This book describes the findings of the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project. It is about the relationship among leadership, discourse, gender and ethnicity, seen from a social constructionist perspective within the framework of interactional sociolinguistics (20). Daily workplace talk, narratives, and interviews are analyzed in sociocultural context to explore how leaders use language to share their beliefs and values and achieve their goals in cross-cultural communication in two Māori and two European/Pākehā contexts.

The book consists of eight chapters. Ch. 1 discusses the relationship among leadership, leadership discourse, and ethnicity and introduces the theoretical framework and analytical model used in this project. Ch. 2 introduces the methodology, especially how the data was collected, cataloged, transcribed, and analyzed in differently ethnicized workplaces. Ch. 3 studies the construction of leadership identity and cultural factors in effective leadership performance. The influence of Māori culture on Māori leadership is taken as an example. Ch. 4 makes a comparative analysis of contextual factors in the construction of leadership identity in task-focused Pākehā meetings and Māori workplaces and reveals their ethnic values and norms. The contextual features have to do with “the relationship between the participants, the formality of the setting, the topic of discussion, [and] the discourse context” (15–16). Ch. 5 makes a comparative analysis of the discursive strategies, such as humor, which the leaders adopt to deal with relationships in Māori and Pākehā workplaces. Ch. 6 studies the discursive construction of co-leadership, the relationship of power asymmetry and control, and the norms reflected in partnerships in four workplaces. Ch. 7 makes a detailed analysis of the construction of leadership under the influence of Māori culture. Ch. 8 discusses the implications of this research in the areas of leadership, cross-cultural communication, and inter-cultural pragmatics.

Through an analysis of narrative structure, humor, turn-taking patterns, pronoun use, discourse markers, and paralinguistic behavior, this research arrives at the following findings:

• • Terms of address are used to indicate in-group membership.

• • The majority Pākehā New Zealand English speakers are more direct and explicit than Māori people in expressing their opinions.

• • Māori culture inhibits self-promotion.

• • Māori organizations expect more overlapping and feedback.

• • Māori groups conform to Pākehā groups’ discursive norms.

• • Workplace communication is taken as the result of balancing creativity and constraint.

• • And, finally, social talk and humor can strengthen solidarity among participants.

This research is of both theoretical and practical significance. It fills a gap in the study of the influence of ethnicity on discourse patterns in workplace talk. The findings reveal the egalitarian ideology of New Zealand society and could help people learn to respect minority cultural norms and to avoid cross-cultural miscommunication and unintentional offense. This book is an authoritative reference for workplace practitioners, researchers, and graduate students who are interested in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, communication studies, and ethnic studies.