It Takes A Community To Create an American Indian
Business and Management Course
Helen Juliette Muller in cooperation with class members*
Anderson Schools of
Management
University of New
Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
tel:
505-277-7133; fax: 505-277-7108
email:
muller@anderson.unm.edu
Forthcoming in 2000: Journal of Management Education
*Members of the first class included: Jan Abugharbieh, Jim Aken, Terri Bitsie,
Evalena Boone, Malvina Bowekaty, Felix Chaves, Michael Clani, Maribel Compean,
Christopher Day, Monica Dorame, Regina Gilbert, Renae Horwarth, Caribert Irazi,
Aldeena Jim, Shereen Joe, Connie Kwok, Adele Lawson, Katchee Mitchell, Fidel
Moreno, Kermit Norman, Mark Robichaud, and Anita Sanchez. Because this class was a collaborative
endeavor, the author writes in the first person plural pronoun.
ABSTRACT
Management and business
curricula have rarely addressed the subject of American Indian business and
management. In response to our American
Indian students, the broader American Indian community in the region, and to
this neglected topic, a small group of faculty and Native students embarked
upon an experimental course at a major southwestern university. The class on American Indian Business and
Management resulted from the effort of a community of committed people. Its existence illustrates the intersection
of culture, business, and organization.
The course can be considered a “post-colonial” bridge between the business
college and the American Indian community.
This article focuses on the course context including recent tribal
economic developments and the subject of culture and business. It then examines the rationale and design of
the course including the content and process, participants, and the case study
development format. Some course
outcomes are reviewed and, finally, the implications for management education
are drawn out.
It
Takes A Community To Create An American Indian Business And Management Course
The organization and management
literature rarely addresses the subject of American Indian business,
organization and management, yet American Indian economic activity predates all
other in the United States, and tribal organizations with democratic governance
systems existed before European colonists arrived (Amott & Matthaei, 1996; Mihesuah, 1996). In the U.S., management and business curricula are largely silent
on these topics.[1] Internationally, an indigenous tribal
management program, the Maori Resource Management Programme, is part of the
Waikato Management School in New Zealand.2
There are two reasons why it is prudent to address the salient
topic of American Indian business and management: In regions where there are relatively large proportions of American
Indians, addressing these matters can encourage tribal members and managers to
improve economic development activities and to bring about efficiencies in
organizational design and management.
Secondly, such curricula can become a “post-colonial” bridge between
American Indian and other communities to create greater awareness of tribal
economies and organizations and their relationship with the dominant culture,
to facilitate cross-cultural dialogue and understanding, and to build public
policies that enhance economic self sufficiency and cultural integrity. The case of American Indian business and
management in the curriculum raises the broader issue of creating niches in
which members of particular cultural groups and others can examine, together,
the applicability of the dominant culture’s business and managerial systems to
particular cultural environments and communities. Only in such a curriculum can American Indian students learn
about tribal enterprises and other tribal organizations in a particular tribe
and comparatively across tribes.
In U.S.
schools of business and management, American Indians comprise three-tenths of
one percent of faculty members (AACSB, 1998) and no tribal students obtained
the doctorate in business in 1996 (AACSB, 1998). Attention to American Indians in business and management texts is
practically non-existent.[2] These data are not surprising given
historical U.S. policies toward American Indians that “progressed” from
extermination, to assimilation, to relocation, and finally to
self-determination. Such public
policies have resulted, for the most part, in an American public who has little
knowledge of its own pre-colonial history and whose knowledge about indigenous
people and culture is shaped by the “white man’s” version of warfare and
conquest and its racioethnic stereotypes (Mihesuah, 1996).
Recent work by post-colonial
scholars that exposes biases and assumptions of western scholarship (Guerrero
1997; Jaimes, 1992; Mohanty, 1994) can help management scholars to question
dominant culture assumptions of pedagogy and research in which critical
historical legacies are omitted. The
struggle for inclusiveness, for example, manifested itself when public hearings
were halted at the National Race Advisory panel in Denver because American
Indians protested their exclusion (Shogren, 1998). The post-colonial revision in management scholarship is just
beginning to influence pedagogy. This
challenge confronts us as management practitioners and educators work with
diverse socio-cultural groups to facilitate educational and organizational
strategies for strengthening the infrastructures of sub-communities within the
U.S.
In response to these concerns, the
business school at the University of New Mexico is embarking upon an
experimental course on American Indian business and management. This unique course is evolving from the
efforts of a community of committed people who, together, are launching and
enacting it. The participants are
discussed in a subsequent section of the article. The course reflects the intersections of culture, business, and organization
and raises several broader issues in management education. In writing this article, we want to convey
that the course continues to be in a dynamic process of creation. We first offered the course in Spring
1998; we are reconstructing it for a
subsequent year and we continue to work on several of the case studies begun by
the initial student teams. 4
The strategic location of the class
facilitated the gathering of important human resources: 50% of American Indians in the U.S. reside
within 250 miles of Albuquerque (Lester, 1997). We have found both excitement and apprehension in the enactment
of the course: We knew that we embarked
upon largely uncharted pathways in business education and that we created a
forum for critically examining the intersection of culture and business both
within the management discipline and in the classroom. These factors attracted students to the
course and, at the same time, frustrated them to varying degrees because we found
ourselves “inventing” the course content over the semester.
In the next two sections of the
article, we review the course context including recent tribal economic
development and the subject of culture and business. In the fourth section, the rationale, design, and implementation
of the course is discussed including its content and process, the participants,
and the case study approach. The fifth
and sixth sections review the reactions of the students and the
facilitator-instructor. In conclusion,
we explore the implications of our course and several curriculum policy
questions that the course engendered.
The Context of Tribal Economic Development
American Indians have existed for
thousands of years with different types of economies that adapted to their
surrounding environments (Silko, 1996) and with various types of tribal
governance and social structures (Jaimes, 1992). Some pre-contact tribes were agriculturists while others
practiced a combination of hunting, fishing, and farming (Mihesuah, 1996).
Archeologists have recorded extensive trading networks: A well known example is the Chaco Canyon
region in New Mexico that had 9th century trade route linkages into
what we know now as Mexico and Colorado (Peck, 1998; Sando, 1992).
Colonization by Europeans
transformed these economies and their social structures; tribes gradually lost most of their lands
and retreated to remote locations with difficult living conditions. Colonists transformed indigenous social and
political structures; they wanted
Native people exterminated or assimilated into the dominant culture. Forced assimilation resulted from taking
young children from their Native lands and families and “educating” them in the
White man’s boarding schools to strip them of their culture, language and
religion (Jaimes, 1992). Spanish
conquistadors and missionaries in the southwest attempted to influence tribal
gender relationships by devaluing women’s traditional roles and elevating the
role of tribal men in decision-making to reflect their own European patriarchal
norms (Allen, 1992; Gutiérrez, 1991).
Now, there are about 2.3 million
American Indians who belong to 554 nations including 314 reservations of 56
million acres situated in about half of the 50 states (Eagan, 1998, March
8). Before colonists arrived in the
1500s, between 10 and 20 million indigenous people had inhabited these states
in about 300 nations (Amott & Matthaei, 1996). Today, American Indians have the highest unemployment rate of any
racioethnic group in the U.S. and they confront “more than glass” in moving to
management positions (Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). Tribal people prefer to work for public
sector organizations and their own enterprises because of such organizational
constraints (Amott & Matthaei, 1997; Muller, 1998). They are a population at risk, with high
rates of suicide, communicable and preventable diseases, and infant mortality
(Indian Health Service, 1996). Only 9
percent of American Indians hold college degrees and 3,277 hold post graduate
degrees (Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, 1995). In management and business classes, they frequently feel isolated
and inhibited from active participation;
an American Indian may be the only tribal student in the classroom
(Clani, 1998).
Creating
viable enterprises to sustain tribal economies and to preserve tribal culture
is one of the most pressing issues facing American Indian communities
today. Recently, tribes have used their
sovereign status to develop businesses in their communities and to tax
nontribal enterprises operating on their land (Egan, 1998, March 9). Tribes across the U.S. are involved in
business enterprises and ventures that are dramatically changing their
economies and life styles. For example,
the Mississippi Choctaw’s manufacturing enterprise is very successful (Bordewich,
1996; Ferrara, 1998), the Mescalero
Apache’s hotel and tourism business is thriving, and the Navajo Nation’s potato
processing and modular home manufacturing plants are providing needed jobs and
revenue.
High profile enterprises such as
successful casinos in the eastern and western U.S. have focused public
attention disproportionately on some of the less common, but dramatic
successes, while many tribes still sustain high levels of unemployment and
marginal levels of economic development (Cornell & Gil-Swedberg,
1995). Recent Congressional hearings
reveal the public debate that is developing about tribal sovereignty, tribal
economic development, and business enterprises (Egan, 1998, March 8, 1998,
March 9). While these controversies
continue, tribal students, who are entering higher education more than ever,
want to acquire knowledge and skills to enable them to become successful
contributors to their economies and organizations.
In our
business school region, tribal economic development is moving at a rapid
pace. Casino enterprises in some
communities, including the Mescalero Apache and six of the 19 New Mexico Pueblo
Indian nations, have brought revenue that is being directed into a wide variety
of social and health services as well as infrastructure development (such as
housing) and scholarships for tribal members.
Other tribes are embarking on joint ventures with non tribal companies
to develop natural resources, construct small manufacturing and assembly
plants, and encourage small business development (Naake, 1997; New Mexico
Business Journal, 1995, June). The
managers of these enterprises and others in the region tell us that tribes and
their employees as well as individual tribal entrepreneurs need business and
management skills to manage their revenue.
They need to be able to plan for the future, to market their products,
to efficiently manage their enterprises, and to consider the social and
cultural implications of their business ventures.
Culture and Business
The subject of culture, business,
and organization in the organization and management literature is found in the
international management literature, in the workforce diversity literature, and
in the organizational culture literature.
These literatures, for the most part, focus on either trans-national
organizations, business organizations in particular nations, comparative
business and management issues, and dominant-culture organizations in the U.S.
that are accommodating to an increasingly heterogeneous workforce and customer
base. U.S. domestic organizations whose
members and cultures reflect predominantly non-White populations have yet to be
addressed. Such “nontraditional”
organizations, we can expect, will grow in number and influence as the U.S.
evolves to a fifty percent non-white population by 2050 (Harrison &
Bennett, 1995).
The intersection of culture,
business and organization for identity groups within the U.S. who hold values
fundamentally different from the Euro-American (or Anglo) culture is a rich
field of study yet it is, for the most part, undeveloped in the management and
organization literature. Some authors
are beginning to address the varied non-Anglo cultural groups within the U.S.
(see Sosa, 1998). Moreover, the
experiences of non-white racioethnic groups, especially Hispanics and American
Indians, within dominant culture institutions is insufficiently addressed. The assumptions and values that guide
business and management curricula today developed out of the dominant culture
that still drives higher education programs especially in business and
management. The emergence of non-Anglo
groups into faculty positions is moving at a snail’s pace (DiTomaso,
1998). There is clear evidence that
people of color, in general, within business organizations feel less sense of
attachment to the organization and are evaluated less favorably (Fernandez,
1998; Milliken & Martins, 1996) and that the more women and people of color
there are in work units, the greater the negative effects on whites’ and men’s
psychological attachment (Tsui, Egan & O’Reilly, 1992). Clearly, much research remains to be
conducted on effective educational strategies for aspiring managers for the
future workforce.
The values that guide American
Indian cultures and the dominant Anglo American culture differ
fundamentally: Hall (1981)
characterizes tribal cultures as “high context” and the Anglo American culture
as “low context.” For example, American
Indian tribes have an important oral tradition that includes myths, stories,
dances and rituals; these traditions
are a primary mode of communicating culture and cannot be easily translated
into words that others would understand.
Such traditions form part of the “context” that is understood in tribal
communication patterns and that are difficult to interpret to others. In contrast, low-context cultures
communicate more “directly” via oral communication. Other differences in cultural patterns include land ownership, wealth,
and the role of religion in everyday life.
In the southwest, the Navajo and the various Pueblo Indian tribes often
hold land communally or within their families in particular geographic
community (or reservation) boundaries.
The idea of individual ownership of property that can be bought and sold
to strangers is not prevalent in tribes and people are socialized to minimize
individualism. Cooperative values are
stressed such as sharing, achieving consensus, and the distribution of wealth
(resources) to all members of the community.
American Indian communities do not
hold the principle of separation between church and state, a core dominant
societal value. In fact, religion and
other life activities including economic, political, and social are intimately
intertwined with “religion.” In some
contemporary Pueblo tribal governments this is manifested by the religious
leader(s) (cacique) appointing male,
secular tribal council members and the Governor. The individual “profit motive” is another value that,
historically, is not found in tribal culture - profits or gain in financial
revenues or material acquisitions do not accrue to individuals but are
distributed to the community. The
exception may be found in small businesses on the reservation and in some
off-reservation business enterprises of tribal people.
In the course, we are particularly
interested in how people manage the interfaces and intersections between these
different value systems, especially, how American Indians who are becoming
involved in business activities adjust and transition between different
cultures. Some literature addresses
this “two worlds” phenomenon (Crozier- Hogle, Wilson, Saitta, & Leibold,
1997; Garrod & Larimore, 1997; Muller, 1998). American Indian students, by virtue of being in a dominant culture
institution such as our university, have to adjust constantly to the norms and
expectations of faculty and fellow students who, typically, have little
knowledge about their backgrounds and cultures (and the distinctions among
various regional tribes who often have different languages). They must be able, furthermore, to live and
sometimes work within their family and tribal communities and transition
between these and their student status quickly and patiently. Such bicultural skills, developed in
non-business environments, can be translated into the work organization thus
permitting such cultural transitions to be expected and accepted.
Rationale, Design, and Implementation
In this
section we elaborate on the reasons for developing the American Indian Business
and Management class, the facilitating pre-class activities, and the course
design including its content and process.
The discussion includes the community resource people who substantively
contributed to our understanding of successful tribal enterprises and
management practices and the barriers and complexities associated with
success. We then look at the students
who constituted the first class and their expectations, and the case study
methodology that was the heart of the class.
Rationale and Development
Several years ago, members of the
American Indian Business Association (AIBA), a group of business students from
tribes within the region, several business school alumni, and a few faculty
members began discussions about the lack of attention to American Indians in
the business and management curriculum of our college. We agreed that developing effective business
and management strategies was essential to the future self-sufficiency of
tribes within the region. Around the
state, economic development, self-sufficiency, tribal sovereignty, and Indian
gaming are public policy issues that are being widely debated. The advent of casinos and the celebration of
the Spanish conquest quadracentennial in the region heighten the deliberations. There is strong interest in improving
management capabilities and in expanding job opportunities in order to prevent
the further exit of people from tribal communities and to stimulate the
development of tribal economies. Tribal
sovereignty and identity are intimately intertwined with economic development. Efforts to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of tribal enterprises and other types of tribal organization,
including government, is timely.
AIBA wanted
to educate American Indian and other interested students about these complex
issues. We agreed upon a focus: an introductory and broad-based course
addressing management, business, and organizations among American Indians
especially as these pertain to the southwestern U.S. The course design, furthermore, we reasoned, should create a
dialogue among the students, the American Indian community, the business
school, and the broader university.[3]
The course could draw
from a broad base of theory and practice because so many of the issues
surrounding tribal business and management touch upon the intersections of
different cultures, organizations, and methods. We illustrate the course planning and resource model to depict
the resources that, together, enacted the course and the various planning
stages in Figure 1.
(Insert Figure 1
about here)
An event
that influenced the inclusion of case study projects into the course design was
the Haskell Indian Nations University entrepreneur case study workshop that
three AIBA members attended in Kansas.
This workshop, known as the “C.I.R.C.L.E.” ( Community Innovation and
Renewal through Creative Learning and Entrepreneurship) workshop was
facilitated by Haskell and Babson College faculty. It focused on developing case studies of American Indian
entrepreneurs using the “oral tradition” of Native story-telling. Participants had to videotape an American
Indian entrepreneur’s story prior to the workshop and then write a short text
to illustrate what the business had accomplished. This event generated a great deal of excitement in AIBA members
because they became exposed to interesting tribal entrepreneurs and to other
Native students from throughout the U.S.
We felt that this methodology could be adapted to a variety of Native
enterprises, both large and small, that could directly involve our class
students in field work in the region.
And such case studies could fill the vacuum created by the absence of
literature on American Indian business and organization.
Other developmental activities took
place before the course began. They
included applying for mini-course development grants (a university teaching
committee did not fund a grant request whereas a business school committee
did), participating in a workshop with the Council of Energy Resource Tribes
and the college to generate momentum for attention to tribal student needs,
attending community functions to publicize the course, a field study trip,
writing letters to the Pueblo tribal governors, and holding discussions on
crafting and revising the course syllabus.
The field trip to the Navajo Nation by two Navajo graduate students who
founded AIBA, a college administrator, and the author enabled contact to be
made with the culture and families of several Navajo students as well as with
the professional work of several Navajo college alumni. The trip also enabled linkages with
potential case study sites and with feeder higher education programs including
the university’s branch campus in Gallup where two-thirds of students are
Navajo, and Diné Community College (Diné means “The People” in Navajo) that has
a small business education program.
Attendance at the inaugural luncheon of the American Indian Chamber of
Commerce resulted in recruitment of several students for the class who held
professional positions in the region, identification of class resource people,
and publicity that extended to the Mayor’s office. Moreover, there was a Lakota sweat-lodge ceremony the weekend
before the initial class which brought several faculty and staff from the
college together with American Indian students and the spiritual world. This ceremony enabled attendees to be in a
Native environment where the non-Natives had to listen and learn.
Design of Course
Course content and process are
intermingled in the subsections below.
Several topics pertaining to course design are reviewed: resource people associated with the course
including regional business and other organizational managers, class students,
their course interests and expectations, and class topics and assignments
including the development of case studies.
Resource People
Course resource people included
AIBA members, especially a core group of three individuals (two of whom
completed the class); tribal managers
who either came to campus to share their experiences, hosted the class at a
tribal enterprise, or hosted a case study team for its study; other college administrators and faculty who
supported the course’s implementation and who attended course events; the students who enrolled and completed the
class, and the facilitator-instructor.
Material resources included various audio-visual materials, books, and
articles.[4] These resources, together, reflect the broad
community of interest that emerged over the planning and implementation phases
of the course that helped to generate momentum for implementing a experiential
pedagogical framework integrating business, culture, management, and
organization. As Robert Becenti,
Southern Pueblos Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs (and an MBA alumnus) said at
our inaugural class ceremony: “Many
people in the community are watching you and they have a real interest in
seeing how this class develops.”
We decided to examine the actual
practice of American Indian business and management to assess how such
practices differ from what is taught in mainstream business and management
courses. To do this we obtained the
active participation of leaders and managers in the broader American Indian
business community as well as managers from tribal government and nonprofit
organizations. The community resource
managers educated us about the successes and problems associated with American
Indian business enterprises and organizations and their management strategies
and styles. They became our teachers as
a result of their discussions in our classroom or their presence in the field
where they either hosted the entire class or a student team who was studying
their organization. The community
resource people and their contributions are displayed in Table 1.
(Insert Table 1 about
here)
Students
We intended the course to be open
to all students in the business school and others in the university community
who might have an interest in the topics under study. We had hoped that at least 10 - 12 students would enroll in the
first class, and we were pleasantly surprised when 24 students registered and 5
more came to the first class. Of these,
3 non-degree students, 7 graduate students, and 14 undergraduate students
enrolled. Two of the graduate students
came from the education college. Three
non-degree students already held the bachelor’s degree: They saw the course an as “entry” point for
graduate study, and they worked full time including film-making, casino
management, and local government job development. Two undergraduates dropped the course mid-semester for health and
job-related reasons.
The students who completed the
class self-identified themselves with the following tribal or other racioethnic
groups: Navajo (7), Zuni Pueblo (2),
Hopi Pueblo (1), Sandia Pueblo (1), Santa Clara Pueblo (1), Taos Pueblo (1),
affiliation with several Plains tribes (1), affiliation with several Mexican
indigenous tribes (1), Anglo (3), Hispanic (2), Asian-American (1), and
African-national (1). Women comprised
the majority of students (14) and 5 women held graduate status. The ages of the students ranged from 20 to
48 years. About one-third of the
students had taken a prior class from the course facilitator. All but three of the students held
employment in various capacities ranging from clerical to professional.
The answers to a pre-course survey
question “what sparked your interest in this course?” showed that students had
a variety of interests: “alternatives
to normal capitalistic classes,” “plan
to work for Native American companies,”
“Native American issues in regards to business,” “a friend and fellow
student” or “administrator,” “Native
American business and leaders,” “first class that has a focus on Native
American Indian business/management,”
“studying American Indian business so that I may one day use the ideas
with a business,” “an opportunity to have AIBA be promoted,” “attended an Indian Chamber of Commerce
meeting where the course was announced,”
“alternative organizational systems and processes,” “class seemed interesting; I’ve taken a
class taught by (facilitator) and enjoyed it very much,” “It was an area I knew little about and I
thought I should learn more,”
“word-of-mouth,” “it’s a new
course and it is a new topic that I’m interested in,” “I want to use my degree in some capacity to serve fellow Native
Americans,” and “It’s an American Indian Business course, I haven’t seen many
of those.”
The short pre-course survey,
furthermore, asked students to assess the extent of their knowledge of American
Indian organizations and enterprises and the degree of their understanding of
the context within which tribal enterprises negotiate. The responses to these questions indicate
that students at the beginning of the course have somewhat less than
satisfactory knowledge on both items (see Table 2). Student comments about their learning experiences are reviewed in
a subsequent section of the article. We
administered three short questionnaires in conjunction with the course to
obtain demographic and course assessment data from students: a pre-course survey, a midterm feedback survey,
and a post-course survey.
(Insert Table 2 about
here)
Case Study Approach
The case
study field method was a key pedagogical decision that the three core AIBA
student members had introduced. They
had received scholarships to attend the Haskell Indian Nations University case
study workshop, mentioned earlier. The
intent of its methodology was to capture the spirit of the entrepreneur, by
relying on the Native story-telling tradition, and his/her effort at successful
small business development. Our AIBA
students felt the “Haskell case study approach,” offered a means of integrating
Native and western ideas and practices.
We agreed and felt that we could adapt the method for student teams who
could study organizations other than entrepreneurs and small business.
We believed that developing case
studies would form the “heart of our course” and become mini-learning
adventures for students who would go into the field, observe enterprises in
action, and talk with tribal managers.
Because written material on American Indian enterprises, for the most
part, was not to be found in the literature, we became pioneers in our quest to
locate willing participants and interviewees.
Developing case studies of American Indian business and organizations
was to become a fruitful learning experience in terms of the subject matter,
the complexities that arose in student teams securing information and
interviews, and the setting up of site visits.
At the on-set of the class, we proposed to study six different types of
Native organizations. This would enable
us to compare and contrast the models at the end of the semester (see Table
3). During the last five sessions of
the course, each multicultural team had
about one hour to present its case study.
Five teams, in addition, submitted a written case study. The sixth team submitted a short process
report in conjunction with an original 40 minute videotape - case study. The
latter depicted the San Juan Pueblo Agricultural Cooperative and was produced
with the assistance of a professional film-maker who was a team member.
(Insert Table 3 about
here)
We intend to use most of the case
studies in future classes. Two graduate
students, at the end of the course, decided to work further on two cases with
the facilitator-instructor to submit them for publication. A third graduate student decided to develop
a new case study on a prominent land dispute between the Pueblo of Sandia and,
together, the federal government and local county homeowners. The post-course case study work was a direct
result of the class and was assisted by a small grant from the university’s
research committee. The grant enabled
us to continue work on several cases and to begin several new ones including
the Blackfeet National Bank in Browning, Montana.
We are “mainstreaming,” already,
one of the cases into our college’s business classes so that other students can
begin to become acquainted with the variety of business and culture models that
exist in the region. A graduate student
in our course continued to work on her teams’ case study. Called “The Business of Culture at Acoma
Pueblo,” this case study of the Acoma Pueblo Tourism program was published in a
well known organization and management textbook (Gilbert & Muller, 2000).7
Many interesting issues arose
during the development of the cases and presentations: some were more problematic than others. For example, a student was asked if she
belonged to the Pueblo tribe that was proposed to be studied. The student replied “no” and subsequently was
asked if she were an “Indian.” When the
student said “yes” and indicated which tribe, the potential interviewee
declined to continue talking with her.
This resulted in delays and the team had to scramble to find another
organization to study. In another
example, team members felt uncomfortable in asking a tribal official to spend
his precious time with them. In order
to compensate him for his time, they decided to offer him incense and sage and
pay him for his gas and meal. This
worked out well.
The members of one of the teams,
who prepared a site visit on their case for the entire class, decided
purposefully on- the-spot to refrain from presenting their prepared material in
deference to a tribal manager who gave a lengthy presentation and whom they
regarded as an expert. In a subsequent
debriefing, the students said that they felt it inappropriate to intervene in
his talk although he spoke twice as long as requested. This resulted in some other class members
believing that this particular team had “not done its share.” In another case, a team member was unable to
attend his team’s presentation because Pueblo tribal religious leaders required
that he be present at certain ceremonies.
This presented a dilemma because he was the most experienced member of
the team and the other undergraduate team members felt he was the most
knowledgeable member. In another case,
one interviewee requested that no one else in the tribe be interviewed unless
the students obtained approval from the tribal government; because this would take a long time, no more
people could be interviewed before the report was due. In the San Juan Agricultural Coop case
study, team members learned to balance a professional video camera (without a
tripod) on an uneven log stump for more than an hour while the wind picked up
and as a tribal elder, a Coop board member and tribal singer, recited Pueblo
and Coop stories and sang while beating his drum.
We organized teams to be as diverse
as possible so that teams included men and women, tribal and nontribal
students, and various job/student statuses.
Team dynamics, as in teams in general, had various degrees of complexity
and some teams functioned more effectively than others. The teams dealt with issues such as
scheduling meetings with one another and with field managers; distance of site from the university; lack of transportation; differences and lack of clarity in case
study definitions, scope, and end-result;
and personal and interpersonal
issues among team members. Some
of the latter included illness; family
and personal-tribal emergencies;
frustration with lack of progress, especially in being turned down for
interviews when other teams had no problem;
misunderstanding or confusion about team decisions; feelings of exclusion and not being accepted
by other members; variability in time
availability and in commitment to case development. Some of these issues related to intercultural and intertribal
differences whereas others did not.
Student responses to the
post-course question “comment on the effectiveness of your team in working
together on the case study” reveal some of the issues. Answers ranged from “disorganized for most
of semester until toward the end when we could regroup and produce” and “there
was a lot of difficulties with scheduling and coming together on how to go
about patterning our case study,” to “we were a productive group and most of
all we became friends,” and “the teamwork in my group was great! The best group project experience here at
(college),”
More Subject Matter
The weekly schedule including the
study topic, panelists, field visits, and team presentations is displayed in
Figure 2. The course was constantly
interacting with non-academic resources with the intent of learning how tribes
practice organization and management. To set an appropriate climate for the
course and to create a bridge between the college and the community, the class
held an inaugural ceremony attended by college and university faculty and
staff, some American Indian representatives, and spiritual leaders who
performed a Native Lakota ceremony to bless and welcome the class. Three classes occurred off-site: one, Acoma Tourism Program at Acoma Pueblo,
including a guided tour of the ancient Sky City mesa situated 70 miles west of
Albuquerque; two, Sandia Casino on the
Pueblo of Sandia reservation just north of the city; and three, The Indian
Pueblo Cultural Center in central Albuquerque, an enterprise of the All Indian
Pueblo Council (an intertribal governmental organization established in
1922). Other classes had American
Indian speakers who discussed important course themes, literature discussion,
organizing students into teams and discussing case study methods, and
discussions about intercultural including gender issues. Class assessment activities included the
surveys, mentioned earlier, and an end-of-semester community dialogue among the
students, representatives from the university and college, and business
managers in the American Indian community.
(Insert Figure 2
about here)
Student assignments, in addition to
the case study, included two short individual papers. The first paper discussed class expectations that could include
background information on the student and his/her interests. In these papers, students expressed,
furthermore, several topics that became
part of the course agenda: issues of
self-identity and the desire to explore one’s history and background or to
learn from other students. For example,
one tribal woman wanted to learn more about “where I come from” because a
“woman has no place” in traditional practices.
Another student who felt like “an outcast” the first day, wanted to
“understand my indigenous side…because throughout my education this has been
denied.” A younger tribal man was
interested in “ideas that will bring revenue to my tribe so we can some day be
self-sufficient,” yet at the same time acknowledged that tribal elders are
“afraid of change.” An Anglo student
wanted to gain “an understanding of Native Americans that I’m not familiar
with” because as a child there was a “racial” incident with American
Indians. Although another student felt
“outnumbered” in class, s/he believed “a little bit of role reversal will be
good for me.” Fidel Moreno, a
post-graduate student wanted:
to learn from other students from
different tribal cultures, their understanding of “organization” and
“process/system” and how these “wisdom traditions” can both, survive, sustain
and strengthen so that American Indian Communities can continue to exist and
adapt to and with economic development and growth. American Indian communities for the most part, historically have
perceived the world environment as fertile and abundant, where game was
bountiful and water fresh. The idea of
scarcity, decease, and crime is relatively new given the time and space we have
understood ourselves to be a part of.
The second paper was to analyze a relevant course topic of
students’ choosing, integrate relevant readings, and include personal ideas,
recommendations or suggestions. The
intent was to permit students as much latitude as possible in carving out a
subject that was relevant to both the class material and themselves. Topics covered in the papers included
temporality and the intercultural classroom, comparative analysis of
traditional native American values and business values, a Native woman’s
perspective of the glass ceiling, communication and tribal leadership,
successful tribal community development and balancing values, new ideas for a
tribal business, Indian casino managers and the glass ceiling, Native American
women, gender and work, developing careers in Native business, stereotypes of
American Indians and realities, Mihesuah (1996) stereotypes the stereo-typers,
conflict between the U.S. and American Indians over business and government
principles, and management strategies of Chief Sitting Bull. Table 4 is an excerpt of one graduate
student’s paper. Katchee Mitchell’s
narrative integrates culture, management, and organization with his holistic
view of his own life and professional aspirations.
(Insert Table 4 about
here)
Course Outcomes
Several
course outcome measures reveal, in brief, the experiences of students and the
facilitator-instructor. A few
statements from community resource people at the end-of the semester dialogue
help to broaden the outcomes’ discussion.
The Community Dialogue
The community dialogue at the end
of the course was an important integrating and assessment activity because it
brought together the community of people that, together, made the course
possible. At this dialogue, as in the
initial course spiritual ceremony, we all sat in a large circle. As our Dean aptly put it: “the circle has
expanded since the first gathering.”
And indeed it had. As many
nonstudents as students were in attendance.
Several students voluntarily discussed their learning experiences and
several community people told of their involvement in the course and the
importance of beginning an American Indian business program at the
college. A representative from the
Mayor’s Office, in unsolicited comments, endorsed the college’s efforts in this
regard.
Terri Bitsie, a Navajo graduate
student told the group:
I feel that as a
Native American and knowing that there are others out there who are like
ourselves and working out there in business and management like ourselves…
there are opportunities for students to learn a lot and having that sort of
contact with individuals in the class has been inspirational… they have shared
how one should conduct oneself in the Native American business environment and
interact outside of it.…Another thing I picked up from the class - basic
working skills, working in a group situation, in interviewing…and doing the
case study really gave me an opportunity to get my hands dirty and learn more
about interviewing and research in organizations rather than books and
magazines - we are developing that for this class.
Mark Robichaud,
an Anglo American undergraduate student said:
I was in the Marines
for four years and saw how different cultures act and operate. To me, this class was a big deal to put the
shoe on the other foot - as an Anglo.
The School needs more classes like this - to get more on how different
cultures interact in the business world, how different people handle business situations
from different perspectives than what I’ve seen.
And Regina Gilbert, a Hopi
graduate student summarized: “We’re
setting that first stepping stone to where if students or potential
entrepreneurs want to begin their own business on the reservation they will
have case studies to learn from...”
A manager from Acoma Pueblo
commented about her experience with the students and offered some advice:
To me
it was something new, but I was very grateful all these young energetic people
were there asking questions. I had fun
talking with them and tried to answer all their questions the best I
could. You know when you’re working for
your tribe, especially your own tribe…it’s very hard. I’ve been raked through the coals...many a times but I
survived…they put the cart before the horse in some sense…but I’m starting to
see the change. People like yourself
are making the difference…starting to work for the tribe, they’re coming back
to make the transition to put the horse before the cart and it’s making things
easier…I enjoyed working with all of you…stay put in that school and learn all
you can because one day one of you will be helping me out. It makes me feel
proud to be here to see this many young people, it doesn’t matter what tribe
you are - being an Indian, there’s something that keeps you together - our own
culture and traditions…don’t forget where you come from, don’t forget your
roots cause that’s where you’ll go back sooner or later; that’s something I learned from my
grandfather.
Robert Becenti, of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs and whom we have referred to earlier in this article, said:
…before this was but
a dream, but today it is a reality; I
congratulate all of you for finishing the class…I’m sure all of you had some
doubts and wondered how do I bail out…I’m sure that there were situations
between men and women and cultures that went on, but I’m sure that you all
learned…we are continuing to work to improve what’s going on here - now you
have an opportunity to help others.
This class truly is an accomplishment in cooperation, an example of what
people can do.
Other Student Reactions
In the post
course survey, the two pre-course questions reviewed earlier reappeared. They enabled us to see if changes had taken
place in students’ perception of their knowledge. As the results in Table 2 show, some changes occurred in a
positive direction indicating that students felt more knowledgeable at the end
of the course, as a whole, than at the beginning, but not appreciably so. There are several answers for this: One, students realized that there was much
more to learn once they got into the content;
two, a few students felt that they learned very little, and three, most
students felt that they did learn but wanted more (some suggested that the
class should be two semesters). In
response to another question that asked students to characterize their learning
experience in the class, they responded more positively.
The most positive overall response
pertained to students’ feelings about being a part of the new class. They indicated that, in general, they felt
glad to be part of the initiative either because they learned a lot from the
case studies and about tribal business, or because they enjoyed the interactions
with other students and the opportunity to be with so many other tribal
students. For example, one student
wrote: “I made a lot of new friends…I
was a part of the majority instead of the minority.” The fourth post-survey quantitative question pertained to
students’ characterization of the facilitator-instructor’s effort and
commitment. Student responses to this
question almost exactly paralleled their feelings about being part of the
class.
Facilitator - Instructor
The
business college had indicated that starting up any new course was problematic
because financial constraints necessitated that an existing course could not be
offered if a new class were to be taught.
This meant that an existing faculty member had to teach this
experimental course whereas we had hoped to have an instructor of tribal
origin. Because the college had no
faculty of tribal origin and none of the faculty had specific expertise in
tribal business, an AIBA faculty advisor, a Euro-American woman (the author),
agreed to assist in launching the first course. The three core AIBA members mentioned earlier (two graduate
business students and one undergraduate student), who had attended the Haskell
workshop, had agreed to be a co-facilitative group with the instructor,
especially about case study development, along with Robert Becenti. These students and alumnus advised the
facilitator-instructor and other students, periodically, about American Indian
culture, organizations, and cross-cultural interactions.
The instructor by virtue of her
racioethnicity could be considered the “other” in this class. As the “other,” I
would like now to step into the more personal first person voice to convey some
of my experiences. My comments result
from much thinking about the course, from my notes in a diary that I kept, from
statements made to me by others during the class and its events, from student
comments on surveys and in the community dialogue, and from statements made to
me in several debriefing sessions that I held with various class participants. Having worked in multicultural environments,
I knew it would be a new challenge to help organize and facilitate this
course. I reasoned that both my
professional background in organizing diverse groups of people to participate
together for community action and my academic background in crafting field
studies would be an asset to the class.
I felt close to the three core AIBA members and we, together, grew
enthusiastic about planning and implementing the course.
In brief, some of the issues that I
found myself dealing with included responding to requests to let students be
“themselves” in class, especially to be “Indian students” and do things their
way; learning to soften requests of
students and not direct attention to them;
dealing with subtle humor intentionally directed at me such as “the
white man stole our land;” advising frustrated students who encountered tribal
managers who did not want to talk with them;
crafting instructions in several different ways to reinforce them and
still finding them unattended to even though there appeared to be verbal
agreement; learning to “let go” of
preconceived expectations of students and to “let go” of my anxieties
associated with the progress of case studies;
responding sensitively to students who wanted to include more community
resource people in class discussions than I believed we could reasonably
accommodate; constantly being “on top”
of the uncertainty of the experimental class endeavor, and learning to sense
the next appropriate path and move, as well as the “family” politics and intrigue
of the classroom dynamics. The single
most important challenge for me to work through was the absence due to the
hospitalization for several weeks of two of the three core AIBA students, who
had the Haskell training, just at the introduction of the case study approach
in the class. This event occurred
simultaneously with our need to adapt the Haskell-entrepreneur model to other
organizations and resulted in a perception by more than a few other students that
we lacked structure.
Although I consider myself
relatively skilled in cross-cultural situations (having lived and worked
extensively in cross-cultural environments and having worked with indigenous
Hawaiians), in this course, I continued learning, experientially, to appreciate
its particular intercultural issues and to expand my sensitivity to the
interpersonal dynamics of this particular multicultural and intertribal group
which consisted mostly of people from high-context tribal cultures. Even though I knew, at the outset, that the
behavioral dynamics would be different in this class from what I had
encountered before, and even though I knew that I would have to be sensitive,
actively listen, and open to change and the suggestions of students, I carried
with me, furthermore, the college’s expectations of high quality classroom
performance. The latter was critically
important if this class was to be an integral part of the business curriculum
in future years and not just a “one-shot deal.”
I found that establishing a balance
among several not necessarily complementary paths was difficult: a) giving support and adequate academic
“space” to students who varied widely in their knowledge and experience, in
general, and in their immersion with American Indian issues, in particular, and
b) making the course a high quality, credible academic class, and c) dealing
with my own “otherness” and facilitative role in a largely uncharted
endeavor. I found it an adventuresome
challenge, however, to be responsive to the values, nuances of behavior,
communication patterns, and expectations of the American Indian student
majority (who themselves had much diversity in experience and tribal
backgrounds) and, at the same time, to be supportive of the varied statuses of
other students, some of whom felt energized with the intercultural dynamics,
whereas a few felt some discomfort with the notion that this class might be for
American Indian students and that it was “their” class. Furthermore, a few students challenged me,
periodically throughout the class, either in private or in front of
others. The fact that I was a
Euro-American female and not a tribal expert and that the class was
experimental and, therefore, untested and in the process of creation, I
believe, seemed to create frustration for a few students. In addition to these factors, there were
both graduate and undergraduate students in the class some of whom felt that
the class should be only for “them” and not inclusive of both. In future classes such as this, resources
permitting, I would encourage a bicultural teaching team to be formed that
could bring forth its embedded expertise in cultural and organizational subject
matter.
Conclusion
The American Indian business and
management class described in this article suggests that we should critically
examine our approaches to management education for students from various
cultural backgrounds. In this course,
we looked at the similarities and differences in values and practices between
traditional mainstream management and business and those of tribal communities,
and we found substantial differences.
These different values and practices became evident in the examination
of case study organizations within the region that developed their own
culturally relevant means of revenue generation, profit sharing, governance
principles and management practices.
What we found exciting in this pedagogical design, furthermore, was the
in-our-face collective knowledge generation that transpired with the community
of individuals. We, as knowledge
facilitators, brought them together and allowed mutual learning to occur. The resistance by some organizational
members in the community to share their knowledge reminded us that some tribal
members are reluctant to share their stories of success due to fear of
exploitation by the dominant culture or by even our own class members. Such reluctance may be seen, in part, as the
legacy of colonialism and even of the lack of sensitivity by academic
researchers. It is a legacy that our
students have to carry forward in their quest for learning and a legacy to
which the university must respond.
The unique elements of this course
include the broad involvement of community resources both in course development
and in implementation, the lack of academic literature on the subject (although
there is ample related literature), the mix of students from tribal and other
backgrounds, the integration of cultural and business issues within the U.S.
context, the development of new case studies, and the action-learning
pedagogical framework of the course.
Some of the opportunities for knowledge generation could be viewed as
constraints. In traditional courses,
the instructor, usually, is the repository of knowledge for the course, coupled
with readings. In this course, such
material was constantly in the process of generation, and from time to time,
pertinent information could not be obtained from people who had it. When the course is offered again, more
material resources can be assembled beforehand to give the course a more definitive framework. Even so, it seems important to continue the
quest for new knowledge in subsequent years because in the region, tribal
communities and their business enterprises are constantly in development,
changing rapidly, and constructing new relationships with the dominant
society. It will be interesting,
furthermore, to compare and contrast case studies of other indigenous
organizations and enterprises worldwide and to coordinate with their programs.
The community that created this
class is a fragile one. Members of this
community lead lives that involve balancing elements of their tribal culture
with elements of the dominant culture that are fundamentally different in
quality and meaning, and they frequently deal with stressful physical issues. And the Native students felt an urgency to
develop knowledge and to learn from American Indian managers, their strategies
regarding how to be balanced in the business and the tribal world. From an academic perspective the process of
knowledge generation and interface among cultures is adventuresome and
cutting-edge. From a more personal
perspective, many of the deeper issues in the classroom involve conflict,
racism, forced assimilation, fights for cultural survival, and tribal
sovereignty. At least in this class, we
constructed a forum where we could begin to address some of these issues. Perhaps more importantly, tribal students
perceived that we created a relatively safe environment for students to get to
know one another, form important relationships, and nurture career interests
and aspirations.
What is the responsibility of
schools of business and management to offer courses and programs designed to
accommodate specific cultural or racioethnic groups? In many universities, there are academic centers and institutes
that focus research and teaching on specific racioethnic or other cultural
groups: Centers on aging, women’s
studies programs, Latin American institutes, African American studies, etc. Such course work is also found in arts and
sciences programs. Moreover, business
and management programs offer women-in-management classes and courses that
focus on various world regions such as Europe, Asia and even specific countries
such as Mexico and Japan. It seems
reasonable then to attend to specific domestic cultural groups, such as
Hispanic Americans or American Indians, to help enhance our understanding of
the complex realities of our own nation as well as the multiple and
interlocking networks of business and organizations that permeate these
subcultures. Offering education to such
groups helps them become more effective in enhancing their and their
communities’ development. In the case
of American Indians, we submit that in this “post-colonial” era there is a
critical urgency for business and management education to build a
“post-colonial bridge” with tribal communities and individuals to sever the
legacy of poverty and racism and to enhance their self sufficiency and self
determination that is current U.S. national policy. New Zealand has already recognized this need. Integrating selected aspects of this
knowledge into mainstream business and management classes that have largely
excluded such subject matter would further connect the two sides of the
“post-colonial bridge.”
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Author Note
Members of
the American Indian Business Association at the University of New Mexico
collaborated in designing this course, especially, Michael Clani, Jaye Francis,
Katchee Mitchell, and Robert Becenti, MBA.
I appreciate the helpful comments of Terri Bitsie, Jaye Francis, and
Howard Smith on an earlier draft of this article. The insightful and constructive suggestions of two anonymous JME reviewers and the editor helped to
shape the final version of the article.
John Young’s support in securing student scholarships for the
entrepreneurship case workshop at Haskell Indian Nations University was
important. The minigrant from the
Department of Organizational Studies at the Anderson Schools of Management,
University of New Mexico for curriculum development funds is appreciated. Additional funds from the University of New
Mexico Research Allocations Committee assisted with post-course case study
development and with the revision of this article.
Endnotes
1In
an email message (April 6, 1998) to the author, Milton Blood, of the American
Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, wrote that to his knowledge there
are no such courses. At the University
of Alaska Fairbanks, there is a College of Rural Alaska which offers a variety
of programs and courses to particularly Alaska Natives. A few courses on entrepreneurship and
internships are available (see: www.uaf.edu/UAF/CRA).
2The Maori Resource
Management Programme has three courses that are part of the bachelor’s of
management degree. The purpose of the
program is to provide students with an opportunity to address the management of
Maori resources and the Maori language.
The program appears to have been developed in response to Maori students
who “demanded a management education in a New Zealand context that recognised
whanau, hapu, iwi and Maori identities, languages, values and ontologies”
according to the background statement on the program which was faxed to the
author by its director, Parehau Richards of the Waikato Management School (fax:
64-7-838-4250).
3Nelson & Quick
(1994; 166-7) have a short case study on a business employing American Indians
and Winfield (1995) wrote a case study on a General Dynamics plant in the
Navajo Nation. Neither of these cases
pertain to tribal enterprises.
4In spring 1999, an
American Indian MBA candidate, who was a member of this class, and the author,
together, coordinated a revision of the course with an indigenous planning
course in the university’s community and regional planning school and with an
Indian law course in the university’s law school. This interdisciplinary approach we found to be exciting and
synergistic.
5Specific goals of the course
stated on the syllabus are: 1) To become knowledgeable about a variety of
American Indian organizations and enterprises, and to become more skilled at
analyzing their problems within culturally relevant perspectives, 2)
To develop a broader understanding of the context (political, social,
legal, ethical and economic factors), including opportunities and barriers,
within which tribal enterprises negotiate,
3) To increase people’s ability to successfully dialogue and manage
among various tribal and other cultures, and 4) To engage students, the
Anderson Schools, the American Indian community, and UNM in constructive
dialogue and effective cross-cultural collaborations.
6During
the first weeks of class, students viewed a locally produced award-winning PBS
documentary entitled “Surviving Columbus” (1995). This two hour program depicts the Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo
invaders from the American Indian point of view. Texts for the course included: American Indian Stereotypes and
Realities (Mihesuah, 1996) and Surviving in Two Worlds: Contemporary Native American Voices
(Crozier-Hogle et al, 1997). An
optional text that students liked was The Genius of Sitting Bull (Murphy
with Snell, 1995). A collection of
readings from various journals and magazines was also required reading. For a copy of the syllabus, contact the
author.
7Ms.
Regina Gilbert, the lead student team member, was invited to present the case
at the 1999 annual meeting of the Western Case Writer’s Association. Three undergraduate team members (Boone,
Day, and Sanchez) had worked with her on the case study during the class. The published case includes the case study
narrative in the text and the teaching notes for the instructor’s manual.
Table 1
American Indian Business and Management Class
Community Resources
Site visits and speakers
1.
Indian Pueblo Cultural
Center: Panel discussion on
intergovernmental relations and tribal tourism with Rafael Gutierrez,
President, IPPC; Dennis Moquino,
Executive, NM Indian Tourism Association;
Sam Cata, Deputy Director, State Office of Indian Affairs; Robert
Becenti, Analyst, Southern Pueblos Agency, BIA
2.
Acoma Pueblo including
Sky City: Discussion and tour of the
Acoma Tourism program with Mary Tenorio, Manager; Orlando Antonio, Senior Tour Guide and the Priest at San Estaban
del Rey mission.
3.
The Pueblo of Sandia
Casino: Presentations by Steve Simon,
General Manager and Frank Chaves, Pueblo of Sandia Economic Development
Director
Guest speakers on campus
1.
Panel discussion on historical, legal and cultural context of
American Indian business and management:
Barbara Creel, Professor, Indian Law Center, UNM, LaDonna Harris,
President, Americans for Indian Opportunity, and Peter Pino, Administrator,
Pueblo of Zia.
2.
Panel discussion on developing an American Indian
business: Veronica Tiller, President,
Tiller Research, Inc. and Fidel Moreno, Filmmaker and member of the class.
3.
Talk with Sharlene Begay-Platero, Economic Development
planner, Navajo Nation (and college alumna).
4.
Talk by Conroy Chino, KOB-TV reporter, and Acoma tribal member
on growing up at Acoma Pueblo and the social consequences of business
development.
5.
Talk by Ron Lujan, M.D., Acoma-Canoncito-Laguna Hospital on
the Native American Health Plan organization.
6.
Talk and demonstration by Kenneth Johnson, Jewelry Maker and
small business owner.
Team Case Study Hosts (also see
Table 3)
1.
Sandia Pueblo Government & Zia Pueblo Governments: Governor Fred Lujan, Sandra Jamison,
Assistant to the Governor, Sandia Pueblo, and Peter Pino, Administrator, Zia
Pueblo Tribal Government.
2.
Sandia Casino: Frank
Chaves, Pueblo of Sandia Economic Development Director and Steve Simon, General
Manager
3.
Acoma Tourism Program:
Mary Tenorio, Manager, Orlando Antonio, Senior Tour Guide, and Conroy
Chino, KOB-TV Reporter
4.
American Indian Health Care, Inc.: Dr. Ron Lujan, Board Member, Barney Bontone, Executive Director,
Albuquerque Indian Center
5.
San Juan Pueblo Agricultural Cooperative: Peter Garcia, Board Member, Lynwood Brown,
General Manager, Charlie Marcus, President of the Board, Mary Fleming, Board
Member, and other staff.
6. Kenneth Johnson, Inc.: Kenneth Johnson, Owner
