Exploring managerial leadership in Javanese (Indonesia) organisations: engaging Asta Brata,the eight principles of Javanese statesmanship

This study investigates whether the eight ancient principles of Javanese statesmanship (Asta Brata), can be employed as the basis for analysing managerial leadership excellence in Javanese organizations. Factor analysis, regression modelling and structural modelling are used to explain what constitutes leadership excellence in Javanese organizations. These findings based on the perceptions of 312 Javanese managers suggest they favour a paternalistic leadership style that is nurturing but not authoritative. This study highlights the importance of understanding Indonesia’s bapak-ism, or reverence for the leader as a father figure, and its familial orientation of interdependency between management and employees.     

Determinants of organizational performance: some implications for top executive leadership in Korean firms

ABSTRACT

Leadership, although commonly assumed to be greatly significant, is not typically studied in terms of structural characteristics accounted for in organizational performance. The effect of top executive leadership is explored here as a key factor that reflects organizational characteristics by offering a new framework and presenting an empirical test of Korean business firms. This research can be possibly made by focusing on the size of the leadership which explicates the difference between structural, resource and contextual variables in organizations. The multivariate regression analysis shows that firm size, leadership, debt and export significantly affect organizational performance, as measured by net income. The mechanism of Korean business firms needs to readjust to the new environment for organizational performance.     

The Impact of Leadership Longevity on Innovation in a Religious Organization

Navigating organizations through a chang- ing environment is central to leadership. Thus, innovativeness has proven to be critical to the process of achieving strategic competitiveness (Yukl, Leadership in Organizations, 1998). This skill is particularly needed when the firm is confronted with the unique challenges of a religious organization. The existence of innovation and the depen- dencies that encourage or restrict its existence in this environment are largely unknown. Utilizing a sample of 250 religious organizations in five geographical areas this research explores the impact of the leader tenure on the degree of organizational innovation. An analysis of variance for innovative strategy use across the three tenure groups was significant, F (2, 247) = 6.08, p < 0.01, which indicated innovation differences across the three levels of leader tenure. Post hoc analysis indicated that the low tenure leadership group was associated with lower levels of innovation than either of the other groups. Detailed findings are presented and the managerial implications and suggestions are provided. This research has strong implications for implementation of leadership development and strategic management of the increasing number of socially conscious organizations and organizations with large volunteer components.     

Excellence in Canada: Healthy Organizations – Achieve Results by Acting Responsibly

There is much public focus in North America today on issues of corporate governance and ethics due mainly to the malpractice of several high profile corporate leaders and the negative impact of this on their corporation's stakeholders, employees and communities. This has caused a crisis of trust in the public and lead to much discussion on ways to prevent such unethical behavior by adopting new approaches through legislation and the structure of corporations. This article is not about introducing a new approach to corporate ethics and governance as there is much change already taking place. The National Quality Institute (NQI) in Canada offers a demonstrated and proven way, through the application of the Excellence Frameworks, of providing for good corporate guidance and ethical leadership practices. Organizations, which adopt a strategic focus on Excellence, attain great results and become healthy organizations, as their leaders understand the dynamic relationship and the balance that exists between employees, customers, and stakeholders. These organizations build trust by acting responsibly. NQI works with many organizations in Canada that have a strategic leadership focus on organizational excellence utilizing the criteria in the NQI Canadian Excellence Frameworks for Quality and for Healthy Workplace. Organizations that take an integrated approach to Excellence also perform well in such areas as corporate social responsibility, employee health and customer satisfaction. This article has specific references to three organizations that have achieved Canada's prime recognition the Canada Awards for Excellence (CAE).     

Servant Leadership,Proactive Work Behavior,and Performance Overall Rating: Testing a Multilevel Model of Moderated Mediation

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The goal of this paper is to investigate whether salesperson proactive behavior mediates the relationship between sales manager servant leadership and salesperson overall performance rating by the sales manager. Moreover, it examines whether salesperson customer orientation and political skill moderate the sales manager servant leadership ? salesperson proactive behavior ─ salesperson overall performance. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical analysis is based on dyadic data from 181 industrial salespeople and their sales managers in a range of different industries (including both manufacturing and service industries). To analyze the multilevel moderated mediation process, this investigation uses Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM). Findings: Sales manager servant leadership was positively related to salespeople overall performance rating through their proactive behavior except when their customer orientation was low. Moreover, this relationship between sales manager servant leadership and overall performance rating through proactive work behavior was stronger the greater the salespeople consumer orientation and political skill. Research implications: The study suggests that sales manager servant leadership is indirectly related to salesperson overall performance rating through salesperson proactive behavior. The findings also support subsequent research on salesperson values, skills, and behaviors as moderators in the servant leadership – proactive behavior – overall performance rating relationship. Understanding how these salesperson factors interact with sales management leadership to produce organizational outcomes (e.g., stress, engagement, organizational commitment) are questions that sales researchers may wish to pursue via further study. Practical implications: Sales managers should employ servant leadership to stimulate salespeople proactive work behavior. This study clearly indicates the salespeople need to adopt customer orientation and to have political skill. Hence, sales managers need to try to improve the customer orientation and the political skill of their salespeople through selection procedures or training programs. Originality/value: The relationship between sales manager servant leadership and salesperson overall performance through proactive work behavior has not been addressed and tested in the literature to date.     

The Pedagogy of Executive Education in Business Markets

ABSTRACT

There is a growing recognition in Corporate America and other markets throughout the world that knowledge, the result of learning, and competence in technological and managerial skills are key competitive advantages. Business Week estimates that approximately $12 billion is devoted to executive education annually. However, only a quarter of this is being delivered through university settings. This shift towards alternatives to universities as sources for executive education is a result of a growing number of corporations that see current university-based programs as ineffective.

In this paper, we trace the evolution of the substance of business marketing education, underscoring the current trends in this field that focus on concept development and, to some extent, the application of these concepts in the context appropriate to participant managers. We then examine the pedagogical methods used by educational programs to address the identified trends. In the concluding section we discuss what we see as the missing piece in business marketing education. We propose that academic institutions need to go beyond the development of concepts and their contextual application to providing an architecture that enables change that corporations (the customers) are looking for. Addressing this additional objective requires not only innovative development and delivery of substance, but also developing and orchestrating the cultural climate for effecting change. Traditionally, academic institutions have delivered high quality conceptual and contextual knowledge, but have a lot to learn regarding education for effecting change. We believe that academic institutions with carefully crafted strategies that focus on leveraging their core competencies, coupled with a fierce dedication to quality, teaching excellence, innovation, and measured market responsiveness will not only survive, they are likely to flourish in partnership with the corporate community.     

The End of Corporate Social Responsibility: Crisis & Critique,by Peter Fleming and Marc T. Jones

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Given the ever-increasing pressure put on sales organizations to improve performance, behave ethically and establish long-term customer relationships, this study seeks to better comprehend ethical leadership’s part in doing so. It proposes that perceived ethical leadership indirectly influences salesperson performance through trust in manager and ethical ambiguity.

Methodology/Approach: A survey of business-to-business salespeople was taken. Hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling.

Findings: The results show that perceived ethical leadership influences salesperson performance through the mediating roles of trust in manager and ethical ambiguity. Salespeople’s perceptions of their supervisor’s ethical leadership behaviors positively impact their trust in manager and negatively influences their ethical ambiguity. In turn, trust in manager positively influences sales performance while ethical ambiguity negatively influences sales performance.

Research Implications: The results from testing the hypothesized model support mechanisms by which ethical leadership behavior may affect business-to-business salesperson job performance. It appears that ethical leadership works through ethical ambiguity and trust in manager to impact salesperson behavior performance, rather than directly impacting salesperson performance. Importantly the findings add to the literature an important consequence of ethical leadership, ethical ambiguity. This research likewise adds to the literature on role, and more specifically ethical, ambiguity by finding that reducing salesperson ethical ambiguity has a positive impact on salesperson behavior performance.

Practical Implications: This study finds that one important mechanism for reducing ethical ambiguity is for sales supervisors to practice ethical leadership. By reducing ethical ambiguity, sales managers can improve business-to-business salesperson performance. In addition, use of ethical leadership by sales managers can positively influence the business-to-business salesperson’s trust in manager, which subsequently leads to greater sales performance.

Originality/Value/Contribution: The results of this study add to our knowledge of ethical leadership by further developing its consequences. It also sheds light on a vastly under-researched construct, ethical ambiguity. Finally, it further validates the important role that trust in manager plays in the organization.     

Marketing as auto‐communication

In contemporary culture, marketing has defined itself as the beneficial institution par excellence, concerned primarily with the needs of society and its members. Through elaborate systems of communication, the marketing institution claims to link organizations with markets and publics and, thus, to foster openness and sensitivity to different voices. Against this image, this paper demonstrates that although marketing‐oriented organizations are heavily engaged in external communication activities, they often communicate primarily with themselves. Marketing may, in other words, be described as a system of auto‐communication, that is, a set of self‐referential communication practices through which the organization recognizes and confirms its own images, values and assumptions; in short; its own culture.     

Environmental context and marketing planning processes

The traditional model of marketing planning assumes that the process by which organizations take planning decisions is constant with respect to context. Organizational environment, internal context, performance and distinctive competency affect marketing planning only as information inputs for the planning process, not as influences on the choice of process. However, rapid change in environments, in competitive patterns and in market responses all demand action from organizations. Intuitively, we expect that rapid environmental change will require a faster planning process, and that increasing environmental complexity requires more careful deliberation. The marketing planning model does not accommodate such intuition. This paper outlines the case for rethinking marketing planning models, and develops a conceptual framework through which the impact of environmental context on marketing planning processes can be effectively examined.     

A Strategic Approach to Enhance Management and Marketing Effectiveness: Utilizing the SOAR Leadership Model to Improve Communication for Public Sector and Not-for-Profit Organizations

ABSTRACT

The effective implementation of the SOAR Strategic Leadership Model in not-for-profits and public sector organizations is explored, with a focus on both marketing implications and improvement of intra-organizational communications. The SOAR Model is especially valuable in such organizations, as leaders in this business structure are progressing from a production orientation to a marketing orientation because of changes in the marketplace.

1. Strategic goals, coupled with a strong vision, are essential to growth and success of an organization. The vision must be strong enough to remain valuable and usable even through changes of organization leadership and serve as a guide through changes in life cycle and strategic modes.

2. Marketing programs must be developed to communicate the strategic focus to target market publics and to associates of the organization. “Buying in” to the vision will enhance employees' motivation and ability to grow the organization both profitably and effectively. Further, potential customers want to do business with organizations that clearly and definitely display a clear-cut focus of consumer need satisfaction.

3. Feedback both to and from all levels of the organization is requisite for successful implementation of varied strategies. Thus, strategic leadership requires that the leader use different styles to manage effectively under varying circumstances.

4. Specific emphasis is given to the unique situations encountered with delivery of services, focusing upon the not-for-profit and public sector provider. As leaders surface, many often discover themselves with an organization that is ill equipped to follow, and thus to know how to follow, when to follow and the roles each should and can play.

Recommendations are offered on how organizations can use strategic leadership and the SOAR Strategic Leadership Model to excel in managing the organization as it develops and matures.     

Authentic Leadership: An Empirical Test of Its Antecedents,Consequences, and Mediating Mechanisms

The recent economic crisis as well as other disasters such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the nuclear disaster in Japan has fanned calls for leaders who do not deny responsibility, hide information, and deceive others, but rather lead with authenticity and integrity. In this article, we empirically investigate the concept of authentic leadership. Specifically, we examine the antecedents and individual as well as group-level outcomes of authentic leadership in business (Study 1; n = 306) as well as research organizations (Study 2; n = 105). Findings reveal leader self-knowledge and self-consistency as antecedents of authentic leadership and followers’ satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and extra-effort as well as perceived team effectiveness as outcomes. The relations between authentic leadership and followers’ work-related attitudes as well as perceived team effectiveness are mediated by perceived predictability of the leader, a particular facet of trust. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and practice and provide suggestions for advancing theory and research on authentic leadership in the future.     

Cultural context and its influence on managerial leadership in Thailand

In this paper, we explore excellence in leadership in Thailand, a nation that has strong roots in Theravada Buddhism. Summated scales and a structural model were constructed to explain the relationships between the excellences in leadership constructs. A sample frame of 401 Thai managers employed in organizations in Bangkok, North Thailand, and East Thailand participated in this research. The findings suggest that there are strong cultural factors such as non-confrontation, respect, and deference for authority mediating the perceptions of Thai managers with regards to perceptions of an excellent leader. Age and gender are also demonstrated as key differentiating factors in the perceptions of Thai managers.     

Strategic Planning in the Law Firm: Managing Practice Areas

ABSTRACT

Successful organizations depend on good leadership. But today we need a new definition of leadership and a new approach to providing it.

In the past, the CEO (leader) was the person with all the answers. Today, if an organization is going to be successful we have to understand that no leader can have all the answers. Leaders have to have a vision and a strategic plan. But the actual solutions about how to meet the current challenges have to be made by employees (teams) closest to the action.

Today leaders have to empower their employees, to challenge them, give them resources, and then hold them accountable. If they struggle with this empowerment, the leader has to be there as a facilitator, teacher, and coach. Once employees truly believe the leaders have empowered them, and they own the problem, they will improve things very rapidly. Employees that are closest to the action are very creative and have a lot more ideas than the old style of leadership that handed down or directed employee participation and commitment!     

On the relationship of hope and gratitude to corporate social responsibility

A longitudinal study of 308 white-collar U.S. employees revealed that feelings of hope and gratitude increase concern for corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, employees with stronger hope and gratitude were found to have a greater sense of responsibility toward employee and societal issues; interestingly, employee hope and gratitude did not affect sense of responsibility toward economic and safety/quality issues. These findings offer an extension of research by Giacalone, Paul, and Jurkiewicz (2005, Journal of Business Ethics, 58, 295-305). Lynne M. Andersson, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management at the Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her teaching and scholarship focus on the dark side of business organizations; in particular, she’s been examining some social maladies that are arguably associated with late capitalism (cynicism and incivility) as well as the role of social activism in countering capitalist barriers to sustainability. Robert A. Giacalone, Ph.D. is Professor of Human Resource Management at the Fox School of Business and Management, Temple University, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His research interests focus on the impact of workplace spirituality and changing values on business ethics. He is currently Co-editor of the Ethics in Practice book series. Carole L. Jurkiewicz, Ph.D. is the John W. Dupuy Endowed Professor and Women’s Hospital Distinguished Professor of Healthcare Management at Louisiana State University. She has published numerous research articles, books, and news articles on the topics of organizational ethics, leadership, and behavior.     

The Power of Innovativeness in Manufacturer–Retailer Relationships

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Retailers often challenge manufacturers through aggressive store brand policies and severe listing constraints. This study investigates manufacturer innovativeness as a managerial lever to shift the power balance between manufacturers and retailers.

Methodology/approach: Using data from 277 senior managers of Swiss and German consumer goods manufacturers and analyzing these data with structural equation modelling, the authors test hypotheses about the impact of manufacturer innovativeness on manufacturer–retailer relationship characteristics (i.e., retailer dependency, store brand aggressiveness, and listing constraints).

Findings: The study demonstrates that manufacturer innovativeness enhances retailer dependency, which in turn positively affects overall manufacturer performance. This relationship can be explained further: By increasing retailer dependency, manufacturers suppress retailers’ store brand aggressiveness and attenuate retailers’ listing constraints. Store brand aggressiveness affects overall manufacturer performance through listing constraints.

Research implications: Identifying levers such as innovativeness that assist manufacturers in fostering their power over retailers provides a new mode for understanding how manufacturers can influence the balance of power between manufacturers and retailers. The study provides support for the approach/inhibition theory of power on the inter-organizational level. Organizations with increased power are assumed to have approach-related tendencies and act in goal-consistent manner, whereas organizations with reduced power are assumed to develop the tendency to pursue inhibition-related actions, e.g., attending to threats. Furthermore, this study identifies channel relationship characteristics such as retailer dependency as a mediating path between manufacturer innovativeness and performance.

Practical implications: Managers need to strengthen the firm’s innovative capacity to enhance the performance of their companies. By developing the capability to provide radical innovations, manufacturers are able to enhance their performance not only directly but also indirectly by strengthening the manufacturer’s position with regard to retailers. This study underscores the relevance of innovativeness for strengthening the manufacturer’s position in its relationship with retailers that avoids problems with aggressive store brands and constrained listing conditions.

Originality/value/contribution: This study proposes manufacturer innovativeness as a managerial lever to shift the power balance between manufacturers and retailers.     

Start ‘Em Early: Pastoral Power and the Confessional Culture of Leadership Development in the US University

We apply a critical perspective on leadership development discourses and practices to the case of student leadership development programs in the US universities and colleges. We leverage the first author’s personal experiences as a facilitator in such programs to focus on the manner in which they adapt and deploy a variety of commodified pop and positive psychology techniques—including prominently among them icebreakers and psychological assessment tests—that encourage participants to share personal and emotional insights about themselves as the necessary prerequisite for becoming leaders. We draw on Foucault’s notion of pastoral power to argue that these quasi-therapeutic practices help to produce and to normalize what we describe as a confessional culture of leadership development that prepares would-be student leaders to submit themselves to similarly or even more psychologically demanding regimes of governmentality in the workplace after they graduate. We conclude with a call for future research on the central role of such leadership development practices—and the institutions, industries, and actors that promote them—in folding together the ways that individuals seek to claim agency and to develop themselves as leaders with the ways that organizations function to constrain that agency and to govern them as willing but compliant subjects.

     

Virtue Is Good Business: Confucianism as a Practical Business Ethics

This paper argues Confucianism is a compelling managerial ethic for several reasons: 1) Confucianism is compatible with accepted managerial practices. 2) It requires individuals and organizations to make a positive contribution to society. 3) Recognizes hierarchy as an important organizational principle and demands managerial moral leadership. 4) The Confucian "golden Rule" and virtues provide a moral basis for the hierarchical and cooperative relationships critical to organizational success. The paper applies Confucianism to the H. B. Fuller in Honduras: Street Children and Substance Abuse case.     

Book essay on “The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective”

The recent economic misfortune challenges the legitimacy of business leadership and those presented as heroic, charismatic and transformational visionaries. This book contributes to the lively debate about the role of transformational leadership in business and society. Tourish parallels transformational leadership with cults; and argues that the noticeable overlaps should caution against the potential of moving organizations further along the dysfunctional cult continuum than is desirable. In addition to dissent, Tourish promotes consideration of an alternative perspective based on institutionalized feedback into the organizational decision-making process. This book sets out to prepare students of leadership to critically analyze and reflect on leadership behavior and decisions, and to warn, against trusting too much in the judgment of others and not enough in our own.     

Dialogic leadership as ethics action (praxis) method

Dialogic leadership as ethics method respects, values, and works toward organizational objectives. However, in those situations where there may be conflicts and/or contradictions between what is ethical and what is in the material interest of individuals and/or the organization, the dialogic leader initiates discussion with others (peers, subordinates, superiors) about what is ethical with at least something of a prior ethics truth intention and not singularly a value neutral, constrained optimization of organizational objectives. Cases are considered where dialogic leadership: (1) helped build ethical organizational culture; (2) was effective; and, (3) as a by-product, produced integrative win-win results. Philosophical foundations for the method as well as differences between dialogic leadership and Theory X forcing leadership, Theory Y win-win integrative leadership, industrial democracy, participative management, action inquiry, and double-loop learning action science are explored. Limitations of the method are also explored.We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion(T. S. Eliot, 1944, p. 27) Richard P. Nielsen is a professor in the Department of Organizational Studies, School of Management, Boston College, 214 Fulton Hall, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167, (617)552-8858. Related articles of his include: Negotiating As An Ethics Action (Praxis) Strategy, Journal of Business Ethics 8, 1989; Changing Unethical Organizational Behavior, Academy of Management Executive 3, 2, 1989; Limitations of Ethical Reasoning As An Action (Praxis) Method, Journal of Business Ethics 7, 1988; Cooperative Strategy, Strategic Management Journal 9, 1988; and, Arendt's Action Philosophy and the Manager As Eichmann, Richard III, Faust or Institution Citizen, California Management Review 26, 3, Spring, 1984.     

Varieties of Transformational Solutions to Institutional Ethics Logic Conflicts

It is well established within the ethics and institutional theory literatures that institutions can have conflicting logics with ethical dimensions and that there are solutions to the conflicts. Within institutional, ethics, and change leadership theory, quantitative, mixture solutions such as distributive solutions have been frequently considered. The ethics, institutional, and change leadership theory literatures have recognized that there are qualitative transformational solutions that are different than quantitative mixture solutions. However and for the most part, with the notable exception of the Thornton et al. (Am J Sociol, 105(3):801–843, 2012) typology of solutions, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered typologies of transformational solutions. And more specifically with respect to this article, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered different types of transformational solutions to institutional logic conflicts with ethical dimensions. This article: (1) develops a typology of transformational solutions; (2) applies the typology with historical examples of conflicting institutional ethics logics within factory, cultural, and institutional social change leadership cases; and, (3) considers practical and theoretical implications for institutional ethics change leadership for achieving and/or resisting different types of transformational solutions.