Social strategies that work

Although most companies have collected lots of friends and followers on social platforms such as Facebook, few have succeeded in generating profits there. That's because they merely port their digital strategies into social environments by broadcasting their commercial messages or seeking customer feedback. To succeed on social platforms, says Harvard Business School's Piskorski, businesses need to devise social strategies that are consistent with users' expectations and behavior in these venues--namely, people want to connect with other people, not with companies. The author defines successful social strategies as those that reduce costs or increase customers' willingness to pay by helping people establish or strengthen relationships through doing free work on a company's behalf. Citing successes at Zynga, eBay, American Express, and Yelp, Piskorski shows that social strategies can generate profits by helping people connect in exchange for tasks that benefit the company such as customer acquisition, marketing, and content creation. He lays out a systematic way to build a social strategy and shows how a major credit card company he advised used the method to roll out its own strategy.     

Factors that affect accountant's perceptions of alternative work arrangements

Advances in technology have impacted accounting careers with resulting changes in where, when and how accountants perform their job duties. In addition, employee attitudes towards, and need for, better work/life balance has led to more firms offering alternate work arrangements (AWA). Research suggests that AWA programs can lead to many benefits for both employers and employees. Despite the prevalence of these programs there are relatively few accountants working under these arrangements and concerns about work/life balance continue. This study examines factors that shape perceptions of the cost and benefits associated with the adoption and/or support of AWAs across work culture, gender and participation experience. Our results suggest that work environment had a significant effect on perceptions of AWAs. Public accountants perceived greater costs related to career advancement but correspondingly less concern about administrative issues than management accountants. We also found that accountants who have participated (or are currently participating in an AWA), perceived greater benefits and less concern for potential negative consequences to their careers than non-participants. Finally, women perceived greater benefits to result from participation in an AWA and men perceived correspondingly more costs. Regardless, both genders perceived that AWAs were not strictly a women's issue. These findings contribute to our understanding of alternate work arrangements and point to factors that must be addressed to increase the acceptance and success of these programs.     

Factors that influence the perceived use of the internal audit function's work by executive management and audit committee

The internal audit function (IAF) is an important component of high-quality corporate governance. We study how the head of internal audit perceives the executive management team and the audit committee to rely on the IAF's work. It is not obvious from prior work or professional anecdotes whether the IAF satisfies the needs of both groups. If multiple factors influence the IAF's work, chief audit executives (CAEs) may find themselves in a situation with competing demands, which could then compromise quality for all stakeholders. Based on a unique dataset from CAEs, two logistic regression models identify factors that influence the degree to which IAF's results are perceived as being used by both executive management and the audit committee. The results show the existence of various factors that are relevant either to both groups (e.g., strategic project reports and IAF quality) or to only one (e.g., only audit committees are interested in risk management reports while only executive management teams are interested in internal control reports), depending on whether the IAF focuses on assurance or consulting work.     

如何当好基层支行的中层干部

任何一个单位都有中层干部，中层干部在一个单位起着承上启下的作用。笔者在银行当过多年的股长，科长和部门经理，深切感受到当好中层干部的重要性。我认为，在工商银行上市的新形势下，要当好一名基层支行的中层干部，应该“处理好九大关系，具备八个条件，培养七种素质”。     

坚持金融服务“三个贴近”为构建促进中部崛起重要战略支点提供金融支撑

长期以来，工行湖北省分行深入贯彻落实科学发展观，立足湖北、扎根湖北，始终一贯地坚持“贴近区域经济社会发展的重点、热点和难点，贴近经济社会发展的金融需求，贴近自身发展定位”三个贴近的工作方针，服从、服务于湖北经济建设和社会发展，创造性地开展工作，实现了社会效益、股东利益、员工收益的和谐与多赢，为促进社会和谐、全面建设小康社会做出了积极而卓有成效的贡献。     

高扬思想政治工作风帆——工行台州分行强化思想政治工作促进和谐发展

日前,在全国金融系统思想政治工作暨建设社会主义新农村“双先”表彰会议上,工商银行浙江省台州分行荣膺全国金融系统2007年度思想政治工作先进单位,其思想政治工作先进经验在会上交流,获得与会人员的一致好评。     

How much work?

The future of work is a constant topic of discussion. This article approaches it with the deceptively simple notion of demand and supply: how much work is required to yield a reasonable standard of living? And how much work would people prefer to put in? Answers are given from two studies of a mature Welfare State, Sweden. The answers also point to the following underlying questions: What are the driving forces behind the present pattern of work? Is there a lagging self-understanding about needs, risks and possibilities in our type of society?     

The work of leadership

More and more companies today are facing adaptive challenges: changes in societies, markets, and technology around the globe are forcing them to clarify their values, develop new strategies, and learn new ways of operating. And the most important task for leaders in the face of such challenges is mobilizing people throughout the organization to do adaptive work. Yet for many senior executives, providing such leadership is difficult. Why? One reason is that they are accustomed to solving problems themselves. Another is that adaptive change is distressing for the people going through it. They need to take on new roles, relationships, values, and approaches to work. Many employees are ambivalent about the sacrifices required of them and look to senior executives to take problems off their shoulders. But both sets of expectations have to be unlearned. Rather than providing answers, leaders have to ask tough questions. Rather than protecting people from outside threats, leaders should let the pinch of reality stimulate them to adapt. Instead of orienting people to their current roles, leaders must disorient them so that new relationships can develop. Instead of quelling conflict, leaders should draw the issues out. Instead of maintaining norms, leaders must challenge "the way we do business" and help others distinguish immutable values from the historical practices that have become obsolete. The authors offer six principles for leading adaptive work: "getting on the balcony," identifying the adaptive challenge, regulating distress, maintaining disciplined attention, giving the work back to people, and protecting voices of leadership from below.     

春雨润物催生机——工行开封分行荣获全国金融系统“思想政治工作先进单位”纪实

工行河南省开封分行坚持以人为本,始终把不断深化和创新思想政治工作作为营造和谐银行、促进经营发展的源泉和动力,常抓不懈,取得了良好成效。近几年,先后荣获国家级文明单位、“全国巾帼文明示范岗”、“全国全民健身活动先进单位”、工总行“先进职工之家”等荣誉称号,连续多年实现无信访、     

Do welfare‐to‐work programmes work for long?

Evidence that welfare‐to‐work programmes in the USA succeed in boosting welfare recipients' earnings at modest cost has helped shape policy in Britain since 1997. So too has the belief that programmes that prioritise moving people into work quickly are more effective than ones that seek to enhance human capital. However, there is little evidence on how long the beneficial effects of programmes persist after individuals leave them. The analysis reported draws on the experience of 64 US welfare‐to‐work programmes that have all been evaluated using random assignment. It concludes that, on average, these programmes have a positive effect on participants' earnings for five to six years. The effects of ‘work first’ interventions are most marked early on and decline more rapidly than those of programmes emphasising human capital. Nevertheless, work first interventions typically increase earnings received over six years by more than two‐and‐a‐half times that achieved by human capital approaches.     

Smart work and hard work: explicating a learning orientation in strategic management accounting

This paper examines the skills and aptitudes necessary to undertake a strategic management accounting project. It argues that individuals involved in such projects are required to work both smart and hard. This argument is developed theoretically by reference to the work of educational psychologists who have identified two different types of goal orientation which people pursue in achievement situations: the learning orientation and the performance orientation. Evidence that strategic management accounting requires a learning orientation is provided by means of a case study which describes its use in a competitive tendering situation. This is followed by a discussion of the potentially symbiotic relationship of strategic management accounting and organizational learning. The discussion leads to the specification of a research agenda that may have significant implications for the practice and learning of management accounting.     

新时期思想政治工作应注意增强“五性”

工商银行上市以后，建立完善现代商业银行公司治理架构和经营机制，促进经营模式和增长方式根本转变的任务仍然十分艰巨。思想政治工作也必须适应体制改革和经营转型的新形势，在内窖、方法、形式等各方面，不断地进行改进和创新，既要继承和发扬优良传统，又要与时俱进，研究新情况，解决新问题，尤其是要注意增强“五性”。     

Reawakening your passion for work

All of us struggle from time to time with the question of personal meaning: "Am I living the way I want to live?" For millions of people, the attacks of September 11 put the issue front and center, but most of us periodically take stock of our lives under far less dramatic circumstances. This type of questioning is healthy; business leaders need to go through it every few years to replenish their energy, creativity, and commitment--and their passion for work. In this article, the authors describe the signals that it's time to reevaluate your choices and illuminate strategies for responding to those signals. Such wake-up calls come in various forms. Some people feel trapped or bored and may realize that they have adjusted to the frustrations of their work to such an extent that they barely recognize themselves. For others, the signal comes when they are faced with an ethical challenge or suddenly discover their true calling. Once you have realized that it's time to take stock of your life, there are strategies to help you consider where you are, where you're headed, and where you want to be. Many people find that calling a time-out--either in the form of an intense, soul-searching exercise or a break from corporate life--is the best way to reconnect with their dreams. Other strategies include working with a coach, participating in an executive development program, scheduling regular time for self-reflection, and making small changes so that your work better reflects your values. People no longer expect their leaders to have all the answers, but they do expect them to try to keep their own passion alive and to support employees through that process.     

用心去想,用心去做——访中国工商银行个人金融业务总监李卫平

近年来,随着银行科技水平的不断提高和银行卡受理环境的日益改善,借记卡已经代替了存折、存单等纸质凭证,成为银行的主要账户介质,基本奠定了其在个人金融业务中举足轻重的基础地位.借记卡不仅成为个人金融业务重要的利润来源,也是客户关系管理的重要平台、个人金融业务的载体和公私业务联动的纽带.     

The work of the leader

Lieutenant General William G. Pagonis led the 40,000 men and women who ran the theater logistics in the Persian Gulf War during its three phases of operation: Desert Shield (buildup), Desert Storm (ground war), and Desert Farewell (redeployment). By military standards, it was a challenging assignment. By the conventions of any nonmilitary complex organization, it was unheard of. In the Persian Gulf, Pagonis's challenges included feeding, clothing, sheltering, and arming over 550,000 people. All of this in an hostile, desert region with a Muslim community distrustful of the "infidels" sent there to protect them. The lessons of leadership gleaned through Pagonis's experiences in the Gulf cross military boundaries--they apply equally to general management and leadership development in the private, civilian sector. To gain a clear sense of the overall organization in an area the size of the Southwest Asian theater, Pagonis deputized proxies, dubbed "Ghostbusters," to be his eyes and ears throughout the desert. His goal was to build a leadership-supporting environment, combining centralized control with decentralized execution. Pagonis believes vision is defined by the leader, but the subordinates define the objectives that move the organization toward the desired outcome. The roots of leadership, Pagonis claims, are expertise and empathy. A leader's work is not only to apply these traits but also to cultivate them--both on a personal and organizational level. True leaders create organizations that themselves cultivate leadership. This can only be achieved through rigorous and systematic organizational development.     

Professional standards in futures work

The question of professional standards in the futures arena is a major, but unresolved issue. The paper begins with aspects of a rationale. It then seeks to briefly define Futures Studies (FS) and to answer two questions: what is a futurist, and how can one become a futurist? It summarises various proposals for establishing standards including Bell's for a code of ethics. A number of questions about professional capabilities and behaviour are posed and some provisional answers are given. Several implications are derived for the World Futures Studies Federation as a ‘peak body’. The paper concludes that for FS to fulfil its potential it must pursue quality in every area.     

思想政治工作必须做到通情达理——对做好新形势下思想政治工作的一点体会

我们经常感叹，随着市场经济和社会生活的不断发展，人的思想越来越复杂了，思想政治工作越来越难做了，甚至有的同志认为，思想政治工作在企业管理中已经没有什么效果了，也不需要做思想政治工作了。这些观点在银行业的管理干部中也一定程度存在。确实，在市场经济条件下，人的思想呈现出复杂性和多元化的特点，市场经济的功利特征与思想政治工作倡导的精神理念也存在一定的矛盾，这给思想政治工作提出了新的问题和要求。中国的国情和国有银行的特点决定了思想政治工作在企业管理中的重要地位。特别是在我行成功上市的新形势下，广大员工将要面对的是种种重大变革，思想必然会产生这样那样的波动，思想政治工作要适应形势的发展，真正收到实效，更需要进一步加强和改进，更需要讲究工作方法。我认为，当前加强和改进思想政治工作最重要的就是要改变方式，讲究方法，做到通情达理。