk about them or have them as an issue, and
having more time to focus on the task at hand than to spend time on the
emotions around it, because I see it more as a barrier than an enabler. But I
understand now that it's also an enabler and you cannot separate those things.”
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4.2.3 English language and communication styles
In the beginning of writing this thesis, I thought that I would include a separate
analysis on the effect that the use of English language seems to have on our group
communication. However, during the interview and the analysis, I noticed that the use
of English language cannot be looked at separately. Instead, it seems that it has to be
analyzed in connection with the different communication styles each of us is using.
From the very beginning of ExClaM!'s operations, the main company language was
English. We wrote several business plans and documents in English, while official tax
and registration papers had to be in the Finnish language. As the study program during which we had the chance to work on the ExClaM! concept in different courses was in English, we were able to share many of our plans and ideas with our study
colleagues and received valuable feedback. Additionally, starting with Giorgia's
connections to New York, we were able to use the English material instantly to inform
important people in the field about the existence of ExClaM!. As mentioned in the
introduction, all of us were already on a good level of English when we met, but were
using very different communication styles in our written and spoken language. Even
though English has not been the mother tongue of any of us, we had obviously learned
and applied the language in different contexts and had developed our own ways to use
it. Naturally, the way someone applies a foreign language is also connected to one's
respective mother tongue and culture.
As Giorgia has been spending many summers in Canada and the U.S.A. and had already
been studying her Bachelor Business Degree in English, she was very fluent and
comfortable with the language. In fact, she has a big vocabulary and you do not hear a
strong accent when she talks. When I first read one of her written texts at school, I was
impressed by her vocabulary and how beautifully her sentences were built.
Furthermore, her texts as well as professional emails were well structured.
In general, Katariina emphasizes, in the interview, that she does not find it difficult that
the company language is English as we have also been in an English speaking study
program. However, concerning our different styles of English, especially concerning
British and American English, Katariina expresses some frustration over this issue,
“it's really hard when I am writing a report with you guys, I don't want it to be
American spelling, I want it to be British spelling as we are a European
company, but then Giorgia writes in a completely American way and then I
think sometimes we have a mishmash of languages in our reports, which is not
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good, because it should always be just one. We haven't actually made that
decision yet, but its fairly easy, if Giorgia is writing a report, it will be American,
if I am writing a section it is British style.”
Giorgia suggests some possible solutions to this problem: “when we talk about, which
language to give to our website, I think the answer could be 'the most neutral one'. Like
words that are not very American or not very British, for instance, if we have to choose
among one of the two Englishes.” In her opinion, finding a compromise between the
two would be the most convenient, also from marketing point of view.
Furthermore, Katariina expresses to have had problems with Giorgia's Italian way of
using English, often including very curly expressions. At the same time she admits
shortcomings in her own use of the language:
“there are language barriers, and you can hide behind language barriers, saying
complicated words and sounding really fancy, I guess I have been doing that
sometimes to make myself feel more superior and its not good to do that, I have
probably been doing that out of self protection, to have some stands or
something.”
In general, she thinks that the different writing styles as well as the spelling of English
is something that should be solved within ExClaM! In the interview with Giorgia, one
very interesting point emerged, which we had never spoken about before and that
helped me to understand her point of view on our heterogeneous writing styles.
Additionally, this new information made me understand the inevitable connection
between the different use of English language and the style of communication in
general, which seems to be strongly influenced by our culture, but also by our
personality. To answer the question whether Katariina's and my styles of writing have
made her feel frustrated at times, Giorgia reports a memory from her childhood
explaining her background:
“my mom is a writer and I had a lot of difficulties when I was in high school
structuring paragraphs. There was one year, the fourth or fifth year of high
school, in which I kept having very low grades, and I was so upset, so
disappointed at myself and I didn't understand what was going on. […] So, what
I'm trying to say is, from that moment, I worked on it so hard, to make what I
write clear, clear cut, and unequivocal and as short as possible […]. I do
recognize the things that I worked on so hard with the help of my teachers and
mom, she also structured me quite much when I had those difficulties. So it's
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not a matter of frustration. So whenever I correct it's because of this, this is my
aim always. […] It's not about English and its not about frustration. It's just that
I have this inner, very strict pull to clarity and then maybe I don't even reach it.
It has become a little bit of an instinct.“
On the other hand, she has also noticed an improvement in her own communication
style. She points out that for instance having an agenda for Skype meetings has helped
her to express her thoughts in a less “brainstormy” and more structured way and seems
to have added to the efficiency of the meetings. She felt that a comment of Katariina in
one Circle of Trust Skype meeting supports her own perception on this development, “I
remember Bezzi [Katariina] saying last time we had the Circle of Trust, I remember
stating one thing, and I finished the phrase and she was like 'whoa! Brief, clear and to
the point! Wonderful!'.”
4.3 Intercultural and mediated communication
In the third stage, I analyzed three email documents mainly focusing on aspects of
diversity and intercultural communication. Obviously, also some general points of view
on the topic of computer-mediated communication have to be included in this chapter.
In order to increase the validity of this analysis, I am also including some opinions of
Giorgia and Katariina on this issue that are derived from the interviews.
In relation to our heterogeneous communication styles it becomes obvious that our
styles of writing emails are very diverse too. Giorgia's American style English with a
rich, descriptive and flowery writing style, probably influenced by Italian as well as
American style, is very different from Katariina's more practical, shorter and direct
style which has probably been influenced by the Finnish way of writing. And, finally,
my English shows a German politeness, but is not too ornamental. This has not only
been my own observation, but we already spoke about this topic in the group after we
had been working together for only a few months as all three of us had noticed these
differences in email communication.
Given the situation of Giorgia, Katariina and I often being distributed in different parts
of the world, especially during both of the concert seasons, it seems important to me to
understand the effects of the computer-mediated communication such as email and
Skype on the group. Especially, the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 presented an
especial challenge for me regarding the communication. As Giorgia and Katariina were
not present in Helsinki (Giorgia was working in New York, U.S.A. and Katariina in
Savonlinna, Finland) for the main part of the project, our communication took place
71
mostly via email and Skype. (Giorgia was in Helsinki again for the second part of the
concert season).
This meant for me that due to time difference and the busyness of my colleagues with
other jobs, it was not possible to consult them for all decisions and difficulties that
arose in the preparation period. Furthermore, during this time, I realized that it is
problematic for me to not be in any face-to-face interaction with the group. It bothered
me that the “personal” level of communication was missing in the email contact and
also Skype could not give me that satisfaction. Not only in 2012, but also during the
preparations for the Summer Day Concerts 2013, I noticed a phenomenon that I would
describe as a “feeling of loosing touch with the other person”. At times, there have been
several days or even weeks in which there was not a chance to talk on Skype with
Giorgia or Katariina. Instead, all our correspondence took place via email and partly in
Google document chats or comments. Obviously, tasks and hard facts can be
transferred through written text, it however lacks of emotions, tone of voice and many
other components that are prevalent in face-to-face interaction. Especially when you
have not known the person you are communicating with by email for a very long time,
misunderstandings can easily arise in this communication medium as it can be difficult
to decode the actual meaning of the message. Later on, I understood that our very
different styles of writing emails might complicate the decoding process even more.
However, I also noticed that this only seems to cause difficulties when we are not also
in a face-to-face or at least Skype contact.
For instance, I remember several situations in my communication with Katariina that
have created some difficulties. Katariina's emails were often written in a style that is
quite common in Finnish communication, where it seems to be important to get the
message or the task across quickly and not spend too much time on expressing
unrelated emotions or greetings. This means that her emails usually started with a
short greeting line, even though also that was left out sometimes, then a couple of short
sentences on the work-related topic and mostly ending the email simply with a “-K”.
Already in the forming stage of our group, this became a topic of discussion as her short
and direct style sometimes resulted in Giorgia and I feeling that Katariina was angry at
us or wanted to give us “orders”. When we spoke to her about our perception we
understood, however, that we were misinterpreting her messages as her aim was simply
to focus on the things that needed to be communicated and tasks that had to get done
instead of spending too much time with making the message sound more “polite”. This
was her way of working fast, effectively and task-oriented. Although we had spoken
about this matter, there were situations in the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 as
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well as in the Summer Day Concerts 2013 in which I perceived Katariina's emails as
giving me “orders” instead of asking me to do something (see Example 1). As
mentioned previously, this only caused a problem for me in times in which I was not in
any personal and richer contact with Katariina. It seems as though you suddenly only
interpret the words that are written black on white alone but somehow disconnect
those from the person who is behind those words. After understanding this, at least in
2013, whenever I noticed this type of frustration, I tried to ask Katariina for a Skype
meeting, often an informal, friendship one, as a way to reconnect with the actual person
behind the emails.
[EXAMPLE 1]
Katariina (Email from May 30, 2012 to Giorgia and Julia):
As we still haven't printed the flyer, I would make the decision now and tell it to
[NAME]. Julia, call the band of the 17th and ask if 1st Aug would go. Or ask [NAME] if
we get another hall. Then make the decision and tell [NAME] the change so she can
plug it in the flyer. Giorge [nickname for Giorgia], if you want to tell your corrections do
it asap directly to [NAME].
-Katsi
Julia (Email from May 30, 2012 to Katariina, copy to: Giorgia):
Hey!
[…] I am trying to reach the [musicians] and hope that I can get some kind of answer
today. But, as you know, they are 5 people on 17th, so finding out from all of them if
they could perform on 1.8. usually takes longer than some hours. And Katsi, if you don't
mind, stop giving those kind of orders to me.
Giorgia too has had some difficulties with Katariina's emails at the beginning of our
group work, referring especially to the summer 2012:
“she had this very Finnish style of replying to emails and it affected us meaning
that we kind of knew her as a person, but then the emails showed another
person […]. So, of course, we grew out of it, now we know each other much
better, of course there is a lot of stuff to know about each other still, like it's not
that we're perfect now, but we are a bit more solid, like our pillars are a little bit
more solid in the ground now. We still need, I think it's necessary, to have faceto-face conversations periodically at least, not necessarily every single day or
every single week, but it's necessary, at least skype […], that's more or less still
face-to-face. But, especially at the beginning, it's like beginning a relationship in
a long distance, you don't really know the other person, and you just write and
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that's so different and it's so open to misunderstandings. You know, I could
write the most loving messages and then be [actually very unfriendly] or the
other way around, write the most [unfriendly] messages and then be the most
loving person in the world. Its just very different ways of communication, live
and written.”
Moreover, this phenomenon has shown that we all seem to have different needs when it
comes to communication and that it is helpful for the group to learn how to express
those needs towards the others. In fact, Katariina seems to have a different connection
to written communication than I do as she expresses in the interview, how she actually
likes communicating through text and email. However, she also sees the shortcomings
of emails and the need for face-to-face communication:
“[...] sometimes its just so hard to understand what somebody says through
email […], so I realize the need for face-to-face communication. I mean, I prefer
communication through text, but I understand the need for face-to-face
communication. And also when you sit down together and have more time to
spend with somebody […] it's more a dialog, also more than chat, because you
see if somebody is apprehensive about it or really strong about it, so you get that
emotional signal as well […].”
One of Giorgia's comments on face-to-face and Skype communication previously
mentioned was especially interesting. She states: “we still need, I think it's necessary,
to have face-to-face conversations periodically […] at least Skype […], that's more or
less still face-to-face.” As Giorgia had already been in international networks and had
already been living and working abroad, when we met, she used Skype so regularly as a
communication channel, that it seemed to be a very natural medium for her. Therefore,
by the comment “at least skype, that's more or less face-to-face” she shows that skype
might not feel as far away from the feeling of live communication for her as it feels for
me, for instance.
As a reaction to Giorgia's and my criticism concerning her emails, Katariina has
thought about how to change her communication style:
“I think I still need to work with how to complement your need of the way you
want to communicate, there still can't be hours to sit and read my emails and
think how to make it nicer, I sometimes might do it. Sometimes I think I should
be doing it, I still can't be bothered, I should probably at some point.”
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In example 2, it shows that Katariina has been thinking about how to change her
communication style. After explaining very thoroughly, structured and friendly, how we
could optimize our budget documents. In particular, the last sentence “but otherwise,
good job” shows a form of politeness that has not been too common in Katariina's
earlier emails.
[EXAMPLE 2]
Katariina (Email from September 1, 2013):
In terms of the budget, I would suggest the following: We have the columns for hours
units and unit price. The total of that is the product of those three, like for example this
line in our budget:
[...]
This should imo _NEVER_ be changed and _NOTHING_ should ever been written
into the blue part. So if you need to record multiple expenses, please choose between
the following two options:
1) Either create a new row for them in the budget keeping units and hours as "1" and
record the amount in the unit price column. This way the blue cell for Sub-Total will
show up correctly.
2) If you want to group small expenses together and only show their total on the main
budget spread, create a tab for those expenses, record all of them in one place, calculate
their total and quote that total in the unit price cell keeping units and hours as "1". Like
this:
In the main budget spread: [...]
In an own tab called other_expenses: [...]
I did this now in this file and ordered it so that it looks professional […]
[…] But otherwise, good job.
-bz
Compared to Katariina's email writing, Giorgia's style is very different. Although her
texts were often very well structured, in her emails to Katariina and me at the
beginning, she sometimes mixed professional and personal topics as well as using a
very flowery, descriptive language (see example 3). Those emails seemed to cause a
certain confusion for Katariina and me as we sometimes found it difficult to find the
“hard facts” and tasks among the other “informal” and emotional information. In this
sense, Katariina and I felt that some of Giorgia's emails included to much of the
emotional information that Giorgia and I found Katariina's messages were lacking.
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For me, it was interesting that from the very beginning, Giorgia ended every email with
the word “love” before the name, a procedure that I started to adopt quite soon as well.
Of course, this has to do with us being close friends as well, but it also seems to
relativize everything that is written in the email before, almost like a reminder that no
matter how difficult the topic we are writing about in a professional sense, we are still
friends as well.
In the interview, Giorgia reflects on the criticism she has received by Katariina and me
for her emails:
“well I think, my, I don't know if it's a personality or a cultural thing, maybe
both, has irritated Bezzi [Katariina] a lot at the beginning, especially with
communication, that I was so flowery and bla bla bla and never arrived to the
point especially in emails and so on. So, I've been affected positively by being
told by her, you know, just make lists and if you wanna tell us a gossip just write
it in a separate email, stuff like that. “
[EXAMPLE 3]
Giorgia (Email from May 15, 2012 to Julia):
Hey! That's amazing!
I dreamed last night that they would not confirm and we'd be screwed, so it's double
amazing! I'll also try and listen to the program suggestions asap and then get back to
you!
Man I already love ny [New York]. U know why in particular?!?!?! I went to Columbia
Uni district today to do some shopping for food. I bought a lot of stuff cuz it was the
first shopping for food ever here. I arrive at the cash thingy and the lady says "to go or
delivery?" I say "What?" and she "you can have it delivered to your place directly!" "Ah
yes? For how much?" "For free!"
.....
I LOVE NY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No heavy bags for kms and kms!
Anyways, I got the budget proposal from [NAME] and it's [...] euro. I have no terms of
comparison, so I don't know how to judge it. But it seems high :-S I dunno if I should
ask him for a package with the logo or just drop it. What do you think?
Lotta love
G.
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Julia (Email on May 16, 2012 to Giorgia):
Hey!
I think you should ask for a package price from him for logo and flyer/poster.
At the same time we will be in contact with [NAME] and see what we can negotiate with
her or ask her if she could in general imagine to make a package price.
Actually, Katsi and I are of the opinion that [...] e for graphic design is kind of the upper
limit in our budget... what do you think? Maybe we could start to suggest sth like […] e
and then negotiate... But let's see.
Lotta love,
J.
P.S.: great with the carrying service ;)
Curiously, I cannot remember that we discussed a lot about my style of writing emails.
One can argue that that this is because my writing style can actually be seen as a
middle-way of Giorgia's and Katariina's style. It is polite, as that is the way it is done in
Germany in professional contexts, and nowadays quite structured, even though it has
not been like that from the beginning and I have tried to improve on that. Probably, my
biggest problem in the beginning was that I spent too much time on formulations and
on writing polite emails. In this last email example, it is interesting, however, that I am
reacting to Giorgia's personal information, but am using the P.S. part of the email for
this reaction.
In general, it seems that there has been a clear development in the email
communication of all of us. Giorgia has learned to not include too much personal and
informal information in work emails and nowadays, we often write separate friendshipemails instead. Katariina has made a distinct effort to complement mine and Giorgia's
need for a polite and friendly written communication. And I have been trying to
improve the structure of my emails and have tried to spend less time on making the
messages sound perfectly polite. We now seem to write more similar kind of emails
than we did in the beginning and seem to have adapted to each other's needs for
communication.
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4.4 External influences on the group
After having analyzed the data that was derived from the group members, I consider it
important to have a short look on some external influences on the group. It seems as
though not only the dynamics and communication within the group, but also the way
people from the outside have seen us as a group has affected the group development to
the point we are at today.
4.4.1 Support by Sibelius Academy
As the first important factor that has influenced our group development, I see the
support of Sibelius Academy from the very beginning. When we first told Tanja
Johansson about our ideas, she supported our initiative, which later gave us the
possibility to start the investigation on summer activities at the Helsinki Music Centre
(as mentioned in the introduction). Although it was only the preparation for the first
concert season, the investigation can be seen as our first real project as a group, apart
from our initial ideas concerning the Classical Music Café. This gave us the chance to
really try how the three of us are able to work together effectively on specific tasks, how
to make decisions and how to communicate. On top of that, the investigation gave me
the opportunity to develop as a project leader.
In fact, it is difficult to say when or if we would actually have registered ExClaM! as a
cooperative if we had not been given this first support by Sibelius Academy. Then,
when we were assigned the summer concert season of 2012 as well, we had the chance
to develop our ways of working together further as well as develop many of our skills as
Arts Managers. We all seemed to be eager to learn and were very grateful to be given
the freedom to do so in this project. Sibelius Academy gave us a lot of trust and let us
make most of the managerial decisions ourselves. Additionally, they let us try our
artistic concept of which we had not yet defined precisely at the time. Moreover, our
supervisors in this project Tanja Johansson, Sami Ylisaari and Matti Jordman shared
their knowledge with us and consulted us whenever necessary while never making us
feel insufficient. This independence, with which we were allowed to try out and develop
our concept as well as a brand for the concert season, supported us strongly in forming
an identity of ExClaM!. After the season, the board of Sibelius Academy invited us to
give a presentation of the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 in their board meeting. At
the end of our presentation, Tom von Weymarn, head of the board of Sibelius Academy,
held a rewarding speech for us, stating that this concert season was the “greatest
achievement of 2012”. As an additional sign of appreciation, in December 2012, we
were asked by Tanja Johansson to speak about ExCLaM! and the Summer Lunchtime
Concerts 2012 at the Arts Management Alumni event of Sibelius Academy.
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Additionally, ExClaM! was awarded with a grant meant for activities fostering the
future community of the University of the Arts Helsinki to implement the Opera Game
in the fall of 2012. As mentioned in the introduction, Giorgia took on the leadership in
this project and Keren Rosenbaum was responsible for the game development. That
way we were able to try out a new group structure and continued getting to know each
other in the ways we work.
As we had strongly identified with the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 as a group,
we had thoroughly documented the concert season and were eager to organize another
one in 2013. We started applying for several other art grants and spoke to the
responsible people in SibA about the possibilities. When it was decided by rector
Tuomas Auvinen that SibA would commission the production of another concert
season to ExClaM!, including six more concerts than the year before, we were very
grateful for this opportunity. We felt that we had learned a lot in 2012 and now had the
chance to apply that knowledge and improve our effectiveness even more. Once again,
we had permission to try out a new artistic concept in our shows; this time with
chamber musicians and contemporary dancers instead of actors. And once again, the
independence and trust with which we were left to work on this, the biggest project so
far, seemed to strengthen our identification with the summer concert season as well as
with ExClaM! in general. In 2013, Sami Ylisaari was our main supervisor, who
supported us on the one hand, but on the other hand respected and trusted us with our
work.
In fact, Sibelius Academy (now part of the University of the Arts Helsinki) recently
published the Report of the International Advisory Board 2013, in which also ExClaM!
is positively mentioned. In Chapter 8: good ideas, good practices, it says:
“The Board members enjoyed seeing and hearing many examples of interesting
initiatives being undertaken by staff and students. Each of these examples, and
others like them, showed an institution very purposefully looking outward and
fostering an openness of approach. These initiatives included the alumni
mentoring programme (there could be ways that aspects of this might well be
embedded in the curriculum at a much earlier stage), the support for student
projects (such as the student-led start-up, ExClaM!, which has developed into a
production company and made its mark by presenting a well-received series of
summer lunchtime concerts in the Helsinki Music Centre in 2012)” (p. 16)
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4.4.2 Other supporters
Apart from Sibelius Academy, there were also other people who supported us,
especially in the initial phase. Some famous Finnish artists as well as business people
were interested in our ideas, took them seriously and helped us to take the company
forward. In general, we received compliments and encouragement by professional
contacts, teaching artist Eric Booth as well as Keren Rosenbaum, several teachers
(Joanna Sinclair, Hannu Ojala and Matti Kukkonen and Jari Melgin among many
others), study colleagues, friends and families for founding the cooperative and
implementing our ideas. And during the first months of our group development, but
increasingly over time, people already started to identify us as a group, expecting to see
us three together as a unity and noticing when one of us was missing.
4.4.3 Success and failure
All participants involved in the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 were rather
surprised about the success of this first summer concert season, including ourselves.
Although we knew we had done our best with the marketing and PR, the program and
the whole management of the season, we knew that we had started the preparations
rather late as we had not known about SibA's decision to assign us with the concert
season earlier. More than that, as it was the first summer of the HMC, nobody knew
how a concert season like this would be received. This season, there was an audience
attendance of one hundred and ninety-five visitors per concert. As mentioned
previously, this first success for us as a group motivated us to continue together and
strengthened our unity.
In the Summer Day Concerts 2013, on the other hand, it was not as easy anymore to get
the audience to come to the concert hall. With more concerts, earlier planning and
more marketing and PR we managed to have an average of only seventy-one spectators
per concert. For Giorgia and me especially, as Katariina was in London during this
season, this difficult situation was an opportunity for us to support each other when
something is not as successful as we had expected and to do our best in increasing the
audience for the upcoming shows.
4.4.4 Press coverage
Finally, I we can argue that public voices and the external view on ExClaM! have
affected our group identity. In the press, positive, encouraging articles have been
published since the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012 (see Appendix). Yle Klassinen
published online articles in 2012 and in 2013 and there was a big article in Helsingin
Sanomat on the Summer Day Concerts 2013. Then in the fall of 2013 Rondo Classic
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magazine wrote an article on ExClaM! and in March 2014 an article has been published
in Finnish Music Quarterly. This press interest in our activities was an additional
support for us as a group and, among other factors, motivated us to continue with our
work. Moreover, those articles reminded us - from an external point of view - what we
have already achieved as a group. In order to show examples of how the press reported
on ExClaM! I have chosen two quotes from two different media.
Helsingin Sanomat, July 3, 2014:
“GHIZZONI kertoo, että ensin Exclam halusi perustaa Helsinkiin VR:n makasii
nien jäljelle jääneeseen osaan klassisen musiikin kahvilan. He kysyivät neuvoa
Nokian entiseltä varatoimitusjohtajalta Sari Baldaufilta, joka on vaikuttanut
myös kulttuurielämän tehtävissä. "Olimme asiasta hyvin innostuneita. Sari Bal
dauf sanoi, että mahtava idea! Siihen tarvitaan kymmenen miljoonaa euroa,
mistä aiotte saada ne?" Onneksi Sibelius-Akatemian kanssa syntyi helpompi yh
teistyökuvio, joka käy samalla oppimiskokemuksesta. Taidehallinto-opiskelijoi
na exclamilaiset tekivät jo ensimmäisenä toimintakesänään yleisötutkimusta.
TÄSTÄ huolimatta tarkoituksena on, että konsertit syntyvät kaikkien esiintyjien
yhteistyönä. Alkuviikon harjoituksissa muusikot, tanssijat ja tuottajat miettivät
yhdessä, miten musiikki ja tanssi nivoutuisivat toisiinsa. Tanssipari kehitteli ta
rinaa, joka sopisi yhteen musiikin tunnetilojen kanssa.”
English translation:
“GHIZZONI says that at first ExClaM! wanted to set up a classical music cafe in
the Helsinki VR warehouses remaining part. They asked for advice from Nokia's
former deputy managing director, Sari Baldauf, who has also contributed to
cultural issues before. "We were very excited about the matter. Sari Baldauf said
that it's great idea! It takes ten million euros, from where are you going to get
those?" Fortunately, they found a partner in the Sibelius Academy, and the cooperation served as learning experience too. As students of Arts Management,
the ExClaM! partners also conducted an audience research during their first
summer season. Despite this, it is intended that all concerts are created in
cooperation with the performers. In the beginning of the week, musicians,
dancers and producers rehearse and wonder together how to find the links
between music and dance. In this case, the dance couple developed a story that
would fit in the emotion of the music.”
RONDO Magazine (10/2013):
“Onko ExClaM! innovoinut metodin, jonka avulla on mahdollista kehittää uusia
ilmiöitä konserttilavoille? Kenties, sillä se on rohjennut fokusoida taiteellisiin
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prosesseihin, joiden alussa ei vielä tiedetä mihin lopussa päädytään. Uskalletaan
kokeilla, havaita, tuntea, luoda, muuttua – ja olla vaikutteille alttiina.”
English translation:
“Has ExClaM! come up with an innovative method that makes it possible to
develop new concepts for the concert stage? Perhaps, as it has had the courage
to focus on the artistic processes in which at the beginning it is not yet known
what will be the final result. They dare to experiment, detect, feel, create, change
– and to be exposed to various influences.”
While the quote from the first article tells more about the founding story of ExCLaM!,
the second one (published later that year) points out the courage of ExClaM! with its
artistic concepts. Both articles however present a positive perception of ExClaM!'s
work. When asking Giorgia in the interview what the main strengths of ExClaM! are in
her opinion, she explains:
“we're cool. I think there is an underlying love that is a big strength and people
feel it and it means a lot. That's why we are often identified as a group. Not
because we just work together, but because we like being together. And then, we
are very likable, all of us in our own different way, and that's a strength, when
you have to pitch, when you have to be given money, when you have to be given
responsibility, when you have to be signed a contract with, when you have to
coach. We are also very listening, to each other and to others. We are 'active
listening' and that's a big strength, in any sort of business I think, and rare. I
think we are brave enough to do the things that we believe in, even if they are
weird, and that's a strength.”
This quote shows, once more, how the external view of us as a group affects the way we
identify with ExClaM! too. I have now analyzed in four stages the group dynamics and
communication of ExClaM! using data from various sources. In the following chapter,
conclusions and discussion, I will conclude the results and the main findings of this
analysis and connect them to the most relevant parts of the theoretical framework.
Moreover, I will discuss possible topics for further research.
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5. Conclusions and discussion
My main aim with this case study research was to find out which phenomena in terms
of group dynamics and communication can be noticed in the group development of
ExClaM!. In general, I believe that this research has brought out new information about
our group that gave me the possibility to put our development into a bigger context. I
consider the findings not only relevant for our group, but also for other small work
groups in the Arts Management field. To gain an understanding of certain predominant
group phenomena can be useful even in the broader field of project management
especially in creative businesses. And, finally, the field of intercultural communication
will continue to be an important part of project management as more and more work
groups are consisting of members with different cultural backgrounds and languages.
5.1 Defining ExClaM! as a group
In the beginning of this research, collecting and summarizing different definitions and
types of groups served useful in order to understand why groups exist, why they are so
important in people's lives and to be able to see ExClaM! as a group in this context.
After connecting these different definitions to ExClaM! as a group, it emerged that it
could on some level be defined as a task group (Cartwright and Zander, 1968) to
accomplish a certain objective. However, it was especially interesting to look at the
differences between formal and informal groups (Bartol and Martin, 1994) as I see
ExClaM! as a mixture of those two group types. In fact, researchers have pointed out
that informal groups and formal groups can have the same members (ibid.).
Schein (1970) had already stated that most groups have formal and informal functions
and that informal groups exist because of the nature of man serving social needs. As I
see it, we started as an informal group of friends (friendship group) discovering that we
had one main common interest (interest group), classical music, and later became a
formal group starting with a clear task to accomplish together - planning the Classical
Music Café and later on the investigation and the first summer concert season. Finally,
we officially registered as a cooperative. Moreover, as Schein (1970) has introduced also
the term of a psychological group as a way to integrate organizational goals and
personal needs I believe that this group form refers to ExClaM! as well. Indeed, Schein
defines it as people who interact, are psychologically aware of one another and perceive
themselves as a group. Clearly, ExClaM! can also be seen as an entrepreneurial team
(Bartol and Martin, 1994) due to the fact that we were starting a new business
rethinking an already existing field. In general, it is to assume that the smallness of this
group is a great advantage regarding the possibility to make quick decisions as well as
having comparably short ways of communication.
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In terms of group dynamics and as ExClaM! consists of three members, it was
especially important for me to have a look on the specific characteristics of triads. First
of all, it was essential to understand how the smallness of a group makes its members
very interdependent (Lewin, 1948). Simmel (1955) has described that the third
element, meaning the third member, can enrich the group as it influences each of the
other two members in a different way while, at the same time, combines these two sides
in its own personality. On the other hand, this indirect relationship can also disturb the
direct one as there is always the possibility that two might regard the third as an
intruder, which can result in the famous two-against-one situation (ibid.). In ExClaM!,
we have noticed this two-against-one situation several times.
The first time, we faced this situation was in 2012 as part of our first big group conflict
and part of our storming phase. In that case it was Giorgia and I “against” Katariina,
mostly due to the fact that we had been working together very closely while Katariina
had to focus more on a different job at the time. Unfortunately, this Katariina's
apprehension that Giorgia and I would be against her appeared again in the fall of 2013
but only emerged later in my interview with her. Before hearing it from her in such a
detailed way, I had not understood how important this issue had been for her and,
therefore, also for our group dynamics. Nowadays, for instance with the Circle of Trust,
we pay attention not to exclude anyone from the group and really create a “circle” if we
can in order not to put any member in this uncomfortable position. Even though I have
not investigated on this issue in detail in my analysis, it is to assume that – in the long
run – this two-against-one situation is not only uncomfortable for the excluded group
member, but might also negatively affect the group's work effectiveness.
5.2 Group development of ExClaM!
In the second part of the theoretical framework I became familiar with the many layers
and lines of research in the field of group dynamics. Starting by summarizing some of
the main findings by Lewin (1947), I understood the importance of acknowledging that
groups are more than the sum of its members, in other words, that groups in fact have
their own properties, different from the properties of the individual group members.
This gave me the possibility to see ExClaM! in a different light, understanding that we
are more than three individuals who work together. I realized that we seem to
constantly influence each other, act in a certain way with each other and that there
seems to be a some kind of group identity in existence between us.
In particular, by using Tuckman's 4-stages model of group development (1965), I was
able to connect this framework to how ExClaM! has developed over time. Using this
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model was very useful to structure my observations as well as Katariina's and Giorgia's
perceptions on ExClaM!'s group development. More than that, it became evident
during this process that many of the properties of the four group development phases
described in theory were in fact observable in ExClaM! too. In the storming phase,
conflicts and a lack of unity are common phenomena (ibid.). As described in the
analysis, we have dealt with several conflicts within ExClaM!. I however believe that
those conflicts have helped us to deepen our communication and to improve our ways
of working together just like Ungerleider (2008) expresses that conflicts can lead to a
creative tension which is essential as it can lead to important changes in the group. An
important topic during the course of this research has been the fact that we are not only
work colleagues, but also friends. Therefore, it was important to understand the
difference between task and relationship conflicts, which have both been prevalent in
ExClaM! and, in fact, often could not be separated clearly.
Connected to conflicts, Hinds and Bailey (2003) have pointed out that relationship
conflict seems more likely to arise when the team members are also friends, as
expressing the conflict may be more readily accepted due to the underlying trust of
friendship. Moreover, those teams also seem to better be able to see the conflict as an
opportunity to improve their task performance. With ExClaM!, it seems like every
conflict, whether between the three of us or only two, has led us to a new level of trust,
communication, and work effectiveness. Examples of this are the conflicts we had in
connection with our different styles of email communication which, after discussion,
have led to a more effective communication and harmony within the group. Another
example is the two-against-one conflict in 2012 with Katariina being in Savonlinna that
led to a fruitful discussion about trust and quality and how we want to work together in
the future.
As described in the analysis of our group development, we have also noticed differences
in our conflict-solving processes. While Katariina and I are more used to discuss
conflicts openly in order to find a solution together, Giorgia felt more comfortable in
solving the conflict alone and coming back with the ready solution. This discrepancy
created a problem for Katariina and me as we felt excluded from the conflict-solving
process and felt confronted with a solution that was set in stone. However, after we had
discovered those differences together and had understood that this was due mainly to
our different upbringings and cultural backgrounds, we were better able to understand
each other's behavior and thereby could establish new trust and more effective conflictsolving processes.
85
Restarting the group work after a storming phase involving conflicts can also be seen as
returning to the forming phase, possibly with new insights and ground rules.
Correspondingly, Shaw and Barrett-Power (1998) believe that the four group
development phases can occur several times during a group's life, for instance, when a
group returns to forming activities after a storming phase to re-establish the social
relationships in the group. This is a something I realized during my analysis of the four
group development stages of ExClaM!, understanding that those phases are not as
easily separable as described in theory and that when a group has reached the
performing stage it does not mean that there will not be another forming, storming or
norming stage again. In fact, with ExClaM!, it seems that the four stages have been
overlapping and changing in order several times, with new conflicts, new regularities
and new norms emerging.
Of especial interest in the context of the norming phase have been the findings of what
kind of norms we have developed in order to function as a group of friends and
colleagues. Referring to complexity theory, Arrow et al. (2000) suggest that groups
become more complex over time with increasing norms and regularities. From my
point of view, this clearly applies to ExClaM!. However, I find it important to mention
that this complexity can simplify group processes and communication and, thereby, as
in the case of ExClaM!, increase work effectiveness. It is in fact interesting to look at
what the sources of norms can be and how they emerge. Bartol and Martin (1994) have
pointed out that sources can be explicit statements, critical events or primacy meaning
the first behavior pattern appearing in a group to establish group expectations. In the
case of ExClaM!, all of those sources have been catalyst for norms to establish as can be
seen in the following examples.
According to Schermerhorn (1986), one of the most important norms in a group is the
“performance norm” which describes the work effort each group member is expected to
contribute to the group task. This type of norm was very clearly observable in
ExClaM!'s group development. In summer 2012, when Katariina was working full-time
in Savonlinna, we noticed the problems it can cause when we are not clearly
communicating beforehand how much time and effort each of us can put into a certain
project or task. In that particular case, Katariina was very busy with her job at the
festival, but was not aware of her limits regarding time and energy and therefore unable
communicate the former clearly to Giorgia and me. Hence, she the did not have enough
time to contribute to the group task and, therefore, was not able to put the effort into it
that Giorgia and I had expected from her. This seemed to be the first step for us to start
discussing more clearly before a big project, for example, who will have time to take
care of what, who cannot be involved and who can only be involved for a limited time
86
period. Similarly, nowadays, when there is a task that needs to be done by one of us, but
that person simply does not have time to do it, we all seem to be able to express more
clearly and honestly, “I just can't do it” and ask one of the other members to take over
instead.
During my analysis, I noticed that most of the norms we established over time were
connected to the way we communicate. An important part of this development was our
communication and behavior in ExClaM!'s business meetings. At some point, we
established the norm to try to separate personal or “gossip” information from work
related information in meetings as well as work emails in order to work more
effectively. With us being friends as well as colleagues, this was a very important step in
our development. According to Schermerhorn (1986) other norms in work groups can,
for example, include honesty, punctuality, quality, relationships or personal
development. As I see it, many of those norms have played a role in ExClaM!'s
development in one way or the other. I believe that especially honesty about how we
wish to work together and what is bothering us in the group has increased over time
and has helped us to solve conflicts and to grow together. In terms of quality, my
impression is that in the beginning, we all had our own quality yardstick for certain
parts of our work. During our project work, it became clear that while one feels very
strongly about the quality of a text for instance, someone else is more concerned visual
products or other parts of the production. Over time, it seems like we have
acknowledged each other's needs and standards in this context and in parts assimilated
to those.
Looking at group cohesiveness, it has been interesting to analyze how being part of
ExClaM! has influenced us as individuals and how we have identified with this group.
By cohesiveness is meant the level of motivation of the group members to remain part
of the group (Byrnes, 2009). Corresponding to the group size of ExClaM! Bartol and
Martin (1994) suggest that cohesiveness is easier to achieve in relatively small groups.
One motivational factor mentioned by Byrnes (2009) is the sense of collective
accomplishment, after reaching a certain goal within a limited time for instance. This is
something that had already experienced with ExClaM! during our first big project
where the time to organize a comparably big project was rather limited. The final result
was seen as very successful, by Sibelius Academy, but also shown by the interest of the
press as well as the excitement of the artists, which clearly strengthened our group
identity and level of cohesiveness. As Bartol and Martin (1994) point out, great
successes as well as external threats can increase group cohesiveness. While in this
case, the success was the important factor, in the Summer Day Concerts 2013 which
was not as successful as the 2012 season and where we had to deal with many
87
difficulties, the external threat might have played an important role regarding our
group cohesiveness too.
As Forsyth (2006) describes, the motivation to stay in a group can also come from the
fact that groups provide their members with knowledge, skills and abilities and,
thereby, with the possibility and the resources to achieve goals that they could not
achieve alone. In fact, I believe that by combining our different knowledge and skills in
ExClaM! we all learned a lot of new things and thereby also developed as individuals, as
it emergerged from the interviews with Giorgia and Katariina. Personally, I do feel that
I achieved things with this group that I would not have been able to achieve alone. By
taking care of tasks that I had never done before and with the support of Giorgia and
Katariina, I gained new skills and self confidence as an Arts Manager, especially during
the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012, but also in many other circumstances. This
underlines the way Schein (1970) describes the importance of the possibility for
development, maintaining self-esteem and the confirmation of a sense of identity as
part of group cohesiveness.
In terms of the performing stage many of the previously mentioned roles were
observable in the three group members. I, however, found it difficult to attach those
specific role descriptions to each of the members as it seems as though we have all
changed roles many times during the observed time period. Obviously, in a group of
three its is inevitable that every member takes responsibility of various tasks in a
project, which often prevents one to stick to only one specific role in the group. All in
all, as Giorgia and Katariina have pointed out too, I feel that my role in this group has
changed from working more passively in the background to also taking on a leading
position at times.
5.3 Communication in ExClaM!
Regarding my analysis of the communication within ExClaM! it was especially
interesting to discover how we changed the way we communicate as we began to
understand each other's needs. In this context, we established norms and seemed to
assimilate each other's communication styles. I general, these aspects seem to have
caused a more effective group communication. One important topic that emerged from
the interviews was the connection between us being friends and the ways we
communicate with each other. As Katariina has pointed out in the interview, among
friends, there is a lot of informal communication going on leading to a certain level of
trust. More than that, she has noticed that informality can have a positive effect on the
formal communication. As much as we discovered how important it is for our work
88
efficiency to try to separate informal from formal communication when tasks need to
get done, we also realized how much our friendship and informality has influenced our
group identity, trust and understanding and thereby improved our communication in
general.
5.3.1 Intercultural communication in ExClaM!
During my analysis on the intercultural level, I found it particularly difficult to separate
which communication habits are part of one's culture and which have more to do with
one's character and personality. As I see it, this difficulty is related to the “onion” model
of
culture
(http://www.internations.org/magazine/intercultural-communication-
15409/defining-culture-2), where you can only see the visible parts of culture, such as
artifacts, products and rituals, while things like beliefs, norms, attitudes and the basic
values of a culture can often not be seen in the beginning. In this group, we noticed
some cultural differences from the beginning, everything that was noticeable in
language, behavior and expressed beliefs for instance, while we discovered many
cultural elements about each other only after a longer period of time. This, I believe, is
a process that is still ongoing in ExClaM!.
However, as mentioned above, everything that has to do with behavior and the
communication of a person, is a mixture of the cultural background, the upbringing,
personality and character traits. This, in my opinion, makes it very difficult to
categorize the members of our group only referring to a cultural theory, such as seeing
Germany as an uncertainty-avoidance culture in the dimension of trust, part of the
cultural values and core of the “onion” model (ibid.). In ExClaM!, there were some
examples of behavior and communication in which clear cultural influences were
observable, in most cases, however, it was too difficult to say if for instance, Giorgia's
extrovert personality has more to do with her Italian origin or with the way she was
raised and other influencing factors. Moreover, in this group, as we have all been living
in different countries, the cultural influences we have been exposed to are manifold
making it even more difficult to categorize or define a certain behavior or
communication style.
Referring to the traditional communication model by Shannon and Weaver (1967),
what seems most important in an intercultural setting seems to be the element of
“noise” in the communication process. Noise in this case can refer to values,
assumptions and emotions, which also exist in communication within the same culture,
but are more likely to differ and can make the communication more complex between
people with different cultural backgrounds. Also Griffin (2008) has pointed out the
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increasing complexity of the layers and content of the noise in intercultural
communication. Moreover, she adds that noise can also include prejudices, language
differences, directness of the message or formality of speech. As we have noticed
especially in our diverse email communication, but also in business meetings, for
instance, noise was for one part coming from the situation, that we have three different
mother tongues and using English as a second language. Although we are all on a very
good level in English language, it can never be the same as communicating in our
mother tongue and our communication is always influenced by our personality, cultural
values, and many other factors. This, in fact, relates back to the term “diversity”
including so many layers that matter in group communication showing how difficult it
is to see cultural diversity as an isolated factor in this context.
I believe that what was most important in ExClaM! in terms of intercultural
communication and what gave us the chance to improve the former was that we kept
talking about our cultural backgrounds trying to understand each other's cultural
behavior and communication. This was also emphasized by Katariina in the interview;
that we all are encoding our messages in our cultural way and as the others have a
different cultural background, they do not automatically have the necessary decoding
skills. It therefore is important to try to express our thoughts in a way that also
someone from a different culture can understand them. Also Gudykunst and Kim
(2003) have emphasized that to accomplish effective work in a multicultural group,
people have to understand each other's ways of communication. Here, they point out
the interlacement of culture and communication as we are raised in a certain culture,
which language, rules and norms we learn at an early age (ibid.). In fact, this is in line
with my own findings concerning the issue of using English as a common language in
our group as described in the following paragraph.
In contrast to what I thought at the beginning of this research, English as a second
language seems to play a less important role in our communication than our different
communication styles and cultural backgrounds. In other words, it cannot be seen as an
isolated factor in this context. In fact, I see this as another example of how difficult it
seems to be to clearly separate cultural aspects from other personal habits. In the
interview with Giorgia, where she explained how her writing style has its roots in her
childhood development, I understood that this does not only have to do with English
language, but also with a general way of expressing oneself that is connected to the
cultural background, but influenced by many other factors too. Accordingly, I
understood that all three of us are skilled enough in the English language to transfer
the communication style that we would use in our mother tongue also into this foreign
language. As a consequence, misunderstandings in communication did not arise only
90
due to English language issues, but seem to be strongly connected to major differences
in communication styles.
5.3.2 Geographical distribution and computer- mediated
communication in ExClaM!
According to Daft and Lengel's (1986) media richness theory face-to-face
communication is considered the richest media followed by telephone, personal
documents such as letters, impersonal written documents and at last, numeric
documents. This is due to the possibility of immediate feedback with body language
and tone of voice providing multiple cues for interpretation. Regarding the use of
communication technologies, Hinds and Bailey (2003) have also emphasized that
mediated communication seems to have a negative impact on building and maintaining
strong interpersonal relationships in a group which can reduce group cohesion and
cause affective conflicts.
Furthermore, they point out that casual encounters,
unplanned conversations and multipurpose interactions give group members the
possibility to get to know each other, which is why they suggest that a lack of
familiarity, such as in times when there is no possibility to meet each other, can lead to
conflicts.
In fact, the lack of face-to-face communication has been an important issue in our
group development. As mentioned in the analysis, I noticed the problems due to a lack
of face-to-face or even skype communication for the first time during the preparations
for the Summer Lunchtime Concerts 2012. I realized that email messages, especially
when you communicate with people that you have not yet known for a very long time,
often cannot transfer all the necessary information for the other one to decode its
meanings. Moreover, emails lack emotions, which can make it difficult to remember
who the actual person is behind the written text. During the preparation time if this
first big project, all of us seemed to notice that our different styles of writing emails
might complicate this decoding process even more.
Regarding distance in groups Hinds and Bailey (2003) have pointed out that the lack of
shared context makes it more difficult to develop a mutual understanding and can have
the effect that team members conform to different norms, for instance, behavioral
norms, which are factors that can lead to affective conflicts. In my opinion, it was
essential for our group to have spent around half a year very close together in Helsinki,
seeing each other almost every day at university and having many face-to-face
meetings, as friends and as colleagues, before going into a project where we were
dependent on computer-mediated communication. As I see it, this gave us the chance
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to get to know each other's behaviors and ways of communication in face-to-face
situations with the possibility of immediate feedback, which was later lacking during
email communication. Moreover, this initial time period seems to have established a
certain level of trust that was useful basis for any conflicts which might occur later on.
In my analysis of the email documents, it was interesting to see a development in all of
our writing styles over time. In fact, it seems as though we have all tried to assimilate
each other's styles to a certain extent, which has clearly improved our communication
in general. For instance, as shown in the analysis, Giorgia began to separate more
clearly the informal from the formal information, Katariina started to meet our needs of
more polite and emotional messages while I kept working on the structure of my emails
and texts. Those changes, I believe, have improved the work flow of our group and it
seems like we all embraced the opportunity to learn from these examples.
One very important communication norm we established with ExClaM! last fall when it
was clear that we would be in different locations was the Circle of Trust as described
previously in the communication analysis. In my analysis, I included this topic in the
chapter on the general communication development in our group. However, it can in
fact also be seen as a means of overcoming problems arising due to a lack of face-toface meetings. Personally, I felt that the regularity of the Circle of Trust skype meetings
especially was important in order to keep up a group identity during a time when we
were not working on any specific project together. Instead, Giorgia developed her own
projects as well as Katariina, while I was mainly focusing on my Master's thesis.
Nevertheless, it felt like those regular meetings were meaningful for us to work on our
new website and to discuss about the future of ExClaM! when we are not living in one
place anymore. As I see it, the Circle of Trust connects regularity, honesty and trust, all
of which can be defined as group norms (see e.g. Schermerhorn, 1986).
5.4 Discussion
In this study, I decided to focus only some of the processes and phenomena that were
observable in ExClaM! in order not to take the research beyond the scope of a Master's
thesis. Moreover, by concentrating on only some aspects of group dynamics and
communication, I was able to conduct a thorough analysis. I am aware that deciding for
the most relevant theories and aspects worth analyzing was a selective process and that
a different researcher might have taken different decisions and choices.
In terms of the study's shortcomings, I see, as part of this, my role as a participant
observer reflecting on many incidents in retrospective. Obviously, I have been so
92
involved in the group development myself that my observations are very subjective and
biased. Additionally, as I had decided on my research topic for this study only after
ExClaM!'s last big project, I cannot say with certainty that I have remembered all the
details of our interaction to the same extent as if I had taken notes during previous
times. Of course, it is impossible to say if this would have increased the overall value of
the analysis and the thesis. In fact, I do believe that I remembered many of the most
important situations and developments that were essential for this group and therefore
relevant for this study. More than that, I believe that if I had been taken notes during
the projects and the group development in ExClaM! it would probably have changed my
behavior, role and involvement in the group, which in turn would have resulted in
different observational data.
5.5 Further research
Due to the limited scope of this thesis, several topics have been left out that could
present material for further research. In continuation of analyzing the dynamics of this
group, the topic of leadership should be taken into consideration, for instance.
Especially during project times with ExClaM! when either Giorgia or I had the lead, it
was interesting to observe the different leadership styles and how those affected the
group as a whole. In general, this is a very important topic in the context of groups,
project management and, therefore, the cultural field.
Furthermore, the topic of project management is another broad field of research that
one could continue with on the basis of this study. Especially in the case of ExClaM!, it
would be interesting to analyze in more detail the three big projects we organized to see
what structure and techniques we used to work together successfully and efficiently.
Clearly, some aspects in the field of project management overlap with topics of
communication and group dynamics and where already included in my research.
Although I believe that I have analyzed some very important parts of the
communication development in ExClaM!, it seems like there is always more room for
research in this complex field. In further research based on this study, more emails and
written documents could be analyzed and as well as analyzing in more detail Skype
meetings, for instance.
Obviously, another broad research field is intercultural communication, which I was
only able to touch upon to a lesser extent within the scope on this study. As described in
the conclusions, what seems to make it so difficult in this field is the question of how to
distinguish intercultural aspects from personality and influences of upbringing. In
further research, I see the possibility of focusing in more detail on the cultural aspects
93
of the three group members, possibly finding more examples on intercultural
communication within the group. As mentioned several times throughout the thesis,
with increasing globalization and technical developments, this is a topic that seems to
become more and more important in all kinds of organizations and groups. Especially
in project-based work with changing group formations. As it is often is the case in the
cultural field, it is essential for an effective group work to be able to adapt to new
personalities and to have some skills with which to understand each other's cultural
background.
One aspect I was wondering about during this research, however, is the question of
whether conflicts and difficulties are more likely to arise when the members of a group
are particularly passionate about the product they are working with. Especially in small
groups and start-ups, where all of the members have a big responsibility, there seems to
be an especially high emotional involvement and identification with the projects or
products. I am however not sure if this applies more to the cultural field than to other
work fields. As I see it, this question could present an additional line of research.
Finally, as a continuation of this thesis, further research could be conducted into how
ExClaM! continues both to work and to exist while we are all living in different
countries on a permanent basis. Questions arise such as: how do we keep up the
common identity when we do not see each other face-to-face? How do we keep each
other informed about the projects we are working on and to what extent? And will we
be able to still organize some projects per year all the three of us together? This of
course depends on many different factors as we are all still in phases of our lives when
many things are changing. In terms of the situation at the moment, it is to be said that
Giorgia is living in Helsinki working as a freelancer with different projects, some under
the name of ExClaM! and some with other collaborators. She has made the decision
that she wants keep working with projects similar to the ones we have organized with
ExClaM!. At the moment, she is very engaged in leading workshops with musicians as
well as people from other fields as an Active Listening Playground coach, a method
that we already worked with during our concert seasons. The ALP projects are
organized
under
the
umbrella
of
Composing
Community
(www.composingcommunity.com), founded by Keren Rosenbaum in 2010, that she is
part of. Furthermore, she is going to lead an ExClaM! project in summer 2014,
commissioned by the city of Helsinki. The project is going to include five Holistic
Concert Experiences, taking place outdoors in the Sibelius park of Helsinki, and is
going to be a pilot project in preparation for the big Sibelius celebrations in 2015. In
September 2014 she is going to move to U.S.A..
94
Julia is still living in Hamburg working full-time as a trainee in PR at the concert venue
Laeiszhalle / Elbphilharmonie. Katariina is living in Helsinki focusing mainly on her
Master's thesis commissioned by the University of the Arts Helsinki, a case study on the
topic of a conceptualization of a new opera and how the three art academies could teach
and produce an opera together.
With regard to the project in summer 2014, we will continue with our regular Circle of
Trust Skype meetings in order to involve all group members in the most recent
developments and ideas, although Katariina and I will not be able to put as much work
into this project as Giorgia will. Giorgia however will be supported in Helsinki by Alicia
Burns, who already acted as our marketing assistant in the Summer Day Concerts 2013.
In addition to that, we will hire a Finnish native speaker for the public relations in this
project. Even though this might seem difficult to realize, our aim for the future is to also
organize some some projects all three of us together again.
To sum up, the whole development of ExClaM! as well as my personal development due
to being part of this group, still touches me deeply and has meant a lot for my identity
as an Arts Manager. More than that, I found two very good friends in Giorgia and
Katariina, who saw my potential when I had not yet seen it myself and pushed me to my
limits and beyond. This is why I can only wish every Arts Manager and every person to
make valuable experiences like this in their lives.
95
The ExClaM! person
“Let’s be forward-thinking, keep asking questions to ourselves and others, strive to
become the person who we want to be and create the communities we imagine. Let’s
keep asking ourselves what really matters for us and how we want to interact with
others. Let’s remember what music and art can give to us and the people around us,
why it’s endlessly important and in what ways it can connect people, who never
thought they could be connected. Let us make mistakes and when we do, let’s say to
ourselves: how curious! I wonder what I can learn from this! Let's replace the fear of
failure by the strong urge to keep improving and to follow our passion. And let us not
be afraid of not knowing what comes next – sometimes the most surprising and
beautiful outcomes occur as a result of the open-minded attitude during the process.
Let us encounter other people with love and the confidence that every person can
teach or show us something new. When somebody comes to us with an idea or an
argument, let’s be driven by our “yes-and” attitude, may it be the silliest idea we’ve
ever heard, in order to join the dynamic process of creativity. In cases, where we do
not know the answer right away, let us take the time to try something out. If it works,
great, if it doesn’t, let’s take a different direction. And finally, let’s be patient and
courageous. Creativity needs enough time to evolve and whenever there is a change in
direction there will be obstacles to face at first. When it comes to art and music,
classical music in particular, let’s ask brave questions to understand where we are at
in this field, and to discuss how we imagine it to be in the future.”
96
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Websites:
http://www.infopankki.fi/en/living-in-finland/work-and-enterprise/starting-abusiness/company-forms
https://www.yrityssuomi.fi/osuuskunta
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Further information:
www.exclam.fi
www.facebook.com/exclamfinland
www.siba.fi
www.composingcommunity.com
www.kerenrosenbaum.com
www.facebook.com/exclamfinland
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Appendix
ExClaM! projects: quick facts
1) Summer Lunchtime Concerts at the Helsinki Music Centre – Sibelius
Academy talents perform
Date: July 2-July 31, 2012
Audience: Average of 212 spectators per performance
Content: 9 concerts, 5 chamber music shows including chamber music and
actors, 2 Jazz and 2 Folk music concerts
Performers: Students from SibA and TeaK
Location: Helsinki Music Centre, main concert hall
Lead: Julia Mahns
Link to documentary video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUWJs9YC_dI
2) The CAFETERIA Opera Game 2012 – A playground in three acts
Date: November 20-22, 2012
Content: Community game with the aim to start a community between the three
art schools SibA, TeaK and Kuva that were soon to be merged to the Art
University Helsinki (Taideyliopisto). The game was developed by ExClaM! and
Keren Rosenbaum and was played in the three cafeterias of the schools at
lunchtime.
Lead: Giorgia
Location: Helsinki Music Centre (SibA cafeteteria), TeaK cafeteria, Kuva
cafeteria
Link to documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFQgsNRUWlU
3) Summer Day Concerts 2013 at the Helsinki Music Centre – Sibelius
Academy talents perform
Date: June 26-July 26, 2013
Content: 15 concerts, 5 Holistic concert experiences including chamber music
and modern dance (each show was performed twice), 2 Jazz and 3 Folk music
concerts
Audience: Average of 71 spectators per performance
Performers: Students from SibA and TeaK
Lead: Julia (Managing Director) and Giorgia (Artistsic Director)
Location: Helsinki Music Centre, main concert hall
Link to documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYHgGgPxeXc
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Newspaper articles
Helsingin Sanomat, July 3, 2014:
http://www.hs.fi/paivanlehti/kulttuuri/Klassista+hitusen+helpommin/a13727370672
87
RONDO Magazine (10/2013): no online link available
Interview questions
Group work and efficiency
•
Since we started working with ExClaM!, how do you see the development of the
work group (e.g. in terms of efficiency and teamwork)?
•
Do you remember techniques that have been developed in the group in order to
work more efficiently?
•
How have decision-making processes functioned within ExClaM!? In an
innovative cooperative like ExClaM! (as in Art, there is no “right” or “wrong”),
what discussions/compromises/... are necessary in order to make artistic
decisions?
•
How have conflicts and difficult situations been handled within ExClaM!? And
how have the conflict-solving processes changed since the first big project in
spring 2012?
Friends and colleagues
•
What advantages / disadvantages do you see in us being friends AND
colleagues?
•
How does the situation of being friends and colleagues affect the group? Do you
remember a specific situation when those two roles had to be separated?
•
What has working with ExClaM! meant for your personal development?
•
What does “trust” within ExClaM! mean for you?
Group composition and member characteristics
•
What do you think: why have Giorgia, Julia and Katariina found each other?
•
The number “three” in a group can be tricky as there is a tendency for a “twoagainst-one” situation. Do you remember a situation like that and how you dealt
with it?
•
Have your main competences been acknowledged by the other members? Do
you feel that the others have given respect to the one “who knows something
best”? Have your weaknesses been acknowledged by the others and have you
received support to improve on those?
102
•
Have you noticed in what way your character/personality has affected the other
members? How do you think they have affected you?
•
How was it when someone else was appointed the leader of a project? Was it
difficult to accept that leadership and to “obey” in certain situations?
•
How have tasks been distributed between the three members? Are the main
skills and characteristics of the members recognized and tasks distributed
accordingly? How do you feel the different skills and character traits in the
group complement or clash with one another?
•
What do you think are the main strengths of this work group?
•
What do you think are the main weaknesses of this work group?
•
Do you believe that a 4th member (or in general more members) would benefit
the group? Do you see more members as a possibility?
Roles:
•
How do you see your role and the roles of the other members within the group?
Have those changed since spring 2012? If yes, how, from your perspective?
•
How has founding and working with ExClaM! changed your identity as an Arts
Manager?
•
How has the leadership been distributed in different projects? Formal and
informal? Do you remember taking on the leadership role despite someone else
being the formal leader?
•
As ExClaM! is a project-based company, do you find it difficult to find back to
your role and to the ways of communication in the group when an intense
project work starts after a calmer period?
•
To Giorgia: In what way do you think it has changed your identity and way of
working having the title of “Artistic Director” in the SDCs 2013, in comparison
to “producer” in 2012?
•
To Giorgia: How do you see Keren's role in connection with ExClaM! and how
do you think, working with her as affected us as group?
Communication:
•
In your opinion, how have the ways of communication within ExClaM!
developed since our first meetings?
•
Do you think you have you changed your communication with the other
members? If yes, in what way? And why did you change it? In what way have
those changes affected the effectiveness inside ExClaM!?
•
In your opinion, how has the fact that the company language is English (a
second language for all members) affected the communication within the
103
group? Do you feel understood at all times? Do you remember
misunderstandings because of the language? Do you feel that your style of using
English language was accepted and appreciated in the group or did you feel
criticized because of this? Did it feel ok to you that there are different styles of
English in the group?
•
to Giorgia: you seem to have a really clear image or a really clear idea of how for
example a text in a grant application should be like or how an English text
should be like that sells our products in any way. Have you ever felt frustrated
with mine or Katariina's English style, which is very different from yours in
writing? Or did you feel that you want to improve or change it?
•
Do you remember a situation when you have felt misunderstood by the other
members because of your cultural background?
•
For you personally, how has it affected the communication, when big parts part
of it happened via email or skype instead of face-to-face? Do you remember
misunderstandings happening because of this? Has this lack of face-to-face
communication bothered or affected you in any way?
•
How do you think your cultural background and upbringing has affected the
communication and dynamics in the group? Do you remember a situation
where this has caused a conflict or a misunderstanding in communication?
And finally:
•
What is the most important thing you have learned during the time with
ExClaM!?
104