Assessing global leadership competencies: the critical role of assessment centre methodology

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to examine the use of assessment centre (AC) methodology for addressing the ever-increasing demand for effective talent management of global leaders. Research is reviewed on the most commonly used questionnaire tools for assessing global leadership competencies, which lack the AC’s ability to provide behavioural evidence of leadership competency. A literature search is conducted to identify the extent to which scholarly research to date has examined the use of ACs to measure global leadership competencies. Based on the findings from the review of the literature, the authors recommend further exploration of a leadership AC approach as a ‘best practice’ talent management tool for measuring global leadership competencies. A framework is provided for designing ACs to evaluate and provide developmental feedback on the competencies identified as critical for successful leadership performance in an organization’s global environment.     

Leadership Development in Organizations: Multiple Discourses and Diverse Practice

Research on leadership development in organizations is abundant, as are the resources invested in developing their leaders. Although rarely made explicit, much of this writing and activity is driven by functionalist assumptions, with a primary concern for good design and enhanced corporate performance. Given the politically sensitive, culturally complex and institutionally embedded nature of leadership, as well as controversy over the way leadership itself is best defined and developed, the author argues that this reliance on a single perspective is potentially limiting. The aim of this paper is to enhance leadership development practice in organizations by proposing a fresh and theoretically informed approach for exploring the multiple meanings of leadership development. This is done, first, by clarifying the discursive assumptions underlying studies in this field and revealing the distinctive insights that arise from functionalist, interpretive, dialogic and critical discourses of leadership development; and second, by exploring how each of these discourses, or ‘readings’, might promote quite different approaches to leadership development in organizations.     

Enacting Leadership for Collaborative Advantage: Dilemmas of Ideology and Pragmatism in the Activities of Partnership Managers

Working across organizations has long been recognized as a characteristic of public management, but recent years have seen a worldwide intensification in partnership working. Rhetoric about the benefits is endemic but so are complaints about the difficulty of partnership working in practice. Understanding the way that collaborative approaches may provide value is therefore an essential element of understanding the changing roles of public-sector organizations. The particular aim of this paper is to contribute to a growing understanding of the way in which individuals enact leadership roles in such situations. The focus is on partnership managers, whose main role is to organize the activities of a collaboration. The way in which partnership managers enact leadership is explored and insight into the kinds of activities that typically occupy them, the types of challenges and dilemmas that they face and typical ways in which they respond to these is provided. We suggest that the main categories of activities split into two opposing perspectives on leadership. We propose an overarching concept which suggests that collaborative leadership involves the management of a tension between ideology and pragmatism.     

Zeroing in on leadership effectiveness: The methodological challenges of benchmarking leadership practices

Business success in the 21st century will be based on the widespread mastery of leadership roles, rather than on the directives of a professional or leadership elite. The first step for systematically enacting a leadership development agenda for our nation is to identify the factors, values or qualities most important to leadership effectiveness. Next, we must improve our understanding of how these guiding ideas and insights translate into what successful leaders do. As we perfect this understanding, we will need to operationally define the best practices of successful leaders. These best practices must then become benchmarks for intensive leadership development efforts.This article considers nine methodological challenges of the first agenda item-identification of the factors, values or qualities most important to leadership effectiveness. To illustrate these challenges, the authors use their own business leadership research as a case study. This research surveys 127 chairmen, chief executive officers, and presidents-a cross section of successful U.S.A. business leaders, including men and women from all parts of the nation who have diverse industry, racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds. The authors identify where methodological improvements are needed to cope with the challenges of leadership research. They suggest important directions for methodological development and propose three minimum standards for future leadership research.     

East meets West: a case example of knowledge transfer

This article highlights some of the similarities and differences in management theory and practice between the UK and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Central and East European (CEE) states. It does so in the context of a debate over the appropriateness and extent of cultural dominance in knowledge transfer of theory and practice, which has occurred during the last decade, and which is still unresolved. It reviews a scheme for knowledge transfer which offered a flexible structure within which the organizers could amend their material in the light of their growing experience with the way in which the scheme operated, and whereby they might avoid some of the mistakes of cultural dominance made within other schemes offered elsewhere The Joint Industrial and Commercial Attachment Programme (JICAP), its structure, approach and some outcomes are outlined as a case example. Sponsored by the British Council to arrange visits by middle and senior managers from the post-command economies to the UK for intensive management training and work placement in an organization complementary to their home employment, JICAP was typical of the best Western thinking in management development of the time. The espousals and realities, the benefits and flaws in this approach are examined, drawing on the perceptions of the JICAP delegates themselves in terms of their personal and business development. Czarniawska's model of the travel of ideas (Czarniawska and Joerges 1996) is used as an organizing framework within which the problems of knowledge transfer, culturally dominant or maximally flexible, can be examined, and the underlying issues identified. This notion of flexibility, within which alternative perspectives can be negotiated and new meanings created, constitutes the main contribution proposed by this paper.     

Regulating Shareholder Value: A Case Study of the Introduction of Value–based Measures in a Water Company

The implementation of a value–based measurement system within a privatized UK regional water company is examined by means of a longitudinal case study. Evidence is presented of how the system was developed within the context of a regulatory environment, which presented special considerations to the company in designing and implementing an appropriate system. In particular the paper considers the implementation issues surrounding the management of the introduction of the value–based measures at the operational level. The authors describe the drivers behind the introduction of the new system and the technical, political and cultural challenges raised by its implementation.     

Fleet and revenue management in car rental companies: A literature review and an integrated conceptual framework

This paper aims to present, define and structure the car rental fleet management problem, which includes operational fleet management issues and problems traditionally studied under the revenue management framework. The car rental business has challenging and distinctive characteristics, which are mainly related with fleet and decision-making flexibility, and that render this problem relevant for academic research and practical applications. Three main contributions are presented: an in-depth literature review and discussion on car rental fleet and revenue management issues, a novel integrating conceptual framework for this problem, and the identification of research directions for the future development of the field.     

领导理论的演化和前沿进展

对1个世纪以来领导理论研究中的主要历史性成果进行梳理,将其发展脉络分为3个历史阶段进行述评:传统领导理论丛林时期、变革领导理论主导时期和四因素理论萌芽时期;强调每一个领导理论都是在特定背景下对领导实践的一种特定反映和解释,都为该理论的发展做出了重要的历史贡献,并不存在一个绝对的最佳领导模型;最后对领导理论的未来研究进行了展望。     

The Development of Entrepreneurial Leadership: The Role of Human,Social and Institutional Capital

This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial leadership development. Leadership studies are characterized by an increasing emphasis given to an individual leader's social and organizational domain. Within the context of human capital and social capital theory, the paper reflects on the emergence of a social capital theory of leadership development. Using a retrospective, interpretivist research method, the authors present the experience of a cohort of business leaders on an executive development programme to uncover the everydayness of leadership development in practice. Specifically, they explore how entrepreneurial leadership develops as a social process and what the role of social capital is in this. The findings suggest that the enhancement of leaders’ human capital only occurred through their development of social capital. There is not, as extant literature suggests, a clear separation between leader development and leadership development. Further, the analysis implies that the social capital theory of leadership is limited in the context of the entrepreneurial small firm, and the authors propose that it should be expanded to incorporate institutional capital, that is, the formal structures and organizations which enhance the role of social capital and go beyond enriching the human capital stock of individual leaders.     

Leadership development as identity formation: middle managers’ leadership learning from MBA study

This article challenges often unquestioned understandings within human resource development (HRD) of leadership as comprising knowledge and skills and leadership development as involving the transfer of such knowledge and skills from formal interventions to workplace performance. Using the notions of leadership as identity and learning as a process of identity formation, the article reports qualitative research showing how a case-study group of middle managers in a sector of the economy undergoing unprecedented turbulence, UK local government, developed a sense of themselves as leaders and how a key HRD intervention, a corporate MBA, facilitated such identity development. In particular, the article uses situated learning theory to examine how informal communities of practice associated with Master of Business Administration (MBA) study provided a forum for identity building of equal developmental value to the formal MBA curriculum. The implications for future HRD research are established and suggestions made for the re-design of HRD interventions to best enable identity-work.     

实践回应中的领导者价值观研究百年演变

结合管理实践,从领导理论发展的主体脉络、概念化层次视角下的领导2个方面,对百年来国内外领导者价值观研究演变过程中的主要成果进行了归纳和总结,并指出了领导者价值观研究对实践的指导意义,最后提出了领导者价值观研究的未来展望。     

Incorporating social networks into leadership development: A conceptual model and evaluation of research and practice

Multilevel and relational views of leadership are expanding the focus of leadership development beyond individuals' knowledge, skills, and abilities to include the networked patterns of social relationships linking members of dyads and larger collectives. In this review, we present a conceptual model explaining how three distinct approaches for network-enhancing leadership development can improve the leadership capacity of individuals and collectives. We then present a review of the leadership development literature and the results of a survey of 282 practitioners to assess the extent to which these approaches have been examined in research and implemented in practice. Our review revealed that leadership research and leadership development practice are outpacing leadership development research in terms of incorporating networks. We aim to spur future research by clarifying the targets, objectives, and underlying mechanisms of each network enhancing leadership development approach in our conceptual model. Further, we identify additional literature, not traditionally considered within the realm of leadership development that may help advance empirical examinations of these approaches.     

Safety culture: under-specified and overrated?

Is the measurement of 'safety culture' a valid management tool in the effort to reduce accident rate and improve safety performance, or is it a fuzzy academic concept, lacking empirical validation? The answer to this question seems to depend on whom one asks. The UK Health and Safety Commission has encouraged companies to improve their safety performance through the development of a 'positive safety culture'. However, academic discussions in this area suggest that the concept remains vague, lacks empirical validation and is used as an 'umbrella term' for all the social and organizational factors that affect accident rate. This paper reviews the existing literature on safety culture and provides some clarification in terms of definition, empirical evidence and theoretical development. A theoretical framework of the mechanisms by which safety culture affects safety behaviours in organizations is proposed. The implications for practical management issues are discussed and future challenges and areas for further research are identified.     

Organisational buying behaviour in changing times

In a recent paper, Johnston and Lewin (1996) analyse the stream of research on organisational buyer behaviour published over the past 25 to 30 years isolating eight propositions which they encapsulate in their ‘Risk Continuum'. Our paper, reports a comparison between Johnston and Lewin's analysis of the extant literature and current buying practices as revealed by interviews with senior UK buyers. We found that business practice has changed in the intervening years. New, process-driven management styles are changing the way in which UK buyers and suppliers interact, yet work reflecting this change (by, for instance, the European based IMP Group) is under-represented in textbooks and teaching. We question the continuing predominance of the established risk management view of organisational buyer behaviour based upon research conducted in the USA 30 years ago.     

在华跨国公司战略选择与经营策略问题研究

从战略管理的角度出发,研究在华跨国公司的一体化-当地化战略选择,及在特定战略指导下经营策略问题.基于对503家在华跨国公司的问卷分析,得出结论:在华跨国公司存在3种基本的战略类型;选择不同战略的在华跨国公司在绩效方面体现出显著的差异;来自于不同国家或地区的在华跨国公司在一体化-当地化维度上表现出显著的差异;不同的战略选择会导致跨国公司在某些经营策略等方面存在显著不同.     

Is outsourcing of intangibles a real source of competitive advantage?

Intangible investments constitute an emerging and important field of management. The objective of this article is to further consider the problem of intangible resource externalization from a theoretical as well as an operational point of view. The first section reviews the problem of defining intangibles; the second section considers the issue of outsourcing intangibles from a theoretical as well as an operational point of view; the third section reviews the practical issues (especially costrelated) of outsourcing, for two main intangible activities: research and development and information technology services (information logistics functions). The fourth section summarizes the main issues and discusses their implications for accounting analysis and practice.     

“中国实践管理”相关研究热点分析

通过对国家自然科学基金委员会管理科学部认定的30种重要期刊2001～2011年发表的有关"中国实践管理"的研究成果的分析,总结了中国管理实践研究现状及热点问题。基于此,对中国管理学研究未来发展进行了思考与展望。