The diversity gap in leadership: What are we missing in current theorizing?

Relational models of organizational inequalities offer numerous insights around the role of micro, meso and macro processes that drive differential progress of diverse individuals into senior leadership roles. We propose that the Bourdieusian relational framework of capital, habitus and field, and Bourdieu's conception of symbolic violence, provide a powerful explanatory lens for understanding the continuing lack of diversity among our corporate leaders. In applying this framework, we highlight critical shortcomings in current conceptions of leadership development and significant implications for leadership theory. We highlight the ways in which gendered and racialized structures are created and reinforced preventing access to opportunities for corporate leadership to diverse individuals. Future leadership theorizing needs to place greater attention upon the context in which development occurs, how valuable capital comes to be prescribed, as well as the forces at work in generating structures that perpetuate differential access to the capital necessary to progress as leaders.     

The impact of gendered power relations in HRD

This study examined how gender and power influence the interpersonal relationships among human resource development (HRD) managers. Specifically, the study focused on the workplace experiences of HRD managers and the strategies they used to negotiate their day-to-day interactions. A qualitative approach was used to examine respondents' experiences as well as the social contexts that framed their workplace relationships. Five female and five male HRD managers were interviewed using critical incident techniques to explore specific workplace interactions. Two major conclusions of the study indicated that the experiences of female and male respondents regarding the exercise of power were profoundly different and that the strategies used by respondents generally reflected the gendered contexts of power.     

基于元胞自动机的企业集团信用风险传递仿真

 企业集团作为商业银行的重要客户,其内部信用风险传递机制的仿真与预测研究对于商业银行的风险控制尤其重要。而传统的仿真方法或者没有考虑到企业集团其本身的结构特性,或者过分依赖于具体随机过程的假定,大大降低了其结论的可靠性。因此,本文引入在生物与计算机领域广泛使用的元胞模型对企业集团内部关联信用风险传递机制进行仿真与模拟。研究发现,企业集团中的信用风险传递会出现风险分散和风险扩大两种不同的效应,并且母公司可以选择对各子公司的最优控制度使得母公司的违约概率最低。     

Psychodynamik von Geld und Besitz in mittelständischen Familienunternehmen

The author discusses experiences during a research project dealing with family businesses. In those businesses the individual psychodynamic of family members is closely confounded with the dynamics of necessary role behavior. One of the most critical situations is the successful succession of generations. Those processes are often subverted by an unconscious destructiveness resulting from unresolved, often gendered interpersonal conflicts and multiple insults. To support family businesses saving their future consultants have to be sensible not only for economical profit but for emotional gratification too, creating an atmosphere which allows all participants speaking freely about their hopes and fears. The article presents social configurations which a consultant must comprehend well if he wants to give reliable orientations to their clients.     

Learning and development experiences of self-initiated expatriate women in the United Arab Emirates

The article explores self-initiated expatriate women's experiences of working and learning in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Adler's (Adler, N. 1987. Pacific basin managers: A Gaijin, not a woman. Human Resource Management 26, no. 2: 169–91) seminal study and Tung's (Tung, R.L. 2004. Female expatriates: The model of the global manager. Organizational Dynamics 33: 243–53) research suggest that expatriate women operating in a foreign host culture are categorized as a ‘Third Gender’: host nationals would perceive them as ‘foreign’ first and ‘women’ second, consequently according them different privileged treatment inworkplaces than host national women colleagues. This qualitative study of self-initiated expatriate women highlights how the women's constructions of themselves as ‘foreign’ and ‘female’ in the UAE provide a lens through which they reflect upon their own experiences of learning and development. In the absence of support from their own organizations and/or driven by their own aspirations, the women embarked upon their professional development initiatives; networking, coaching and formal qualifications. Key themes of vulnerability in being a foreigner, gendered workplaces, informal learning and women's agency in their own learning and development emerge from the analysis. The women's experiences suggest that their ‘Third Gender’ identity frames both constraints and opportunities within their social and work environment. The research focus on self-initiated expatriate women developing their professional practice, without the organizational Human Resource Development (HRD) support normally provided for assigned expatriates, is a key contribution to HRD, expatriate and international management literature where gender has tended to be ignored.     

Entrepreneurship among the Displaced and Dispossessed: Exploring the Limits of Emancipatory Entrepreneuring

This paper explores the links between entrepreneurship, emancipation and gender within the international development arena. Through a longitudinal analysis of a micro‐enterprise development project in which intermediary organizations contract traditional handicrafts from female home‐based producers, we focus on the impact of contracting policies on the ability of the desperately poor to improve their disadvantaged position. Our critical analysis reveals how intermediaries who impose exclusive contracting conditions, supposedly to protect the women's interests, actually constrain the emancipatory potential of the women's entrepreneurial activities. However, such contractual limitations generate collaborative networks enabling the women to challenge these constraints in an effort to assert control over their activities. Accordingly, this paper contributes to contemporary debates concerning the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship within the context of development. We advance this analysis through a gendered evaluation of the role of intermediary organizations on entrepreneurial emancipation and related empowerment.     

‘Female Heroes’: Celebrity Executives as Postfeminist Role Models

This paper explores the significance of contemporary celebrity businesswomen as role models for women aspiring to leadership in business. We explore the kind of gendered ideals they model and promote to women through their autobiographical narratives, and analyse how these ideals map against a contemporary postfeminist sensibility to further understand the potential of these role models to redress the under‐representation of women in management and leadership. Our findings show that celebrity businesswomen present a role model that we call the ‘female hero’, a figure characterized by 3Cs: confidence to jump over gendered barriers; control in managing these barriers; and courage to push through them. We argue that the ‘female hero’ role model is deeply embedded in the contemporary postfeminist sensibility; it offers exclusively individualized solutions to inequality by calling on women to change themselves to succeed, and therefore has limited capacity to challenge the current gendered status quo in management and leadership. The paper contributes to current literature on role models by generating a more differentiated and socially situated understanding of distant female role models in business and extending our understanding of their potential to generate sustainable and long‐term change in advancing gendered change in management and leadership.     

Gender disparity in the C-suite: Do male and female CEOs differ in how they reached the top?

Through a comparison of the life and career trajectories of thirty male and thirty female CEOs of large organizations, this study offers insights into the genesis of gender disparity in corporate leadership positions, discusses the implications for leadership development, and puts forward a model explaining the disparity in CEO roles. We found gendered patterns in the accumulation of career relevant experiences stretching back to birth into working lives that created significant and cumulative limitations upon the ability of women to access CEO roles and the types of CEO appointments available to them. Limited access to career relevant experiences in childhood, adolescence and in organizations lead to on-going limitations in capital accumulation throughout women's careers. Implications of our findings for both theory and practice are discussed.     

Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe im betrieblichen Alltag von Frauen

Support of self-support in the workplace of women. Examples of the work of the gender equality unit of the City of Munich The structures of organizations and of co-operation in the workplace are gendered. To plan successfully their career advancement, women should analyze the gendered framework of their workplace and include the facts in their strategic considerations. Women who visit the gender equality unit of the City of Munich with problems in the workplace are oriented in this direction. This paper gives a short introduction in the idea of counselling. The implementation is illustrated by four examples. Case work is complementary to a strategic approach developing employment equality for women.     

基于“发展”导向的企业绩效评价研究

针对适应市场经济的需要,本文提出了基于“发展”导向的企业评价理论与方法。首先,从企业评价理论发展和实践需要的角度,分析了建立基于“发展”导向的企业评价理论与方法的必要性,然后,以煤炭企业为例,从数量性、竞争力、有效性、风险性四个侧面构建了煤炭企业发展绩效评价的指标体系。针对煤炭企业发展依赖于其基础条件的天然性,呈现明显的“资源”与“区位”优势,而形成企业间的投入与产出“级差”的特点,提出其评价标准的确定应在对企业分类基础上进行,并依据科学性、动态性、激励性、公认性、可计量性等原则和各个指标的性质与特点,采用相应的方法确定了各个指标的评价标准。最后,建立了煤炭企业发展绩效综合评价模型。     

Intervention Research as Management Research in Practice: Learning from a Case in the Fashion Design Industry

Research in the field of management and organizational sciences has yielded a deeper understanding of many emerging business issues. However, the relevance of the contributions has been increasingly criticized, in both the academic and public spheres. We propose the intervention research approach – originally developed by the research group at Ecole des Mines de Paris – as a design science approach able to address both the relevance gap issue and the growing complexity of management practice. It is argued that increasing our understanding of management requires research that is more insightful, influential and immediately applicable. This in turn requires closer collaboration between management and researchers during the inquiry process, which is not always easy to achieve. An illustrative case study of an intervention research project focusing on creativity, conducted in Italy in collaboration with a fashion company, demonstrates how intervention research can be rigorous and relevant to practitioners, and how it can advance theoretical knowledge in management science.     

Changing Leadership and Gender in Public Sector Organizations

The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which leadership at middle management level in the public realm is gendered. This is attempted largely through a consideration of academic literature, supported by some empirical findings from a research investigation into higher education and social work in Sweden and England and a review of literature that reveals varying types of leadership characterized as masculinist. Taking the position that context shapes social relationships and subject positions, and provides opportunities as well as constraints, we consider leadership in the public sector under the sway of new public management, framed by neo‐liberalism and the valorization of competition, self‐interested instrumentality, uncertainty and risk, operationalized in public sector organizations through performative regimes. It is argued that while some women and men are willing participants in the new regimes, others are antagonistic or ambivalent, finding themselves mired in neo‐bureaucratic processes of surveillance and control, often stuck in occupational cul‐de‐sacs. It is contended that neo‐liberalism and new public management are associated with masculinist forms of rationality that elevate individual winners and losers and divert attention from collective issues of gender. Rather than focus on gendered styles of leadership it is suggested that it is more important to look at their gendered performance and effects.     

Strategic planning for small and medium-sized enterprises: The COMPASS project

The paper introduces a methodology and a set of software tools designed to support the definition and implementation of enterprise strategies particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises SMEs . The COMPASS method and tools support a stepwise refinement of basic strategic options and a simulation-based evaluation taking into account the objectives the SME has given itself. They assist in the derivation of detailed project plans, and they help monitoring the success of the chosen strategy. Inexperienced users can taken advantage of the built-in knowledge and experience in the field of strategic planning which reflects the actual state of the art in economic science. The paper describes the method and tools which were developed in the ESPRIT project 6617 COMPASS, and discusses their strong and weak points in the light of experience gained during test applications in three SMEs.     

An in-depth case study on the role of industrial design in a business-to-business company

In this paper, we investigate how managers perceive the roles of industrial design, based on their experiences with designers in two product development projects in a business-to-business environment. The study demonstrates that designers can make contributions that surpass the design of physical products, and that influence the effective implementation of product development processes. Our findings extend the limited literature on the role of industrial design in industrial markets, and are of value for managers looking to strengthen their product development processes.     

双重成本控制标准作用下的员工激励模型研究

成本控制标准的设置以及对员工的激励,一直是管理科学研究的重要议题。随着企业环境的演化和变迁,人们对泰勒单层次的成本控制标准及其激励制度提出了质疑,出现了双重成本控制标准这一新生概念。双重成本控制标准在企业中的作用效度与员工个体理性需求的满足程度以及企业效益的最大化存在密切的关系。本文在分析双重成本标准控制作用下员工效用函数和企业收益函数基础上,建立满足员工个体理性需求和企业收益最大化要求的激励模型。算例对模型求解进一步表明,双重成本控制标准作用下的员工激励模型对于激发员工控制成本积极性,提高企业收益水平都具有重要作用。     

Gendered Identification: Between Idealization and Admiration

While much of the literature on gender focuses on role models, this paper extends the understanding of gendered professional identification processes by exploring these processes through the lenses of idealization and admiration. Using the method of discourse analysis to analyse MBA students' accounts of people with whom they identify, this paper explores discourses of idealization, defined as aggrandizing a person, and of admiration, which means discussing positive as well as negative and neutral characteristics of a person. It is shown, first, that most male and female MBA students idealized the self‐made ‘authentic’ CEO or founder of an organization and, second, that women mainly admired other women through naming their positive, neutral and negative attributes. The paper thereby adds to understanding of how gendered identification processes are structured by idealization and admiration.     

基于SIR传染病模型的技术扩散模型的研究

科技进步推动经济和社会发展是技术扩散来实现的,所以研究技术扩散现象具有十分重要的理论和现实意义.于技术扩散过程类似于传染病的蔓延过程,因此本文利用经典的传染病模型(SIR模型)建立了单一技术在单一企业群中扩散的SIR技术扩散模型、单一技术在多个企业群中扩散的SIR技术扩散模型和多种竞争技术在单一企业群中扩散的SIR技术扩散模型,并通过对三种模型的分析,研究了技术扩散现象的一般规律.     

The Benefits and Costs of Using Metadata to Improve Enterprise Document Search

The literature shows that there are many problems with enterprise document search. Studies reveal that typical knowledge workers spend between 10% and 20% of their time searching for documents they never find. While many argue that metadata can improve enterprise document search, in reality few organizations use metadata. This represents a missed opportunity. This article describes the results of two experiments that use simulation to evaluate the actual impact of metadata on the costs and benefits of enterprise search. The first study provides quantitative evidence of the increase in recall and precision that stems from the use of metadata‐enhanced document searches. The second study demonstrates that simple metadata structures can be nearly as effective as complex ones, implying that the cost of creating and maintaining metadata is likely to be lower than generally thought. This is the first study to provide explicit quantitative evidence of the gains that can be achieved from the use of metadata, and one of only a handful of studies that examines the cost of creating and maintaining metadata.     

Interdisciplinary and Interorganizational Research: Establishing the Science of Enterprise Networks

We review and discuss the evolution of interdisciplinary and interorganizational research in operations management and suggest directions for future investigations. The proposed operations management research focus is one that embraces a more holistic view of an “extended enterprise” which involves working with a new business model—the organization as a network. This methodology starts by treating the organization as a system that is enabled by information technology and is characterized by ubiquitous information sharing across traditional enterprise. Proper integration of technology, business processes and people factors needs to be developed to create higher value from networked enterprises. Operations management research future lies in establishing this science from an interdisciplinary perspective. We analyze this perspective in the context of papers published in the first 50 issues of Production and Operations Management and the related literature.