Action Learning - A Paradigm in Emergence: the Problems Facing a Challenge to Traditional Management Education and Development

This paper examines the proposition that action learning is a new paradigm in management education. Action learning is becoming widely accepted methodology for the development of managers and managerial competence. This is in both public and private sector organizations and within the context of certificated and organisationally based programmes. The paper seeks to use Kuhn's work on the nature of paradigms and change as a way of explaining the increase of interest in his approach. Importantly, although this approach promises to answer some of the problems of traditional management education, it is not without its own critics. Kuhn's criteria for a paradigm change are explained with reference to action learning literature and knowledge of practice. From this a framework is developed that compares a traditional approach to management education with an action learning approach on three levels. Our conclusion is that action learning is a new paradigm, but for the maximum benefit to be gained from the approach its application needs to be more carefully considered, particularly in relation to the provision of some wider external frameworks for the manager to use as‘tools for thinking’     

Planning and control of purchasing performance: A new concept

The slowdown in sales growth experienced by many companies in Western Europe during the 1970s has led to an increasing awareness of the importance of measuring a company's operating performance relative to that of its competitors, and to a resurgence of interest in the production function. Production managers have traditionally enjoyed a very low status within the management hierarchy and this is particularly true of purchasing managers, yet many industrial companies with high manufacturing costs find that material costs constitute a major element in total factory cost, and any improvement in purchasing costs has an immediate and beneficial impact on company profitability. In this paper, the authors suggest three ways in which management can better measure, plan and control their company's purchasing performance: they emphasize the importance of concentrating on each product rather than each commodity; they outline a simple and practical way in which to measure and monitor a product's material costs over time so as to enable realistic purchasing objectives to be set; finally, they suggest a way of separating the effects of commodity price fluctuations from the performance of the purchasing manager so that the latter can be properly judged.     

The Strategic Management of Innovation: A Systematic Review and Paths for Future Research

Strategic management scholars have long emphasized the importance of innovation for a firm's competitive advantage and performance. However, the current state of knowledge about the strategic management of innovation is characterized by conflicting theoretical predictions, persisting knowledge gaps and theoretical inconsistencies. Adopting a ‘systematic’ approach to reviewing the literature, this paper combines different quantitative methods – co‐word analysis, cluster analysis and frequency analysis – to review 342 articles on the strategic management of innovation published in seven journals from 1992 to 2010. On the basis of these analyses, suggestions are developed for future research which could help to promote future theory development and provide relevant material for policy decisions that managers and executives have to make when they manage innovation.     

Constructing Interlocking Rationales in Top‐driven Strategic Renewal

Under top‐driven change, active involvement of middle managers in strategy‐making requires top and middle to find common ground. The paper offers inductive theoretical development of top managers’ role as enablers for the strategic contribution of the middle levels. Central to this role is the symbolic reorganization where the middle managers’ position is set. Next, middle managers’ operational efficiency allows their performance to be shown and increases their reputation. In consequence, the middle level can actively shape the role suggested by top management, which increases their power base. Finally, when these previous interactions escalate into a two‐way process where the middle and top management contribute to each other's efforts, interlocking rationales are achieved.     

Licensed house manager skills/competences and the management development process in Bass Taverns

The aim of this paper is to explore the nature of critical licensed house management skills within Bass Taverns. In particular, it focuses on the extent to which these are viewed as being concerned with 'soft' (behavioural) or 'hard' (technical) aspects of management. The focus of the research is on the 'shared understanding' of the importance of licensed house managerial skills. It is concerned with the identification of coherence and tensions in the criticality of certain managerial skills as perceived by the company's senior and licensed house managers. It presents the findings of surveys conducted at both senior and licensed house manager levels within the company to establish the extent to which interhierarchical consistency exists in the areas of critical skills/competences and whether these are seen as being specific to the organization or considered as generic. The research reports a general harmony regarding the nature of the skills required by licensed house managers and evidence of a focus on people-oriented skills, which are seen as being particularly important for achieving business success. Licensed house managers rated the critical skills as 'generic' rather than 'specific' to the taverns context, drawing attention to the need for the organization to address the manner in which these skills are developed.     

Special Research Focus on Supply Chain Linkages: Challenges for Design and Management in the 21st Century*

Supply chain management is a central and important area for academic research due to its impact on firms competing in today's global economy. Managing the flow of materials from supply sources to the ultimate customer represents a major challenge for today's managers. To assist managers, the concept of supply chain management has been adopted by many business leaders as an important way to assist in designing, planning, and controlling the network of facilities and tasks that comprise the many stages of the supply chain. In turn, the flow of academic research in the area has increased to provide a better set of guidelines for effective implementation and execution. This article sets the stage for recently completed research concentrating on supply chain management issues. First, a definition of supply chain management is provided and compared to recent usage in this area and logistics management. Also, a framework is provided that structures this dynamic and complex management task. Second, a review of past research is presented to illustrate the many paths supply chain management has traveled, and important contributions to supply management understanding and decision making. Third, recently completed research articles are introduced that have been selected to be part of this special issue of Decision Sciences. And fourth, future research directions for supply chain management that need to be pursued by interested investigators are discussed.     

Learning organization and development of woman managers in Pakistan

Women's participation in economic activities in general and at managerial status in particular is insignificant in Pakistan. Furthermore, the opportunities for professional development of women managers are meagre because of multiple socio-cultural limitations. This paper attempts to draw a profile of female managers focusing, inter alia, on the trend and structure of women's human resource, ratio of employment, work environment and scope of development, efficiency at work, satisfaction level, professional commitment and forces inhibiting women access to jobs under the learning organization perspectives. It also exhibits issues bearing policy implications in regard to the development of women as managers and also as human resource.     

Talent management as a management fashion in HRD: towards a research agenda

This paper addresses the effects of corporate change programmes on the emotions and ultimately the performance of the so-called ‘middle managers’ within these organizations. Drawing on empirical data from a recent case study in a large engineering company, the paper addresses the extent to which Hochschild's highly original writing on the commercialization of human feeling (1983) and the concept of emotional labour is applicable to managers in today's organizations. Emotional labour is defined as: ‘the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display’ requiring one ‘to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others’ (Hochschild 1983: 7). The conclusion reached is that emotional labour appears to be a growing but much ignored phenomenon in organizations today, which is worthy of attention and further research by the HRD community.     

To be or not to be corporate heritage oriented? A study of managers’ corporate heritage mindsets

Corporate heritage is a research topic in branding with managerial relevance to achieve competitive advantages. Research has mainly focussed on companies with a formal corporate heritage orientation, neglecting other companies. In this study, a novel framework has been developed for analysing managers' corporate heritage mindsets as a precondition for a corporate heritage orientation in a non-heritage-oriented company. Individual managers’ corporate image heritage depicts how managers perceive their company over time, hence revealing their corporate heritage mindset. This article proposes that two managerial mindset dimensions matter – corporate heritage recognition and stance. This abductive study combines theory and empirical findings from an industrial company with a long history, but no corporate heritage orientation. The proposed framework offers companies with a history a way to analyse whether corporate heritage could be recognised and employed. This article contributes to corporate heritage research by broadening the applicability of corporate heritage issues.     

Measuring Organizational Performance: A Case for Subjective Measures

We review the organizational performance (OP) measurement literature highlighting the limitations of both objective and subjective measures of performance. We argue that, with careful planning, subjective measures can be successfully employed to assess OP. This is because often consistent, reliable and comparable compatible objective data on OP measures – particularly across countries and sectors – is difficult to come by. Considering that an inflated OP measure can be cross‐checked with the use of secondary data, managers have little incentive to report such figures. As a result, when quizzed over the stand‐alone performance measures of their organizations or vis‐à‐vis their rivals, managers accurately assess and respond to questions on the performance of their organizations. An in‐depth statistical exercise conducted on the subjective measures of OP as reported by managers of four sets of companies in four separate countries, show consistent results, thus lending support to this premise.     

Private and Public Sector Models for Strategies in Universities*

Increasing formalization of disciplined management of UK universities over the last 30 years has been accompanied by moves to articulate universities' strategies, by attempts to connect organizations' plans and management of activity to those strategies and by a desire to measure how well outcomes are fitted to universities' goals. In this complex change in the orientation of universities' management, lessons have been drawn from the contemporary development of the analysis of strategy and strategic process in commercial and, latterly, in public sector settings. It is argued that there have been very significant errors and weaknesses in the importation of such models of strategy, especially in the stress on strategic planning rather than strategic process and in the insensitivity of universities' planning to the underlying strategy process of the typical university. Most universities, it is argued, mistake planning – and even budgeting – for strategy itself, having failed to make proper sense of their own organizations' processes of generating strategies and putting them into practice. They have typically missed the crucial context of strategy and change. It is argued that there are crucial lessons to be learned from recent advances in theorizing about strategy in the private or commercial sector, particularly in relation to the development of modelling complex and path‐dependent systems; and it is argued strongly that universities' strategic process can fruitfully be analysed through the perspectives of real options analysis. This can also accommodate the richness of universities' traditions of strategy formation and implementation within ‘loose‐coupled’ organizations.     

Beneath the mask:: Examining the relationship of self-presentation attributes and impression management to charismatic leadership

We tested several hypotheses derived from Gardner and Avolio's [Acad. Manage. Rev. 23 (1998) 32.] self-presentational theory of charismatic leadership. We collected multisource field data in an information technology (IT) consulting firm and examined linkages among managers' self-system attributes (i.e., desired charismatic identity, self-monitoring), pro-social and self-serving impression management of managers, charismatic leadership of managers, and two measures of performance. Eighty-three managers provided self-reports of self-system attributes. Six months later, 249 subordinates rated the focal managers' impression management and charismatic leadership styles. Superiors of the focal managers provided performance ratings 7 months after collecting the subordinate ratings. Results indicated that complexity of desired charismatic identity was positively related to self-monitoring. Self-monitoring was negatively related to ratings of pro-social impression management and positively related to ratings of self-serving impression management. Pro-social impression management related positively to charismatic leadership, which predicted managerial and unit performance.     

The Case for Managerial Ruthlessness1

This paper summarizes relevant literature and reports on a study which has examined the behaviour and attributes of managers in British mid-sized companies in which growth is a strategic objective. The study used a grounded, interpretive methodology, which allowed the development of theoretical propositions which have not been subject to previous empirical examination. This paper deals with one aspect of the findings, namely ruthlessness on the part of managers in dismissing or otherwise dealing with poorly performing members of staff. This aspect of management was an important factor in the subject organizations' ability to achieve their chosen strategy, and is a phenomenon which does not appear to have been developed in any previous models of effective managerial behaviour. Managerial ruthlessness influences strategic implementation in a number of ways – it affects control of the organization, team building and the ability to respond to changes in the environment or undo mistakes in appointments. This paper also outlines attributes and characteristics of both the individual manager and the organization which allows ruthlessness to be developed and used effectively, for example self-confidence; the ability to ensure that criticism or dismissal is not seen as personal; the separation of work and social life; and the ability to focus on objectives rather than the person. Organizational support and training in such behaviour also appeared to be helpful contributors to the development of such behaviour.     

The promise and perversity of perspective-taking in organizations

Successful managers and leaders need to effectively navigate their organizational worlds, from motivating customers and employees to managing diversity to preventing and resolving conflicts. Perspective-taking is a psychological process that is particularly relevant to each of these activities. The current review critically examines perspective-taking research conducted by both management scholars and social psychologists and specifies perspective-taking's antecedents, consequences, mechanisms, and moderators, as well as identifies theoretical and/or empirical shortfalls. Our summary of the current state of perspective-taking research offers three important contributions. First, we offer a new definition of perspective-taking: the active cognitive process of imagining the world from another's vantage point or imagining oneself in another's shoes to understand their visual viewpoint, thoughts, motivations, intentions, and/or emotions. Second, we highlight that although perspective-taking has many positive benefits for managers and leaders, it also carries with it the potential for perverse effects. Third, we argue that previous theoretical lenses to understand perspective-taking's goal are insufficient in light of all the available evidence. Instead, we offer a new theoretical proposition to capture the full range of perspective-taking's positive and negative effects: perspective-taking helps individuals effectively navigate a world filled with mixed-motive social interactions. Our mixed-motive model of perspective-taking not only captures the current findings but also offers new directions for future research.     

Community-Based Service-Learning: Does It Have a Role in Management Education?

Community based service-learning is a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs, together with structured opportunities designed to promote student learning and development. Can it be effectively applied to address the current struggles of management education? Management education is facing a gap between traditional curricular content and society's needs for new competencies. The Academy is also faced with the challenge of more effectively relating to society's social, economic and civic problems. The results of this analysis indicate that service-learning offers a means of closing the gap by helping to prepare students who are lifelong learners and active, caring participants in their communities. Service-learning appears to be a promising means of developing such managerial skills as leadership, critical thinking, teamwork, and cooperation. The limitations of service-learning for management education are addressed as well.     

Some Implications for Management Development of Research into Managers' Moral Dilemmas

In this paper, we present two cases of moral dilemmas as told by the managers who had faced them. We analyse the cases, drawing on frameworks developed by Toffler (1986), Kohlberg (1981) and Maclagan (1990). We also comment on the broader findings of the research from which the cases were taken. These analyses and findings and those of other researchers (e.g. Waters et al., 1986) suggest a number of requisite ‘moral attributes’ for managers and have, we argue, significant implications for the curriculum for ethical education and development for managers and intending managers. One is that case material needs to reflect more strongly the actual experiences of practising managers; another is that there is scope for wider use of experiential methods on management ethics courses. We conclude with a call for a multifaceted approach to ethical education as a lifespan process entailing the development of personal and interpersonal skills and qualities, and self-knowledge as well as cognitive skills. While we acknowledge that ethical education needs to take account of learners' differing levels of prior experience, stages of moral development and levels of learning maturity, our over-riding concern is that learners are prepared for and helped to live through the very ‘real’ dilemmas that they are likely to experience in managerial work.     

Real-time schedule adjustment decisions: a case study

Service capacity management has been extensively studied and successfully applied in many industries, with an emphasis on tour/shift scheduling and assignment decisions. However, few studies have addressed real-time work schedule adjustment decisions made necessary by demand uncertainty and/or labor supply disruption. This case study deals with the real-time work schedule adjustment decision and investigates the association of managerial experience, workforce mix (full- and part-time staff), and information accuracy with managers’ adjustment decisions. We designed an experiment that involved practicing service managers from a McDonald's franchise who provided their adjustment decisions for a given set of test scenarios. Their decisions were analyzed and evaluated via a controlled experiment. Using profitability as the primary performance measure, the study identifies the following outcomes: First, senior managers of a store with a higher proportion of part-time staff made more adjustments and attained slightly higher profitability than junior managers, when all employees accepted adjusted schedules. Second, managers of a store with a higher proportion of part-time staff were able to make slightly higher profits, particularly when capacity shortages occurred. And third, to achieve the majority of the benefits from schedule adjustments, it is sufficient to search for information that correctly identifies the direction of demand changes, rather than identifying the exact magnitude of the changes.     

Manufacturing Practices and Strategy Integration: Effects on Cost Efficiency,Flexibility, and Market‐Based Performance

Manufacturing plant managers have sought performance improvements through implementing best practices discussed in World Class Manufacturing literature. However, our collective understanding of linkages between practices and performance remains incomplete. This study seeks a more complete theory, advancing the idea that strategy integration and enhanced manufacturing capabilities such as cost efficiency and flexibility serve as intermediaries by which practices affect performance. Hypotheses related to this thesis are tested using data from 57 North American manufacturing plants that are past winners and finalists in Industry Week's“America's Best” competition ( Drickhamer, 2001 ). The results suggest that strategy integration plays a strong, central role in the creation of manufacturing cost efficiency and new product flexibility capabilities. Furthermore, strategy integration moderates the influences of product‐process development, supplier relationship management, workforce development, just‐in‐time flow, and process quality management practices on certain manufacturing capabilities. In turn, manufacturing cost efficiency and new product flexibility capabilities mediate the influence of strategy integration on market‐based performance. These findings have implications for practice and for future research.     

Grasping the Nettle: Possibilities and Pitfalls of a Critical Management Pedagogy

The focus of the paper is a review of the more problematical aspects of introducing a critical perspective into the practice and content of management education. As an introduction, the author summarizes the arguments for critical reflection in the education of managers, the characteristics which distinguish it from ‘reflection’– the more familiar concept in the literature – and ‘critical thinking’. The ways that a critical perspective can be reflected in educational method as well as in the content of the curriculum are also elaborated before describing the problems and complications of implementing such an approach from accounts in the literature of adult and management education. The paper outlines the reasons why critical reflection might be resisted, the mental or social disruption which can result from its application and the implications of both for the practice of management teachers.