Career patterns of top managers in Europe: Signs of further globalisation?

Investigating career patterns of top managers has been a prominent topic in European Management Journal (EMJ) since the 1990s. Our article contributes to ongoing debates about national differences in top managers' career patterns between European countries. An open question is whether globalisation processes may have challenged the existence of specific career patterns and whether they may have transformed the profiles of business elites in Europe. Our article uses recent data from four European countries (France, Germany, Switzerland and the UK), collected in a way similar to an EMJ article published in 2013, with the objective to assess potential developments that have taken place over the last decade. Some of the major changes relate to the growing relevance of business school degrees or certificates (such as MBA degrees), a higher proportion of non-nationals and women on boards, more managers with international experience and an increasing number of top managers with a prior career with auditing or consulting firms. The article provides not only new empirical insights, but also a review of the key characteristics of top managers’ careers, some methodological reflections on cross-national comparison and new research avenues at the cross-roads of career literature and upper echelons literature. By shedding light on the career patterns of key decision-makers in large European firms, the article offers new insights for researchers, educators and managers alike.     

A review of hedge funds and their investor activism: do they help or hurt other equity investors?

Hedge funds tend to be highly activist investors who exercise their ??principal power?? over their portfolio firms. We observe that, compared to other investor types, hedge funds appear to be even more activist than is predicted by a comprehensive Investor Activism Model, due to the unexpectedly large role of several antecedent variables. This conclusion suggests that the relatively lightly regulated environment of hedge funds affects the weighting of conventional activism-antecedent variables. We explore how their access to several investing and trading strategies is allowing hedge funds to redefine investor activism. In the process, we find that, while hedge funds and their activism tend to benefit fellow investors, the potential exists for some specific hedge fund types to expropriate value from minority shareholders, creating ??principal?Cprincipal?? conflict. The potentially detrimental impact of hedge fund activism on other equity investors is demonstrated, illuminating several current policy concerns.     

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.     

Physician and nonphysician managers as decision makers: are the differences justified or just an illusion?

If the cost of health care is to be curtailed, it is necessary to understand physician behavior and decision making. Not only is physician decision making critical from a clinical perspective, but, as the number of physician executives increases, they must be able to integrate their clinical expertise and management skills into the business context. This article explores differences in decision making methods between physician and nonphysician managers.     

Safety culture: Philosopher's stone or man of straw?

This introductory paper to the special issue on Safety Culture considers some of the key issues relating to the nature, measurement and utility of this concept. It argues that there are many important questions still unanswered: what is safety culture and what is its theoretical basis (the question of definition), is it synonymous with safety climate, what are the essential characteristics of a 'good' safety culture and how might they be best measured, what are the reliability, validity and utility of existing measures of safety culture, and how does the concept contribute-if at all-to good safety systems and performance? Can an organization's safety culture be related to additional parameters (such as accident and incident performance) which are judged both within and outside the organization by the full range of stake-holders? Finally, the authors consider future issues and the future direction of work in this area.     

The ascendancy of primary care: permanent or temporary?

The conventional wisdom strongly suggests a health care provider food chain for the future: Primary care physicians (PCPs), principally family practitioners, on the top playing the lead role, distantly followed by specialists, with hospitals and other ancillary services even further down the line. Is this a reasonable expectation? Will PCPs dominate the new systems? Or will they be but one of many equally necessary components of these developing integrated health care delivery organizations? Looking at the various models now developing, it would seem that future integrated delivery systems will utilize both PCPs and specialists, but with strong augmentation from a diverse assortment of other health care professionals, including nonphysician providers, educators, and administrators. To separate the illusion of primary care dominance of the coming health care system from the likely reality, we should first determine what is driving the apparent present demand for primary care physicians. Next, we will examine the possible and probable reactions to that demand from an economic standpoint and from the points of view of both health care professionals and the public. Finally, we must try to picture how health care provider organizations of the future are likely to look and how they will integrate their health care professionals.     

Part-time medical director: way station or end of the line?

This article is mostly directed to physicians who are contemplating a career change into management. You may be one of those persons who is contemplating taking a part-time position and continuing part-time clinical practice to see if you might enjoy management. It is important to understand that a part time medical director is there primarily because management perceives a need for a physician's skills and license. When a physician is hired on a part-time basis, it is unlikely that management realizes the larger benefits that can accrue to the organization from the physician manager's knowledge of health care and unique approach to the problems and opportunities in the delivery of that health care. Part-time medical directors seldom have an opportunity to be exposed to real management issues and activities and are usually sequestered and limited to functions that a naive management team thinks are most appropriate to a physician's skills and temperament. Be cautious in extrapolating a part-time experience to a full-time role. Consider taking the plunge to full-time management without a part-time transition phase.     

Private external funding of universities: Blind alley or new opening?

Review of Managerial Science - Of late, the problems of private external, or third-party funding of universities have been the subject of much debate, even at universities of economics and...     

Trust in Risk Regulation: Cause or Consequence of the Acceptability of GM Food?

Although there is ample empirical evidence that trust in risk regulation is strongly related to the perception and acceptability of risk, it is less clear what the direction of this relationship is. This article explores the nature of the relationship, using three separate data sets on perceptions of genetically modified (GM) food among the British public. The article has two discrete but closely interrelated objectives. First, it compares two models of trust. More specifically, it investigates whether trust is the cause (causal chain account) or the consequence (associationist view) of the acceptability of GM food. Second, this study explores whether the affect heuristic can be applied to a wider number of risk-relevant concepts than just perceived risk and benefit. The results suggest that, rather than a determinant, trust is an expression or indicator of the acceptability of GM food. In addition, and as predicted, "affect" accounts for a large portion of the variance between perceived risk, perceived benefit, trust in risk regulation, and acceptability. Overall, the results support the associationist view that specific risk judgments are driven by more general evaluative judgments The implications of these results for risk communication and policy are discussed.     

Autonomy and Regulation of State Agencies: Reinforcement,Indifference or Compensation?

This paper analyses the relationships between the autonomy and regulation of state agencies in Norway, Ireland and Flanders (Belgium). The empirical basis is provided by broad surveys of public sector organizations carried out in 2002–2004. Three hypotheses on these relationships are formulated and examined, indicating different patterns. The reinforcement hypothesis, stating a negative relationship does not get any support. On the other hand, the compensation hypothesis, stating a positive relationship gets some support. In general, however, the indifference hypothesis, stating low or no correlations seems to be the most adequate. The hypotheses are also linked to prevalent administrative doctrines, and the empirical findings indicate how relevant they are.

Differences in Expert and Lay Judgments of Risk: Myth or Reality?

This article evaluates the nine empirical studies that have been conducted on expert versus lay judgments of risk. Contrary to received wisdom, this study finds that there is little empirical evidence for the propositions (1) that experts judge risk differently from members of the public or (2) that experts are more veridical in their risk assessments. Methodological weaknesses in the early research are documented, and it is shown that the results of more recent studies are confounded by social and demographic factors that have been found to correlate with judgments of risk. Using a task-analysis taxonomy, a template is provided for the documentation of future studies of expert-lay differences/similarities that will facilitate analytic comparison.     

Discourses of Diversity,Equality and Inclusion: Trenchant Formulations or Transient Fashions?

Using bibliometric analysis of published work, we examine the discursive trends, patterns and implications of three different anti‐discrimination solutions (equality, diversity and inclusion) over a 40‐year period from 1970 to 2010. The findings reveal that the anti‐discrimination discourses are consistent with management fashions, in terms of both their trends and the rhetorical strategies used by proponents to establish the dominance of their favoured approach, particularly by denigrating previous approaches. Practitioner‐facing academics play a key role in the process by giving shape, exposure and credibility to the anti‐discrimination solutions, but not in creating them. Only by breaking free of the oppositional discursive patterns can the debate move on to anti‐discrimination solutions that attempt to blend together equality, diversity and inclusion.     

Following the Herd or Not?: Patterns of Renewal in the Netherlands and the UK

How do large firms conduct their strategic renewal journeys in an increasingly turbulent environment? Are there generic industry patterns, or are these renewal journeys country- or firm-specific? To answer these questions, we examine the relative incidence of external versus internal and explorative versus exploitative renewal actions, and their speed, in leading Dutch and UK financial service companies using longitudinal data. The context, content and process dimensions of strategic renewal are distinguished, and research questions about these attributes are formulated and investigated using new metrics. Findings show that while exploration/exploitation ratios are fairly similar for firms across the entire industry, systematic differences are evident between the external/internal renewal ratios of Dutch and UK firms, and that speed of renewal is largely determined at the firm level. Thus we find that industry-, country- and firm-specific factors all influence journeys of strategic renewal in distinctive and complementary ways.     

The effect of large controlling shareholders on equity prices in France: monitoring or entrenchment?

Journal of Management and Governance - The corporate governance literature has shown that firms with better governance exhibit higher abnormal returns. In this paper, we examine the effect of cash...     

The Role of Entrepreneurship in the Context of Career Trajectories: Moving Back into Wage Employment or into Unemployment?

This study investigates patterns of movement from self‐employment to wage employment or to unemployment in Belgium. Non‐parametric techniques and complimentary log–log analyses are used to determine the significance of stable individual traits (e.g. gender) and of time‐dependent characteristics (e.g. family and organizational context, labour market mobility) in moving back to wage employment or to unemployment. Evidence is provided on the possibility of entrepreneurship acting as a ‘steppingstone’ between long‐term unemployment and paid work. Yet, significant relationships also emerge between ex‐ante time spent in unemployment and the possibility of continued unemployment upon self‐employment exit.     

The role of the audit committee in Thailand: a mature monitoring mechanism or an evolving process?

Following the East Asia financial crisis of 1997 in common with other countries, Thailand mimicked a series of governance measures, including the mandatory formation of audit committees (AC), that were designed in western developed nations with diffuse share ownership, although evidence about the success of these measures in developed nations is mixed. This research contributes to understanding of the role of ACs in a non-English speaking developing country, where share ownership is concentrated, rather than diffuse. It examines the perceptions of audit committee members, investors and analysts about the roles ACs perform and the importance of these roles. To obtain a large number of responses we have used a questionnaire survey method. We adopt Spira’s (Corporate Governance: an International Review 6(1):29–38, 1998) model of evolutionary development of ACs in which they are characterised as developing along a continuum from an ‘infant’ to a ‘mature’ stage of development, although such development need not be linear. The majority of our participants report that ACs perform roles that are in line with international guidelines, but this appears to reflect a passive role in terms of complying with, rather than developing guidance and regulation. Our evidence reveals that the ACs placed greater emphasis on internal control systems, including internal audit and review of audit fees, than on roles associated with external audit and financial statements, indicative of an early stage in the process of evolutionary development.