Duncan Borg Ellul and Tracey Wond
The present study aims to conduct a critical review of an existing set of practices within the Maltese public sector.
Abstract
Purpose
The present study aims to conduct a critical review of an existing set of practices within the Maltese public sector.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on interpretivism (people-centred approach) embedded in a pragmatic research paradigm (the use of mixed methods).
Findings
Misconceptions about the role and practice of executive coaching in Malta relates to the similar roles ascribed to mentoring, supervision, therapy, consultation, coaching, audit and watchdog under the misnomer of “coaching”.
Research limitations/implications
The main contribution of this research is to the community of professional practitioners as well as to the Maltese central government to improve managerial effectiveness in the Maltese public sector with several endorsed policy-level recommendations presented in the study.
Practical implications
The results suggest a restructuring of a well-defined, structures, systems and dynamics within the Maltese public administration, the ability by senior management including senior public officers (SPOs) to recognise high-potential talents, the need to expand leadership capacity, the establishment of a professional coaching body and a national coaching network framework.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the role and impact of executive coaching in the Maltese public sector using quantitative and qualitative empirical data.
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Keywords
Brian Micallef, Reuben Ellul and Nathaniel Debono
The private rental market in Malta has expanded significantly in recent years, but as at 2020, no official rent index is yet published. This paper aims to construct such an index…
Abstract
Purpose
The private rental market in Malta has expanded significantly in recent years, but as at 2020, no official rent index is yet published. This paper aims to construct such an index and explores the relative importance of structural, locational and neighbourhood factors to advertised rents.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors compile hedonic indices for advertised rents in Malta collected from publicly available sources using webscraping techniques. The database comprises more than 25,000 listings with information on various property attributes. Hedonic regressions are estimated using ordinary least squares and rent indices are computed using three alternative methods: the time dummy method, the rolling time dummy method and the average characteristics method. For the latter, indices are computed using the Laspeyres, Paasche and Fisher methods.
Findings
The results from the hedonic indices indicate that the annual growth rate in advertised rents was slowing down during 2019, albeit still remaining relatively high, while in 2020, advertised rents contracted sharply, amplified by the effects of COVID-19. The findings also reveal that advertised rental prices are significantly influenced by various structural, locational and neighbourhood factors.
Originality/value
This paper introduces the first rent index in Malta that will be used to monitor developments in the rental segment of the housing market and for financial stability purposes given the share of buy-to-let properties. It also provides various elasticities on the impact of property attributes on advertised rents in Malta. Finally, the study contributes to the literature on the effect of foreign-born residents on advertised rents.
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Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of the organizational environments of Indian business organizations and to identify the adaptive response mechanisms that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nature of the organizational environments of Indian business organizations and to identify the adaptive response mechanisms that organizations use to cope with their environments. This paper also examines in detail the causal texture of the organizational environments and attempts to build a conceptual model mapping adaptive responses of organizations to different types of organizational environments.
Design/methodology/approach
A constructivist stance was adopted in this exploratory study to capture the perceptions of the organizational leaders through the multiple case study design to capture the features of the organizational environments and their causal texture. The multiple case study design used an embedded mixed-methods approach to collect data. Within-case analysis and cross-case analysis were conducted to draw out prominent themes across cases ordered for particular organizational environment types. The study was conducted by following construct validity, internal reliability and external validity guidelines.
Findings
The study highlights and describes in detail the characteristics of the different organizational environment types in India. It is revealed that a majority of Indian organizations exist in turbulent environments. There are differences in the adaptive response mechanisms of organizations in the environment types studied. The study specially focuses on the strategies adopted by Indian organizations to adapt to turbulent environments.
Practical implications
This study maps the causal texture of organizational environments in India and maps the organizational adaptive responses to the environment for greater effectiveness. This study offers various strategies to cope with turbulent organizational environments and adds to the research focus on causal texture and adaptive capacities of organizations across different types of environments.
Originality/value
This study contributes to an ignored subject area of organizational environments. Managing organizations in uncertain and turbulent environments is complex, and this study provides an understanding about the various types of adaptive mechanism that are used to cope with environmental turbulence. This study also attempts to answer several questions that previous research works have raised about strategies that organizations use when they fail to cope with environmental turbulence.