Opening up new territory for Māori and business

About this research

“Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga’s MAI Doctoral Support Programme was of incredible value, especially in connecting me with other PhD students for advice.” A successful businesswoman turned student, Dr Rachel Wolfgramm was entering new territory in the late 1990s when she began researching sustainable business practices from a Māori perspective. This led to a doctoral research programme and an inquiry into how Māori organise themselves in order to enhance and advance individual and collective aspirations. In doing this she looked at organisational processes and practices that involved broad communities of interest, engagement and practice. She captured important aspects of a Māori worldview, cultural dynamics and institutional innovation – and discovered a distinctively Māori approach in organisation dynamics that can offer some important long term benefits. Now a lecturer in the Department of Management and International Business at the University of Auckland, Rachel’s research has shown how, by contrast with the more usual approaches of mainstream business culture, Māori organisation culture is primarily directed by cultural dynamics. It takes a more long term strategic orientation that includes a strong interaction between the spiritual and secular. Rachel’s father comes from Tonga, but through her mother she has tribal affiliations to Te Aupōuri and Whakatōhea. And as a student starting out on her doctorate she says she was very glad she became connected with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga’s MAI Doctoral Support Programme. “The MAI Programme was of incredible value to me, especially in connecting me with other PhD students for advice,” Rachel says. Rachel is continuing to develop in the areas of rangatiratanga (sovereignty or leadership) in relation to leader/follower dynamics and ecologies of creative enterprise. Her studies will help enhance the self-awareness and efficacy of Māori organisations, she says, as they advance and meet the all important criterion of “getting things done”.