Corporate Leadership: Reflections of a CEO and CEO Advisor

This article reviews the careers of five successful CEOs to identify three core ingredients behind the effective management of large corporate groups. From nearly 40 years experience as a CEO and a consultant to CEOs, the author distinguishes culling standards of performance, values and design that motivate people and appropriate and positive growth paths as three ingredients most likely to increase the chances of success for corporate leaders. The paper also analyses two examples of significant failure and suggests modifications to the messages of three leading business academics.     

Sex Composition of Children and Marital Disruption in India

Although it has been suggested that parents of sons are less likely than parents of daughters to divorce, few studies have explored this relationship in societies characterized by a strong preference for sons, where such an effect should be most pronounced. Using data from 116,498 once‐married female respondents to the 1992–1993 and 1998–1999 Indian National Family Health Surveys, we found that at lower parities, having at least one son is associated with a significantly lower risk of divorce or separation. Moreover, with few exceptions, the effect of children's sex composition on the risk of divorce holds for subgroups of Indian women across categories of education, religion, location (urban vs. rural), caste, cohort, and region.     

Minding and Mining the Periphery

This paper cites examples of where peripheral events have caused ripples that reached right to the centre of an organisation. However, it also says that activities on the periphery can be a source of strategic insights. It suggests some tools for creating a sensing organisation that include establishing listening posts and developing communities of practice. It concludes by saying managers need to create the ‘ambidextrous’ corporation, whereby they use these tools for probing the periphery without making them a distraction from the central business.     

Driving Through the Fog: Managing at the Edge

Although the periphery does not occupy the centre of our attention, it should be ignored at our peril. This paper gives many examples of companies that have been heavily influenced by peripheral events, whether they started out there, or whether they hopelessly misread the oncoming signals. It argues that a monitoring of the periphery can help diffuse small problems before they becomes crises. It provides a roadmap for organisations by describing how to define the field of view and how to assess the signals from it.     

Complexity Absorption and Performance: A Structural Analysis of Acute-Care Hospitals

This study assesses the degree to which a complexity absorption response enhances performance in an industry increasingly described as highly complex: acute-care hospitals. Business-level strategy, organizational structure, and analytical comprehensiveness are viewed as mechanisms through which executives can increase internal complexity. A case is made that hospitals are well served to pursue a hybrid (or combination) strategy, employ an organic structure, and engage in a high degree of information acquisition and use. In keeping with a complexity absorption view, results indicate that these elements generally exhibit stronger associations with performance as dynamism increases.