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Autumn 2011 A leadership journey: conversations with Herta von Steigel Stephen A.W. Drew In this new section of the Journal of General Management we aim to engage with practice through interviews with organisation leaders. We will focus on individuals whose careers and achievements are of special interest to our readers through their inspirational example and abilities to achieve significant change in the world. In this edition we meet Herta Von Steigel who is the Founding Chief Executive of Ariya Capital, an investment firm established to focus on sustainable investments in Africa.
Autumn 2011 Book reviews Gwyn Jones, Malcolm Warner Inside Outsider CEOs Why China's rise doesn't threaten the West
Autumn 2011 Index to Vol. 36 (2010-2011)
Autumn 2011 Is there a relationship between Emotional Intelligence and individual values? An exploratory study Malcolm Higgs, Scott Lichtenstein The importance of individual values in determining individual behaviour is well established. However, much of the research in this field has been critiqued for failing to focus on values priorities or personal values systems. This, it has been argued, accounts for the contradictory and inconclusive findings that arise in the research. More recently, assertions have been made that there are links between an individual's personality and their values. However, empirical studies to support this assertion have failed to provide conclusive evidence. In the literature relating to individual differences there has been an emergence of interest in the concept of emotional intelligence (EI). Whilst this has been a contentious construct, evidence has been provided both of its validity and difference from personality. Given the emotional roots of EI it has been suggested that it may be rooted in individual values systems and priorities. Against this background, this paper reports a study designed to explore the relationships between EI and values systems using the Maslovian three factor categorisation of values priorities. The study involved 75 managers. Analyses did indeed show relationships that appeared to make sense. The paper reports these analyses and identifies limitations, implications for managers and areas for future research to take this line of inquiry forward.
Autumn 2011 Managing SMEs' survival from financial crisis in a transition economy: a Chaos Theory approach Soren Kock, Huu Le Nguyen This paper builds a model to manage SMEs in turbulent environments using Chaos Theory. The empirical evidence was based on in-depth interviews with 25 business leaders of SMEs in the transition economy of Vietnam. The results revealed that to survive in turbulent environments, SMEs are required to quickly shift their businesses and strategic focuses, become involved in new businesses, be flexible and make innovative moves.
Autumn 2011 Product deletion: a critical overview and empirical insight into this process Jonathan Muir, Nina Reynolds With organisations as diverse as Heinz, Kraft, Polygram and Sony reducing the scope of their product portfolios, it appears that the issue of product deletion is currently exercising managerial minds. Those keen to pursue their interest in this area will find a concise body of work spanning nearly six decades. However, missing from this work is an understanding of the recurring tactical, strategic and cultural variables involved in deletion decision-making. This research sought to alleviate this shortcoming through conducting an in-depth literature review and considering the deletion experiences of three world-renowned organisations. The results of this exploratory study provide an initial insight into the core product deletion variables, providing managers and academics with valuable up-to-date information on this contemporary subject matter.
Autumn 2011 Repairing injustice in organisations: beyond social accounts Constant D. Beugre Using a qualitative method focusing on a negotiation process between the top management of a large US carrier and its unions, the present article found that the provision of social accounts, such as apologies, justifications and admission of wrong-doing is necessary but not sufficient to repair injustice. Rather, concrete actions including the removal of offenders to ensure that injustice will be prevented in the future are effective ways of repairing injustice. The findings provide valuable guidelines to managers on how to effectively repair perceived injustices in the workplace.
Summer 2011 An exploratory study of the value of project management for hospital administration in Thailand Sabin Srivannaboon, Patrick Southall This study examines how physicians can recognise and utilise project management to improve their role as hospital administrators. Thirty physicians serving as hospital administrators in Thailand were asked to identify the skills necessary to successfully manage projects in the hospital, and problems encountered in their administrative roles in regards to project management. This article illustrates how the practices and tools of project management can be put to use in alleviating the problems identified, and offers potential applications for hospital administration. The implications go beyond physicians serving as hospital administrators and demonstrate value for all administrators striving for improved healthcare operations.
Summer 2011 Book Reviews Cary Cooper, Graham Spickett-Jones, Malcolm Warner, Ping Zheng Malcolm Warner on 'Statistico-Organisational Theory' Graham Spickett-Jones on integrated marketing communications Ping Zheng on organisational behaviour Cary Cooper on positive psychology
Summer 2011 Do Career Shares improve CEO performance? Evidence from FTSE 350 Brian Main, Rolf Thiess, Vicky Wright This paper offers a technical exploration of the empirical ramifications of adopting the Career Shares approach to long-term incentives - a proposal that has emerged from the discussion of the structure of incentive pay in the light of the recent financial crisis. By simulating the impact of such a design of long-term incentives in the context of those FTSE 350 CEOS whose careers terminated between 1993 and 2008, it is shown that Career Shares automatically introduce a 'settling-up' effect that adjusts for late-career or post-career periods of poor performance. The adoption of such an arrangement would require remuneration committees to adjust the overall remuneration package in the light of tax and risk bearing consequences that result. This paper offers the first attempt to confront an interesting and promising new idea (Career Shares) with empirical data that reflects the actual careers followed by a group of CEOs.
Summer 2011 Editor's Introduction Stephen Drew I was honoured and delighted to be invited to join the editorial team of the Journal of General Management (JGM) as Executive Editor earlier this year. In so doing I was naturally conscious of the Journal's history and the challenges facing a unique and independent publication in a crowded field. Since the 1970s there has been huge growth in the number and variety of management journals, MBA programmes, business schools, academic research, management consulting and practice, accompanied by unprecedented leaps in IT and telecommunications. Continued recession and slow growth in advanced countries and the rise of emerging markets promise further interesting times ahead. Where does this leave the JGM?...
Summer 2011 Geographical proximity and inter-firm collaboration The role of knowledge access and knowledge acquisition Sylvie Chetty, Snejina Michailova This conceptual paper examines the relationships between knowledge processes, geographical proximity and inter-firm collaboration. It focuses on antecedents to collaboration by differentiating between opportunity recognition and opportunity exploitation, and relating them respectively to firms' potential and actual collaboration. It also differentiates between geographically proximate and non-proximate firms, and relates their intent to respectively access and acquire knowledge. In order to provide a possible explanation for the paradox of concurrent co-operation and competition among collaborating firms, the paper theorises about the moderating role of type of knowledge in the relationship between knowledge access/ acquisition and co-operation/competition. When managers decide to engage their firms in collaboration with geographically proximate firms, they need to be clear whether their objective is to access or acquire part of the knowledge these other firms possess. If the motivation is knowledge access, the dominant tendency is to co-operate; however, if the objective is knowledge acquisition, the prevailing inclination is to compete.
Summer 2011 How can SMEs leverage political ties and technological innovation capability to acquire government assistance in a transition economy? Jigang Hou, Dong Wang, Longwei Wang, Wei Zelong While government assistance can help SMEs remove resource deficiencies, little research has been conducted from the firms' point of view to investigate the factors that can enable firms to win competition for government assistance. This paper attempts to address this gap by building a theoretical model to explore the effects of political ties and technological innovation capability on government assistance as well as the moderating effects of opportunity exploration capability and market-oriented transition. Six hypotheses are proposed and tested using a sample of 169 Chinese SMEs. It was found that both political ties and technological innovation capability have significantly positive effects on government assistance. Furthermore, opportunity exploration capability strengthens the effect of political ties while it weakens that of technological innovation capability. Market-oriented transition strengthens the positive role of technological innovation capability while it does not significantly weaken the role of political ties.
Summer 2011 The empowerment of shareholders: a conceptual perspective Amon Chizema There is widespread concern that corporate governance mechanisms have failed to prevent previous scandals manifest in the failure of some large corporations. Consequently, improvements in corporate governance are being sought, like those embodied in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and regulators are considering further changes to improve the corporate governance system. Recently, legislation in many countries has pointed to the protection of shareholders. For example, the UK has revised the Combined Code with the aim of improving corporate governance. Against this background, this paper provides a conceptual perspective of shareholder empowerment, suggesting different but complementary ways of achieving this. Strategies to enhance shareholder empowerment include the formation of shareholder committees, improving shareholders' access to corporate information and shareholder activism.
Spring 2011 Book Reviews Alexander N. MacMillan, Georgios Panos, Malcolm Warner Siegfried, John J. (2010) (ed.), Better Living through Economics, Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press, pp 315, $45.00, £33.95, 40.50. Marglin, Stephen A. (2008), The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economist Undermines Community, CambridgeMAand London: Harvard University Press, pp 384, $37.00, £27.95, 33.30. Read, S., Sarasvathy, S., Dew, N., Wiltbank, R. and Ohlsson, A.-V. (2011), Effectual Entrepreneurship, paperback, Routledge, pp. 228. Pons-Vignon, N. (ed.) (2010), Don\'t waste the crisis: Critical perspectives for a new economic model, Geneva: ILO, paperback, £18.00, 96pp. Gall, G. (ed.) (2009), Union Revitalisation in Advanced Economies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, hardback, £60.00, 240 pp. Gall, G. (ed.) (2009), The Future of Union Organising: Building for Tomorrow, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, hardback, £60.00, 256pp. Benson, J. and Zhu, Y. (eds.) (2010), The Dynamics of Asian Labour Markets: Balancing Control and Flexibility, London and New York, NY: Routledge, hardback, £80.00, 240 pp. Brewster, C. J. and Mayrhofer, W. (eds.) (2010), Handbook of Research in Comparative Human Resource Management, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, hardback, £175.00, 700pp.
Spring 2011 Enhancing performance Bringing trust, commitment and motivation together in organisations D Gilbert, S V Halliday, Colm Heavey, Eamonn Murphy This paper analyses the concepts of trust, commitment, motivation and performance. In specific terms, the authors ascertain what are the key components of trust in the workplace. The paper provides a deeper understanding of the value of the relational construct trust to organisational motivation and performance. A global multinational firm was surveyed to confirm the Morgan Hunt (1994) Commitment-Trust theory, that trust is an antecedent to commitment. The authors then develop and test a revised performance model that is based on the work of Maier (1955) and Mayer et al (1995). This second survey, which sampled a range of multinational organisations, sought Human Resource managers' opinions on both specific motivational influences in the workplace and specific performance factors in the workplace. The results confirm that all aspects of the construct trust tested in this paper have a significant impact on motivation and performance. In affirming this, the article concludes by proposing refinements to Maiers's (1955) existing performance model, which will assist management in trust building and also provide management with a deeper understanding of the importance of trust and motivation in organisational performance.
Spring 2011 Health service delivery in Australia: gaps and solutions Bruce Perrott This paper is intended to stimulate discussion on the issue of health service delivery. It will examine some of the underlying characteristics of services and review them from a health service perspective. It will then explore the nature and implications of health service failure. Key findings from a recent Australian study of practice in open disclosure in public hospitals will be reviewed for the purpose of discussing the implications of the impact of service failure in a health care setting. The paper then goes on to explore the process and nature of health service delivery in terms of potential shortcomings and flaws with its implication for service quality. To assist in the analysis of this topic and to begin the debate on potential solutions, a matrix table is developed to highlight the key areas of health service failure, suggest possible causes, and then go on to suggest prescriptive measures to help manage the risks involved in the health service delivery process.
Spring 2011 Multi-perspective performance reporting systems, continuous improvement systems and organisational performance Errol Iselin, Lokman Mia, John Sands The use of multi-perspective performance reporting systems (MPRS) such as the balanced scorecard (BSC), is widespread. This study's motivation comes from the importance of these systems and the lack of knowledge about them. Continuous improvement systems (CIS) are another management innovation. CIS constantly look for ways to improve performance and are used in conjunction with performance reporting systems. The research objectives were to study MPRS users and discover whether the use of CIS improved organisational performance. It was found that the use of CIS by MPRS users was positively associated with performance. The implications of these findings for managers were considered.
Spring 2011 Stakeholder orientation and organisational performance in an emerging market Xinming He, Xiaoqing Li, Jenifer Piesse, XiaoXiang Zhang Previous research into Chinese firms' stakeholder orientation has failed to identify these firms' specific stakeholder groups. Additionally, there is little research in this line that reflects the recent Chinese constitutional transition. This study seeks to fill these gaps. It extends previous studies by identifying Chinese firms' key stakeholder groups, drawing on the descriptive approach of stakeholder theory. Based on the identification, the authors examine how these stakeholder orientations influence organisational performance and how they interact. Interviews with managers from 107 firms show that customer, employee, shareholder, supplier and competitors are perceived as Chinese firms' most important stakeholders; empirical studies using data collected from 307 Chinese firms reveal that orientations towards these stakeholders enhance organisational performance. Moreover, there are synergy effects existing between customer orientation and competitor orientation, while shareholder orientation has significant hindering effects upon competitor orientation as a reflection of recent institutional changes taking place in China.
Spring 2011 When building strength is not enough An exploration of derailment potential and leadership strength N. Anand Chandrasekar, Yi Zhang This paper examines the notion that derailment potential and leadership strength are different, albeit related facets of effective leadership. Based on data from 2670 managers from five countries, the article posits that managers need to pay close attention to reducing derailment potential while developing leadership strength, in order to be effective at the workplace. Implications of this finding for talent management theory and practice are discussed and a threestep Sensitise-Enable-Support framework is offered to guide practice.
Winter 2010 Book Reviews Ariane Berthoin Antal, Simon Beard, Phil Ford, Trevor Taniguchi, Malcolm Warner CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business practices A. Berthoin Antal From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: the social transformation of American business schools and the unfulfilled promise of management as a profession S. Beard The Oxford Handbook of Business and Government P. Ford The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine T. Taniguchi Management History: Text and Cases M. Warner
Winter 2010 Conditions for communication in risk exposed organisations Rudi Kirkhaug This study discusses conditions for efficient communication in decentralised and risk exposed organisations. The prevailing view of such organisations is that formal and vertical relationships between leaders and subordinates are sufficient to provide all members of the organisation with the information they need to perform their work. However, this study speculated on whether informal horizontal relationships between colleagues at all levels of the organisation would satisfy their communication needs better than formal and loyal relationships with their immediate leaders. Hierarchical regression analyses based on data from a maritime organisation supported this assumption. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
Winter 2010 From manufacturing to high value manufacturing: exploring this transition Jill MacBryde, Kepa Mendibil By carrying out a systematic literature review and empirical research in the form of industry and government focus groups and case studies, this paper seeks to highlight the confusion surrounding the definition of high value manufacturing and the strategies companies adopt for high value repositioning. It questions the definition of terminology that is almost taken for granted in the literature but is not made clear enough to be useful at the organisational level. It provides insight into what is required from government and academia to assist industry to make the transition into a more competitive and sustainable mode of operation. It provides the foundation for further research by identifying those gaps in knowledge and issues that are affecting industry as the latter seeks to compete more effectively. The results provide key themes for future research, allowing academics to understand their role in enhancing the body of knowledge and practice around high value manufacturing.
Winter 2010 Person-Organisation Fit and its impact on organisational citizenship behaviour as related to social performance Gila Siti, Orna Steiner Lavi, Eitan Yaniv Person-Organisation Fit (POF) is a well known concept; it has been revealed as a factor that influences employee behaviour in many aspects such as commitment, identification, intention to leave, corporate brand perception level, etc. This study deals with the impact POF on another element of employee behaviour - Organisational Citizenship Behaviour - i.e. employees' willingness to perform extra tasks and to carry out activities that are not part of their job, without expecting any formal or informal compensation. Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) is a relatively new concept of interest for scholars, leading to a plethora of publications over the past decade. Many academics have studied the impact ofOCBimpact on organisational effectiveness and have found a strong positive correlation between the two. This research examined this concept in terms of an organisation's social performance, as perceived by its employees. The study found that OCB is positively related to POF, so that the higher the POF the higher the OCB. The researchers also examined the correlations between POF and Organisational Identification (OI) levels and found a positive correlation between them too. The researchers further examined the employees' Perception of Social Performance (PSP) by an organisation, as a moderating variable between POF andOCBand between OI and OCB, but have found no correlation between them. Thus, POF was found to be a meaningful factor with a strong impact on many variables of organisational behaviour. Following this research, OCB has become a 'legitimate member' of this group of variables. But Social Performance Perception was not defined as a factor that plays a significant role in this relationship.
Winter 2010 The FIEF-Specific factors in the Chinese economy: the effects of state ownership Yuan Yi Chen, Lei Fang, Ji Li, Gui Yao Tang, Fue Zeng According to the research by Boisot and Child (1988), fief is defined as a transactiongovernance structure with low information codification and diffusion. Based on this definition, this article highlights the existence of fief-specific factors, such as state-ownership, in China's publicly listed firms. It is hypothesised that the state ownership, as a fief specific factor, has a negative effect on product diversification among the listed firms in China. The ownership also has a positive effect on the firms' stock market performance. Moreover, the effects can be moderated by several factors, such as firm size, age and managerial ownership. The authors collected data from listed firms in China and conducted an empirical study to test the hypotheses. The results support the hypothesised effects of the fief-specific factor and demonstrate the importance of studying fief factor to understanding organisational behaviours and performance in China. It is also indicated that the predictive validity of Western theories could be improved by taking into account the effects of fief-specific factors when studying organisational behaviours and performance in an emerging economy such as China. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications.
Winter 2010 The influence of organisational culture on strategic supply chain relationship success Trevor Cadden, Paul Humphreys, Marie McHugh The purpose of this paper is to explore and develop the general proposition that organisational cultural compatibility between strategic supply chain partners results in improved performance outcomes for each participant in the chain. A theoretical framework is proposed of the relationship of differing organisational cultural elements (practices, values, behaviours and norms) to supply chain performance. A number of propositions are presented along with conclusions and suggestions for further research. This paper is one of the first to deconstruct differing organisational cultural elements and present a model linking them to a diverse range of strategic supply chain partner performance outcomes throughout the supply chain.
Autumn 2010 Book Reviews Phil Ford, Dina Gray, Kristina Vasileva , Malcolm Warner Managing the Modern Corporation Philip Ford Corporate Governance, Competition and Political Parties: Explaining Corporate Governance Change in Europe Philip Ford Management Across Cultures: Challenges and Strategies Dina Gray The Market for Virtue; The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility Kristina Vasileva The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism; The Future of Chinese Capitalism: Choices and Chances; The Changing Face of Management in China Malcolm Warner
Autumn 2010 Exploring the 'Jingle Fallacy': a study of personality and values Malcolm Higgs, Scott Lichtenstein The increasing understanding that values play an important role in underpinning sustained organisational performance and growth has captured the interest of both practitioners and researchers. At the same time, research interest into the impact of individual values on behaviour and performance has been growing. Psychological research has treated values and personality as distinct constructs. The values literature lacks a clear and shared taxonomy and means of operationalising the construct. Studies exploring the nature of the impact of individual values on a range of behavioural outcomes have produced varied and contradictory results. Research exploring the relationships between values and personality has produced inconclusive findings and been critiqued for conflating distinctly different constructs. This paper explores the relationship between personality and values, based on a sample of 73 managers participating in Executive MBA programs. Analyses found very few significant relationships between personality and individual values supporting the existence of a 'Jingle Fallacy'. It is proposed that the relationship is more complex and interactive than has previously been suggested. The paper concludes with a discussion of the practical implications of this study.
Autumn 2010 Index to Volume 35 2009-2010
Autumn 2010 Internal marketing as an agent of change - implementing a new human resource information system for Malaysian Airlines Razali Mat Zin, Alkis Thrassou, Demetris Vrontis The first part of this research determines the relationship between ten selected variables and employees' acceptance of a planned change in Malaysian Airlines. The second part draws on the original findings to conceptually investigate the potential role, degree and nature of internal marketing as a positive agent of change. The findings initially determine the causality of the primary research results. Subsequently and prescriptively, they indicate that 'perception management' through internal marketing may play a critical role in both the acceptance and the implementation of change, especially regarding the more professional positions/processes of an organisation. The paper finally develops a provisional prescriptive model of internal marketing towards organisational change and expands on the practical and managerial implications of the findings. The value of the research lies primarily in its unorthodox introduction of internal marketing as a catalytic agent of organisational change, as well as in its prescriptive managerial implications and its innovative contemporary marketing context.
Autumn 2010 The associations between organisational performance, employee attitudes and human resource management practices: an empirical study of small businesses Paul Edwards, Sukanya Sengupta, Chin-Ju Tsai Most research on the associations between organisational performance, employee attitudes and Human Resource Management (HRM) practices has adopted a theoretical framework that proposes that HRM practices lead to HR outcomes (e.g. job satisfaction, skills, etc.) which in turn affect organisational performance. Building on theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence from the fields of organisational psychology-performance and HRM-performance, this paper presents a study that develops and tests an alternative view of the association. This model depicts the influence of organisational performance on employee attitudes and the role ofHRM practice as a mediator between the two. It was tested using data collected from employee surveys and management interviews in 32 small firms. The results suggest that employees in firms with better business performance have more positive attitudes towards three attitude measures (overall perceptions of work, job autonomy and the perceived link between reward and performance) and that the association between business performance and employee attitudes is partially mediated by HRM practices. The findings are discussed with respect to the nature of the complex performance-attitude-HRM relationship and their implications for management and future research.
Autumn 2010 The Cubic Contingency Model: towards a more comprehensive international strategy-structure model Lex Donaldson, Jane Qiu Various contingency models have been developed to explain the strategy-structure fit for multinational corporations (MNCs). However, these models are fragmented, in that they address different strategic conditions and have been applied to different groups of MNC structures. Along with a critical review of the previous models, this paper develops a new threedimensional model, which integrates contingencies from the traditional Stopford and Wells Model and the well-established GI (global integration)-LR (local responsiveness) framework. The new model considers a wider range of strategic conditions and aims to specify the strategystructure fits for a broad array of MNC structures. The explanatory value of the new model is tentatively tested against data from a study of German MNCs.
Autumn 2010 The liberalisation and diversification of the European electricity industry Francesco Schiavone European Commission directives for the liberalisation and deregulation of the European electricity industry were adopted almost at the same time in several nations. But each country had specific market structures and internal conditions. The aim of this paper is to analyse descriptively if and how differences between the home countries of European electricity firms affected, quantitatively and/or qualitatively, their diversification strategies after liberalisation. Research consisted of collecting and analysing data on the strategic actions of the main European electricity firms. The analysis covers a period of ten years (1998-2007), i.e. the first ten years after the first European directive. This paper sheds light on the link between preliberalisation specificities and attributes of a national electricity market and the postliberalisation diversification strategy of its national electricity companies.
Summer 2010 A relational insight of brand personification in business-to-business markets Michael Bourlakis, Suraksha Gupta, T.C. Melewar Customers find it difficult to differentiate between competing products based on their functional aspects. The shortening life cycle of products due to quick adoption of technological innovations by competitors makes it difficult for them to identify products based on specifications. The contemporary academic literature related to relationship marketing and brand management is passionate about customer and consumer psychology but little attention has been given to the brand selection criteria of resellers as business customers of the brand. This paper combines branding and relationship marketing as two broad functions of marketing. The paper argues upon the role of human representatives of the brand as brand personified in managing these two functions of marketing in business-to-business markets. The proposal of the paper is to use human representatives as a tool for the execution of relationship marketing and branding strategies. The objective behind using human representatives is to maximize the mindshare of resellers towards the brand and create value for them beyond products and services.
Summer 2010 Book Reviews Phil Ford, Kristina Vasileva , Malcolm Warner Fells, R. (2010), Effective Negotiation: From Research to Results, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, paperback, 248pp, £22.99. Griffith-Jones, S., Ocampo, J. A. and Stiglitz, J. E. (eds.) (2010), Time for a Visible Hand: Lessons from the 2008 World Financial Crisis, Oxford, UK:Oxford University Press, paperback, pp. 377, £25. Chia, Robert C. H. and Holt, Robin (2009), Strategy without Design: the Silent Efficacy of Indirect Action, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, hardback, 260 pp, £55. Rainey, David L. (2010), Enterprise-Wide Strategic Management: Achieving Sustainable Success through Leadership, Strategies, and Value Creation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, Hardback, ISBN-13: 9780521769808. Akerlof, George, A. and Shiller, Robert J. (2009), Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 264 pp. Segal-Horn, S. and Faulkner, D. (2010), Understanding Global Strategy, Andover: Cengage Learning/EMEA, Paperback, £42.99, 522pp. Jacobs, D. (2009), Mapping Strategic Diversity: Strategic Thinking from a Variety of Perspectives, London and New York, NY: Routledge, Paperback, £28.99, 256pp. Moesgaard, M., Froholdt, M. and Poulfelt, F. (2009), Return on Strategy: How to Achieve It! London and New York, NY: Routledge, Hardback, £25.99, 328pp.
Summer 2010 Corporate brand identification and corporate brand management: how top business schools do it John Balmer, Mei-Na Liao, Wei-Yue Wang This article reveals an a priori link between the effective management of corporate brands and the strength of corporate brand identification by customers and stakeholders. The article introduces a model of corporate brand management and corporate brand identification. This research, undertaken within leading business schools, resulted in three propositions: (P1) corporate brand management is analogous to strategic general management and involves nine connate activities - adapting, communicating, embracing, endorsing, investing, leading, maintaining, reflecting, and supporting; (P2) a stakeholder and values approach is more likely to result in there being a strong corporate brand identification on the part of students; (P3) an institutional and functional approach to corporate brand management results in weak/ indifferent corporate brand identification by scholars. The pivotal importance of corporate brands to contemporary organisations and to their policy advisors, are illustrative of the saliency of this study. This inductive study draws on insights from policy makers and scholars in top business schools. This article throws light on why and how general managers should accord importance to corporate brand management. In broader contexts, leading business schools are regarded as repositories of best practice in terms of scholarship in business administration and, in terms of operations, general management per se. As such, this study has an especial significance for general management of corporate brands among contemporary organisations.
Summer 2010 Corporate governance and bankruptcy filing decisions Kaouthar Lajili, Daniel Zéghal This paper examines the nature and extent of potential linkages between corporate governance characteristics and bankruptcy filing decisions. To test the paper's research hypotheses and follow prior related literature, a sample of financially distressed firms was formed and matched with a group of financially healthy firms in the US between 2001 and 2003. Results show that in addition to lower business and financial health indicators faced by financially distressed firms compared to their financially healthy counterparts, the former group also faced higher director turnover and shorter outside director tenure. In addition, the results indicate that interactions between two or more corporate governance characteristics could have a significant impact on the bankruptcy filing decision, thus suggesting that a multi-theory foundation for governance research could be warranted in the future. Further research is needed to investigate in more depth how boards and management work together, change, make decisions and manage their reputations and careers, not only in the case of financial distress but also in normal business situations.
Summer 2010 Editorial Steve Downing The sequence of papers in this Summer issue runs from governance to management development to strategy and marketing. The first two papers offer scholarly provocation, suggesting simple expectations about good governance and the effectiveness of goal setting in management education may be misplaced. First, Kaouthar Lajili and Daniel Zéghal in 'Corporate governance and bankruptcy filing decisions’ show in a closely argued analysis of governance in financially distressed US companies between 2001 and 2003 that corporate governance is a complex and multi-faceted concept where various elements interact. Despite drawing on agency theory and resource dependence theory to produce some plausible propositions relating good governance to reduced likelihood of financial distress and bankruptcy filings, not all of the propositions are supported. For example the impact of CEO turnover and the independence of independent directors is not a simple matter. Thus although the recent financial crisis and failure of US and UK banks might seem to call for urgent action to improve governance the authors believe more research is needed before new well founded regulation could be recommended…
Summer 2010 International market entry decisions: the role of local market factors Jerome Couturier, Davide Sola This paper examines how external market factors influence the choice of international market entry (direct investment, partnership or acquisition). It is based upon interviews in four industries and upon a longitudinal two-year case study working with a major German Food company entering the British, Italian and Polish markets. The research confirms the importance of external market factors such as market growth, market consolidation and value chain fragmentation. It proposes a practical framework to guide the company's entry strategy.
Summer 2010 Which goals should participants set to enhance the transfer of learning from management development programmes? Travor Brown, Martin McCracken This paper is designed to critique the goal setting literature, with particular emphasis on the effectiveness of different types of goals for successful transfer in management development programmes. In reviewing the literature, particular focus was given to goal interventions used in education, training and skill acquisition settings over the last 20 years and how these studies have advanced the understanding of knowledge transfer from management development programmes. Overall, the evidence suggests that the traditional result (or distal outcome) based goals are ill-suited for effective transfer and instead management development scholars and practitioners should use the newer forms of goal setting (e.g. proximal plus distal, behavioural and learning) to facilitate transfer.
Spring 2010 A model of supplier dissidence in flexible vertical partnerships Carole Donada, Isabelle Dostaler In many countries retailers use private label brands (i.e., brands sold under retailers' own labels) to differentiate assortment and price. As private label brands enjoy growing popularity and are increasing in both their quantity and quality, they continue to attract the attention of scholars and practitioners. One shortcoming of previous research is that it focuses on price as the dominant driver of buying intentions; this paper proposes a new model that explains intention to purchase private label brands. The hypothesised model relationships are tested against empirical data fromtwo surveys. The findings reveal that the predictive power of the consumer perceived value is greater than other independent variables previously examined and that contrary to previous work, brand consciousness and attitude toward private labels have little effect. The article demonstrates managerial and research implications.
Spring 2010 An empirical study on the use of project management tools and techniques across project life-cycle and their impact on project success Boonkiart Iewwongcharoen, Dragan Milosevic , Peerasit Patanakul Even though project management tools and techniques (PMTT) have been commonly used by project managers, research on PMTT still has not been adequately investigated as to whether its use contributes to the success of a project. The lack of such knowledge leads to the use of PMTT because of popularity rather than any known benefits. To respond to this issue, the authors conducted a large-sample study based on a survey and statistical analyses to investigate the use of PMTT. Evidence emerged that some PMTT should be used in a certain phase of a project and such uses contribute to project success.
Spring 2010 Book reviews Kristina Vasileva , Malcolm Warner Stiglitz, J. E. (2010), Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy, New York: W. W. Norton, hardback, 320pp. Krugman, P. (2009), The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008, London: Penguin, paperback, 256pp. Sen, A. (2009), The Idea of Justice, London: Allen Lane, hardback, 496pp. Green, Stephen (2009), Good Value: Reflections on money, morality and an uncertain world, London: Allen Lane, 224 pages, £25.
Spring 2010 Consumers' intention to buy private label brands revisited Vincent-Wayne Mitchell, Gianfranco Walsh In many countries retailers use private label brands (i.e., brands sold under retailers' own labels) to differentiate assortment and price. As private label brands enjoy growing popularity and are increasing in both their quantity and quality, they continue to attract the attention of scholars and practitioners. One shortcoming of previous research is that it focuses on price as the dominant driver of buying intentions; this paper proposes a new model that explains intention to purchase private label brands. The hypothesised model relationships are tested against empirical data from two surveys. The findings reveal that the predictive power of the consumer perceived value is greater than other independent variables previously examined and that contrary to previous work, brand consciousness and attitude toward private labels have little effect. The article demonstrates managerial and research implications.
Spring 2010 Editorial Steve Downing Spring is traditionally a time for renewal and new beginnings and this feeling may be enhanced entering a newdecade. What’s new in this Spring Issue of the JGM? Our first paper by Gianfranco Walsh and Vincent Mitchell offers an empirically tested new model of the intention to buy private label brands (brands sold under retailers’ own brands). The findings argue against conventional wisdom and previous research which suggests that price and attitude to private label brands are the leading factors. A range of other factors are highlighted which may suggest opportunities for retailers to change their strategies...
Spring 2010 How does geographical and legal proximity affect the performance of M&A transactions? Jens Kengelbach , Bernhard Schwetzler, Marco O. Sperling Geographical distance and the prevailing legal environment are important factors in crossborder transactions. Using a sample of 1507 worldwide transactions, this article examines the impact of geographical and legal proximity on the performance of M&A transactions. It is found that capital market reactions for targets in Asia Pacific are only about half (10.7%) compared to those in North America (23.5%) or Europe (22.6%). Furthermore, while it is generally believed that geographical distance is harmful, target firms under-perform in transactions with neighbouring countries by up to 8.1%. It seems that acquirers pay less for firms that are close to their own market (negative neighbouring country effect). When looking at legal aspects, the evidence presented here (weakly) supports the view that after a transaction, acquiring firms bootstrap superior governance mechanisms of their targets (bootstrapping hypothesis). Moreover, management of target firms in countries with weaker shareholder rights tends to accept offers too early, while the management of acquirers coming from a weaker legal system tends to overpay (shareholder rights hypothesis).
Spring 2010 Managing stakeholders for project management success: an emergent model of stakeholders Rashmi Assudani, Timothy J. Kloppenborg The world is in a state of constant flux and the systems perspective in the management literature has concerned itself with the adaptations that reflect this dynamic. However, while project management literature recognises the robustness of salient stakeholders, the literature has given little attention to managing the dynamic and shifting process of stakeholder management during the project life cycle. This conceptual paper uses both social network and stakeholder theories to integrate and extend the current theoretical body of literature in the field of project management to describe a more fine grained approach to managing stakeholders throughout the project life cycle. This in turn allows broader insights into the behavioural complexities of project management success. This is important because many authors and practicing managers forcefully state the importance of behavioural foundations in attaining project success.
Winter 2009 Book Review Malcolm Warner Brown, K., The Rise of the Dragon: Inward Investment and Outward Investment in China, 1978-2007, Oxford: Chandos, £28.00, hardback, 2008, 213pp. Wang, J., Strategic Challenges and Strategic Responses: The Transformation of State-owned Enterprises, Oxford: Chandos, £65.00, hardback, 2007, 229pp. Zhen Y., Globalization and the Chinese Retailing Revolution: Competing in the World's Largest Market, Oxford: Chandos, £65.00, 2007, hardback, 277pp.
Winter 2009 Editor’s Introduction Steve Downing All over the world small businesses are the dominant organisational form and because they can have a huge impact on employment and innovation governments strive to support them with effective support programmes. Our first paper in this issue, by Rami Schayek and Dov Dvir, reports research that provides a new level of detail in findings on the effectiveness of different qualitative and quantitative elements of such support programmes. It should be of particular interest to consultants and those running and working in small businesses as well as those in government responsible for enterprise...
Winter 2009 Index to JGM, volume 34
Winter 2009 Learning from fiasco: what causes decision error and how to avoid it Helga Drummond, Julia Hodgson All decisions involving uncertainty run the risk of failure. Whilst chance almost invariably influences outcomes, the authors suggest that many costly decision errors made by organisations could be avoided if decision-makers understood more about how and why their ability to exercise rational judgement can become undermined. This paper explains the main non-rational forces likely to impinge upon decision-making, with reference to extant theory and research. The authors discuss how, contrary to terminating faltering projects, organisations can end up investing more resources in them - a phenomenon known as escalation of commitment. The authors then consider how organisations can improve decision-making. Controversially, it is suggested that risk-management techniques may not always reduce danger but actually add to it.
Winter 2009 Measuring the effect of public assistance programs on small businesses' performance: a multi-dimensional concept Dov Dvir, Rami Schayek Data gathered on small trade and service businesses that participated in a coaching project initiated by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor in Israel was used to assess the effect of public assistance programs on small businesses' performance. A multi-dimensional framework was developed and used for assessing performance of these organisations, using two models; a direct model (path analysis) and a Structural Equation Model (SEM). The public assistance program modus operandi was measured by five dimensions, specifying three entities of the program: the program (Qualitative elements such as the consultant's capabilities and Quantitative elements such as range of activities covered by the assistance program), the client (i.e. firm) and the Program-Client interaction. Except for one dimension (client implementation), all other four dimensions had a significant effect on business performance. According to the SEM model, the significant effect on performance was mainly due to the Quantitative elements of the program.
Winter 2009 Selecting R&D projects for technology-based innovation: knowledge management in the face of embarras de choix Paul F. Greenfield, Ziqi Liao, Michael Tow Cheung A vital question incorporated within the fundamental corporate strategy of technology-based innovation is that of ensuring that R&D would most effectively exploit technological change in the development of new or enhanced products and services. The literature contains a profusion of models, methods and techniques which guide R&D project selection. Three approaches are particularly important: one based on mathematical programming, one where project selection is understood as a process rationally embedded in the corporate behavioural, organisational, and informational structure, and one which requires projects to be strategically consistent-and-integrated. To assist the bounded-rational manager faced with this embarras de choix, the authors propose a heuristic framework which respects both the constraint imposed by decision costs and the principle that to optimise the use of knowledge as many as possible of the results from the literature should enter into the firm's decision-information shortlist. Exploiting this framework, the manager can readily compare the different approaches under the normative methodology of testing the empirical relevance of their assumptions against a core model description of the firm's 'real world' constructed according to the methodology of scientific realism. Once an approach which is methodologically best (most realistic) is found, the decision process can be refined upon further considerations of bounded rationality to determine a model, method, or technique under this approach which is simultaneously knowledge-optimal and operationally-satisficed.
Winter 2009 Strategic decision-making: models and methods in the face of complexity and time pressure George L. De Feis, Noushi Rahman The aim of this paper is to organise decision-making models and methods into one coherent matrix, using complexity (high to low) and time pressure (high to low) dimensions as relevant axes. Eight case vignettes are used to demonstrate the fit of four decision-making models and four decision making methods within high-low complexity and high-low time pressure. The arguments and the vignettes suggest that a particular decision-making model or method becomes an appropriate tool for strategic decision-makers under varying complexity and time pressure. The appropriate model or method would change when the characteristics of the environment change. Decision-making models and methods can be systematically assessed with the proposed framework.
Winter 2009 Understanding employee-level dynamics within the merger and acquisition process Todd Creasy, Simon Peck, Michael Stull Given the challenge companies face in combining organisations in the merger and acquisition (M&A) process, this article presents a model that explores the potential determinants of success in the company blending (acculturation) process. The model examines the effect of employee-level factors and perceptions of managerial behaviours during the M&A process. Utilising data from 254 employees that recently experienced an M&A, the authors tested for managerial guided, direct and indirect impacts on employee level dynamics (job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviours) which are believed to affect the successful co-mingling of two previously independent organisations. The authors highlight the key role that employee identification with the new consolidated organisation plays, most notably organisational citizenship. Lastly, attention is drawn to the importance of management's perceived competence and procedural justice toward employee-level factors. The article concludes with specific managerial suggestions for improving M&A acculturation outcomes.
Autumn 2009 Assessing the impact of university reputation on stakeholder intentions Russell Abratt, Jamie Ressler This article explores the concept of university reputation and its impact on stakeholder intentions. The authors seek a greater understanding of how different stakeholders perceive the reputation of universities. The literature dealing with identity, image and reputation is explored, as well as stakeholder theory, the measurement of reputation and various models of university reputation. The article concludes with a proposed model for testing the reputation of a university. A list of attributes that should be used to test stakeholder perceptions of university reputation is presented.
Autumn 2009 Book review Malcolm Warner Kostera, M. (ed.), Organisational Epics and Sagas, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmilan, 2008, hardback, £55.00, 216pp. Barling, J. and Cooper, C. L. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Organisational Behavior: Volume 1: Micro-Approaches, Sage: London, 2008, hardback, £165 for two vols., 776pp. Clegg, S. R. and Cooper, C. L. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Organisational Behavior, Volume 2: Macro-Approaches, Sage: London, 2009, hardback, £165 for two vols., 518pp. Corngold, S., Greenberg, J. and Wagner, B. (eds.), Franz Kafka: The Office Writings, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, hardback, 2009, £32.50, 404pp.
Autumn 2009 Customer experiences, interactions, relationships and corporate reputation: a conceptual approach Nic Terblanche In order to achieve a competitive advantage, the contemporary tendency amongst retailers is to offer appealing and enduring experiences for their customers. This can be regarded as an effort to create emotional connection with customers through careful planning of tangible and intangible elements. Interactions between customers and the environment in which they do their shopping is the starting point for the formation of relationships between a retailer and its customers. These interactions have rational and emotional dimensions and assist the value-creation process. A well-designed customer experience will also have emotional dimensions that will make it very difficult for other retailers to imitate. Reputation is conceptualised as the outcome of relationships with customers. The relationships that follow from the interactions made possible by customer experiences are of great consequence for the retailer in terms of building reputation. This paper addresses the route between customer experiences and reputation formation. As such, the paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of the influence of an interdisciplinary activity, namely the creation of shopping experiences for customers by retailers, on corporate reputation.
Autumn 2009 Online communication of brand personality: a study of MBA programs of top business schools Pierre Berthon, Albert Caruana, Deon Nel, Robert Opoku, Leyland Pitt, Asa Wahlstrom Brand personality has often been considered from the perspective of products, corporate brands or countries, but rarely among service offerings. Moreover, there remains the consideration of how these entities are communicated online. This article explores the brand personality dimensions that business schools communicate and whether they differ in putting across clear and distinctive brand personalities in cyberspace. Three clusters from the Financial Times' top 100 full-time global MBA programs in 2005 are used to undertake a combination of computerised content and correspondence analyses. The content analysis was structured using Aaker's five-dimensional framework whilst the positioning maps were produced by examining the data using correspondence analysis. Results indicate that some schools have clear brand personalities while others fail to communicate their brand personalities in a distinct way. This study also illustrates a powerful, but simple and relatively inexpensive way for organisations and brand researchers to study the brand personalities actually being communicated.
Autumn 2009 Preface JGM special focus: corporate identity, corporate associations (CIA) Alexander N. MacMillan It gives me great pleasure to introduce this special issue of the journal, which is also the final issue edited by Dr Kevin Money. It is fitting that the focus of this issue should be on exciting developments in a relatively new area of study. Since the sudden death of Dr Money's friend and mentor Professor Keith MacMillan in 2003, the journal has been committed to the area of corporate reputation and relationships. In the following papers, which have been jointly selected and edited by Dr Money and Lisa Papania, the journal presents research that complements, informs and grows out of an evolving understanding of the importance of business stakeholder relationships - not just as a specialised field of study in management, but to business and society in general...
Autumn 2009 The impact of geographic expansion on intended identity of an organisation Russell Abratt, Ryan Spittal As organisations grow and expand past their operational headquarters, individual branches may reflect a different identity than that of the headquarters. The question then is, 'Is senior management able to transcend geographical boundaries and communicate the identity that has shaped their strategy for the organisation?.' The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of geographical expansion on the reflected perceptions of internal stakeholders related to the organisation's intended identity as defined by the senior management. The authors review the literature on identity in relation to image and reputation in order to seek answers to this question. The paper concludes with four propositions that need to be tested empirically in the future.
Autumn 2009 The influence of brand levels and associations on purchase intent Christopher Hopkins, Scott Jones, Gregory Pickett, Mary Anne Raymond This study considers the influence of attitudes toward an institution of higher education, the influence of attitudes toward a specific branded product offered by many universities and the influence of attitudes toward a product category on purchase intent. The results suggest attitudes toward the university and product category positively influence purchase intentions but not attitudes toward a branded product. Furthermore, involvement is found to moderate these relationships. The findings have implications for branding decisions and strategies made by universities, including how a university brands and markets its offerings.
Summer 2009 Book Reviews Thomas Hemphill, Malcolm Warner Huse, M. (ed.), (2008), The Value Creating Board: Corporate Governance and Organizational Behaviour, London and New York: Routledge, hardback, $240.00, pp560. Crane, A. et al. (2008), Corporations and Citizenship, Cambridge: CUP, 2008, paperback, £18.99, pp250. Boscheck, R. et al. (2008), Strategies, Markets and Governance: Exploring Commercial and Regulatory Agendas, Cambridge: CUP, paperback, £23.99, pp345. Strange, R. and Jackson, G. (eds.), (2008), Corporate Governance and International Business, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, hardback, £58.00, pp336.
Summer 2009 Factors affecting employees' job satisfaction in public hospitals: implications for recruitment and retention Ailson Moraes, Ali Mosadegh Rad Job dissatisfaction is a major cause of absenteeism and turnover among healthcare employees, and as such, it affects employees' organisational commitment and the quality of healthcare services. However, little is known about which factors influence job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in hospital staff. The purpose of this study was to investigate specific factors associated with job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in employees at the Isfahan University Hospitals (IUHs) in Isfahan, Iran. This study also focuses on revealing homogeneous demographic characteristics that these employees exhibited, which affect their satisfaction level. Questionnaires were distributed among the 950 employees through a classified randomised sampling. Overall, employees were moderately satisfied with their jobs, and more satisfied with the following aspects of their current work situation: supervision, job identity and co-workers. The lowest satisfaction scores were found for benefits, contingent rewards, communication, salaries, work conditions and promotion. Motivating factors included loyalty to employees, job security, good pay, good working conditions, tactful discipline, involvement, recognition and promotion.
Summer 2009 How do Chinese firms sustain their cost advantage in labour-intensive industries? Lee Li, Gongming Qian In the past decade, Chinese firms have been competing aggressively in the world labour-intensive industries and have substantially increased their market share. This study explores the mechanisms Chinese firms employ to develop and sustain their cost advantage in labour-intensive industries. The evidence shows that Chinese firms mainly rely on country-specific factors in the initial stage and cluster-specific factors in the growth stage. They integrate these country- and cluster-specific factors to develop firm-specific resources and capabilities in the mature stage. This integration and the dynamics of these resources and capabilities result in the sustainability of their cost advantage. The findings of this study have important managerial implications for those Western firms that wish to duplicate Chinese cost advantages by setting up manufacturing facilities in China and those that are competing against Chinese firms in the world market.
Summer 2009 Key factors in the access of women to managerial posts Macarena López-Fernández , Fernando Martín-Alcázar , Pedro Romero-Fernández Despite the social and political changes over the past decade that have taken place in the field of work, it is obvious that participation of women in managerial posts is limited. This paper supports the principle of equal opportunity of access to these posts for women and aims to examine the occupational segregation that exists in the labour market. The paper presents some key factors relevant to this situation and highlights the waste of knowledge that women could offer to organisations and society in general.
Summer 2009 The shared management and ownership of corporate brands: the case of Hilton John Balmer, Irene Thomson The dual institutional ownership and management of corporate brands is an under-researched organisational phenomenon. The authors' examination of the Hilton hotel brand, during a period of joint ownership, revealed a discrepancy between brand promise and delivery. This failure is attribute to a narrow conceptualisation of corporate brand management: an undue emphasis on corporate identity; a failure to align corporate identity with the corporate brand covenant; undue prominence being accorded to the trappings of corporate branding (corporate communications and visual identity) and insufficient attention being given to the substance of corporate brand management (calibrating brand promise with brand quality, consistency and delivery). In theoretical terms it is concluded that there is bilateral dependence between corporate identity and corporate brand identity; they are mutually reliant. Whereas corporate brands have their roots in corporate identities the management of corporate brands require the alignment of corporate identity/corporate identities with the corporate brand in a meaningful way. In practical terms, the authors aver that it is imperative that general managers make a distinction between corporate identity (the traits of both organisations) and the corporate brand identity (the promise/covenant that underpin a corporate brand): corporate brand management requires the orchestration of both. The phenomenon of the dual institutional ownership/management of corporate brands require the meaningful and dynamic calibration of three identity types: the corporate brand identity and the two corporate identities that own, and jointly manage, the corporate brand. Many of the difficulties experienced by the Hilton brand are attributable to a lack of appreciation of the aforementioned.
Spring 2009 Achieving competitive advantage through the use of project management under the plan-do-check-act concept Sabin Srivannaboon Based on case study research that analysed nine projects in seven market leaders across industries, this study addresses the ways of achieving various organisational competitive advantages through the use of project management for senior executives and top managers. In particular, the research fndings identified two common themes that formed the linkages of the alignment between project management and business strategy. It was found that the competitive advantages drive the focus and content of project management as part of an intended strategy. At the same time, the detected changing business and project conditions help improve the execution of business strategy and/or the management of projects as part of an emergent strategy. The key for success is to develop appropriate project management styles that support the business strategy\'s competitive advantages and identify general guidelines regarding how to adapt their project management based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) concept. This should be done through a creative, artful and adaptive process in which organisational strategy and organisation as a whole are taken into account.
Spring 2009 Beyond talk: creating autonomous motivation through self-determination theory Edward Deci, Richard Ryan, Dan Stone Many managers and academics have a passing familiarity with self-determination theory (SDT), which articulates the core principles that underlie the concept of sustainable motivation in organisations. But far fewer understand how to successfully implement a SDT intervention in the face of organisational pressure for short-term accountability and performance. We present the core principles of SDT, describe the principles that underlie successful SDT-based interventions, propose six steps (i.e. actions) that facilitate the creation of autonomous motivation, articulate the obstacles to successful implementation, and present two examples of successful organisational implementations.
Spring 2009 Book review of D. Samson and P.K. Singh (eds.) Malcolm Warner Samson, D. and Singh, P. K. (eds.), Operations Management: An Integrated Approach. Cambridge: CUP, 2008, £50.00, paperback, 550 pp.
Spring 2009 Middle managers´ involvement in strategic planning: an examination of roles and influencing factors S.Raghu Raman There are references in the literature on the benefits of involving middle managers in the strategic planning process. It has been suggested by scholars that involvement by middle managers not only adds value to the process of planning but also strengthens the commitment to the chosen course of action. In exploring such involvement, the literature has offered a typology of strategic middle managerial roles and has also suggested possible factors that may influence these roles in organisations. However, not many studies have o€ered empirical support on how such roles are enacted by middle managers and the challenges they face in the context of strategic planning in organisations. This paper draws from the ®ndings of an in-depth case study of an auto components manufacturer based in India to argue that middle managers add value to the process of strategic planning by leveraging their substantial knowledge of employee mind-sets and understanding of the existing reporting relationships. The case also argues that in playing strategic roles, middle managers face political tensions and are often forced to balance conflicting interests.
Spring 2009 Putting positive psychology to work in organisations Nuno Da Camara, Carola Hillenbrand, Kevin Money This article takes positive psychology concepts from the domain of individual psychology and applies them to the workplace. The adaptation of the Approaches to Happiness Questionnaire (Seligman, 2002), developed by Martin Seligman, suggests that the three dimensions of pleasure, engagement and meaning are relevant to employees in the organisational context. In addition, Seligman´s (2002) classification of Character Strengths and Virtues is explored, and their relevance for workplace performance is discussed. The paper concludes by suggesting that positive psychology is a useful lens through which approaches to work and employee potential can be explored further and suggests some future research in the area.
Spring 2009 Trusting relationships and personal acquaintance: implications for business friendships Lars Backstrom, Deon Nel Friendship is very often a component of business relationships. Organisations frequently have relationships with their suppliers, customers and collaborators that could be described as \'friendly\'. However, there is little comparative evidence concerning the extent to which business friendships resemble true social friendships. This article illustrates some differences that may exist between social and business friendships, with particular reference to the extent that interpersonal relationships are trusting, and are based on the nature of personal acquaintance. This means that managers need to understand the di€erences between business and personal friendships and adjust the type of interactions they, and those who report to them, have with customers, suppliers, collaborators, and the like.
Winter 2008 Book review Malcolm Warner Reviewed works: -- Smith, C., McSweeney, B. and Fitzgerald, R. (eds.), (2008), Remaking Management: Between Global and Local, Cambridge: CUP, £65.00, hardback, 470pp. -- Chatterjee, S. and Nankervis, A. (eds.), (2006) Asian Management in Transition: Emerging Themes, Basingstoke: Palgrave, MacMillan, £28.99, paperback, 386pp. -- Benson, J. and Zhu, Y. (eds.), (2008), Trade Unions in Asia: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, London and New York: Routledge, hardback,£85.00, 288pp.
Winter 2008 Designing strategic innovation networks to facilitate global NPD performance Murray R. Millson, David Wilemon This article reviews and applies a strategic new product development (NPD) networking maturation process developed for organisations that employ networks to develop successful new products. Understanding this model can assist new product developers in making important decisions for attaining marketplace advantages that can aid the successful development and commercialisation of new products. This paper describes the development of a strategic NPD networking maturation process model that is compatible with current global new product development practices and environments. It is noted that strategic NPD networking for new product development is not a discrete event but a process that involves several stages. These stages are described and include awareness, exploration, commitment and dissolution. It is suggested that embarking on a strategic NPD networking process resembles the processes of the adoption and implementation of an important innovation. The paper concludes with a summary of the discussion.
Winter 2008 Factors influencing job satisfaction in transitional economies Ivan Mihajlovic, Slavika Prvulovic, Nada Strbac, Dragana Zivkovic, Zivan Zivkovic Job satisfaction is an historically popular variable in studies of vocational psychology. Employee encounters with aspects of the work environment, such as work-related stresses and the nature of work tasks can influence their satisfaction. Research presented in this paper indicates the existence of a personal or dispositional component to job satisfaction, especially in a work environment that has been affected by the transition process in East Europe. During this time most public companies were privatised and as a result, have adopted downsizing strategies. In the post-downsizing era, applying appropriate human resource management practices to motivate employees and to regain their trust is a critical issue to increase job satisfaction that can lead to higher work performances. The findings of the research presented in this paper provide important implications for both the research field and practical management of human resource development, employee motivation and strategic HRM practices.
Winter 2008 Formal Strategic Planning, Operating Environment, Size, Sector and Performance Abby Ghobadian, Jonathan Liu, Nicholas O’Regan, Howard Thomas The relationship between strategic planning and firm performance has long interested strategic management researchers. In the past decade, this research effort has slowed down, while strategic planning has gained greater popularity among managers. However, some academics dispute the usefulness of strategic planning, particularly in turbulent environments. This paper examines the following key research questions that are relevant to both practice and theory. First, the relationship between the formality of strategic planning (conceptualised by considering whether firms have written strategic plans and the level of correspondence between the written strategic plan and the normative planning process) and a wide range of performance measures. Second, the relationship between three contingency factors - size, sector and environment, in addition to the incidence of formal planning and the level of formality. Of great interest are the effects of munificence and turbulence. The results suggest that the link between strategic planning formality and performance is tenuous. Nevertheless, managers tend to deploy strategic planning widely in diffcult market environments. The conclusion is that strategic planning is perceived to enhance a firm\'s survival chances, but not necessarily its shortterm performance.
Winter 2008 Knowledge-Sharing in Cross-Functional Virtual Teams Jacky F.L. Hong, Sara Vai The emergence of cross-functional virtual teams has presented both benefits and challenges to organisations. However, the unique characteristics of virtual teams make the sharing of knowledge among the geographically separated members difficult. This paper attempts to address this issue by looking at how the process of knowledge transfer takes place in a crossfunctional virtual team. A case study is conducted to interview various cross-functional virtual team members in one local subsidiary of a multinational telecommunication corporation as well as two of its hardware vendors. The findings indicate that four knowledge-sharing mechanisms are being employed, including shared understanding, learning climate, job rotation and coaching. Among them, shared understanding and learning climate are thought to be able to solve the challenge related to the unwillingness among the virtual team members to participate in the knowledge-sharing process, whereas coaching and job rotation are argued to be the solutions for the lack of collective competence required for performing the co-operative works. Some practical implications are also suggested for the e€ective management of crossfunctional virtual teams.
Winter 2008 Reducing job-irrelevant bias in performance and appraisals: compliance and beyond Robert G. Jones, Kathlyn Y. Wilson Job-irrelevant discrimination seems as ubiquitous as the performance appraisals in which it is commonly detected. This paper explores both compliance-based and more proactive approaches that deal with the various possible sources of discrimination in performance appraisal ratings. The suggestions lead to a code of practice for performance management in firms across cultures and national boundaries.
Autumn 2008 Book Review Malcolm Warner Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. London: Penguin Books, 2007, Paperback, £8.99, 366pp.
Autumn 2008 Commitment in sponsorship relationships Simon Chadwick, Des Thwaites The study identifies three key determinants of commitment in sponsorship relationships: perceived benefits of a sponsorship relationship, the values shared by sponsorship partners and the tendency towards opportunistic behaviour that a partner might display. Based on these determinants, the study identifies four sponsorship commitment types, namely 'Calculators and Commercials', 'Carers and Communals', 'Cynics and Short-Termers' and 'Innocents and Indifferents'. It also highlights three stages through which commitment develops: the engagement stage, the retention phase and the dissolution phase (identified here as the ERD model). The study considers the nature of each commitment type using the ERD phases, then discusses relevant issues for each of these phases. This research enables prospective partners to assess the compatibility of a partner's commitment intentions and helps contribute to the development of more stable and value-adding programs.
Autumn 2008 How trust, dependence and prior ties influence the stability of alliances Shanxing Gao, Yuan Li, Jiang Xu This paper presents a theoretical framework for understanding the stability of strategic alliances. Based on combinations of different levels of changes in the initial alliance conditions and different levels of alliances' adaptation capabilities, this study proposes a typology of alliance stability: sustaining stability, flexible stability, rigid stability and transient stability/instability. Subsequently, the critical roles of trust, dependence, and prior ties in the stability of alliances have been analysed by drawing on an inter-partner relationship perspective. From this discussion, a number of propositions have been developed to facilitate future empirical testing of our conceptual model.
Autumn 2008 Knowledge management from an industry perspective: Findings from an industry study Bruce Perrott Strong forces of competition and globalisation have created awareness and an urgency to focus how organisations control and nurture intellectual capital. The knowledge concept and its management have gained currency and momentum, as technology has enabled thoughts and ideas to be more easily produced and distributed. With the increased application of recent technologies such as the internet, CRM and advanced software capabilities, it has been suggested that the time has come for a debate on a new paradigm for knowledge management. As a contribution to this debate, this paper will examine exploratory research conducted in the Australian private hospital industry with a view to better understand issues related to knowledge management from an industry perspective.
Autumn 2008 Management actions, attitudes to change and perceptions of the external environment: A complexity theory approach Roger Mason This paper, based on complexity theory principles, suggests relationships between environmental turbulence, managers' perceptions of the external environment, attitudes to change, management actions and business success. Data was collected via a case study method, using in-depth interviews, document analysis and observation from two companies each in the computer and packaging industries. Findings reflected a relationship between environmental perceptions and attitudes to change. The more successful firms expected and almost welcomed change, while the less successful companies were victims of change. Overall external environment perceptions, attitudes to change and the resulting management approaches differed between the more successful and less successful companies.
Autumn 2008 The importance of organisational structure for collaboration between sales and marketing Kenneth Le-Meunier Fitzhugh, Nigel F. Piercy Effective cross-functional partnerships between sales and marketing functions are a priority for many organisations. Previous research proposes that organisational structure and/or location may be influential in creating greater collaboration between sales and marketing. It has been suggested that high performing organisations may structure their sales and marketing functions as single departments. This study tests both these propositions through a survey of managing directors and CEOs of large UK organisations. The results indicate that there is no relationship between structure or location of sales and marketing and collaboration between sales and marketing. Further, high performing organisations structure their sales and marketing functions both as separate departments and as single departments.
Summer 2008 How part-time directors create exceptional value: New evidence from the non-executive director awards Victor Dulewicz, Keith Gay, Bernard Taylor Theory suggests that non-executive directors (NEDs) can add significant value to the governance of companies, yet many empirical studies have failed to find evidence for this. One reason is that research has focused on studying issues that are easy to measure, such as the number of NEDs on a board and their relative proportion to the executive, rather than studying what really happens in the boardroom. This study fills the gap by analysing 75 in-depth case studies of NED performance. It found that NEDs contributed significantly to the performance of the board. In particular the dynamic role of the NED is highlighted, in which the NED can play different roles dependent upon the lifecycle of the company.
Summer 2008 How the alignment of business strategy and HR strategy can impact performance: A practical insight for managers Liza Castro Christiansen, Malcolm Higgs This paper explores how the alignment of HR strategy and business strategy relates to organisational performance. It addresses the core question, ''Does the alignment of business strategy and HR strategy impact performance?''. Using Miles and Snow's theories of strategic typologies (defender, prospector and analyser) (Miles and Snow, 1978), strategic HR systems (Miles and Snow, 1984a) corresponding to these strategic types and dynamics of fit (tight fit, minimal fit and misfit) (Miles and Snow, 1994), the results of the current study found that organisational performance is best explained by the tight alignment and the minimal alignment of HR strategy and business strategy. One noteworthy result of the study is the viability of using a combination strategy where dimensions from two or more ''pure'' strategies in a typology can be combined and effectively implemented. Managers are recommended to develop a clear, internally consistent strategy for the firm, but at the same time, they should consider combining elements of different strategies to the extent that the firm's array of strategic resources permits them to do so.
Summer 2008 JGM 33-4 Summer 07/08 - Book Review Malcolm Warner - Denoon, D.B.H. The Economic and Strategic Rise of China and India: Asian Realignments after the 1997 Financial Crisis. - Sun, Y., Von Zedtwitz, M., and Simon, D.F. [eds.]. Global R&D in China, London and New York. - Hsiung, J.C. China and Japan at Odds: Deciphering the Perpetual Conflict. - Drysdale, P. and Terada, T. [eds.]. Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation.
Summer 2008 Strategic innovation and organisational identity: A hermeneutic phenomenological investigation Dominik Heil This paper makes the case for an appropriate ontological inquiry into strategy and organisational issues in general and issues of organisational reputation, identity and innovation in particular. It does so by first responding to Powell's suggestion that strategy, and by implication all scholarly work on organisations, should do without ontology. While taking his concerns about ontology seriously, his approach is exposed as ontological itself and it is suggested that Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology is an appropriate path for an ontological inquiry with regards to strategic and organisational issues. In using this type of ontological inquiry, the paper develops an avenue to propose such an ontological understanding, and then suggests a means of comprehending the very nature of organisations. It proceeds to use this insight to develop an understanding of the concepts, reputation, organisational identity and strategic innovation in line with the hermeneutic phenomenology of Heidegger. This understanding demonstrates the intricate, profound and strategic relationship between these phenomena. Fundamental steps for assessing strategic innovation in relation to organisational identity are developed.
Summer 2008 The effects of the balanced scorecard on performance: The impact of the alignment of the strategic goals and performance reporting Errol R. Iselin, Lokman Mia, John Sands The balanced scorecard (BSC) and other multi-perspective systems have become popular in recent times because of problems with financial systems. The BSC is a strategic management system involving strategic goal setting and performance reporting across four perspectives: financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth. Kaplan and Norton (1996), the creators of the BSC, argue that the performance reporting system must be aligned with the strategic goals. Although these systems are important, research in the area is still at an embryonic stage. The research objectives are to (1) investigate if the strength of the alignment of the strategic goals and the performance reporting system is associated with organisational performance, (2) investigate the dimensions of multi-perspective performance reporting and organisational performance, and (3) study their relationship. We found that (1) the strength of the alignment of the strategic goals and the performance reporting system was positively associated with performance, (2) there were 11 dimensions of performance reporting and 13 dimensions of performance, and (3) performance reporting on a particular dimension was positively associated with organisational performance in that area.
Summer 2008 The ethics of corporate governance Donald Nordberg How should corporate directors determine what is the 'right' decision? For at least the past 30 years the debate has raged as to whether shareholder value should take precedence over corporate social responsibility when crucial decisions arise. Directors face pressure, not least from 'ethical' investors, to do the 'good' thing when they seek to make the 'right' choice. Corporate governance theory has tended to look to agency theory and the need of boards to curb excessive executive power to guide directors' decisions. While useful for those purposes, agency theory provides only limited guidance. Supplementing it with the alternatives - stakeholder theory and stewardship theory - tends to put directors in conflict with their legal obligations to work in the interests of shareholders. This paper seeks to reframe the discussion about corporate governance in terms of the ethical debate between consequential, teleological approaches to ethics and idealist, deontological ones, suggesting that directors are - for good reason - more inclined toward utilitarian judgments like those underpinning shareholder value. But the problems with shareholder value have become so great that a different framework is needed: strategic value, with an emphasis on long-term value creation judged from a decidedly utilitarian standpoint.
Spring 2008 Barriers to Proactive Environmental Management in the United Kingdom: Implications for Business and Public Policy Stephen Brammer, Frederik Dahlmann, Andrew Millington Existing conceptual and empirical contributions emphasise the significant payoffs available to companies that manage their environmental impacts effectively (Porter and van der Linde, 1995; Christmann, 2000; Hart, 1997; Aragón-Correa et al., 2004). In spite of this, empirical evidence concerning the extent to which companies have embedded environmentally sensitive business practices within their different management functions remains very mixed (Hillary, 2000; Post and Altman; 1994; Ghobadian et al., 1995). In this study we explore this apparent puzzle by investigating corporate perceptions of the main barriers and obstacles to more effective management of their environmental impacts in the context of a sample of over 150 UK companies drawn from six industries. Using a mixed methodological approach incorporating both quantitative and qualitative methods, our findings suggest that both internal and external barriers play important roles in retarding the willingness and ability of British industry to become more proactive in managing its environmental impacts.
Spring 2008 How Risky are Brand Licensing Strategies in View of Customer Perceptions and Reactions? Dirk Ludewig, Klaus-Peter Wiedmann While brand licensing is becoming increasingly popular, the consequences of this particular form of brand extension are not well researched to date. Advantages and disadvan-tages have been extensively discussed from the perspective of brand licensors and licensees. What is currently missing, however, is an understanding of customer perceptions and reactions when customers realize that a product and/or service is provided by a com-pany that has simply bought the right to use the brand name, logo etc. rather than provided by the original brand owner. This paper presents the first empirical study on specific effects of brand licensing by analyzing the effects of prior brand licensing knowledge on customer brand evaluation and product evaluation. The results show no major evidence of specific brand licensing effects with regard to ordinary cases. More risks might be associated in specific brand licensing cases which are also briefly discussed.
Spring 2008 Juggling Janus - Strategy for general managers in an age of paradoxical trends Leyland F Pitt, Bodo Schlegelmilch Whereas trends in the modern age tended to be linear and unidirectional, the trends in our postmodern times are more likely to be paradoxical. Like the Roman god Janus, they have two faces, and are seldom simply positive or negative, or universally "good" or "bad". This article identifies and describes 8 such trends, and looks at each of their "faces". The trends include the growth in prosperity, free markets, population growth, global bliss and gloom, the power of multi-nationals, worldwide media reach, the age of brands, and the decline of service. We argue that simple applications of strategy might be inappropriate in the face of these paradoxical trends, and that firms will have to consider revolutionary changes to strategy in order to achieve strategic balance.
Spring 2008 Managing strategy in turbulent environments Bruce Perrott Organisations face a challenging future where managers will need to work smarter to achieve growth and profit targets. Senior managers and boards perceive the market place as becoming more complex and challenging. As environmental turbulence increases, strategic issues emerge more frequently that challenge the way an organisation plans and implements its strategy. It also brings into question responsibilities, the balance of power and decision-making between those who manage and those who govern. It would be useful for management and Board members to discuss perceptions of environmental turbulence from time to time. This would enable a meeting of the minds regarding the strategic position and future directions of the organisation. It would also enable a better understanding of capability appreciation needed to respond to various levels of environmental turbulence. For successful survival, organisations need to balance; conditions of the environment, their business and marketing strategies and their capability to implement them. Hence the tracking, monitoring and management of priority strategic issues become an imperative. Strategic issue processing techniques present the opportunity for managers to identify issues and plan appropriate actions that will enable them to maintain an alignment with the demands of the external environment no matter how turbulent.
Spring 2008 Spring 07/08 Book Review Malcolm Warner Sandberg, J., and Targama, A., Managing Understanding in Organizations; Westwood, R. and Rhodes, C., [eds.] Humour, Work and Organization; Ackroyd, S., Batt, R., Thompson, P, and Tolbert, P.S. [eds.] The Oxford Handbook of Work and Organization.
Spring 2008 The Knowledge Advantage of Virtual Teams - Processes Supporting Knowledge Synergy Violina Ratcheva It has been previously argued that virtual teams emerged as a new organisational form of 'working together apart'. However, their novelty has been attributed to the use of technologically advanced communications rather than to their organisational properties. It remains unclear what makes virtual teams a potentially powerful new organisational form. The paper argues that unravelling the mystery of knowledge creation processes in virtual teams requires an in-depth understanding of the complex interaction processes involved in forming computer mediated business relationships. The focus, therefore, is on the process of collective 'knowing', defined as team's actions and interactions embedded in unique social activities in virtual teams rather than on knowledge being a pre-given resource possessed by the team members. The paper presents an initial conceptual framework of knowledge creative processes in virtual partnerships, which builds on recent empirical studies and conceptual developments in virtual team dynamics, knowledge networking and biological phenomenology.
Winter 2007 Are CSR and corporate governance converging? Kevin Money, Herman Schepers This paper reports on research that explores the perceived relationship between corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) from the perspective of main board directors and company secretaries in 13 FTSE100 companies in the UK. A comparative literature analysis of shareholder and stakeholder theory shows that the scope of corporate governance has broadened over time, a phenomenon influenced by the growing importance of CSR. While there is now a coherent stream of theoretical approaches within corporate governance that are concerned with the broader environment, there is little empirical evidence to shed light on these. Using qualitative field research, this paper aims to redress this balance. The research sample is narrowed to those connected to FTSE 100 companies in the UK. Data analysis revealed a significant alignment between the corporate governance and CSR programmes within the sample companies. Key influencers for this convergence were seen to be regulatory pressure, the rise of business ethics (due to corporate scandals) and demands from SRI investors. As such, there is evidence that businesses are starting to look beyond financial accountability as the sole route to creating shareholder value. This development is causing a shift of the corporate-governance concept to a stakeholder-based approach, with a balance of focus between the short-term financial accountability of directors with a long-term sustainable strategy. This increased alignment between corporate governance and CSR is reflected in the development of more formal governance structures, such as the growing number of CSR board committees, SEE risk registers and CSR reports.
Winter 2007 Book Review Malcolm Warner * Organizational Identity in Practice * Organizations Evolving
Winter 2007 Internal networking and organisational capability: towards a new perspective of the firm Borshiuan Cheng, Terence Tsai, Changhui Zhou As firms evolve in an ever-changing environment, new perspectives of firms are needed to explain management practices. Partnership - a relationship that emphasizes equality, shared responsibility and cooperation - and the concept of internal networking (which characterizes an organizational structure that is catalysed by and embedded in partnership relations), form the central theme of this paper in examining the success of an Asian high-tech giant. Given the existence of other similar Western models deploying the partnership concept, the paper also questions the importance of contextual factors in corporate management.
Winter 2007 Rebalancing the board's agenda Donald Nordberg Since 2002, the activities of corporate boards have been dominated by the governance agenda. In Europe - to an even greater degree than the United States - governance codes have proliferated. This paper examines the resulting imbalance, where compliance with codes of conduct threatens to overwhelm the board's primary responsibility, i.e. the creation of wealth. We consider a model of board processes that starts with four key roles: setting direction, marshalling resources, controlling and reporting, and evaluating and enhancing for the next cycle. "We must urgently bring back some pragmatism to corporate governance … And if we want governance schemes that actually work in a real business environment, they must be based on principles, not detailed rules that try to pre-empt all the eventualities a lawyer can think of." Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, CEO, Nestlé SA. The governance agenda has rightly drawn attention to the work of board committees and the question of the independence of mind directors need to show. But it may have diverted focus from three questions that ought to figure more prominently in the board's work: * How should the board apportion its work between compliance, risk assessment and setting strategic direction? * How do directors become determine when to focus on risk-mitigation and when to encourage strategic risk-taking? * In face of greater personal accountability for governance compliance, where do they draw the line between their role overseeing management and interfering with management's responsibilities?
Winter 2007 The dialectic of Problem-Based Learning in workplace contexts Roland K. Yeo The paper discusses Problem-Based learning (PBL) as a mediating factor in generating a variety of learning networks in workplace contexts. We argue that informal learning in experiential circumstances can be systematised to encourage deep learning at the individual and collective level. Given the distinct problem-solving opportunities in PBL, learners can increase their capacity to acquire new knowledge through self-inquiry, reflection and dialogue. The repositioning of learning attitudes also leads to an enlargement of communities of practice wherein double and triple-loop learning cycles intersect to create rigorous learning. We propose an integrated model to explain the dynamics of PBL operating within the constraints of workplace contexts.
Winter 2007 The relationship between performance as a leader and emotional intelligence, intellectual and managerial competences Victor Dulewicz, John Hawkins This paper presents the findings of the first of three stages of the Scottish Police Service Leadership Study (SPSLS), a major study focusing upon the relationship between leadership style, emotional intelligence, context and performance as a leader within the police service in Scotland. This stage of the study examines the relationship between performance as a leader and emotional intelligence (EQ), intellectual competence (IQ) & managerial competence (MQ). Competency, organisational context, performance as a leader and follower commitment data were gathered through the use of the 360-degree version of the Leadership Dimensions Questionnaire (LDQ). Data was gathered from bosses, peers and followers as well as from the leaders themselves who participated in the study. Additional annual appraisal performance data was also obtained and analysed. The results presented provide support for the proposition that there is a positive relationship between EQ and performance as a leader in policing. Furthermore, partial support is also provided for the propositions that EQ explains more variance in performance as a leader than IQ and more variance in performance as a leader than MQ.
Autumn 2007 Book Review Malcolm Warner International Corporate Governance: A Comparative Approach
Autumn 2007 Managing external pressures through corporate diplomacy Wolfgang Amann, Aileen Ionescu-Somers, Shiban Khan, Oliver Salzmann, Ulrich Steger Today's corporations face many demands from a plethora of different stakeholders, which are often incongruous. While shareholders demand a decent return on their investment, employees demand safe and well-paid jobs, communities stress upon their tax revenues and public pressure groups call for more social and environmental responsibility. Corporations thus require a great deal of corporate diplomacy to prioritise and - where necessary and possible - reconcile these different demands. This paper describes a framework for managerial/corporate attitudes and external pressure levels. Four case studies illustrate varying attitudes towards corporate diplomacy determine the outcome of controversies over genetically modified food products.
Autumn 2007 Outsourcing and the spin-off arrangement: lessons from a utility company Ronan McIvor Spinning off non-core functions into separate businesses has become increasingly prevalent as organisations restructure and specialise in core areas. A spin-off arrangement is often used as an alternative to outsourcing functions to an independent service provider. Although spin-offs have been increasing in prominence, there are few studies in the literature that provide detailed insights into development and implementation. This paper focuses on a privatised utility company that spun off a number of functions into a separate commercial business. As well as developing a new client base, the spin-off continued to provide services to the utility company. Although this arrangement was regarded as extremely successful, the development and implementation of the spin-off arrangement faced a number of difficulties. This paper considers the arrangement right from idea generation through to full development and eventual disposal. The development of the spin-off was considered along with the implications for the subsidiaries in the utility company. The paper provides a number of important lessons for organisations pursuing this type of outsourcing configuration.
Autumn 2007 Perceived corporate identity/strategy dissonance: triggers and managerial responses John Balmer, Hong-Wei He An emerging critical theme in the nascent field of corporate marketing and corporate identity is the identity/strategy dyad. However, little empirical research has been undertaken to explore such an interface in the field of marketing. This article reports a theory-building case study relating to identity and strategy during a period of environmental transformation. It was found that identity and strategy were perceived dissonant by senior managers under the presence of a strong industry-wide generic identity and associated perceived corporate strategy controversy. The study revealed that managers responded to such dissonance by means of attributing, self-legitimating and adjusting their perceptions of the organisation's identity and strategy.
Autumn 2007 The internationalisation process in family firms: choice of market entry strategies Enrique Claver, Diego Quer, Laura Rienda One of the most important issues in the study of the internationalisation process is the choice of market entry strategy, which can be linked to the degree of international commitment. We have chosen to address this aspect in this paper by undertaking case studies of family firms, located in the province of Alicante (Spain), that belong to the most internationalised sectors in the region. The results obtained show that this group of firms follow the propositions laid down by the Uppsala model and that the age, size and generation of the family firm signi®cantly influence the establishment of international, strategic alliances.
Autumn 2007 The shareholder value chain: values, vision and shareholder value creation Pat Dade, Scott Lichtenstein Business now almost universally accepts that the primary management task is value creation. The impact of leaders', directors' and executives' personal values in the value creation process has been largely ignored in the literature. This paper seeks to redress the current situation by proposing that the needs and values of leaders and executives drive the vision, goals and strategies to create shareholder value. Yet, while most directors and senior managers will be at ease with pushing the organisation farther and faster in the creation of new methods to create more shareholder value, this is creating dis-ease amongst other directors, executives and the organisations' operator who have different values. This disease potentially stymies leaders' and boards' ability to create more value for shareholders. By understanding the values dynamic and asking different questions, boards and leaders can motivate the culture to create more value. The objective of this paper is to build on previous executive values research by examining the impact of how the values of one executive value group translate into methods of creating shareholder value and proposing the linkage between leaders values and shareholder value. First, a theoretical background is provided. Next, the results of empirical research into executive values are briefly reviewed and combined with data and insights from proprietary market research to discuss how the needs and values of one executive value group impact on strategic leadership factors driving shareholder value creation methods. This is followed by proposing a conceptual framework illustrating the linkages between leaders' values and shareholder value creation with propositions. Conclusion and implications are drawn and finally limitations and areas for further research are provided.
Summer 2007 'Walking the talk': the nature and role of leadership culture within organisation culture/s. Paul Aitken "We must become the change we want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi. The paper develops and explores the idea of leadership culture with reference to organisation culture/s and a research model is proposed to explore this connection. A study of leadership culture components that show the impact of an alignment between leaders' personal values and leadership team behaviour on leadership team culture is used to make the case for additional research looking at how culture role modelling by leaders may affect the creation and development of organisation culture/s. The findings and future research implications have important ramifications for how leaders develop and use leadership culture, with a particular focus on their potential role as shapers of organisation culture.
Summer 2007 In the words: managerial approaches to exploring corporate intended image through content analysis. Lisa Papania, Leyland F Pitt Whether they mean to or not, organisations create images of their personalities and corecharacteristics through the words they communicate online. Frequently, these words areselected purposefully to build certain impressions in the eyes of specific stakeholders.However, sometimes the images formed are unintended; a consequence of combinationsand associations between words. This is of crucial importance, since organisations' reputations in the eyes of their stakeholders are shaped by the images organisations convey. Through content analysis, academics and managers are able to assess the images being constructed by organisations through their communication. Managers are able to make modification to their online content in the event that their perceived image is not their intended image. This paper describes in detail the techniques involved in content analysis, and explores the value of this methodology for both scholarly researchers and organisations.
Summer 2007 JGM 32-4 Summer 07/08 issue Book Review Malcolm Warner
Summer 2007 Managing brand demise. Michael Ewing, Colin Jevons, Elias Khalil This paper challenges the assumptions made by some that brands can and should be immortal and that brand demise is a sign of managerial incompetence. Referring to the literature on product life cycles and brand management and the biological metaphor of ageing, we argue that brand death is a natural part of the developmental process that is an inevitable consequence of market turbulence and consumer dynamics. The notion of brand mortality has significant implications for both managers and scholars.
Summer 2007 Stuck in the middle: a case study investigating the gap between top-down and bottom-up change. David Boddy, Steve Paton Few studies have addressed the differing roles that should be adopted by those at the top and bottom of the organisation when implementing change. This empirical ethnographic study within an engineering company concludes that: a multiplicity of top levels must be defined before any role allocation can occur; the role of the top is most important when boundaryshaking activity is required; the role of the change agent must link the top and bottom; and the embodied knowledge at the bottom must be identified and utilised effectively.
Summer 2007 Triggers of change in information security management practices. Monica Bowen-Schrire, Jean-Noël Ezingeard Continuous improvements in information security are important in order to ensure that an organisation is adequately protected. Industry codes of practice, international standards and sometimes regulatory and legislative frameworks recommend that reviews should take place at least once a year, and that these reviews should involve various levels in the organisation, including senior management and the board. However, there is evidence that these reviews do not happen as often as recommended. Here, we investigate the kinds of triggers, that can cause an organisation to review its information security policy and policy implementation. We also examine which actors are involved in the information security change process and what form such change takes. The research is based on 26 structured interviews carried out in Sweden and the UK. The results show that awareness of risk amongst directors and senior managers influences how often information security reviews take place and the outcome of these reviews. Apart from reviews, change in information security management (ISM) practice is often triggered by internal or external events.
Spring 2007 How to improve employees' commitment to their line manager: a practical study in a Chinese joint venture Hon-Kwong Lui, Yui-Tim Wong Employees leave managers, not organisations. That is the growing consensus amongst theorists and practitioners in the United States and Europe. But what causes this behaviour? And to what extent is this phenomenon apparent in emerging markets such as China? This study aims to provide some of the answers. In doing so it examines the antecedents and consequences of employees' commitment to line manager in the Peoples' Republic of China. Trust in a line manager was found to be a key factor associated with employee commitment. More specifically, trust in line manager mediates the relationships between interactional justice and commitment to a line manager. Benefits for organisations are also identified, in that commitment to a line manager is also associated with both employees' performance and organisational citizenship behaviour. The paper concludes with some practical tips for managers and organisations wishing to improve relationships between employees and managers in the Peoples' Republic of China (PRC).
Spring 2007 Spring 06/07 Issue Book Review Malcolm Warner
Spring 2007 The evolution of directors duties: bridging the divide between corporate governance and corporate social responsibility Thomas Clarke However challenging the prospects, there are growing indications of large corporations taking their social and environmental responsibilities more seriously, and of these issues becoming more critical in the business agenda. The substance of company reports is changing, from purely environmental reporting up until 1999, to sustainability reporting (social, environmental and economic), which has become the mainstream approach of global companies. Though some of the expressed concern may be part of the discourse of political correctness, there does appear to be a significant shifting of opinion among executives. At the confluence of these multiple emerging initiatives and trends towards greater corporate social and environmental responsibility, there is emerging a dynamic stakeholder model for driving enlightened shareholder value (or more expansively, stakeholder values). This article examines how the duty to promote the success of the company offers legal encouragement to pursue responsible strategies on the part of directors and managers, and how legal and moral liability is converging. Similarly, the effect of the modern prudent investor rule is that institutional investor decision-makers are given latitude to follow a wide range of diversified investment strategies, provided their choice of investments is rational and economically defensible, they may sustain a portfolio balanced by environmental, social and governance criteria.
Spring 2007 The evolution of FTSE 250 boards of directors: key factors influencing board performance and e€ectiveness Tracy Long Although the Combined Code (Financial Reporting Council, 2003, 2006) clearly identifies the roles and responsibilities of PLC board members, current academic literature offers little guidance to FTSE 250 boards - many of whom are managing different issues compared with their FTSE 100 counterparts including high corporate growth, existing founder and/or family board members, and/or newly formed boards - on ways in which they can improve the quality of decision-making, increase individual board contribution, and enhance overall board performance and effectiveness. This paper attempts to outline the key issues faced by board members, particularly nonexecutive directors, serving on FTSE 250 company boards with regard to three distinct roles - strategy, succession planning and risk management - and examines the relevant influences on board members derived from corporate lifecycle, board structure, existing process and board culture which affect board performance and standards of corporate governance. Its conclusions draw on the author's previous research on non-executive contribution (Long, 2004) and her recent experience of reviewing performance and effectiveness of FTSE 100 and 250 boards of directors through Boardroom Review.
Spring 2007 Understanding strategising in the telecommunications industry: lessons for global telecoms firms David Lal, Peter Strachan This study considers the key determinants of environmental change and its associated consequences on strategic decision-making and strategising at the UK incumbent BT (British Telecommunications Plc), since UK telecommunications privatisation in 1984. With this in mind, the issue of strategising has become an important theme in the trategic management literature but is an under-researched area, particularly within the telecommunications sector. A case study approach was adopted, with face-to-face interviews carried out with senior executives. Semi-structured questionnaire checklists were used and content analysis was applied to the data set. Results alluded to the nature of both strategic evolution and the processes involved in strategising occurring at the incumbent telecoms provider, through the presentation and analysis of empirical data that has been unexplored - until now. Findings further our understanding of corporate level managerial decision-making, which will be of interest to both academics and practitioners.
Spring 2007 Virtually borderless: an examination of culture in virtual teaming Claudia Stenzel, John Symons Improvements in transportation and communication technology and a reduction in economic and political barriers are amongst the factors that are increasing globalisation. One consequence of globalisation is that it is encouraging the use of multinational teams. Coupled with the changing nature of work and continuous improvement in collaborative software, virtual working in multinational teams is growing in popularity as a cost-effective way of operating. The study of the human resource implications of this new and virtually borderless frontier of collaborative working is lagging behind the rapidly advancing technology. This paper distils theory with recent research findings in virtual teaming. This is the term used to describe project teams working across time and space using electronic media. The authors contend that the key competencies in successful virtual teaming can be clustered under the headings of technology, leadership and culture. The paper explores the literature under these headings, focusing on culture and adding ®ndings from research projects undertaken independently by the authors with ABB and IBM.
Winter 2006 Expatriate managers in China: the influence of Chinese culture on cross-cultural management Keith Goodall, Na Li, Malcolm Warner This article deals with expatriate managers in the People's Republic of China and how their experiences are shaped by the cultural environment in which they work. It, therefore, combines an analysis of Chinese culture and its potential impact on business effectiveness with an account of fieldwork carried out with expatriate managers in the Suzhou Industrial Park, south of Shanghai. Using qualitative analysis we focused on six broad issues: culture shock; language barriers; miscommunication with local staff; staff turnover; empowerment and motivation; and teamwork.
Winter 2006 How do top teams succeed? Factors that contribute to successful senior management team performance Malcolm Higgs For many years consultancy assignments on team-working have been growing in popularity as a means of building competitive advantage. However, this popularity has not been underpinned by rigorous, organisationally-based research (West and Slater, 1995), and the research which has been undertaken has not adequately addressed the issues (Lorsch, 1989, Higgs, 1999; Higgs et al., 2005). It is therefore important to support the rhetoric about teams with systematic research. The relationship between top team performance and organisational performance was given a clear focus and a sense of direction as long ago as the 1980s by Hambrick and Mason's 'Upper Echelon Theory' (Hambrick and Mason, 1984). This promoted a stream of demographically-based research, but the results have been limited and sometimes contradictory (Pettigrew, 1992; Higgs et al., 2005), in part as a result of the absence of direct data relating to the impact of teams on performance (Pettigrew, 1992; Lawrence, 1991). Moreover, both team and group research have failed to analyse the importance of the mix of personalities and team processes in achieving high performance (Higgs, 1998; 1999). This paper presents the results of a research programme involving 54 senior management teams using direct data. The research assesses the importance of the mix of personalities in a team, and the processes they employ in working together, in determining performance outcomes. It identifies the benefits of successful team processes, many of which relate also to Higgs and Dulewicz's parallel studies of board processes (Higgs and Dulewicz, 1997). Finally, the paper explores practical implications of the research findings, in particular in relation to developing senior management team performance.
Winter 2006 Integrating stakeholder management and relationship management: contributions from the relational view of the firm Daniel Prior This paper offers a synthesis of the stakeholder management and relationship marketing literature in terms of how both strands can inform each other. Based on the suggestions of Luk, Yau, Tse, Sin and Chow (2005), stakeholders are seen as synergistic or hindering in terms of the overall strategic prospects of the organisation. This conflict is central to traditional stakeholder management approaches. The relational view of the firm (Dyer and Singh, 1998) offers an interesting framework on which stakeholder relationships can be based. Using the four key variables contained within the relational view, this paper argues for a stakeholder analysis process that is underpinned by the notion of competitive rivalry in stakeholder markets rather than on incumbency.
Winter 2006 Moving down the line? The shifting boundary between middle and first-line management Colin Hales Much of the recent debate about changes to middle and first-line management treats these changes in isolation, rather than as inter-connected aspects of wider changes to management as a whole. This paper reports evidence from a survey of the first-line manager role in 135 organisations in the UK which shows how first-line managers have acquired some business management responsibilities previously associated with middle managers, but that these have supplemented, rather than replaced, first-line managers' core responsibility for performanceoriented supervision. Consequently, as well as first-line managers who remain primarily supervisors, there are those who are, additionally, performance managers, customer/client service managers and budget holders. On the basis of this evidence, it is argued that there has been re-distribution of managerial work and responsibilities, with a re-drawing of the traditional boundary between middle and first-line managers. Whilst some business management tasks are now shared between middle and first-line managers, routine operational supervision is increasingly concentrated in the firstline manager role. The implications for how organisations recruit, train, develop and reward first-line managers in this new, expanded role and how first-line managers themselves handle its demands and pressures are discussed.
Winter 2006 Sample Heading Povl Larsen, Richard McBain, John McGee A brief abstract about the article
Winter 2006 Symbolic functions of consultants Estelle Pellegrin-Boucher Two opposed concepts underlie most management consulting research. The first was developed in the late 1960s and was based on the assumption that the consulting process involves an expert whose function is to transfer knowledge to the staff of organisations. The second concept emerged in the early 1980s during the consulting explosion. It is more devoted to highlighting the negative impact of consulting. By this critical approach, consultants are considered as perilous symbol manipulators who can, for instance, use rhetorical symbols to persuade organisations and managers to contract their services. In the present paper, we try to demonstrate that - far from being detrimental to organisations - the symbolic function of consultants can be beneficial and enforce organisational change. We use a theoretical framework based on organisational symbolism to demonstrate that the consultants' symbolic value is essential for consultants to fulfil their symbolic functions. These functions include legitimation, signalling and sensemaking. These symbolic functions are crucial for facilitating and fostering change.
Autumn 2006 Book review: the Titans of Saturn: Leadership and Performance from the Cassini-Huygens Mission Malcolm Warner
Autumn 2006 Choosing the best business improvement strategy: The effects of organisational size and sector on management decision making. Karen Anderson, Rodney McAdam Managers in organisations, of all sectors and sizes, face difficult choices in choosing what, why and when different business improvement methodologies should be applied. There are a plethora of approaches available, which often exhibit various degrees of overlap, reinvention and claims of universal application. Given the resources involved in any application, especially in regard to time and costs, there is a need to provide some form of guidance in choosing a business improvement methodology or combinations of such approaches. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to review the effects of organisational size and sector on management decision of the choice of business improvement methodology. A multi-method approach is used in this research. Firstly an empirical research methodology is used to survey 800 UK organisations, from a range of different sizes and sectors, in relation to their choice of business improvement methodology. The findings indicate that business improvement methodologies cannot be applied universally. Multiple case study analysis was conducted within 5 large organisations, which is still ongoing. Reference is made to preliminary analysis carried out within one of the organisations under study. This case illustrates that Executives will introduce business improvement methodologies based on the needs of the organisation, and indeed the transfer of learning and knowledge from experts in the field who are already familiar with the application of these tools and techniques.
Autumn 2006 Leading middle management: consequences of organizational changes for tasks and behaviors of middle managers. Janka.I. Stoker Over the last years, middle management has been subject to a lot of criticism and theoretical debate. This was reason for the Dutch employer's federation to obtain more insight in what is happening with middle management in practice. Consequences of organizational changes for the tasks and behaviours of middle management were investigated. Results indicate that middle managers experienced a major shift in tasks, with an increase in tasks that concern employees. Also, organizational changes have lead to a focus on 'soft' leadership behaviour, such as coaching. In practice however, the actual behaviour of middle managers could not be characterized as such. Furthermore, there is little evidence for the proclaimed effectiveness of coaching by middle management. Main implications for general managers are given.
Autumn 2006 Northern European leadership in transition: A survey of the insurance industry. Kari Pöllänen What kind of leadership is needed in the companies of the future in the deregulated Northern European countries? The main goal of the study is to find out what kind of leadership attributes will be required of effective North European managers in the future. The approach of Northern European leaders and the owners of companies could perhaps be summarized as a situation of "balanced countervailing powers", where both owners and managers have strong relative power to debate and challenge each other. It is evident that the leadership qualities of typical US leaders cannot directly transposed to the leadership style of Nordic managers. Nordic leaders would have scope to enhance monitoring, optimize all the resources of the company better and review work more efficiently, whilst preserving a reasonable level of social responsibility and the national cultural norms of the country. Nordic managers could also do more to create better a climate of cooperation and mutual assistance around them. Previous cross-cultural studies (e.g. Hofstede, 1984 and the GLOBE study, 2004) support the findings of the present study. The study suggests that the social safety net of the welfare state ideology has so far shielded the culture-specific sense of social responsibility of Northern European managers from the hazards of free competition and globalization
Autumn 2006 Using Reputation measurement to create value: An analysis and integration of existing measures. Carola Hillenbrand, Kevin Money A large body of academic literature is concerned with the conceptualisation and measurement of Corporate Reputation. However, it is not clear how different conceptualisations interact, complement or conflict with each other. Moreover, the theoretical rigour of individual models of Reputation is not always clear. In recent years, there has been a call for a theoretical development to provide a framework that can be used to identify the scope and potential utility of different Reputation measures. This paper answers this call by providing a theoretical framework that integrates literature analysing Reputation as a concept that resides in individuals perceptions, cognitions and actions towards an organisation with literature that places Reputation as a key part of the strategic thinking of an organisation. Existing measures of Reputation are then placed within this theoretical framework and discussed at both the perceptual and strategic level. The results show that different measures seem complementary and based upon similar conceptual assumptions. 'The framework allows organisations to understand the utility of different Reputation measures and provides an approach by which reputation can be managed to create value.
Autumn 2006 What you should know about state-owned and private companies in China: The view from foreign-invested enterprises. Markus Eberhadt, Andrew Millington, Barry Wilkinson Based on a study conducted in situ of western-owned manufacturing subsidiaries in the People's Republic of China (PRC), this paper contributes to the understanding of the performance of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private Chinese enterprises (PCEs). It does so by considering Western subsidiary managers' perceptions of their merits as suppliers of components and raw materials. The findings suggest that while SOEs have better engineering and technological capabilities, they are less responsive than PCEs to buying firm demands, and less receptive to buyer involvement in developing supplier capabilities.
Summer 2006 Book Reviews: Bernard Taylor, Malcolm Warner Busienss Elites and Corporate Governance in France and the UK; When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures; Cross-Cultural Behaviour in Toursim: Concepts and Analysis; Culture and the Labour Market.
Summer 2006 Creating successful partnerships: the importance of sharing knowledge. Jane McKenzie, Christine van Winkelen Partnering is a common strategic response to an unpredictable business climate. Globalisation, the pace of technological change and intense competitive pressures limit the viability of owning all the knowledge a firm needs to succeed. Sometimes it is not cost effective to internalise highly specialised knowledge: sometimes it is too risky, the returns on investment are too uncertain or the long-term stability of the knowledge domain is questionable. Alternatively some knowledge may simply be ancillary rather than a core business resource. Given that business resources are always limited, we set out to understand where managers might best focus time and effort in supporting knowledge flows between partners. Our goal was to understand where knowledge management practices could make a difference to the productivity of different types of relationship, and which practices might give worthwhile returns in each category. In order to do this, common practice in three areas most likely to influence the ease of knowledge flow was explored. Based on this understanding of we suggest potential knowledge management techniques that could improve performance.
Summer 2006 Errata Rob Dixon, Keith Milton, Anne Woodhead OmissionTable 3, Vol 31 Issue 1, " An Investigation into the Role, Effeciveness and Future of Non-Executive Directors". Article Written by Professor Rob Dixon, Keith Milton, Anne Woodhead.
Summer 2006 Fighting Cybercrime Sonny Ariss, Nick Nykodym Along with the advent of the virtual organization has come a new form of crime. Cybercrime is any form of criminal activity that involves use of the internet. Although many organizations have their own ideas on how to control the problem, they appear to be working in different ways instead of pooling their forces. However, it is unclear as to who should be responsible for controlling cybercrime. This paper suggests that the issue should be attacked from the level of each individual company through its management, on the national level, and internationally. In doing so it offers managers practical advice on how to fight cybercrime and calls for the setting up of a global organization with the power to crack down on such potentially devastating crime.
Summer 2006 Monkey Business Helga Drummond, Julia Hodgson Management is synonymous with planning, order and control. For all that has been written in the popular literature about thriving on chaos and the like, management teaching continues to emphasise control based theories of organization. Ever since Frederick Winslow Taylor set himself the task of measuring, timing and specifying work we have been pre-occupied with control. Indeed, an organization devoid of control might lapse into anarchy and, as a result, loose all power. We suggest, however, that a control based perspective of organizations is one sided because it obscures the potentially de-stabilising effects of attempting to impose control and misses potentially productive but paradoxical possiblities including subtle and counter-intuitive strategies of control. We attempt to redress the balance by invoking the novel image of a chimpanzees' tea-party to highlight the limitations of control based approaches to managing and to suggest counter-intuitive possibilities. The paper is structured as follows. First the role of metaphor in generating knowledge and insight is outlined. This is followed by a description of the chimpanzees' tea party and an analysis of its relevance to the management. The paper ends with a series of recommendations for practice.
Summer 2006 The Keys to Successful knowledge-sharing Jeffrey L. Cummings, Bing-Sheng Teng A key source of competitive advantage stems from the possession and use of specialized knowledge. But to use such knowledge firms must learn to share it both within and across appropriate departments and firm boundaries. Based on our empirical research on the key factors affecting knowledge sharing success, and our consulting work putting our findings into action, we develop a series of questions and guidelines designed to guide managers in their own knowledge sharing efforts.
Summer 2006 What really happens inside the boardroom and how it may shed light on success and failure. James Lockhart For the last two decades or more agency theory has provided the dominant guiding framework for the research of governance. Despite the results of this effort being described as "remarkably inconsistent not only with the theory but with each other", there have been few attempts to offer alternate paradigms for research. The result of this limitation is that several academics and commentators have had cause publicly to acknowledge that we actually know little about governance. Our understanding of the relationship between governance and subsequent organisational performance is at best haphazard, at worst, little more than an assumption. One attempt at breaking this stalemate concerns venturing into the "black-box": an activity that requires a different battery of research skills including the range of qualitative research methods, direct observation of practice, oral histories, case studies, interventions, action research and the analysis of decision making. Few of these practices sit comfortably within the normal science practices of much governance research conducted to date. The aim of this paper is to discuss the attributes of such black-box research, identify various approaches to its conduct and to present a brief summary of interim results from a range of research activities in progress in New Zealand. The primary aim of the research 'agenda' informing these activities is firstly, to determine how a relationship between governance and subsequent organisational performance may operate given the complexities of such an approach, to identify whether specific attributes (either governance architecture or board capabilities) actually influence organisational outcomes. Results to date offer a tentative glimpse at what may be effective governance. In time they may seriously challenge the relevance of much current research and what is increasingly being promoted by various agencies and accepted by practitioners as best practice.
Spring 2006 Book Reviews: Malcolm Warner When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures; Cross-Cultural Behaviour in Tourism: Concepts and Analysis; Culture and the Labour Market.
Spring 2006 How well are Business Schools managing their brands ? Pierre Berthon, Michael J Page, Leyland F Pitt, Stavroula Spyropoulou This research note reports on a study using a previously published checklist to assess the brand management practices of business schools. Indications are that the perceptions of a sample of senior administrators regarding how well their institutions manage their brands are not positive, and that there is much room for improvement. Whilst the checklist used seems to possess the characteristic of reliability, further development needs to be done on aspects of its validity and underlying structure. Implications for managers and further avenues for research are identified and discussed.
Spring 2006 Key features in the success of SMEs: a comparison of service and manufacturing. Robert Brown, Povl Larsen, Alan Lewis, Richard Tonge The paper reports on partof the findings from a Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) research project that looked to analyse the strategic, design and accounting processes in medium-sized enterprises. A mail survey questionnaire was used to gather information on new product development drivers and strategic factors. The findings reported in this paper cover the factors responsible for current performance, the growth strategies concentrated on in the past, the key strategic product and market activities and the drivers of new product and service development. It concludes with a synopsis of the findings and a discussion on the implications for managers.
Spring 2006 Managing change by abandoning planning and embracing improvisation. Stephen A Laybourne The management of change projects is accommodating a rise in improvisational working practices. A number of lessons are offered that assist in the stimulation of effective improvisational practices when implanting strategic change within organisations. Specific problems surround the tensions created when simultaneously controlling project team members whilst allowing them organisational space and the opportunity to work improvisationally. Reasons for the rise in improvisational working are highlighted, with the ways that a sample of organisations deals with the outcomes. A matrix is offered, which segregates case study organisations according to their cultural homogeneity and success in developing employee trust and motivation.
Spring 2006 The strategic planning process and its context: the role of psychological type. John Disney, David Jennings This article reviews the literature concerning contextual factors affecting configuration of the strategic planning process. The potential role of managers' psychological type (MBTI) as a determinant of preferences towards design of the planning process is examined. From a study based upon 187 managers it is concluded that managers' planning preferences primarily reflect the imperatives presented by specific strategic situations rather than psychological type. Managers appear to vary their planning response to strategic situations according to the characteristics each situation presents. Conclusions are provided for managers engaged in strategic planning, recruitment, management training and for academic strategy research.
Spring 2006 Using scenario thinking to make real options relevant to managers: a case illustration. Giampiero Favato, Roger W Mills, Bill Weinstein This paper argues the advantages of Real Options thinking and using examples, examines the types of decision-making calculations distinctive to Real Options. However, in the process of clarifying the application of Real Options analysis to real decision making, a strong dependency upon scenario thinking is established. The value to decision makers of Real Options depends crucially on the substance and use of the scenarios on which it rests. The distinctive contribution of the paper consists in substantiating this view. By forging a critical link between Real Options Analysis and scenario thinking, this paper illustrates how the beneficial application of Real Options to decision making brings it down from the esoteric heights of mathematics, converts it into a technique readily accessible to managers and qualifies it for inclusion in the curriculum of management education. Two cases drawn from personal experience are used to illustrate the approach recommended by the authors.
Winter 2005 Book Reviews: Malcolm Warner Organisation: Contemporary Principles and Practice. Studying Organisations. The Dark Side of Organizational Behaviour.
Winter 2005 Concept and evolution of business models. Lars Schweizer Although the term \'business model\' is widely used in the business world, the academic research on this issue is sparse. This paper tries to close that gap by developing a typology of different business models along three dimensions: value chain constellation, market power of innovators versus owners of complementary assets and total revenue potential. This typology consists of four different types of business model (Integrated, Layer Player, Market Maker and Orchestrator) and is built on the resource based view as a conceptual foundation. Moreover, this paper discusses how business models may change over time, due to a varying competitive landscape.
Winter 2005 Integrating shared services with the strategy and operations of MNEs Tim.R.V. Davis A growing number of multinational enterprises (MNEs) are reaping advantages from consolidating functions into regional shared service centres (SSCs). Some of the benefits include more efficient transaction processing, better systems integration, more uniform policy administration, imporved co-ordination of marketing and better supply chain management. This article describes the varied uses of SSCs by MNEs in different regions of the world. It examines the origins, development and management of SSCs. Shared service centres (SSCs) are becoming an essential component of the global and regional strategy of MNEs (multinational enterprises) (Forst, 1997). An increasing mumber of MNEs are now integrating their operations in dfferent countries through a centrally located SSC (Hirshfield, 1996; Jarman, 1998; Miller, 1999).SSCs are helping MNEs achieve economies of scale and scope across the business units of the firm and realise synergies in the supply chain. This article traces the development of regional SSCs in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America, as well as the emergence of global SSCs. It explains the diverse functions that they perform. The conversion of decentralised services to a centralised shared services unit is a complex organisational change project. The steps that leading MNEs have taken to set up regional SSCs are described. They provide useful guidelines for other firms to follow.
Winter 2005 Risk Management : the five pillars of corporate governance. Stephen A.W. Drew, Terry Kendrick This artice looks at challenges of risk management in modern firms. We review the different types of risk, the external and internal forces that shape risk exposures in firms, and the individual and group biases that confound decision making. Next we discuss the need for an enterprise-wide approach to risk management. The critical organisational factors for implementing an integrated approach to managing risk exposures are presented. These include the five pillars of 'culture', 'leadership', 'alignment', 'structure', and 'systems'. We provide an overview of relevant tools and techniques for integrating risk management with business policy and governance. Finally, some implications for organisational change management are considered.
Winter 2005 The knowledge work of general managers. Graeme Salaman, John Storey Despite widespread acceptance of the idea of the crucial importance of knowledge in business, the way in which knowledge has so far been studied and subject to scrutiny has been restricted and fragmented. Both the scholarly and the practice-based agendas have been restricted to a relatively narrow range of issues, such as the use of ICT for 'managing' knowledge and the identification of different types of knowledge. Likewise, most fieldwork studies have concentrated on the use of tacit knowledge at operational levels. Indeed, very little atention has been paid to the characteristic features of knowledge a the strategic apex of organisations. In this article, the focus is on the knowledge work undertaken by the executive members of top management teams. The research reported here reveals insights into the kinds of knowledge deployed by general managers and the ways in which they use this know-how.
Autumn 2005 A dynamic model of trust development and knowledge sharing in strategic alliances Scott E. Bryant, Thang V. Nguyen, R. Scott Marshall Building on recent advances in the scholarship on the role of trust in strategic alliances, the authors argue for a new, dynamic model that synthesises the twin factors of trust development and knowledge sharing. This new model provides us with a sophisticated tool for describing the ways in which alliances are formed, developed and dissolved.
Autumn 2005 Adapt or adapt: Lessons for strategy from the US telecoms industry. Paul D. Berger, Rangamohan V. Ennui, James. E. Post Using multiple measures of performance, we related performance differentials between the most and least adaptive firms in the telecommunications equipment industry in the United States to differences in their alignment properties. We found that winners excel uniformly in terms of internal alignment as well as external alignment as compared to losers on all the performance measures considered. However, the contribution of the alignment characteristics to different dimensions of performance varies. This finding has important managerial implications for how these characteristics could be configured for superior strategic adaptation in a rapidly changing industry.
Autumn 2005 An investigation of the role, effectiveness and future of non-executive directors. Rob Dixon, Keith Milton, Anne Woodhead NEDs face increasingly high expectations; here both their role and their effectiveness are examined. The authors come up with some encouraging findings: for one thing, there is unanimous support for their continued existence. But what factors complicate the role? And what changes - at both a corporate and at a governmental level - are needed to help ensure their survival?
Autumn 2005 Book Reviews: Malcolm Warner Human Resource Management at Work' Globalizing Human Resource Management; The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations' International and Compariative Industrial Relations' Management in Transitional Economies: From the Berlin Wall to the Great Wall of China.
Autumn 2005 Corporate identity: concept, components and contribution. Elif Karaosmanoglu, T.C. Melewar, Douglas Paterson What benefits do organisations believe they derive from a strong identity? By the combination of a thorough review of the literature, and an international study conducted across different industries, this paper achieves an overview of the corporate identity concept, and identifies the need for businesses to develop more sophisticated ways of measuring and managing their corporate identities.
Autumn 2005 The (real) implications of e-procurement. Michael Quayle This paper explores the business issues affecting e-procurement in small to medium-sized enterprises. On the basis of extensive empirical research, the author finds that, in the race to secure competitive advantage, leadership and waste management considerations take precedence over e-procurement. The author also asks what benefits those who have developed e-procurement capability have enjoyed. What, may we say, are the management implications of effective e-procurement?
Summer 2005 Board involvement in strategy and organisational performance. Julie I. Siciliano What should be the full extent of the involvement of the Board of Directors? Traditionally, board members have been encouraged to be active in defining strategy. But there has been too little research into how boards interact at a strategic level, and what happens when they do. This paper seeks to rectify these gaps in our knowledge by examining a neglected strategic perspective that has practical importance, enabling management to realise the board's full potential in the strategic arena.
Summer 2005 Conflict resolution mechanisms, trust and perception of conflict in contractual agreements. Héléne Delerue Alliance relationships have significantly increased in popularity in recent years. However, from a managerial perspective they are fraught with difficulties, with a 60-70% alliance failure rate. Given that conflict is inevitable in such inter-firm relationships, how may it best be confronted and managed? This paper presents research on European Biotechnology SMEs in order to test the efficacy of various conflict resolution mechanisms.
Summer 2005 International joint ventures: an examination of the core dimensions. Peter J. Buckley, Keith W. Glaister, Rumy Husan In an interconnected world, a firm's competitive advantage increasingly depends on its collaborative relationships. What theoretical tools can be used to understand the facets of collaboration? This long-awaited paper extends the range of earlier research published in JGM in 1998, and examines the core dimensions of international joint ventures across a plethora of UK-EU partner collaborations.
Summer 2005 Supplier relationship management as an investment: evidence from a UK study. Andrew Cox, Chris Lonsdale, Glyn Watson, Yi Wu Recent scholarship has introduced a healthy scepticism into the debate about the merits of supply chain collaboration. We are more aware than ever of its conceptual and practical limitations as well as of its potential benefits. This paper proposes supplier relationship management should be treated as an investment, involving both cost and return. One of the chief factors affecting this investment is the balance of power.
Summer 2005 Towards a manager's model for e-business strategy decisions. Bruce Perrott What is the future of electronic business? Earlier hyperbole may have proved misleading, and disillusioned many investors. However, the potential savings and efficiencies of electronic business are undeniable, and the move seems inevitable. This paper proposes two frameworks for understanding the incentives and inhibitors accruing at each stage of the move to e-business enablement.
Spring 2005 Book Reviews: Malcolm Warner " Modern Industrial Organization; Willing Slaves How the Overwork Culture is Ruling Our Lives; and Organizing Around Intelligence." Organizational Behaviour has become a staple part of the MBA diet and is now found in almost all Business School curricula. Textbooks galore on the subject now adorn the shelves of college bookshops and more keep appearing each year. In search of the physiology of the modern organization, Malcolm Warner examines three of the latest batch
Spring 2005 Choice of Market Entry Mode in China: The Influence of Firm-Specific Factors . Enrique Claver, Diego Quer The growing importance of China's economy is indexed by the high level of international interest in entering the Chinese market. How do companies choose to enter this new market, and what factors influence their chosen mode of entry? This paper synthesises the traditional theory on foreign direct investment with the resource-based view of the firm in order to correlate investment experience with investment behaviour.
Spring 2005 Cross-border Acquisitions of European Multinationals. Pieter Klaas Jagersma More and more companies expand the scope of their activities beyond national frontiers. What is the impact of this globalisation of corporate activities in Europe? What are the most common motives? Does the fact of Europe's 'ever-closer union' affect cross-border acquisitions? This study examines nearly 30 years of acquisitions of European multinationals to find out.
Spring 2005 Supply Chain Management in SMEs - Benchmarking Best Practice Core Competencies. Ian Barclay More than merely the control of physical distribution, true Supply Chain Management is concerned with the establishment of processes between members of a chain. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises can best promote growth by assessing their supply chains in light of their core competencies. The paper describes a self-assessment tool and a methodology to achieve this.
Spring 2005 The Chameleon: A Metaphor for the Chief Information Officer. Kenneth A. Grant, Shaun Pather, Dan Remenyi The increased importance of Information and Communications Technology in modern business practice presents myriad strategic and tactical challenges. What specific qualities does a Chief Information Officer require in order to survive? Via a thorough review of the extant literature, this paper considers eight essential characteristics of the successful CIO in light of a guiding metaphor − the chameleon.
Spring 2005 The Relevance of Emotional Intelligence for Leadership Performance. Chris Dulewicz, Victor Dulewicz, Mike Young Do managers need to empathise to be good leaders? Leadership and Emotional Intelligence have become hot topics in organisations and management in recent years. This study explores the relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Leadership and Job Performance and details empirical research. This prize-winning study examines not commercial managers but Officers and Ratings within the Royal Navy. Can what works in war work in business too?
Winter 2004 Beyond CSR: organisational learning for global responsiblity. Ariane Berthoin Antal, André Sobczak The narrowness of the term 'CSR' fails to address the learning agenda for a sustainable world: instead, we need the concept of 'Global Responsibility'. Research into organisational learning reveals the types of learning required - those that will set the stage for a new role − that of the globally responsible corporation.
Winter 2004 Book review essay of Business and Society: Tradition and Change. Edwin M Epstein How much has changed in the business world in the past thirty years? And how well have management academics' ideas stood the test of time? This review examines a business classic co-authored by Keith MacMillan, and celebrates its balanced analysis (as opposed to judgement) of the business-society relationship across the centuries.
Winter 2004 Business and Society - the never-ending story. Ariane Berthoin Antal, Meinolf Dierkes Ariane Berthoin Antal and Meinholf Dierkes introduce the Special Issue. Each company tries (but often fails) to construct a happy story about its relationship to society. There is a limited range of plots: quests, downfalls, contests and scams. The actors may change over time, but the plots remain largely the same. Can a business successfully write its own story in an increasingly complex world?
Winter 2004 Dedication Ariane Berthoin Antal Ariane Berthoin Antal shares her thoughts as she writes for this special issue in memory of Prof. Keith MacMillan
Winter 2004 Gaining goodwill: developing stakeholder approaches to corporate governance. Rob Dixon, David Wheeler Intangible assets affect firms' economic performance to a greater extent now than ever before: and relationship-based goodwill (or social capital) is of prime importance amongst these. Stakeholder goodwill arises from two factors: enhanced social capital and enhanced relationships.
Winter 2004 Giving your organisation SPIRIT: an overview and call to action for directors on issues of corporate governance, corporate reputation and corporate responsibility. Steve Downing, Carola Hillenbrand, Keith MacMillan, Kevin Money A focus on the strength of a business's relationships provides directors with a practical means of successfully managing three of their core concerns - Corporate Governance, Corporate Reputation and Corporate Responsibility. This paper both demonstrates the use of a new relationship-measuring tool and argues cogently for its more widespread application.
Winter 2004 Goodwill and the Third Place - business or society? Alexander N. MacMillan Keith MacMillan's goodwill thesis is set in its historical, theoretical and biographical context. Keith MacMillan supplemented the 'hard' social sciences with his emphasis on the 'social'; while not departing from positivist social science he introduced an almost spiritual quality to his theory of good governance. His life is seen as a practical working-out of his ideas.
Winter 2004 Obituary for Professor Keith MacMillan (1945-2003) A colleague of long standing, Professor Peter Herbert examines the career of the late Professor Keith MacMillan. He details Keith MacMillan's lifelong contribution to the Henley Management College and celebrates him as 'a true and passionate teacher'.
Winter 2004 Reputation as a source of social capital. Lee E Preston What constitutes corporate social capital? And is it really capital? Corporate social capital is considered in the light of the various ways it has been described in recent literature. CSC, the paper proposes, is yoked to reputation - indeed, reputation is itself a form of capital, and behaves similarly.
Summer 2004 A Critique fo Conventional CSR Theory: an SME Perspective. Heledd Jenkins How can small and medium enterprises embrace corporate social responsibility?
Summer 2004 Agile Business Relationships and Technology Robert E. Morgan How can a business manage its relationships effectively in a rapidly changing world ?
Summer 2004 Developing Strategy by Learning to Learn from Failure. Jacqueline Kam By trying to emulate success, organizations often miss what they can learn from failure.
Summer 2004 The Characteristics of the Creative Manager Jill Hender, Malcolm Higgs How can you choose and develop creative managers?
Summer 2004 The Psychology of Why Organisations Can be Slow to Adapt and Change. George Burt, George Cairns, Kees van der Heijden, George Wright Bias in human decision making can make organisations slow to change, but what can be done about it ?

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