Formal and informal management training programs for women in Canada: Who seems to be doing a good job?

The increasing complexity of Canadian businesses in a changing marketplace indicates that women as well as men managers will have to be well trained to be able to position themselves in this new environment with a certain degree of success and personal happiness. As management educators, we have to accept an important share in this responsibility. This paper examines some of the factors that should be considered by those who want to develop management training programs for the future women managers or entrepreneurs.Dina Lavoie is associate professor of management and organization development at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales at Montreal since 1977. Her main area of interest is entrepreneurship. She has authored the first studies on women entrepreneurs in Canada and has developed some of the first management training programs for women managers in Quebec, New Brunswick and several Asean Countries where she has resided and worked for several years. She is secretary-treasurer general of the new National Entrepreneurship Development Institute of Canada (NEDI) and is advisor to the federal and several provincial governments on issues related to women entrepreneurs and women managers. She is member of the board of trustees of several organisations including NEDI and the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok). We find her listed in Who's Who of Canadian Women, The World Who's Who of Women, the International Directory of Distinguished Leadership etc.     

Self-Efficacy as an Intrapersonal Predictor for Internal Whistleblowing: A US and Canada Examination

Examining intrapersonal factors theorized to influence ethics reporting decisions, the relation of self-efficacy as a predictor of propensity for internal whistleblowing is investigated within a US and Canadian multi-regional context. Over 900 professionals from a total of nine regions in Canada and the US participated. Self-efficacy was found to influence participant reported propensity for internal whistleblowing consistently in both the US and Canada. Seasoned participants with greater management and work experience demonstrated higher levels of self-efficacy while gender was also found to be influential to self-efficacy. These individual traits, although related to self-efficacy, did not directly relate to propensities for internal whistleblowing. The findings demonstrate that self-efficacy could represent an important individual trait for examining whistleblowing issues. Internal whistleblowing is becoming an important organizational consideration in many areas of North America, yet there is relatively little research on the topic. Organizations seeking effective internal reporting systems should consider the influence of self-efficacy along with its potential reporting influence. By empirically testing an under-examined component of theory related to internal whistleblowing, this effort contributes to management literature, extending the knowledge beyond a US context, and provides recommendation for managing individual bias with internal reporting systems. Brent R. MacNab is a faculty member in the discipline of International Business with the University of Sydney. Brent’s research interests focus on examination of cross-cultural and intra-cultural phenomena as related to management and human interaction issues like cultural intelligence, ethics management and workplace motivation. He has received two Fulbright Awards (Canada, 2002 and NAFTA focus 2003) for examination of his research in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. In addition to faculty duties Brent also acts as a consultant to organizations examining issues related to cultural training and ethics management. Reginald Worthley is a faculty member with the University of Hawai'i at Manoa where he teaches coursework in applied quantitative analysis. He specializes in survey research on various cross-cultural issues. Recent studies include a web survey quantifying motivational drivers in the Japanese workplace, a comparative longitudinal study of managerial values in six countries and a NAFTA study of cultural identity as related to defined areas of ethics management.     

Career barriers: Do we need more research?

Research on career barriers has stressed the commonalities among women, and the ways in which women can develop the personal and professional skills they need to demonstrate their commitment to the organization. However, this individualistic focus is not appropriate for dealing with the problem of combining career and family responsibilities. Our research focus must now turn to the commonalities among organizations, and the ways in which different organizational structures and cultures are more or less responsive to women. A study of Canadian National Sport Organizations illustrates some of the issues in this approach.Dr. Dallas Cullen is a member of the Department of Organizational Analysis in the Faculty of Business at the University of Alberta, with a teaching specialization in gender issues in organizations. Some of her previous research focussed on the impact of affirmative action on women's labour force participation in Canada and the U.S.     

A Review of Sustainable Supply Chain Management Practices in Canada

There is a growing body of research on the theory and practice of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). However, relatively little research has been conducted on the extent to which corporations have integrated sustainability principles into the management of their supply chain and the evaluation of supplier performance. The purpose of this article is to explore the extent to which corporate sustainability principles are integrated into supply chain management (SCM) in corporations. Canada is used as a case study in this article. The study included a content analysis of one hundred Canadian corporate sustainable development reports and in-depth interviews with 18 Canadian experts on SSCM. The article highlights the wide array of ways in which Canadian corporations address SSCM issues. Amongst other topics, issues associated with supply chain governance, standards for SSCM, collaboration with suppliers, performance measurement, and accountability within the supply chain are explored. The findings reveal that there are many challenges in integrating sustainability into SCM. These challenges shed light on possible future directions for research in SSCM. This article underlines the need for research that reflects the interconnected nature of the economic, environmental, and social dimensions of sustainability, particularly as it relates to measuring supplier performance on sustainability initiatives.     

American and Canadian perspectives on affirmative action: A response to the Fraser Institute

The publication of the Fraser Institute's Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity offers an occasion to review some of the practical and philosophical issues raised by affirmative action policy. Canadian affirmative action programs derive from the American context, which is here reviewed, but do not have the legal recourse available in the American system. Perhaps as a consequence, most Canadian programs have been carried out by governments acting in their role as employers. The Canadian Union of Public Employees has been especially active in developing union perspectives on affirmative action programs, which do raise special concerns for organized labour. Affirmative action raises several basic questions: the importance of proportionality, merit, compensation and role models in determining who is entitled to opportunities in our society. Differences between the Fraser Institute's attitude about affirmative action and attitudes of other social groups, such as the labour movement, lie in their very different assumptions about what constitutes a free society.     

Innovation in Experiential Business Ethics Training

Ethics training has undergone dramatic changes in the past decade. Global business growth and increased technological change have played a role in the increasing sophistication and development of ethics programs and communication devices. These training initiatives are based on organizational ethical decision making theories and empirical research indicating the benefits of training in developing an ethical organizational culture. In this article, we discuss the issues important in developing effective ethics training, examine the goals and methods currently used in training, introduce an ethics training behavioral simulation, and discuss its implementation and evaluation.     

Corporate social responsibility and worker skills: An examination of corporate responses to work place illiteracy

Using perceptions of human resource managers of top management's attitude toward corporate social responsibility, a survey of private sector firms (n=407) revealed that over half of those that employed basic-skill deficient employees took legal or economic views of corporate social responsibility toward these workers. These attitudes were confirmed by organizational policies. Employers with social obligation tendencies were less likely to undertake proactive programs such as basic skill training, deskilling, or related supervisory training. Corporate philosophies were almost independent of organizational variables. One exception was manufacturing firms that were more likely to take a legal-economic view of illiterate employees; however, the relationship was weak. Little evidence was found that skill shortages or union pressures are resulting in corporate proactive programs. Implications for research and practice are discussed.Dr. Claire J. Anderson is Associate Professor at the College of Business Administration, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. Her research interests include human resources management and organizational behavior as well as business ethics. She has published articles in a number of academic and professional publications.Data for this article were drawn from a study jointly sponsored by Commerce Clearing House and the Society for Human Resource Management.     

Evaluating training programs: development and correlates of the Questionnaire for Professional Training Evaluation

Psychometrically sound evaluation measures are vital for examining the contribution of professional training to organizational success in a reliable manner. As training evaluations tend to be both time‐consuming and labor‐intensive, there is an increasing demand for economic evaluation inventories. Simultaneously, evaluation measures have to meet psychometric standards. The present paper develops a time‐efficient training evaluation questionnaire that (1) has psychometrically sound properties; (2) measures more than the participants’ reactions; and (3) is widely applicable across different training contents, thus allowing for comparisons of training programs within and between organizations. The Questionnaire for Professional Training Evaluation is primarily developed for use in practice but is also applicable to field research and covers short‐term as well as long‐term training outcomes. Analyses based on a total of n = 1134 employees show the stability of the factor structure and hint at the questionnaire's differential and discriminant validity. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Business plan proposals for inner-city neighborhoods: A Strategic Management assignment for MBA students at Loyola University Chicago

Beginning in 1992, MBA students enrolled in a capstone Strategic Management course at Loyola University Chicago have, as their major course assignment, researched and prepared an original business plan proposal to provide a needed good or service, as well as employment opportunities, to residents in one of Chicago's underserved innercity neighborhoods. This paper describes the genesis of the project, how it works, and what the outcomes have been to date. The pedagogical model is arguably appropriate for MBA programs in or near any area that is economically underdeveloped, be it urban or rural.Jill W. Graham is Associate Professor of Management at Loyola University Chicago, where she teaches the capstone strategy course to both undergraduates and MBA students. Her research concerns various forms of virtue in organizational life, including principled dissent, organizational citizenship behavior, activist loyalty, servant leadership, and value-driven strategic management. Graham received her Ph.D. in organization behavior from Northwestern University in 1983, and taught at the University of British Columbia before joining the Loyola faculty in 1986.     

Medical Error Disclosure Training: Evidence for Values-Based Ethical Environments

Disclosure of medical and errors to patients has been increasingly mandated in the U.S. and Canada. Thus, some health systems are developing formal disclosure policies. The present study examines how disclosure training may impact staff and the organization. We argue that organizations that support “disclose and apologize” activities, as opposed to “deny and defend,” are demonstrating values-based ethics. Specifically, we hypothesized that when health care clinicians are trained and supported in error disclosure, this may signal a values-based ethical environment, and staff may be more committed to the organization. We surveyed 325 clinical care providers employed by a large hospital that had recently begun implementing disclosure policies and training. Disclosure training explained significant variance in perceptions of the ethical environment, and the ethical environment mediated the relationship between disclosure training and organizational commitment. Although this study explored disclosure of medical errors, organizational support for error disclosure is a concept that could be relevant for many types of organizations.     

Leaders and Laggards: The Influence of Competing Logics on Corporate Environmental Action

We study the sources of resistance to change among firms in the Canadian petroleum industry in response to a shift in societal level logics related to corporate environmental performance. Despite challenges to its legitimacy as a result of poor environmental performance, the Canadian petroleum industry was divided as to how to respond, with some members ignoring the concerns and resisting change (i.e., laggards) while others took action to ensure continued legitimacy (i.e., leaders). We examine why organizations within the same institutional field responded differently, delaying the industry response. We found that one population of firms was aligned with increasing pressures from its stakeholders for improved environmental performance, and the other was influenced by local cultural, political, and economic ideals less demanding of environmental actions. Our results reveal that several factors both at the institutional field level and the organizational level affected how these two populations reacted to a changing societal logic. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.     

Delivering training strategies: the balanced scorecard at work

Aligning the value of training to organizational goals is an emerging need in human resource management. This study, aiming at expanding the research on training evaluation from a strategic management perspective, examines whether the use of the Balanced Scorecard approach can enable an effective delivery of training strategies, thus strengthening the link between training and organizational goals. The research was based on action research methodology. Researchers worked for about 12 months with three healthcare organizations. The research findings indicate that the balanced scorecard: (1) allows visualization of a clearly focused and internally consistent map of cause‐and‐effect relationships, turning the functional training efforts into strategic results; (2) effectively supports the training function both in managing training processes and in delivering targeted organizational outcomes; (3) offers a specific set of critical measures for evaluating the training function's performance; and (4) permits the fostering of a sound alignment between training programme objectives and functional goals. Various theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Organizational dependence and the likelihood of complying with organizational pressures to behave unethically

This paper reports the results of a survey completed by 565 human resource professionals in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The major result suggests that individuals who are more dependent on their employing organizations are more likely to comply with organizational pressures to behave unethically. Factor analysis of our dependent measure of ethical organizational behavior suggested that two distinct constructs were being tapped; furthermore, different variables were found to predict each. The potential for conceptualizing unethical organizational behavior as multidimensional is discussed.The author is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. She has recently obtained her Ph.D. in Organizational Analysis.     

Organizational characteristics and HRM policies on rights: Exploring the patterns of connections

The protection of employee rights in the workplace is one of the fundamental ethical questions facing organizations today. Organizations differ in the extent to which they protect the rights of both employees and themselves as employers, yet little research has examined the types of organizations that have rights protection policies. Instead of the classic normative approach to ethical issues, this study took a contextual approach to the management of rights in the workplace through human resource policies. Associations were found between the organizational characteristics of size, industry, unionization, business condition, and the existence of employee and employer rights policies. Additional analyses revealed underlying dimensions in right policies and the relationship of organizational characteristics to these aspects of rights management were examined. The results are discussed in terms of understanding human resource rights management within an organizational context.Catherine E. Schwoerer is an Assistant Professor in the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Her research interests include work place rights and responsibilities, training and development, self-efficacy, and aging and work.Douglas R. May is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management at the University of Nebraska. His research interests include social issues management and the impact of the physical environment on employees' attitudes and health.Benson Rosen is Hanes Professor of Management and Chairman of Management Area at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, The University of North Carolina. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a member of the Academy of Management.     

The Women in Management Research Program at the national centre for management research and development

NCMRD initiated the Women in Management Research Program in January 1988. One of the objectives of the program is to help managers and policy makers deal with issues arising from women's increased participation in managerial and professional jobs backing research to help arrive at solutions to the problems being encountered both by institutions and by women themselves. Significant research funds have been raised from the private sector and ten projects have been funded to date. This article describes the early development of the Program and its research mandate.Ronald J. Burke is the Imperial Life Professor in Organizational Behavior and Senior Fellow at the National Centre for Research and Development, School of Business Administration, The University of Western Ontario. He conducts research in the areas of organizational behavior and human resources management.Dorothy Mikalachki is a researcher and case-writer working at the School of Business Administration. She served for three years on the Board of Directors of an employment counselling agency for women. She is the author and co-author of a number of business articles, the most recent ones being concerned with women's issues. She has just completed a series of eight cases on Significant Women's Issues in Business.     

A preliminary investigation of the relationship between selected organizational characteristics and external whistleblowing by employees

Whistleblowing by employees to regulatory agencies and other parties external to the organization can have serious consequences both for the whistleblower and the company involved. Research has largely focused on individual and group variables that affect individuals' decision to blow the whistle on perceived wrongdoing.This study examined the relationship between selected organizational characteristics and the perceived level of external whistleblowing by employees in 240 organizations. Data collected in a nationwide survey of human resource executives were analyzed using analysis of variance.Results indicated that executives of larger organizations perceived a higher level of employee-voiced concerns to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as a higher overall level of external whistleblowing. Executives of organizations with union employees perceived a higher level of employee-voiced concerns to the EEOC, the media, and a higher overall level of external whistleblowing. Executives of organizations in the manufacturing industry group perceived a higher level of employee-voiced concerns to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.The implications of these findings are discussed, and limitations of the research are addressed. The paper concludes with several suggestions for continued research.Tim Barnett is an Assistant Professor of Management at Louisiana Tech University. His current research interests include ethical issues in human resources management and ethical decision making. His work has appeared in various journals, including theJournal of Business Research, theJournal of Business Communication, and theJournal of Business Ethics.     

Longitudinal organizational research in field settings

Managers, theorists, and researchers are interested in studying organizational phenomena such as technological change, organizational development, and leadership effectiveness over a period of time. However, a review of the literature in the field of organizational behavior and management indicates that a limited number of empirically based studies rigorously investigate changes within organizations. This article looks at the salient characteristics and issues facing those engaged in longitudinal research. While much more theoretical and methodological work is needed to improve the rigor of this type of research, some researchers have forged ahead and have attempted to conduct longitudinal research in field settings. A select few of these studies are presented to illustrate what can be accomplished by longitudinal research and what needs to be improved in such research designs. In conclusion, the authors offer some suggestions that may serve to increase the number of longitudinal organizational research studies in the future.     

Financial research in Canada: A long‐term assessment of journal publications

We examined the financial research among Canadian academic institutions between 1990–2008. Overall, Canadian institutions contribute 3.79% of all publications in 23 leading finance journals. The five most productive universities are the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University, McGill University, and the University of Alberta. The research productivity of Canadian universities is comparable to their counterparts in Australia and the UK. However, when examining only the top four finance journals, Canadian universities clearly outperform their counterparts in Australia and the UK. In addition, we find that the sufficiency of research funding, the size of faculty, as well as the assembly of a cohort of research‐active faculty contribute to the research productivity of finance programs in Canada. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Organizational Factors Encouraging Ethical Decision Making: An Exploration into the Case of an Exemplar

What factors in the organizational culture of an ethically exemplary corporation are responsible for encouraging ethical decision making? This question was analyzed through an exploratory case study of a top pharmaceutical company that is a global leader in ethics. The participating organization is renowned in public opinion polls of ethics, credibility, and trust. This research explored organizational culture, communication in issues management and public relations, management theory, and deontological or utilitarian moral philosophy as factors that might encourage ethical analysis. Our understanding of organiza tional ethics is enhanced by elucidating factors the case revealed as encouraging ethical analysisan organizational culture that emphasizes the importance of ethics, Theory Y management, a symmetrical worldview valuing innovation and dialogue, a counseling role for issues management or public relations in the dominant coalition, rewarding ethical behavior, ethical analysis using moral philosophy, consistency between individual values and organizational philosophy, and ethics training. These factors, and perhaps others as yet unidentified, worked together to create an environment that encouraged ethical decision making at the exemplar organization.