Pension Fund Trustees:: Role and Contribution

Although Boards of Trustees have statutory authority over pension fund investment, how these boards exercise their responsibility is considered to vary unduly. Recently, pension fund trustees have been under pressure from government, sponsors and beneficiaries. The question being asked is, ‘What is the trustee’s role and contribution?’. In response, a UK-based study conducted at Cranfield School of Management explores, from the trustees’ perspective, the nature of their role and contribution.The results of the study highlight that in addition to pension fund trustees being mindful of their fiduciary duties, under trust law, by acting at all times in their beneficiaries’ best financial interests, they also make a valuable contribution to seven key areas of activity considered as critical to pension fund management. It is concluded that trustees are well capable of positionally responding to the challenges they face within the financial markets environment and utilize external resources, such as financial services consultants, effectively.     

Leadership development:: A review in context

Interest in leadership development is strong, especially among practitioners. Nonetheless, there is conceptual confusion regarding distinctions between leader and leadership development, as well as disconnection between the practice of leadership development and its scientific foundation. The present review examines the field of leadership development through three contextual lenses: (1) understanding the difference between leader development and leadership development (conceptual context); (2) reviewing how state-of-the-art development is being conducted in the context of ongoing organizational work (practice context); and (3) summarizing previous research that has implications for leadership development (research context). The overall purpose is to bridge the practice and science of leadership development by showing the importance of building both human and social capital in organizations. Specific practices that are reviewed include 360-degree feedback and executive coaching, mentoring and networking, and job assignments and action learning. Practices and research are framed in terms of a general need to link leader development, which is primarily based on enhancing human capital, with leadership development that emphasizes the creation of social capital in organizations.     

Hawthorne:

The Relay Assembly Test Room study in the famous research that produced the Hawthorne effect can be regarded as an early OBM experiment. As was shown in reexamination and analysis more than four decades later, it involved both monetary reinforcement and discriminative feedback and had numerous points in common with contemporary OBM investigations. From that restudy have been derived some lessons for productivity that are pertinent today, involving conditions of work, information feedback, money incentivation, removal of disincentives, job enlargement, job satisfaction, job attendance, automation and potentiation, and long-term investment. The Hawthorne research left a richer legacy than has been generally realized.     

Endorsing Comments: Public Organization Review: An Appreciation

Public Organization Review -     

Occupational Safety:

After a feedback condition, assigned (foreman-selected) and participative (worker-selected) goal-setting were examined to determine how they might augment the safety performance of 150 workers in 17 rooms of a paper mill. A statistical comparison of performance under assigned goal-setting, with that under baseline conditions of feedback-alone demonstrated a significant increase in the percentage of nonhazardous conditions but not of safe practices. Goal-setting by workers did not produce significant increases for either practices or conditions, and rates of injuries remained at the same reduced level as during feedback-alone. A visual analysis of a graphic plot of repeated performance measures suggested that trends established during feedback alone could account, in part, for the improvements. Possibly ceiling effects and the stated opinions of workers about various attributes of goal-setting may have been related to the outcomes.     

Individual Feedback:

Gainsharing programs have been implemented at an increasing rate in the last decade by American firms. This article examines several definitionsyand types of gainsharing, traces its history from Scanlon Plans in the 1930s to Improshare in the 1980s, and describes the results of thirteen surveys and twenty-nine case studies of gainsharing programs. In conclusion, an operant theory based on the matching law is suggested to provide a theoretical framework for future research on the effectiveness of gainsharing interventions.     

The Retirement Syndrome:: The Psychology of Letting Go

This article analyzes a problem that can be described as the retirement syndrome. In exploring the difficulties many leaders face in letting go at the end of a full career, it reviews a number of the barriers to exit: financial, social, and psychological. It looks at the physical and psychological effects of aging, in the context of retirement; examines the experience of nothingness that single-minded careerists often feel after retirement; describes the talion principle, a subliminal fear of reprisals; and discusses the ‘edifice complex,’ the wish to leave behind a legacy. The article concludes with suggestions as to how individuals and organizations can develop more effective and humane disengagement strategies.