Alan Burnell O'Neill and Ritchie Bent
Developing capable and competent executives remains a critical and ongoing challenge for many organisations due to the ever changing landscape of the global business environment…
Abstract
Purpose
Developing capable and competent executives remains a critical and ongoing challenge for many organisations due to the ever changing landscape of the global business environment. Traditional executive development methods in artificial, once removed “classroom” type environments do not prepare executives sufficiently with the experience and insights needed to handle the complexities and uncertainties that befall them in the current volatile business environment. The purpose of this paper is to study the development of senior executives in a more real-world and authentic manner, that a leading Asia-based conglomerate has developed a senior executive “peer-to-peer” learning approach that brings together chief executives and senior managers from a number of businesses so they can share and learn from each other.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents by way of a narrative description an alternative approach to classroom-based executive development. The paper looks at some of the limitations of more traditional executive development methods by contrasting these with a peer-to-peer learning framework that has been used successfully over the last 12 years. It outlines the why, what and how to implement a peer-to-peer learning practice based on transorganisational development (TD) practices to facilitate individual and organisational change.
Findings
Getting senior executives out of the “classroom” and in front of executives from other businesses and organisations in a real-world peer-to-peer learning environment, exposes “participants” to a more credible, grounded and authentic development opportunity, that is difficult to replicate with more traditional methods. The diversity of delegates and companies that engage in this approach enable “participants” to explore new ideas and to confront, in very direct ways, their predispositions to repeat well-learned institutional responses which may have helped them succeed in the past.
Originality/value
Although much of the literature on TD focuses predominately on the initiation, planning and implementation of system or organisation wide change, little has been written to emphasise how TD makes a viable contribution to the understanding of the processes of change at an individual level. By highlighting this the authors intend to make the relationship more explicit, thereby opening up prospects for TD’s wider use in the field senior executive development.
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Alan O'Neill and Muayyad Jabri
This paper aims to show that the knowledge that many change efforts fail to deliver meaningful results is by no means new, but understanding why this is the case remains an…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to show that the knowledge that many change efforts fail to deliver meaningful results is by no means new, but understanding why this is the case remains an important issue for those involved in the management of change. In this paper, the authors question the current emphasis of popularly held explanations of implementation failure by proposing an alternative perspective that draws on social constructionist theory. The authors argue that failure to recognize the legitimizing role and function of conversation has a significant contribution to implementation failure.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws upon observations and information collected as part of a two‐year longitudinal study conducted in an organization and two of its sales offices operating in the Asia Pacific Rim to support and illustrate the conceptual development of the theory presented.
Findings
Change efforts will be negatively affected when new perceptions are not assimilated into the daily language and conversational practices used in the various groups and sub‐groups that make up an organization. The authors present a model to demonstrate how various types of conversation within an organizational setting legitimize perceptions of reality, and how business leaders and change agents can work with this model in order to improve the likelihood of a successful implementation.
Research limitations/implications
Guided by the work of Berger and Luckmann, the authors demonstrate how four levels of legitimization, upon which social constructions of reality proceed, have a significant contribution to play in determining the outcome of a change initiative.
Originality/value
This paper provides a framework that will assist business leaders and change agents to assess how their organization's conversational legitimization processes may work for or against a proposed change, and what conversational practices will need to be altered to positively influence the outcome.
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Universal Public Purchasing Certification Council (UPPCC) is an independent nonprofit entity formed to govern and administer the Certified Public Purchasing Officers (CPPO) and…
Abstract
Universal Public Purchasing Certification Council (UPPCC) is an independent nonprofit entity formed to govern and administer the Certified Public Purchasing Officers (CPPO) and Certified Professional Public Buyers (CPPB) certification programs. Periodically, UPPCC performs a job analysis study to ensure that the certification exams are aligned with the skills, knowledge, and abilities needed for successful job performance in public procurement. This article provides a brief summary of the 2007 job analysis study.
In March 1969, Brisbane student and political activist Margaret Bailey was suspended from Inala High School – ostensibly for “undermining the authority” of her teacher – prompting…
Abstract
Purpose
In March 1969, Brisbane student and political activist Margaret Bailey was suspended from Inala High School – ostensibly for “undermining the authority” of her teacher – prompting claims of political suppression. Through a case study of the subsequent campaign for Bailey’s reinstatement, the purpose of this paper is to explain the emergence of the high school activist as a new political actor in the late 1960s.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on newsletters and pamphlets produced by Brisbane activists, alongside articles from the left-wing and mainstream press, to reconstruct the key events of the campaign and trace the major arguments advanced by Bailey and her supporters.
Findings
Initiated by the high school activist group, Students in Dissent (SID), the campaign in support of Bailey lasted over two months, culminating in a “chain-in” staged by Bailey at the Queensland Treasury Building on 8 May. Linking together arguments about students’ rights, civil liberties and democratic government, the campaign reveals how high school activism was enabled not only by the broader climate of political dissent in the late 1960s, but by the increasing emphasis on secondary education as a right of modern citizenship in the preceding decades.
Originality/value
This is the first study of the campaign for Bailey’s reinstatement at Inala High School and one of the only analyses to date of the political mobilisation of high school students in Australia during the late 1960s. The case study of the Bailey campaign underlines that secondary school students were important players in the political contests of the late 1960s and, if only for brief periods, were able to command the attention of education officials, the media and leading politicians. It represents an important historical precedent for contemporary high school activism, including the global School Strike 4 Climate movement.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the use of commercial‐in‐confidence arrangements within the public sector allows the deliberate manipulation of accounting figures…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the use of commercial‐in‐confidence arrangements within the public sector allows the deliberate manipulation of accounting figures to generate support for the privatisation agenda.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study is presented of an Australian power entity, United Energy, where the privatisation was subject to commercial‐in‐confidence restrictions and differing opinions as to the accuracy of the entity's financial accounts during the privatisation process. It examines many of the key “commercial‐in‐confidence” documents, which are now available through parliamentary and official document sources, together with pre‐ and post‐privatisation financial statements.
Findings
The accounting figures were shaped to support a privatisation agenda and this was obscured by the commercial‐in‐confidence provision. Some attempts were made to use accounting arrangements to reduce federal taxes but this failed. A substantial element of the reported sale price represented internal transfers between the state‐owned entity and the government with the actual price paid by the purchaser being substantially lower than the reported price. The price paid was based on the financial statements which were openly challenged by the Auditor‐General. The paper strongly supports the contention that manipulation of accounting figures occurs under commercial‐in‐confidence privatisations.
Research limitations/implications
This was limited to one example at one time. Further work is needed on other settings.
Practical implications
The paper challenges the success claimed for the privatisation process and for the social benefits of privatisation by tender.
Originality/value
There was little evidence of a substantial improvement in financial performance following privatisation or that the pre‐privatisation performance was substantially boosted to support the privatisation agenda. It did show that the accounting served political ends.
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Recently, American social behavior during the 1980s has been compared, both favorably and unfavorably, with the attitudes and culture of the United States during the years…
Abstract
Recently, American social behavior during the 1980s has been compared, both favorably and unfavorably, with the attitudes and culture of the United States during the years 1950–1959. The past two decades of rebellion, student protest, liberal sexual practices, radical politics, and strong civil and women's rights movements have all passed.