Abstract
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Abstract
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Abstract
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Jamie Green, Barbara Chivers and Glen Mynott
Suggests that the task of ensuring a high level of staff motivation requires from library managers a range of managerial, sociological and psychological skills for which they have…
Abstract
Suggests that the task of ensuring a high level of staff motivation requires from library managers a range of managerial, sociological and psychological skills for which they have had very little training, if any at all. These include effective communication with staff, the encouragement of good workplace relationships, the involvement of staff in the decision making process, helping staff to come to terms with change, promoting job rotation, recognising and rewarding initiative and providing relevant training for staff.
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Baby Boom generation librarians, those over 40 who have not been promoted into supervisory and managerial positions, are important but often‐undervalued assets to the libraries…
Abstract
Baby Boom generation librarians, those over 40 who have not been promoted into supervisory and managerial positions, are important but often‐undervalued assets to the libraries that employ them. Their presence in the library workforce, and the issues surrounding them, are similar to those in the workforce as a whole. A truly diverse organization reflects both major racial and ethnic groups, and different generations. Managers are challenged to maximize the often‐considerable expertise of these librarians. Older librarians are challenged to maintain their enthusiasm and commitment to their professional careers, and to contribute commensurably to their respective libraries.
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Victoria Crittenden and William Crittenden
As a business executive and philanthropist, Mary Kay Ash is legendary as a glass-ceiling breaker. With the belief that Mary Kay Ash is both modern and relevant, while…
Abstract
Purpose
As a business executive and philanthropist, Mary Kay Ash is legendary as a glass-ceiling breaker. With the belief that Mary Kay Ash is both modern and relevant, while simultaneously legendary, the overall purpose of this paper is to explore the role of Mary Kay Ash as an influential entrepreneur. This research responds to the call by Cogliser and Brigham (2004) for an increased understanding of how entrepreneurial leaders influence, challenge, inspire and develop followers.
Design/methodology/approach
Following on research by Hoppe (2013), this objective was accomplished via a pentadic analysis of Mary Kay Ash’s rhetoric aimed to influence the mental mindset of readers (followers) over the course of generations. Burke’s pentad was the sense-making tool used for examining Ash’s rhetoric of influence as an entrepreneurial leader. The data used in the pentadic analysis were also analyzed via Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) and IBM Watson Emotion Analysis to see where analyses might converge or diverge.
Findings
Based on the analysis of her written work, Mary Kay Ash resided at the intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship and, in so doing, was an influencer. Her primary rhetorical approach to influencing was idealism. Interwoven in her writings, she also exhibited both pragmatism and realism. She knew that she had to start the business to have the future she desired and that she needed to train her team appropriately for success to be forthcoming. The motivation in Mary Kay Ash’s rhetoric was that of influencing people so they would be the best that they could be.
Research limitations/implications
Qualitative research brings with it an array of inevitable research problems. Pentadic analysis cannot be judged by the basic objective standards of reliability and validity because objective reality does not exist in personal interpretation. That is, one person as a critic cannot be impartial because the interpretation is only one personal way of viewing the data and another critic might view the same pentads and come up with different ratios. With this subjectivity in mind, however, the data used in the pentadic analysis were also analyzed via LIWC and IBM Watson Emotion Analysis to see where analyses might converge or diverge.
Practical implications
The findings from this research denote clearly that Mary Kay Ash was a forerunner of the modern day influencer. As a primogenitor of the influencer marketing phenomenon, Mary Kay Ash’s entrepreneurial legacy is expected to continue through generations of followers. This finding speaks to the importance of today’s entrepreneurs using the spoken and written word to influence others and create a lasting organizational legacy.
Originality/value
Countless scholars have used pentadic analysis, with a variety of artifacts, to examine the motives behind the rhetoric. However, rhetoric as a means of persuasion and influence has received little attention within the context of the written works by management gurus (Jones et al., 2009), and, aside from the exploration by Berglund and Wigren (2012), the narrative of entrepreneurial influence has not benefitted from close examination.