“Balkanization.” The word suggests endless conflict over boundaries, beliefs, and events rooted in history; heart‐wrenching human tragedy; and geopolitical initiatives aimed at…
Abstract
“Balkanization.” The word suggests endless conflict over boundaries, beliefs, and events rooted in history; heart‐wrenching human tragedy; and geopolitical initiatives aimed at compromise. What makes this phenomenon relevant to the world of strategic leadership?
Lawrence A. Bennigson and Howard Swartz
CEOs increasingly face the need to foster radical change in their organizations. The makeover may require them to invent a culture that is pervasive, comprehensive, and sharply…
Abstract
CEOs increasingly face the need to foster radical change in their organizations. The makeover may require them to invent a culture that is pervasive, comprehensive, and sharply divergent from the behavior and values of the past. Lacking experience as transformational leaders, most CEOs resort to traditional techniques. They alter structure, modify some systems, and move a few key people. However, simply manipulating these “hard” systems is not enough. In order to bring about the changes necessary for success, the CEO must also alter “soft” systems—including beliefs about the firm and its future, and the style of its key managers.
Alvin Toffler, Tom Johnson and Larry Bennigson
In this interview, Alvin Toffler, Tom Johnson, and Larry Bennigson talk about the forces driving change and how business leaders can stay abreast of the threats and opportunities…
Abstract
In this interview, Alvin Toffler, Tom Johnson, and Larry Bennigson talk about the forces driving change and how business leaders can stay abreast of the threats and opportunities arising out of these changes. The biggest strategic threat to many successful businesses will come from the external environment that tends to be outside the peripheral vision of corporate leadership. Culture, religion, politics, environment, and ethics are all going to interpenetrate one another to an extent never before seen. They will, in turn, penetrate business in all sorts of strange new ways.
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“While we were once perceived as simply providing services, selling products, and employing people, business now shares in much of the responsibility for our global quality of…
Abstract
“While we were once perceived as simply providing services, selling products, and employing people, business now shares in much of the responsibility for our global quality of life. Successful companies will handle this heightened sense of responsibility quite naturally, if not always immediately. I see a future in which the institutions with the most influence by and large will be businesses.” These are the words of the late Robert Goizueta, chairman of the Coca‐Cola Company. They were quoted in an article by Theo Lippman Jr in The Baltimore Sun on July 5, 1998. This quote and the remaining article triggered my thinking about the need to bring this strategic concern to the fore in Strategy & Leadership.
Appearing at The Planning Forum's 1992 International Conference, was a “faculty” that included many of America's most respected strategic thinkers. They urged attendees to take…
Abstract
Appearing at The Planning Forum's 1992 International Conference, was a “faculty” that included many of America's most respected strategic thinkers. They urged attendees to take daring steps into strategic management's wild beyond:
Mark C. Bolino, Anthony C. Klotz and Denise Daniels
The purpose of these studies was to investigate how the repeated use of impression management (IM) tactics is related to supervisor perceptions in newly formed…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of these studies was to investigate how the repeated use of impression management (IM) tactics is related to supervisor perceptions in newly formed supervisor-subordinate dyads.
Design/methodology/approach
Two studies were conducted – a lab study in which participants evaluated a confederate who performed an accounting task while using different types of IM across five trials, and a field study examining the IM tactics of new employees and their supervisors' ratings of likability and performance at two points in time.
Findings
In the lab study, the repeated use of ingratiation had an increasingly positive effect on performance ratings, whereas repeated apologies had an increasingly negative effect on evaluations of performance. The influence of IM tactics on ratings of subordinate likability did not change with repeated use. In the field study, subordinates' use of apologies and justifications was more strongly associated with supervisor evaluations of likability and performance in earlier stages of their relationship.
Practical implications
Employees need to be mindful that IM tactics may vary in their effectiveness depending on the timing and frequency of their use. Furthermore, supervisors should consider the initial influence that IM has on their ability to objectively evaluate new subordinates.
Originality/value
This research is unique in that it examined how the repeated use of both assertive (i.e. ingratiation and self-promotion) and defensive (i.e. apologies and justifications) IM tactics are related to both evaluations of likability and performance ratings at multiple points in time.
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Xiaofei Tang, En-Chung Chang, Xing Huang and Meng Zhang
A combined model involving the intensity of negative emotions and the strategic combinations (timing and means) of service recovery is developed. The purpose of this paper is to…
Abstract
Purpose
A combined model involving the intensity of negative emotions and the strategic combinations (timing and means) of service recovery is developed. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performances of these different combinations through customer satisfaction, repurchase intention and fitting curves between the two under hotel service scenarios.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2 (recovery timing: immediate/delayed) × 2 (recovery means: psychological/economic) × 3 (type of service failure: failure in a delivery system/failure in responding to customer needs/improper employee behavior) between-subject experimental design was used with 456 participants.
Findings
The results suggest that immediate and economic recovery effectively raises the service recovery evaluations from customers with low-intensity negative emotions, whereas delayed and psychological recovery helps customers with high-intensity negative emotions to give higher evaluations.
Originality/value
When service failures happen, the strategies for and timing of recovery directly influence customers’ service recovery evaluations. This study sheds light on the role that negative emotions play in the process of service recovery and provides implications for service industry managers.
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Gizem Atav, Subimal Chatterjee and Rajat Roy
When a product fails out of negligence on the seller’s part, consumers can either retaliate against the seller, more so if a third party encourages them to do so, or forgive the…
Abstract
Purpose
When a product fails out of negligence on the seller’s part, consumers can either retaliate against the seller, more so if a third party encourages them to do so, or forgive the seller should the seller express remorse. This paper aims to examine how the fit between the consumer’s promotion/prevention regulatory orientation and the promotion/prevention frame of a message of contrition (retaliation), such as an apology from a chief executive officer (CEO) (a class action suit threat by a lawyer), affects such forgiveness (retaliation) intentions in the form of product repurchase decisions.
Design/methodology/approach
In two laboratory experiments, this paper temporally induces a promotion or prevention orientation in the study participants and thereafter ask them to imagine experiencing a product failure and listening to (1) the CEO apologize for the harm (eliciting sympathy/encouraging repurchase); or (2) a lawyer inviting them to seek damages for the harm (eliciting anger/discouraging repurchase). This paper frames the messages from the CEO/lawyer such that they fit either with a promotion mindset or with a prevention mindset.
Findings
This paper finds that, following a message of apology, a frame-focus fit (compared to a frame-focus misfit) elicits sympathy and encourages repurchase universally across promotion and prevention-oriented consumers. However, following a message encouraging retaliation, the same fit elicits anger and discourages repurchase more among prevention-oriented than promotion-oriented consumers.
Originality/value
Although past research has investigated how regulatory fit affects forgiveness intentions, this paper fills three research gaps therein by (a) addressing both forgiveness and retaliation intentions, (b) deconstructing the fit-induced “just right feelings” by exploring their underlying emotions of sympathy and anger, and (c) showing that fit effects are not universal across promotion and prevention-oriented consumers. For practice, the results suggest that managers can lessen the fallout from product failures by putting consumers in a promotion mindset that strengthens the effect of a promotion-framed apology and inoculates them against all types of retaliatory messages.
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Marisa Donnoli and Eleanor H. Wertheim
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether victim and offender conflict management styles (yielding and forcing) predict forgiveness following an interpersonal transgression…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether victim and offender conflict management styles (yielding and forcing) predict forgiveness following an interpersonal transgression and apology. Perceived offender remorse, expectation of reoffending, and transgression severity along with trait empathy were also examined as potential mediators of conflict style effects and as direct predictors of forgiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 112 Australian adults completed a questionnaire including a written scenario describing a hypothetical transgression perpetrated either by a forcing‐ or yielding‐prone offender.
Findings
Offender conflict style was significantly related to forgiveness, with the yielding‐offender compared to forcing‐offender scenario resulting in higher forgiveness, an effect fully mediated by perceived offender remorse. Additionally, perceived offender remorse, transgression severity and likelihood of reoffending, and participant empathic concern added to predictions of forgiveness.
Research limitations/implications
This paper highlights how an offender's conflict style may lead to perceptions by an injured party that the offender is less remorseful following a specific offence and apology. Individuals with a history of dominating, competitiveness and self serving may need to modify their conflict resolution methods, or explicitly demonstrate sincere remorse, in order to elicit forgiveness from an injured party following interpersonal transgressions.
Originality/value
This study is the first, to the authors' knowledge, to examine how an offender's tendency to yield or force during conflict affects an injured party's decision to forgive following a transgression and apology and to provide an explanation of this relationship. Findings are potentially useful to clinicians, mediators, negotiators and managers in facilitating better interpersonal or workplace relationships.