The purpose of this article is to provide readers with an understanding of how the assessment protocol for executive coaching can be adapted to more effectively meet the different…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to provide readers with an understanding of how the assessment protocol for executive coaching can be adapted to more effectively meet the different needs of clients who are seeking developmental, transitional, or remedial coaching.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is based on the author's 20 years of experience as both an internal executive coach and external consultant. Organizational examples are provided to illustrate key concepts.
Findings
The assessment interview can be customized to meet the unique requirements of transitional, developmental, and remedial coaching.
Practical implications
The article provides readers with clear guidelines for adapting the assessment process to meet three different coaching requirements. By following these guidelines, coaches will be able to obtain more detailed and relevant background information on the client's history, organizational setting, goals, and development issues, and in so doing establish a more effective pathway for the coaching intervention.
Originality/value
To the author's knowledge, this article represents the first attempt to consider how assessment interviews might be adapted to the unique requirements of developmental, transitional, and remedial coaching.
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To provide a descriptive case study showing how the construction of drawings as visual metaphors can help work groups “give voice” to their emotional reactions to organizational…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide a descriptive case study showing how the construction of drawings as visual metaphors can help work groups “give voice” to their emotional reactions to organizational change events, and provide groups with a vehicle for interpreting and framing their experience of organizational change.
Design/methodology/approach
A seven‐person focus was asked to construct a drawing that would serve as a visual metaphor for conveying the group's reaction to ongoing organizational changes within their company. Following this construction, the group engaged in a self‐interpretation of their metaphor.
Findings
The work group's feelings regarding organizational change were encapsulated in visual metaphor of “dark tower”; a metaphor of which revealed that team members shared several strong, negative emotions regarding the organizational change event. A review of how the group's changes in metaphor construction evolved over three successive drawings showed how certain elements of the metaphor came to play a central role in the team's emotional expression of organizational change events.
Research limitations/implications
This case study did not attempt to provide a comparative review of metaphor constructions across work groups, nor did it include the use of other research methods, such as structured interviews, to confirm these findings.
Practical implications
This study illustrates how the construction of visual metaphors can be used to help researchers gain a more in‐depth understanding of the subjective, felt experience of groups during organizational change events.
Originality/value
The group's reflections on how their successive drawings changed over the course of the construction of their metaphor sheds light on how “visual narratives” take form over time.
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Robert Barner and Julie Higgins
This paper seeks to provide readers with a better understanding of four theory models that inform coaching practice, and to reflect on how the theoretical approach that one adopts…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to provide readers with a better understanding of four theory models that inform coaching practice, and to reflect on how the theoretical approach that one adopts is likely to shape one's coaching practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is based on the authors' combined 30 years of experience as internal and external executive coaches. Organizational examples are provided to illustrate key concepts.
Findings
The authors conclude that, although coaches tend to be eclectic in the methods that they employ, they tend to center their craft on one of four prevailing coaching models: the clinical model, the behavioral model, the systems model, and the social constructionist model. These models inform the practice and shape the approaches that OD practitioners take in directing coaching assessments and interventions.
Practical implications
This article serves as a “think piece” to help OD practitioners understand the theoretical assumptions, constraints, and caveats that are associated with each model. The authors strongly believe that having this knowledge enables practitioners to introduce a higher level of discipline and effectiveness into the coaching process.
Originality/value
This article represents a unique attempt to bridge theory and practice by encouraging readers to reflect on how each individual's practice is developed from, and informed by, a particular theory position. It represents one of the few papers that have tackled this particular management development topic.
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To provide readers with a better understanding of the organizational conditions that lead to complexity in team structure, operation, and dynamics, and introduce guidelines for…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide readers with a better understanding of the organizational conditions that lead to complexity in team structure, operation, and dynamics, and introduce guidelines for facilitating complex team interventions.
Design/methodology/approach
This article is based on the author's 20 years' experience as an internal OD executive, external consultant, and associate professor in the areas of organizational change and teambuilding.
Findings
The article concludes that team‐building failures frequently occur when facilitators operate from team archetypes that are radically outmoded, and severely underestimate the complexity of certain team‐building issues. Readers are introduced to six guidelines for managing complex team interventions.
Practical implications
This article is designed to help OD practitioners plan extremely complex and difficult team‐building interventions. The article should serve as a useful tool to experienced OD consultants who are attempting to tackle more advanced team‐building interventions. An organizational example is provided to illustrate key concepts.
Originality/value
The author believes that this article provides a unique perspective, by examining issues of organizational complexity that must be faced by experienced team facilitators.
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Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.
Abstract
Purpose
Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.
Design/methodology/approach
This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.
Findings
Executive coaching is big news right now. Companies across the globe have recognized the value of adopting such a consultative one‐to‐one tailored approach when developing their key talent. However, despite having been around for a considerable amount of time, this type of management development still does not have a formal, internationally recognized accreditation scheme. Consequently there are no formal guidelines for coaching approaches and techniques, nor are there defined standards to which all coaches must conform. In this context, effectively assessing your client becomes critical.
Practical implications
Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.
Originality/value
The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.
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A. Amin Mohamed and William L. Gardner
Images are playing an increasingly important role in organizational life. This trend has spawned interest in how organizations can improve and protect their images. Yet, in our…
Abstract
Images are playing an increasingly important role in organizational life. This trend has spawned interest in how organizations can improve and protect their images. Yet, in our eagerness to study image promotion and repair, organizational scholars have overlooked the practice of image spoiling. Image spoiling occurs when an organization uses words and other symbols to attack the image of another organization. One of the most pervasive forms of image spoiling is interorganizational defamation. The purpose of this study is to explore some of the dynamics of interorganizational defamation. Data was collected from 68 interorganizational defamation cases that were adjudicated in the U.S. federal or state courts between 1964 and 1998. A model of interorganizational defamation was inductively derived from the defamation cases using grounded theory as a qualitative methodology. The model identifies some of the strategies of interorganizational defamation and their methods of implementation.
Mary Vigier and Michael Bryant
The purpose of this paper is to explore the contextual and linguistic challenges that French business schools face when preparing for international accreditation and to shed light…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the contextual and linguistic challenges that French business schools face when preparing for international accreditation and to shed light on the different ways in which experts facilitate these accreditation processes, particularly with respect to how they capitalize on their contextual and linguistic boundary-spanning competences.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interviewed 12 key players at four business schools in France engaged in international accreditations and in three specific categories: senior management, tenured faculty and administrative staff. The interview-based case study design used semi-structured questions and an insider researcher approach to study an underexplored sector of analysis.
Findings
The findings suggest that French business schools have been particularly impacted by the colonizing effects of English as the mandatory language of the international accreditation bodies espousing a basically Anglophone higher education philosophy. Consequently, schools engage external experts for their contextual and linguistic boundary-spanning expertise to facilitate accreditation processes.
Originality/value
The authors contribute to language-sensitive research through a critical perspective on marginalization within French business schools due to the use of English as the mandatory lingua franca of international accreditation processes and due to the underlying higher-education philosophy from the Anglophone academic sphere within these processes. As a result, French business schools resort to external experts to mediate their knowledge and competency gaps.
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Nishant Kumar and Robert Demir
The purpose of this paper is to address the limitations of prior views regarding knowledge source exploitation by proposing a phenomenological approach to managerial attention and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the limitations of prior views regarding knowledge source exploitation by proposing a phenomenological approach to managerial attention and the antecedents of exploiting knowledge sources within the multinational corporations (MNC) network.
Design/methodology/approach
A phenomenological approach to attention is taken to explain the antecedents of managerial attention in knowledge source exploitation behavior. This approach provides an alternative way of conceiving of knowledge source remoteness and familiarity, on the one hand, and exclusion and inclusion on the other.
Findings
Drawing on a phenomenological approach to attention, the merits and limits of prior studies of attention and knowledge seeking/exchange behavior are addressed and three modes of managerial attention are proposed – relative attention, mimetic attention, implicit attention – to explain the antecedents of managerial attention to MNC knowledge sources.
Originality/value
This approach to knowledge source exploitation and attention provides a rich conceptualization of taken‐for‐granted assumptions in extant literature on managerial attention and knowledge‐seeking behavior. The framework offered here builds on a conceptually rigid foundation of attention that overcomes dualisms such as mind‐body, subject‐object, and thinking‐acting that are often embedded in other mainstream approaches to managerial attention.