Closing the circle: participant views of a 360 degree feedback programme

The use of 360 degree feedback is becoming increasingly commonplace in organisations. It is claimed that this programme offers a more rounded diagnosis of development needs resulting in more effective development plans for individuals and more strategically focused investment in training for the organisation as a whole. These claims are tested in a qualitative and quantitative field study of participants in a 360 degree programme for middle and senior managers at a UK university. Some elements of the programme are found to work better than others, but participants rate their experience of almost all aspects of training and development as significantly better than a matched sample of non‐participants, and this leads to more positive global evaluations of the employer. The implications for the use of 360 degree programmes are discussed with regard to the critical HRM literature.     

Internationalization of multi-source feedback systems: a six-country exploratory analysis of 360-degree feedback

In the past few years, few human resource practices have received as much attention as multi-source feedback systems (MSFSs). In the US and Canada, it is estimated that over one-third of organizations are using some form of MSFS and recent surveys show that this practice is still gaining popularity. Concurrently, a substantial amount of literature has focused on the effectiveness of this performance management practice. However, while few would dispute the popularity of MSFS, relatively little has been published on the use of these systems outside North America and thus little is known about their form and effectiveness in international contexts. This paper outlines the results of an international survey of MSFS. Interview data from HR managers and consultants from Argentina, Australia, China, Slovakia, Spain and the UK demonstrate that MSFS are being implemented, in slightly different ways, in each of these six countries. The main challenges in the application of MSFS in these various countries are the communication efforts necessary before and after implementation, and the inherent difficulty in giving and receiving feedback. The results of this study also provide data as to the perceived future of MSFS in each of the countries surveyed.     

Enhancing employee and organizational performance through coaching based on mystery shopper feedback: A quasi‐experimental study

Based on reinforcement theory, a quasi‐experimental design was used to evaluate the effect of (a) feedback obtained from (b) a relatively neutral third party (namely, mystery shoppers) that was obtained on a (c) variable interval schedule for managers to use to (d) coach their employees. An interrupted time‐series design showed that both employee and organizational performance increased as a result of this intervention. Performance dropped when this intervention was cut back and, subsequently, discontinued. These results were replicated in two additional restaurants. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Corporate Responsibility Reporting and its Determinants in Comparative Perspective – a Review of the Empirical Literature and a Meta‐analysis

For four decades, reporting on corporate responsibility by businesses has been the subject of empirical research. In the 1970s and 1980s, studies mostly originated from Anglo‐Saxon and Western European countries. During the last two decades research on responsibility reporting was increasingly undertaken in emerging and developing countries as well – always following the reporting practices of the respective businesses. Consequentially, a very large number of studies exist today. Many of these have empirically investigated the determinants of responsibility reporting and examined whether internal factors like size and industry or external factors like stakeholder pressures have an impact on disclosure. Thus, the purpose of the following paper is twofold. First, it seeks to provide an overview of the existing literature in order to facilitate further research. Overall, 186 studies have been examined for the determinants which they considered and have been grouped according to their geographical origin. This provides for an analysis of whether academics from different regions have taken different approaches to the empirical examination of responsibility reporting and if their results differed. The findings show that scholars across regions have taken different paths in empirical research, but indications for a variation in the impact of specific determinants on reporting are weak. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Managerial coaching and subordinates' workplace well‐being: A moderated mediation study

Taking a self‐categorisation perspective, we predict that managerial coaching affects subordinates' workplace well‐being through perceived insider status and that Chinese traditionality moderates this indirect effect. To test these hypotheses, we designed a three‐stage research method to collect data from 276 subordinates in a large state‐owned enterprise located in Shanghai, China. Results indicated that (a) managerial coaching was positively related to subordinates' workplace well‐being; (b) perceived insider status mediated the linkage between managerial coaching and subordinates' workplace well‐being; and (c) Chinese traditionality moderated the indirect relationship between managerial coaching and subordinates' workplace well‐being via perceived insider status, such that the indirect effect was stronger for subordinates with low rather than high Chinese traditionality. This study sheds new light on the intervening process (i.e., perceived insider status) that explains how managerial coaching influences subordinates' workplace well‐being. The findings also extend the current literature by adding a substantive moderator (i.e., Chinese traditionality) to explain when and why subordinates increase their well‐being when faced with managerial coaching.     

The Global Leadership Life Inventory: development and psychometric properties of a 360-degree feedback instrument

The purpose of this paper is to describe the design of Global Leadership Life Inventory (GlobeInvent), a 360-degree leadership feedback instrument. This instrument is presently used in executive programmes to help identify the operational mode of individual executives. Proper use of this instrument enables the user to determinate those areas of leadership behaviour where improvement is needed.

Because most studies pay attention only to the surface manifestations of leadership, most leadership feedback instruments, in turn, are not concerned with the psychodynamic processes that underlie leaders' character and behaviour. To address this gap, the GlobeInvent is based on a clinical orientation to the study of leadership. This approach provides a more complete analysis of the ‘inner theatre’ of leaders?–?that is, what makes them tick?–?as well as measuring the dynamic, two-way relationship between leaders and followers.

The first step in designing the instrument was to pinpoint significant themes pertaining to exemplary leadership. To that end, semi-structured interviews with senior executives were held. The leadership dimensions that emerged from that process were then tested on an international sample of senior executives. Analysis of the data from the testing confirmed the existence of twelve robust dimensions with a high reliability and internal consistency.

Because the GlobeInvent is a 360-degree feedback instrument, this article addresses differences between ‘Self’ scores and scores given by others (‘Observers’), gender differences in scoring and the influence of nationality, management experience and age on test results. The implications of using such an instrument as a 360-degree feedback tool are reviewed, and suggestions for future research are offered.     

The performance effects of coaching: a multilevel analysis using hierarchical linear modeling

Drawing on the conceptual foundations of feedback and behavior modeling we investigate the effects of managers' coaching intensity on the performance of those they supervise, at multiple levels of an organizational hierarchy. Data from 328 sales associates reporting to 114 middle managers, and 93 middle managers reporting to 32 executive managers are used to test the research hypotheses. Using hierarchical linear modeling we find that managers' coaching intensity influences the performance of their subordinates after controlling for job satisfaction, and this effect weakens at greater hierarchical levels. Surprisingly, we do not observe any cross-level moderating effects of coaching intensity on the satisfaction–performance relationship. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research and practice.     

Effort reduction of employer‐to‐employer changers: Empirical evidence from football

We investigate changes in effort investment of employees who still fulfill a contract with their current employer but already signed a follow‐up contract with a new employer (employer‐to‐employer change). Because effort and outside contract assignments are hard to measure in firms, we use running data from professional football (n = 26,577) to proxy effort decisions. Fixed effect regressions reveal a statistically significant but weak reduction in a player's effort after signing a follow‐up contract with a new club. Because we find a statistically significant effort reduction in public sports, this effect might be even larger in less transparent labor markets.     

The Integration of Quality,Environmental and Health and Safety Management by Car Manufacturers – a Long‐Term Empirical Study

The diversity of stakeholder requirements is currently a pivotal challenge for companies. Stakeholders expect companies to increasingly consider environmental and social aspects in their decisions. Thus, corporate goal systems are including not only qualitative and financial goals, but also environmental and social ones. Management systems for ensuring quality, environmental and occupational safety play an important role in achieving these objectives. Considering the interdependency between the different systems constitutes a central challenge. Much of the literature and the results from empirical studies suggest that the spatial application of integrated management systems is state of the art. Integrated management systems in particular are regarded as more effective and more efficient than separate and distinct management systems. However, the present long‐term study demonstrates that for car manufacturers in Germany these integration efforts are implemented in very different ways, and that some integration approaches are partially abandoned after a period of unsatisfactory implementation. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Quasi‐fixed inputs and long‐run equilibrium in production: a cointegration analysis

This paper proposes a cointegration approach to testing the validity long‐run equilibrium in production, where capital and labour are taken as quasi‐fixed inputs. Previous studies consider only capital as the quasi‐fixed input and do not take account of the time series properties of the variables, assuming implicitly that they are stationary. The canonical cointegrating regressions (CCR) procedure is employed to test for cointegration in both the single‐equation and the seemingly unrelated regressions framework, and long‐run equilibrium conditions are tested. The evidence from US manufacturing reveals that capital and labour are not fully adjusted to their long‐run optimal values, casting doubt on the long‐run equilibrium hypothesis. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.