Avoiding the valley of death in educating strategists

Billions of dollars and hundreds of millions of hours are invested every year in executive education. However, much of this investment dies in a familiar “Valley of Death” (VoD) wherein what is learned in the classroom is not applied when the strategist returns back to work. Based on 30 in-depth interviews and live observation, we investigate the architecture of an executive education program designed to avoid the VoD. In the observed program, senior partners of a strategy consulting firm, and their key strategist clients, are brought together to co-learn strategy associated with scenario planning, and, at the same time, improve their ongoing business relations. We find that adopting a “paired learning structure” and utilizing “live case content” results in “group-level co-learning” (or the co-production of knowledge) that, participants report, avoids the VoD. This research contributes to the scholarship on learning architecture in executive education by establishing linkages to the literature on client-partner relationships, modelling the student, and service co-production in knowledge-intensive organizations, and, in the end, provides a blueprint that professional service firms and business schools, seeking to produce more value for their participants, can jointly emulate.     

Book Reviews

Indonesia: the making of a culture. James J. Fox (ed.). 286pp, maps, figures, tables, bibliographies. (Vol. 1 in Indonesia: Australian Perspectives. James J. Fox, Ross Garnaut, Peter McCawley, J.A.C. Mackie (eds).) Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. 1980. $10.

Mekeo: inequality and ambivalence in a village society. Epeli Hau’ofa. x, 3 39pp., maps, figures, tables, plates, appendices, glossary, bibliography, index. Canberra: Australian National University Press. 1981. $19.50.

Tribal communities in rural areas. Elspeth Young, xxiii, 230pp., maps, figures, tables, bibliography. (The Aboriginal Component in the Australian Economy, no. 1.) Canberra: Development Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, The Australian National University. 1981. $9.

Women in India and Nepal. Michael Allen and S.N. Mukerjee (eds). xiii, 286pp., figures, bibliographies, index. Canberra: The Australian National University (Monographs on South Asia no. 8). 1982. $10.     

Employment Relationships and Firm Innovation: The Double Role of Human Capital

We examine how employment relationships and human capital influence innovation in a sample of Spanish firms. Previous research has indicated that human capital directly affects innovation, but few studies have considered human capital as a variable that mediates or moderates the effects of other variables on innovation. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 150 innovative Spanish firms and confirmed that, while human capital favours innovations, employment relationships are not directly associated with innovation unless they take human capital into account. Specifically, our analyses suggest that human capital mediates the relationship between a mutual investment employment relationship and innovation, which is characterized by high levels of incentives and expectations. However, we also found that human capital plays a moderating role when organizations develop an employment relationship characterized by low investments in personnel but high expectations from their work (the underinvestment model). We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results.     

Correction to: Blurring the Lines Between Civil Society,Volunteering and Social Movements. A Reflection on Redrawing Boundaries Inspired by the Spanish Case

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This paper should have appeared in the special issue presented here, but was previously published.     

Bitter strawberries: the construction of differences in a multicultural school: a case study

This paper presents the results of a case study looking at the views of teachers and other educational professionals pertaining to the academic progress and general integration of immigrant schoolchildren in multicultural schools in the province of Huelva (Andalusia, Spain). It is organised into three sections: first, the geographical and social context of the study is described, focusing in particular on the impact on schools of migratory trends within the province associated with strawberry cultivation. This is followed by a presentation of the results of a field study into the educational panorama of immigrant pupils from various countries, drawing on verbal reports by teachers and school administrators. Finally, some conclusions are suggested for possible categories of analysis with a view to opening new lines of research in the future.     

Teaching Literature to Highlight Social Policy Issues

Abstract

Graduate social work education can be enhanced through extensive and appropriate use of relevant literary works. This paper describes an elective course for second-year graduate social work students in which twentieth-century novels were used to highlight social policy issues. The paper deals with the relationships between art and social realities and the usefulness of literature for social policy analysis. A detailed account of this course and its evaluation is presented as well as its potential for replication.     

Politics in Spain: A Case of Monitory Democracy

Analysing the current political context in Spain is a major challenge to political theory. Spain is experiencing the accumulation of trends that in recent years have focused the attention of most theorists and political scientists: discrediting of the major parties, falling numbers of party members, disaffection, etc. In parallel, this trend has been accompanied by citizen mobilisations that, since 15 May 2011, are manifest in numerous channels and strategies. The aim of this paper was to analyse the complex Spanish context from the monitory democracy proposal. The results show how in recent years processes of public scrutiny have been consolidated through a range of citizen initiatives. The study offers an in-depth analysis of the main characteristics of the most notable cases and monitoring initiatives, and also reflects on their democratising potential.     

Design Improvements for Message Propagation in Malleable Social Networks

This study presents the formal problem definition and computational analysis of the network design improvements for idea and message propagation in both enterprise and consumer social networks (ESN and CSN, respectively). Message propagation in social networks is impacted by how messages are seeded in the network, and by propagation characteristics of the network topology itself. It has been recognized that the propagation properties of these networks can be actively influenced by network design interventions, such as the deliberate creation of new connections. We address the problem of finding cost‐effective message seeding, and identifying potential new network connections that allow improved propagation in social networks with cascade propagation. We use the hop‐constrained minimum spanning tree (HMST) model to find the seeds and possible new connections that result in networks with improved propagation properties. Moreover, we present new heuristic algorithms that substantially improve the solution quality for the HMST problem. Computational results posit that the design improvements proposed by the HMST approach can greatly improve cascade propagation performance of the networks at low cost.     

The Financial Impact of FSC Certification in the United States: A Contingency Perspective

This article focuses on an important and emergent standard for sustainable operations management: the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification. Unlike similar certifications, its focus is on the entire upstream supply chain, reflecting the criticality of supply chain management to ensure sustainable products. We investigate the financial impact from FSC certification, offering valuable decision support for managers considering this certification. Taking a contingency perspective, we view a firm's supply chain position and its prior certification to the ISO 14001 standard as influencing the results. Drawing on signaling theory, we suggest that firms farther downstream in the supply chain realize significantly greater abnormal financial performance benefits than firms upstream in the supply chain. We further hypothesize that firms that were not ISO 14001 certified at the time of FSC certification realize significantly greater abnormal financial performance benefits than firms that did have the ISO 14001 certification. To test these hypotheses, we utilize financial data of all publicly traded firms in the United States that have obtained the FSC certification, and assess whether FSC certification leads to abnormal performance benefits considering the above contingencies. Data collected from the FSC Certificate Database and Compustat, employed in an event study, provide support for our hypotheses. Overall, our findings contribute to research on decision making in the context of sustainable operations management, and offer a plausible explanation for contradictory results in prior studies. We highlight the applicability of signaling theory to decision sciences research, and stress the need to consider contingencies in sustainability management research.