Coaching von F��hrungskr?ften in Change Management Prozessen

In times of change Executives often face unexpected and conflicting challenges that require special effort to be reconciled. On the one hand, Top Management continues to raise performance demands on them. On the other hand, employees expect from their supervisors clear direction and emotional support. To enhance Executives?? effectiveness in change companies often deploy Executive Coaching to provide cadre with methodological support in designing and leading corporate transformation. This is based on the fact that change will be more sustainable if solutions are developed in a participative way by members of the organization themselves. Based on an analysis of leadership challenges in times of change the paper outlines critical competences that help to successfully manage volatility, and presents a proven framework for Executive Change Management Coaching.     

Positive confirmation bias in the acquisition of information

An experiment is reported which tests for positive confirmation bias in a setting in which individuals choose what information to buy, prior to making a decision. The design – an adaptation of Wason's selection task – reveals the use that subjects make of information after buying it. Strong evidence of positive confirmation bias, in both information acquisition and information use, is found; and this bias is found to be robust to experience. It is suggested that the bias results from a pattern of reasoning which, although producing sub-optimal decisions, is internally coherent and which is self-reinforcing.     

The Other Le Grand? Evaluating the 'Other Invisible Hand' in Welfare Services in England

Competition and choice have become central means of improving public services in England. The former adviser to the Blair government Julian Le Grand has suggested that increased choice and competition should be the cornerstone of policy that aims to deliver more responsive and fairer results for the public. This article explores Le Grand's claims, deploying the conditions earlier suggested by him to examine the conditions which 'quasi-markets will have to meet if they are to succeed as instruments of social policy'. Claims about the efficacy of choice and competition policies in 2007 are assessed against the earlier conditions of market structure, information, transaction costs, uncertainty, motivation and cream-skimming, to examine the extent to which the reforms Le Grand has most recently proposed meet the conditions he earlier suggested would be necessary for markets to work in the public sector.     

Elwood Buffa's Pioneering Contributions to Production and Operations Management

Elwood Spencer Buffa, a pioneer in production and operations management (P/OM), passed away in the summer of 2005, leaving his legacy behind. During his academic career Buffa made lasting contributions to teaching and research of P/OM. We review those contributions and their impact on the evolution of the P/OM discipline.     

The recurrence of new age typology

Abstract

This essay examines the recurrence of New Age typologies in different ages and different cultures. The archetype is defined as the revolutionary idealist who is intellectual, declassé, an experimenter and a seeker after truth. The essay then proceeds to compare and contrast key intellectual and spiritual figures to establish the extent to which they conform to the archetype: Percy Shelley and Otto Gross, Mahatma Gandhi and St. Francis of Assisi. It concludes with an examination of the career and ideas of John Middleton Murry and argues the case for him to be seen as a New Age archetype — the New Age man of letters.     

Information loss on the dependence parameter due to incomplete data from a one-parameter spatial gaussian process

The Fisher information loss on the dependence parameter is considered for three one-parameter Gaussian processes on a rectangular lattice when some values are not observed. Formulae are given for the general case, and simplified versions for two of the special cases. Approximations are considered, and cases with a small number of missing sites are compared.     

Bayesian coverage optimization models

Finding a subset collection that provides optimal population coverage is a frequently encountered deterministic problem. A random sample is often used to formulate the optimal coverage (OC) model, which is then used to select the subsets that provide the estimated optimal population coverage. Such problems are ubiquitous and occur in both the public and private sectors; examples include media selection, placement of municipal services such as sirens and waste dumps, and reserve site selection. Conceptualizing sample elements as counts in a contingency table, we show how decision-makers can combine prior information with sample data to help formulate OC models. We consider conjugate and vague priors with classical and empirical Bayesian interpretations. We show that the predictive approach yields a common marketing exposure model that has previously been justified empirically. Finally, we demonstrate the potential importance of our results on problems generated from a well-known example from the literature.     

F��hrung durch Selbstf��hrung �C Konzept, Messung und Korrelate

In this article, an empirical study on super-leadership is documented. Based on the self-leadership approach a questionnaire was developed to evaluate super-leadership. 175 employees from various branches have participated to this study. Explorative factor analysis revealed two dimensions of super-leadership which could be interpreted as ??coaching and communicative support?? and ??promoting autonomy and self-responsibility??. Further data analysis showed positive correlations between super-leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness. Partly depending on the degree of organizational decentralization, positive correlations were also found between super-leadership and overall job satisfaction. Implications for research and potential applications will be discussed.