Search results

Spotlights Iridium, the satellite phone system vision company, and how it stole a jump on its competitors when it started in 1998, with global communication networks for international voice, data, and fax communication – but filing for bankruptcy a year later. Declares that Iridium did not foresee some of the problems, because of lacking in deep thinking of the potential areas of difficulties. Contends that getting it right is not easy, but becomes so when a systematic examination precedes the strategic decision.

A charismatic executive of a national retailer went to each company site last year and announced a new corporate strategy to employees: “Empower, free, and serve.” Not surprisingly, the announcement was greeted with loud applause, since these principles are like motherhood and apple pie. Yet, motherhood and apple pie can be understood more readily than his message.

Present the selection of strategy as a new filter for examining leadership effectiveness.

This paper relies on the ability to discern business priorities and the ability to integrate them into a sound strategy. Data collection from 2,000 leaders was collected via assessment to determine how many priorities were in use at one point in time.

The study found that 45 percent of the leaders used one priority to set their goals/visions/actions and 31 percent used two of the six priorities associated with the organizational life cycle framework. Research limitations/implications – This research suggests that the priority framework should be used in conjunction with a competency analysis and style assessment to develop an understanding of leadership effectiveness

The practical implications are that leaders can identify the priority mindset that others are using to evaluate the level of their commitment to a strategy. Unlike other frameworks which have to use an inventory or assessment, this framework enables a leader to ask questions to deduce the driving priorities and use it to achieve results.

This research applies to leaders in various size organizations.

Despite the breadth of knowledge on self and identity formation across the study of organizations, the field of organizational development and change has limited research on the construction of professional identity. Much has been written to describe the “self-concepts” of those practicing and researching in the field, but there have been no investigations that have explored how these “self-concepts” form. In addition, although women have contributed to defining the “self” in the field, men have held the dominant perspective on the subject. Thus, in this chapter, we address a disparity in the research by exploring the construction of professional identity in the field of organizational development and change, and we give voice to the renowned women who helped to build the field. Using the profiles of 17 American women included in The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers, we perform a narrative analysis based upon the concepts and models prevalent in the literature on identity formation. By disentangling professional identity formation of the notable women in the field, we can begin to see the nuance and particularities involved in its construction and gain deeper understandings about effective ways to prepare individuals to work in and advance the field.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

Examines the differences between the actions that Turkish and American students would take when they were confronted with conflict. Students received two cases describing an organizational setting. They were asked to place themselves in the situation of a member in conflict with a peer in the work environment. Cases were content‐analysed by the researchers. Indicates that the nature of the conflict situation is important in examining conflict resolution styles across cultures.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

The move to divest many of the Crown corporations in Canada over the last seven years has had far‐reaching economic and social effects. Since divestment's inception, however, little research has attempted to examine some of the managerial and organizational implications of these policies; in effect, to determine whether or not divested (and other private) companies actually do operate in a more proactive and innovative manner than do Crown corporations. This article reports on a recent exploratory study that compared the processes by which new innovations are implemented in Canadian Crown and private corporations. It also assesses the impact of a number of external environmental factors on private firm and Crown operations. The results suggest that private firms do differ from Crown companies in that privatized organizations tend to show a greater willingness to take risks in developing new innovations and offer significantly greater rewards for innovative approaches and behaviors than do Crown corporations. Implications for encouraging future innovative behavior among both Crown and private firms are discussed.

The study of power is essential to any study of leadership, as power is fundamental to human organization and is understood to be a driving force of leadership. Power is typically thought of in terms of having dominance over others from a hierarchically higher position. In this chapter, we explore how power is typically defined in the literature and propose that mutualism represents an expanded definition of power and one that more closely aligns with the concept of inclusive leadership. We make a case for viewing power as a capacity that can be developed in others rather than a commodity that can be obtained, horded, or doled out. With this in mind, we explore how these two phenomena intersect from the perspectives of powerdistance, hierarchy, and empowerment. We argue that power expressed as dominance creates distance between leaders and employees, while mutualistic expressions reduce such distance, and that hierarchy and power have been erroneously conflated and when disaggregated can serve a useful purpose in a low-power-distance culture. Finally, through empowerment, we consider approaches to the development of power in others, which is a topic that is rarely considered in the leadership literature. Inclusive leadership offers an important pathway for moving organizations and society toward justice through the creation of cultures characterized by cooperation, unity, and diversity where greater numbers of people step into their capacity for power and begin to address the challenges facing humanity. This is realizable in cultures that promote mutualistic power.

Presents anecdotes in the development of aspects of the field of management, relating to Lawrence J. Henderson, Chester I. Barnard, Peter Drucker, Kurt Lewin and J.B. Rhine. These suggest that history needs to be viewed in a hermeneutical philosophy where it is seen as presenting the Zeitgeist of its period rather than describing facts or causal relations.