Past research on transformational leadership in organizations has neglected the organizational context in which such leadership is embedded, and the significance of the…
Abstract
Past research on transformational leadership in organizations has neglected the organizational context in which such leadership is embedded, and the significance of the disposition of followers. The purpose of the present study was to enrich and refine transformational leadership theory by linking it to organizational context and the self-esteem of followers. It was expected that organizational characteristics and subordinatesʼ self-esteem could moderate the effects of transformational leadership behavior on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior. Results revealed that only organizational-based self-esteem (OBSE) significantly moderated the impact of transformational leadership behavior on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Within-and-between-analysis procedures (WABA) were used to determine the appropriate level of data analysis. Research finding suggests that managers should provide individualized performance feedback for high OBSE subordinates and spend more time coaching those subordinates with low OBSE on a one-to-one basis.
Although the measurement of self‐leadership (RSLQ) has been developed and validated with samples from the USA with promising reliability and construct validity, its…
Abstract
Purpose
Although the measurement of self‐leadership (RSLQ) has been developed and validated with samples from the USA with promising reliability and construct validity, its generalizability to the Chinese context is problematic. The purpose of this study is to modify the existing self‐leadership scale (RSLQ) in order to make the application of self‐leadership theory and measurement more relevant to the Chinese culture. This modification includes: enhancing the generalization of self‐leadership measurement to the Chinese context by refining the items of four existing dimensions (self‐observation, evaluations of beliefs and assumptions, natural rewards, and self‐punishment) found to have low‐reliabilities in one previous validation study; and extending the breadth of some self‐leadership components based on the cross‐cultural theory about self‐concept differences between individualism and collectivism. Three self‐leadership subscales are newly developed through extending three self‐leadership components (natural rewards, self‐observation, and evaluating beliefs and assumptions) with the incorporation of social/relation‐based features associated with collectivism.
Design/methodology/approach
The modified RSLQ was administered to 569 Chinese students. The reliability and construct validity of this modified self‐leadership scale was explored using exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Test of association with self‐efficacy was also examined.
Findings
Results from the EFA demonstrated good reliability and stable factor structure for the modified scale and CFA demonstrated acceptable model fit for 11 factors of the modified self‐leadership scale. Most notably, the refinement of four existing dimensions (self‐observation, evaluations of beliefs and assumptions, natural rewards, and self‐punishment), which had failed to reach acceptable levels of reliability in Neubert and Wu's Chinese sample, showed increases above the commonly recommended level of 0.7. Two new extended dimensions, relation‐based natural rewards and social‐oriented evaluation of beliefs and assumptions, consistently emerged in two independent student samples. More interestingly, the items of another extended dimensions, relation‐based self‐observation consistently merged with the task‐based self‐observation (the original subscale) to form one factor, suggesting that, in Chinese culture, task‐based self‐observation cannot be separated from relation‐based self‐observation. The modified RSLQ was also positively and strongly associated with self‐efficacy.
Research limitations/implications
Further validation work is required to examine whether the refined RSLQ could be generalized to another collectivistic country such as Korea or Japan.
Practical implications
Managers will benefit from understanding how culture shapes an individual's use of self‐leadership strategies.
Originality/value
The study makes a significant contribution to the universal application and generalizability of self‐leadership measurement to the Chinese population. The validation works to support the belief that the modified 38‐item RSLQ is a superior measure with higher internal consistency and more stable factor structure than that of the existing instrument, which could be generalized to a Chinese context.
Details
Keywords
Well‐founded complaint has recently been made concerning the characters of the various forms of “candy,” or, as we should term them, “sweets,” that are manufactured in great…
Abstract
Well‐founded complaint has recently been made concerning the characters of the various forms of “candy,” or, as we should term them, “sweets,” that are manufactured in great quantities in the United States.
In a recent speech LORD ROSEBERY charged the people of this country with possessing, to an inordinate extent, the fatal gift of complacency, and he observed that the nation which…
Abstract
In a recent speech LORD ROSEBERY charged the people of this country with possessing, to an inordinate extent, the fatal gift of complacency, and he observed that the nation which is not progressive is retrogressive. “Rest and be thankful,” said LORD ROSEBERY, is a motto which spells decay, and those who have any experience of the methods of the manufacturers of the country will admit that this seemingly severe impeachment is by no means unfounded or uncalled‐for. Industries, of which at one time the English were masters, are now gradually falling into other hands. The workers of other lands are successfully competing with our own, and yet, in spite of this condition of our mercantile affairs, the spirit of complacency is rampant. The sons are content to continue in the footsteps of the fathers, oblivious of the fact that time and seasons do not stand still and that they may be overwhelmed by the advancing flood of competition. The trade conservatism which was in the past opposed to the introduction of the steam‐engine, the power‐loom, and other mechanical appliances, is still responsible for the extreme slowness with which English firms appreciate the necessity for such innovations in the conduct of their business as would place them in a position to hold their own in the markets of the world. In respect to the protection of pure food production Great Britain and the British manufacturers are still a long way behind. Although the Sale of Food and Drugs Act of 1875 was one of the first Acts passed in any country to prevent the sale of adulterated food and drink, its machinery is cumbrous, and the subsequent Amendment Acts have not added materially to its efficiency; with the result that the Adulteration Acts do not compare favourably with those of many other countries. The spirit of complacency in regard to food products has affected alike the producer and the distributor, and the result is that in many instances there is no adequate inducement to produce anything but a mediocre article—such an article, in fact, as only escapes condemnation because of the faulty construction of the machinery of the law.
We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special…
Abstract
We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.
Very much more might be done to improve the quality of our food supplies by the great organisations that exist for the avowed object of furthering the interests of traders in…
Abstract
Very much more might be done to improve the quality of our food supplies by the great organisations that exist for the avowed object of furthering the interests of traders in foodstuffs. It is no exaggeration to say that these organisations claim, and rightly claim, to speak in the aggregate on behalf of great commercial interests involving the means of livelihood of thousands of people and the most profitable disposal of millions of money. The information that they possess as to certain trade methods and requirements is necessarily unique. Apart from the commercial knowledge they possess, these organisations have funds at their command which enable them to obtain the best professional opinions on any subjects connected with the trades they represent. Their members are frequently to be found occupying positions of responsibility as the elected representatives of their fellow‐citizens on municipal councils and other public bodies, where the administration of the Food Laws and prosecutions under the Food and Drugs Acts are often under discussion. Such organisations, then, are in a position to afford an unlimited amount of valuable help by assisting to put down fraud in connection with our food supply. The dosing of foods with harmful drugs is, of course, only a part of a very much larger subject. It is, however, typical. Assuming the danger to public health that arises from the treatment of foods with harmful preservatives, the continued use of such substances cannot but be in the long run as harmful to the best interests of the traders as it is actually dangerous to public health. The trade organisations to which reference has been made might very well extend their sphere of usefulness by making it their business to seriously consider this and similar questions in the interests of public health, as well as in their own best interests. It is surely not open to doubt that a great organisation, numbering hundreds, and perhaps thousands of members, has such a membership because individual traders find it to their interest, as do people in all walks of life, to act more or less in common for the general advantage ; and, further, that it would not be to the benefit of individual members that their connection with the organisation should terminate owing to their own wrong‐doing. The executives of such trade organisations hold a sufficiently strong position to enable them to bring strong pressure to bear on those who are acting in a way that is contrary to the interests of the public generally, and of honest traders in particular, by adulterating or misbranding the food products that they gain their living by selling. It should also be plain that such trade organisations could go a long way towards solving many of the very vexed questions that arise whenever food standards and limits, for example, form the subject of discussion. These problems are not easy to deal with. The difficulties in connection with them are many and great; but such problems, however difficult of solution, are still not insoluble, and an important step towards their solution would be taken if co‐operation between those who are acting in the interests of hygienic science and those who are acting in the interests of trade could be brought about. If this could be accomplished the unedifying spectacle of alleged trade interests and the demands of public health being brought, as is so often the case, into sharp conflict, would be less frequent, and there can be no doubt that general benefit would result.
WITH the closing years of the nineteenth century the Public Library stood in such relation to its readers as the traditional mountain did to the prophet Mahomet. While any direct…
Abstract
WITH the closing years of the nineteenth century the Public Library stood in such relation to its readers as the traditional mountain did to the prophet Mahomet. While any direct advertisement was in the nature of things impossible, the attitude of the library was too often that of a part of inanimate nature rather than of an intelligent mechanism which should have been in the full tide of advance. And, to maintain the metaphor, readers were suffered to obtain knowledge or amusement from its stock in much the same manner as they might have gathered blackberries from a hillside; the books were there to be taken,—if you took them judiciously, or injudiciously, or left them alone—what matter? But of late years improvement has appeared. In certain cases the progress has indeed been reluctant; some library committees and librarians, who had apparently quoted to their institutions Browning's line, “Grow old along with me,” were pushed indecently out into the open and forced to make some show (usually of the fuss and feathers order) of participation in the movement. The thrall of comparative statistics by which—like a bull's‐eye lantern, revealing the surroundings while the holder stands in darkness—one proved, not how bad he was, but how much worse his neighbours were, still held sway. It is now more abundantly realised that the public, which we have by turns feared, distrusted and ignored, is in reality and as a composite whole, of a childlike inquiring disposition, and needs, above all things, guidance—more guidance than it asks for, more perhaps than it appreciates. To every aid which the librarian offers, readers turn willingly, but it must be added that much of the reading which is done by the mass of the people is desultory, unsystematic and indiscriminating. It has no cumulative effect, nor does it lead in any definite direction. From whatever cause it arises, whether the increasing strenuousness of modern commercial conditions, or the attenuation of the national nerves, modern writers, of fiction especially, show a tendency to appeal almost exclusively to the emotions. Emotion precedes thought, and it is easy to fall into the evil habit of automatic reading, which clogs all avenues of thought and allows no appeal save through the emotions. Owing to this, the argument used against Public Libraries, that they foster a species of mental loafing, is difficult to refute. But now, “to redress the balance of the old,” to provide against this want of system, we have the National Home‐Reading Union. The objects of that body have been thus defined:—“To bring the Public Libraries into bearing.” The objection mentioned is attacked at its heart; the Union provides lists of books, encourages reading‐circles, meets and dispels incidental difficulties, and is both an educational and an examining body. The cost of member‐ship is small enough to be no deterrent to anyone, and as this is the day of cheap literature, many of the books which appear on its lists may be easily obtained. But as also there are many works of importance, which know not the cheap edition, and are thus beyond the purchasing powers of the “intelligent artisan” and his class, it follows that unless it finds a complement, the National Home‐Reading Union must remain only partial in grasp and effect. There can be no doubt that the Public Library is more fully equipped for fulfilling the absent requirements than any other institution. Not only does it interest and develop the minds of readers, but it is the only organisation which provides a wide range of books in a greater variety of subjects than could be obtained by any but the rich. Of late years many librarians, recognising the immense advantages accruing from a connection between the library and the school, have formulated plans for actively interesting the children in the library. The National Home‐Reading Union forms an admirable connecting link between these two agencies of popular education, lending aid from itself to both, and borrowing something from each to transmit to the other.
THE topics of the Library Association Conference and the election of the Council of the Association naturally absorb a great deal of attention this month. To deal with the second…
Abstract
THE topics of the Library Association Conference and the election of the Council of the Association naturally absorb a great deal of attention this month. To deal with the second first: there were few novelties in the nominations, and most of the suggested new Councillors are good people; so that a fairly good Council should result. The unique thing, as we imagine, about the Library Association is the number of vice‐presidents, all of whom have Council privileges. These are not elected by the members but by the Council, and by the retiring Council; they occupy a position analagous to aldermen in town councils, and are not amenable to the choice or desires of the members at large. There are enough of them, too, if they care to be active, to dominate the Council. Fortunately, good men are usually elected, but recently there has been a tendency to elect comparatively young men to what are virtually perpetual seats on the Council, simply, if one may judge from the names, because these men occupy certain library positions. It, therefore; is all the more necessary that the electors see that men who really represent the profession get the seats that remain.
Chin‐Yi Fang, Pao‐Yu (Jessie) Peng and Wei‐Ta (Woody) Pan
The purpose of this study is threefold: to use an innovative metafrontier‐to‐data‐envelopment analysis (MDEA) model incorporating multiple outputs and inputs – including the item…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is threefold: to use an innovative metafrontier‐to‐data‐envelopment analysis (MDEA) model incorporating multiple outputs and inputs – including the item revenue, gross profit, food costs, time‐driven labor costs, and other operating expenses (OOEs) – to distinguish four quadrants based on efficiency and profit to offer different strategies to the restaurateur under study; to compare the proficiency levels of the different meal categories of the à la carte and combo set menus using the metatechnology ratio (MTR) via the MDEA; and to use slack‐based analyses with simulation to improve the financial performance of a teppanyaki‐style restaurant.
Design/methodology/approach
Six months of point of sale (POS) data are obtained from a teppanyaki‐style restaurant. The proposed inputs are categorized into total food costs, total labor cost, the number of processes, and OOEs. Two outputs (total revenue and gross profit) are used to assess the efficiency of the menu items. The MTR is used to differentiate the proficiency level of the heterogeneous meal categories and to create four quadrants based on the efficiency index and financial performance.
Findings
The MTR is lower for the combo set category than for the à la carte category. Four quadrants are obtained based on the efficiency and financial performance to provide further menu suggestions. The MDEA analysis yields menu suggestions that could enhance the overall efficiency and profitability of the menu items. A simulation using these two models is conducted and shows that the restaurant profitability would be 22 percent greater using the MDEA than using the menu engineering model.
Research limitations/implications
Because there are no publicly listed teppanyaki‐style restaurants in Taiwan and it is difficult to find the same menu in different restaurants, this study consists of only a single restaurant, and the results may not be generalizable to other types of restaurants.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to menu analysis by establishing an efficiency index and using financial performance as criteria for determining which menu items to improve in a teppanyaki‐style restaurant. The MTR of the metafrontier model can differentiate the proficiency level of the heterogeneous categories, such as à la carte and combo set menus. This paper offers empirical results pertaining to the classification of menu items and describes a slack‐based analysis for improving menu items.