HR managers stereotyping frontline managers

This study explored how human resource (HR) leaders' biased perceptions of frontline manager (FLM) effectiveness influence HR ratings of FLM competencies, resulting in insufficient training and job preparation for these critical employees. The literature review examined FLM research, ratings of supervisory competencies and the underlying theoretical frameworks of implicit leadership theory and leadership categorization theory, and their relationship to informal learning. The research used mixed methods, with a qualitative critical incident study to identify competencies, followed by a quantitative survey to compare ratings, followed by qualitative in-person interviews to confirm survey findings. Results revealed a significant difference between HR and other raters of FLMs, including the FLMs themselves, with regard to FLM effectiveness, and these differences are informed by HR stereotypes of FLMs. Recommendations and implications suggest HR's role in providing unbiased assessment could lead to essential FLM training and development.     

China's managers

This is a preliminary attempt to look at the environment within which senior executives in the People's Republic of China (PRC) operate and to throw some light on their managerial behavior. It tries to compare the way in which they allocate their time between various activities with Mintzberg's findings on the behavior of Western managers. The spread of Western-style management training in China during the last decade is discussed, and the fact that the managers studied made the effort to set aside significant amounts of uninterrupted time for their own personal education is pointed out.     

Moral managers and business sanctuaries

Richard Konrad claims that businessmen are guilty of adhering to a vicious form of ethical relativism. In practice, the relativism takes the form of doing an act which ordinarily would be called wrong and then claiming that the act is right or justified because it falls under a special set of codes (business ethics) which preempt ordinary ones. These codes or business ethics establish moral sanctuaries for businessmen. Konrad examines three versions of the sanctuary position, argues that they fail, and concludes that the position is untenable. In this article it is claimed that Konrad is in error, that upon closer examination the three versions do provide justification for businessmen claiming relief from moral criticism.David Roberts IV is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He presently holds a post as Assistant to the Dean of Humanities, Special Studies.     

Business managers and moral sanctuaries

Moral Sanctuary is used in this paper as a metaphor for any theory which makes actions immune from moral criticism. Three arguments favoring moral sanctuaries for business activities are countered. Two of the arguments rest on faulty analogies. One compares business activities to games, another to the behavior of machines. The third rests on the claim that business is a unique activity. This position is rejected by a reductio ad absurdum argument; it entails the immunity of all professional activities from moral judgment. I argue that business managers are accountable to the combined requirements of professionalism and democratic citizenship, notions which are briefly described at the conclusion of the paper.     

跨国公司的招聘与甄选

招聘甄选是人力资源管理的基础工作，是企业招募人才的主要途径。在经济全球化的背景下，跨国公司招聘甄选的特点、新的理念和实践都为中国企业进入国际人才竞争提供了新的经验。反观中国的一些企业，对人才的招聘甄选工作存在很多不足，也正是这些不足导致了一些中国企业在人才竞争中的失败。     

网络招聘的现状及应注意的问题

在网络经济环境下，网络招聘具有速度快、效率高、成本低、费用省、覆盖面广等互动性与提供增值服务等优势，且招聘的方式灵活多样。但网络招聘必须解决好人才层次的局限性，信息的安全性，时效性与真实性等问题。网络招聘应与其他招聘渠道合理搭配，建立信用体系，才能获得竞争的优势。     

Hiring local managers and employees overseas

Hiring and retaining local employees for an overseas plant or office calls for abandoning ordinary American hiring techniques and assumptions and rethinking the entire process. When hiring a national, whether a manager or lower-level employee, you must be acutely aware of that country's cultural mores. Only then can you best fulfill your organization's goals while simultaneously meeting the needs of the employee.     

Ethical behavior of marketing managers

The ethical behavior of marketing managers was examined by analyzing their responses to a series of different types of ethical dilemmas presented in vignette form. The ethical dilemmas addressed dealt with the issues of (1) coercion and control, (2) conflict of interest, (3) the physical environment, (4) paternalism, and (5) personal integrity. Responses were analyzed to discover whether managers' behavior varied by type of issue faced or whether there is some continuity to ethical behavior which transcends the type of ethical problem addressed.     

Compensating corporate venture managers

This article reports the results of a questionnaire survey addressed to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies concerning incentive practices for venture managers. Data was also collected for venture performance history in these companies.Highlights of the results are:Most companies are not providing different incentives for venture managers than for other managers.Companies that do and companies that do not provide special incentives seem to agree on the types of incentives which would promote improved venture performance, which include milestone bonuses, equity, and/or options in the new venture, variable bonuses based on venture ROI.The primary obstacle to installing such incentives is reported by firms without special incentives in place to be concern about internal equity.Firms with special incentives already in place have less concern with this problem. A moderate problem to such firms is difficulty in defining venture objectives.There is no evidence, from this study, that special incentives for venture managers affected the outcome in venture performance, when such performance was measured by the percentage of “successes” and “failures.” About 50% success rate was reported by each group.The article deals with these questions:Are performance incentives essential?Certainly not, from the data in this sample, but this was a “head count” of successes and failures—a study of overall economic performance might yield a different result. One expensive failure can wipe out the gains from many small successes.Are the incentives reported effective?Obviously not enough to show a difference between those who use them and those who don't. Analysis of the incentive elements used and the earnings limits imposed suggest that the special incentives are not particularly special, nor very much of an incentive. Further, the most common incentive reported, based on venture ROI, fails to consider the time period usually required to achieve a positive ROI, and the many changes of management which occur during that period.What criteria should be used for designing an incentive program for venture managers?Recognition of the probability of management change, incentives which promote early identification of need for change of direction or to abort, focus on event completion milestones rather than the calendar, the relationship of reward potential to risk potential including job security and actual financial risk by the venture manager, achievability, and simplicity are factors to be considered.What kind of financial incentives might be included in incentive design?Depending on the life cycle stage of the venture, fixed and variable bonuses, options for equity or shadow equity in the venture itself, actual equity in the new venture, and to a lesser extent, salary increases and equity or equity options in the parent are suggested. How can the obstacles to installation of performance incentives for venture managers be reduced?To reduce perception of internal inequity, relating potential risk to potential reward and extending performance incentives to other managers is suggested. The problem of defining venture objectives as an obstacle is instantly solved as an incentive issue by making ownership possibility a reality for venture management, especially with financial investment required by venture management.     

外贸人手记

外贸是一种奔波劳碌的事业,哪里会留下外贸人的足迹?国内、或是国外?拜访客户、还是去工厂的路上?边走边看之中,只要不停地走,就会有不同的风景。订单的背后,是外贸人那份沉甸甸的心情     

Price and quality decisions by self-serving managers

We present a theory of price and quality decisions by managers who are self-serving. In the theory, firms stress the price or quality of their products, but not both. Accounting for this, managers exploit any uncertainty about the cause of market outcomes to credit positive results to the dominant, “strategic” factor and blame negative results on the other—as doing so is psychologically rewarding. The problem with biased attributions, however, is that they prompt biased decisions. We motivate this argument with evidence from one experiment and then develop a model to understand the cost of the bias under different market conditions. Counter to intuition, we find that firms in a competitive setting can profit from the self-serving nature of their managers.