The road to foreign language competency in the United States: A leadership perspective

A prevailing thought regarding foreign language competency (FLC) is that it can lead to an advantaged workforce by improving performance, especially in service‐oriented professions. This prevailing thought is logical, considering banking, hospitality and tourism, social services, sales, and health care industries. Foreign language teachers, training and development professionals, workforce education professionals, and government agencies (e.g., the military) all play a leading role in the effort to improve FLC in segments of the U.S. workforce. Workplace learning and performance (WLP) establishes the framework for companies that can quantitatively demonstrate that having a foreign‐language‐competent staff will increase performance and company profits (or value for the nonprofit sector). Leadership competencies guide the function of workplace foreign language training and development and has a direct impact on the success of achieving workplace FLC. In addition, scenarios demonstrating how a foreign‐language‐competent staff might improve overall company performance are explored. Methods of conducting appropriate assessments prior to implementing a workplace foreign language training and development program are addressed.     

People management: developing and testing a measurement scale

Abstract

The central concept in this study is people management, referring to line managers’ implementation of HR practices and their leadership behaviour oriented at supporting the employees they supervise at work. In this study we conceptualize people management and develop a multidimensional scale to measure it from the perspectives of both employees and line managers. Using a Study 1/Study 2 design, including two-wave multilevel data from employees and line managers of a financial service provider, and cross-sectional data from teachers, educational support staff, and supervisors, we demonstrate the scale’s reliability and multidimensionality across samples and over time. We provide evidence of the convergent validity by showing that employees’ and line managers’ perceptions of people management are significantly related, and that people management is significantly related to transformational and transactional leadership. Also, we demonstrate that people management adds explained variance above and beyond transformational and transactional leadership in predicting team performance. We demonstrate criterion-related validity through people management’s relationship with job satisfaction, commitment, and work engagement. We discuss the implications of our measure for theory and research on people management, its antecedents, and its effects.     

About and beyond leading uniqueness and belongingness: A systematic review of inclusive leadership research

The purpose of this systematic review of 107 papers is to address the conceptual confusion about what inclusive leadership (IL) behavior entails and understand the theoretical development of IL. Synthesizing the divergent conceptualizations of inclusive leader behaviors, we propose a multi-level (i.e., employee, team, organizational) model of IL behavior consisting of four dimensions namely, fostering employee's uniqueness (e.g., promoting diversity); strengthening belongingness within a team (e.g., building relationships); showing appreciation (e.g., recognizing efforts and contributions); and supporting organizational efforts (e.g., promoting organizational mission on inclusion). Further, we provide a summary of studied variables as a nomological network in relation to inclusive leadership and an overview of the different theories (e.g., social exchange, intrinsic motivation) supporting the respective relationships and explaining the underlying mechanisms (e.g., reciprocity, motivation). We propose future research to empirically test the multi-level model of IL and examine the predictive value in terms of employee and organizational outcomes.     

A multilevel leadership process framework of performance management

Performance management is a critical human resource management practice intended to facilitate performance and development in organizations. Unfortunately, recent discourse among researchers and practitioners suggest that current performance management practices in organizations are less than satisfactory and not effective. A popular recommendation to improve the performance management process is to focus less on the formal procedures and more on the manager-employee interactions embedded in the process. However, current models of performance management do not reflect this focus on social processes. We present a multilevel leadership process framework of performance management that highlights the pivotal role of managers. Within this framework managers carry out this process through their influence on employees, teams, and the organization. Recommendations for future directions are also provided.     

Project appraisal for developing countries: a systematic approach

A cost/benefit model has been developed for financial and economic appraisal of projects in developing countries. The approach proposed is a technique for analysis that forces the analyst to consider all the relevant factors systematically, thus enhancing the identification of problem areas and supporting rational disciplined decision-making processes. The model includes all the assumptions relevant to the project analysis, detailed financing, financial analysis, the impact of the project on public finance, the impact on foreign exchange, and the economic appraisal from the nation's point of view.

The model is developed at a sufficiently detailed level and proves to be very useful for short-term/long-term planning and evaluation of the project. Consistency of making assumptions is ensured by having all the assumptions clearly defined and shown in the model. Moreover, the structure of the model is flexible and can easily be upgraded over time to meet the requirements and refinements with availability of more information and changing conditions. It is felt that with the existence of an easy to use computer model reluctance or indifference to test alternatives and carry out sensitivity analysis, which continues to the detriment of the nation's interest, will be eliminated.     

Leadership in Temporary Organizations: A Review of Leadership Theories and a Research Agenda

Projects and other temporary forms of organizing are different from standard organizational processes. As most leadership theories are based on the assumption of stable organizational environments, the increase in temporary forms of organizing poses specific challenges to leadership theories. We evaluate existing leadership theories in terms of their applicability on temporary environments and identify theories, which are adaptable to temporary settings and therefore may be the basis for empirical investigations in this field. On this basis we derive a research agenda by proposing individual leadership theories and combinations of different leadership approaches to be further assessed in research.     

平台型领导:一种新的领导类型

本文以人本主义为思想基础,强调对下属的尊重和完整系统的认识,提出了平台型领导的概念.首先,文章从理论与实践结合的基础上论述平台型领导的内涵,即强调事业发展、把事业的平台做大、为自己和下属提供更广阔的事业空间、搭建更大的展示才华的平台,进而提出了平台型领导的四项主要内容:关注领导者和下属的成长、打造并不断扩大事业平台、塑造相互促进的互动关系和互动过程的动态优化.最后,本文将平台型领导与现有领导研究中的几个重要领导类型进行对比分析,明确了这一领导类型的独特性.     

The purchasing department's leadership role in developing and maintaining a preferred customer status

Developing and maintaining a preferred customer status is one of the main objectives of organizations that want to obtain a better access to supplier's information, resources, and innovation. This paper addresses the extent and the nature of the purchasing department's leadership role in the process of developing and maintaining a preferred customer status. A qualitative exploratory approach based on eleven cases has been used in order to take into consideration the context specific to the buyer-supplier relationship in a preferred customer scenario.Our study shows that the purchasing department performs four main categories of roles: (1) identifies and selects the best supplier, (2) structures and segments the supply base, (3) builds close relationships with selected suppliers and (4) develops working relationships, using an effective communication. Each of these roles is related to three key components of the purchasing department's capabilities: boundary, relational, and coordination. These four categories of roles illustrate supply's ability to recognize and understand the specifics of the preferred customer situation. Based on our analysis, the purchasing department should be viewed as extending an organization's resource base, making the organization more competitive.Our analysis also shows that the purchasing managers' leadership is critical for the development and the coordination of activities with selected suppliers, as well as proper communication with them. Specifically, the purchasing manager's transformational leadership generates more internal user and supplier involvement through the creation and articulation of a common vision, by establishing shared goals with other organizational units, and by focusing on activities that benefit the organization; this allows to move from initiative-driven efforts to an “institutionalized preferred customer status management” in the organization.     

A systematic mapping study of process mining

This study systematically assesses the process mining scenario from 2005 to 2014. The analysis of 705 papers evidenced ‘discovery’ (71%) as the main type of process mining addressed and ‘categorical prediction’ (25%) as the main mining task solved. The most applied traditional technique is the ‘graph structure-based’ ones (38%). Specifically concerning computational intelligence and machine learning techniques, we concluded that little relevance has been given to them. The most applied are ‘evolutionary computation’ (9%) and ‘decision tree’ (6%), respectively. Process mining challenges, such as balancing among robustness, simplicity, accuracy and generalization, could benefit from a larger use of such techniques.     

Cultural Complementarity: Reshaping professional and organizational logics in developing frontline medical leadership

With the rise of clinical management, new skills of medical doctors stand out, including leadership skills. Medical doctors organize medical work and improve patient care. The training of frontline leadership skills, however, is weakly developed in residency programmes. Medical professional cultures tend to resist organizational techniques and values. This paper analyses cultural interventions in health-care organizations, aimed at overcoming ‘clashes’ between professional and organizational logics in frontline domains. These interventions do not work against, but ‘use’ professional traditions, styles and customs as cultural resources. We use one particular project to illustrate this, a project in which internal medicine residents are invited to join quality improvement sessions, during which they identify critical (organizational) experiences with care provision and realize change. We show how residents feel enabled to establish results and cooperate with other professionals. We also show how this project links organizational responsibilities and medical professionalism – how complementarity (instead of conflict) is established. This is done in practical ways, which commit instead of alienate medical professionals.     

Adding ethical consideration to the decision‐making process: A leadership challenge

Stakeholder analysis offers a well‐established framework for understanding organizational context and environment. Stakeholder analysis also offers a lens through which ethical considerations can be consciously evaluated and included in organizational decision making. In this article, the author offers a brief overview of the ethics literature and then examines the decision‐making process to identify how and when opportunities arise to include ethical considerations into the decision‐making process. He concludes by offering suggestions on how leaders might improve their ethical decision‐making by using a more macro and strategic stakeholder lens.     

Leadership and innovation: relations between leadership,individual characteristics and the functioning of R&D teams

The main focus of this paper is the functioning of R&D teams, the role of the team leader and the characteristics of individual team members. After a brief overview of recent literature on leadership and innovation, some research results are presented from a study of leadership in self-managing teams; these teams have a number of characteristics in common with R&D teams, such as dependent tasks and job autonomy. The results lead to an integrated model for the effective functioning of R&D teams, with a focus on the relations between leadership behaviour, individual characteristics, team functioning and outcome variables.     

Say on pay and executive compensation: A systematic review and suggestions for developing the field

Say on pay (SOP) is a form of shareholder activism where shareholders express their opinions on executive compensation by casting a vote in the annual general meeting. To date, although a large variety of results, antecedents and outcomes have been mentioned and discussed, knowledge about SOP is still limited. This study, through a systematic literature review of 44 articles on SOP published between 2010 and 2018 in finance and management journals, aims to explore our understanding of SOP effectiveness by analyzing its conceptualization, theoretical foundations, methodological issues, antecedents and derived outcomes. After identifying some common patterns in SOP effectiveness that reflect a specific governance contextualization, we provide a guide to develop future research in the field, highlighting key implications for human resource management academics and practitioners.     

一个城市变迁的浓墨重彩--宁波市城市建设解读

2003年6月8日晚,中央电视台向全国播发了一条不长不短的地方新闻:目前世界上最长的跨海大桥--杭州湾跨海大桥工程于当天在宁波奠基动工.这条看似很平常的"建设施工"新闻,却闪烁着梦幻般的五光十色,让长三角洲南翼的人们激动不已.这座总投资达118亿元的杭州湾跨海大桥的"破土",标志着宁波市的经济社会发展和城市建设又进入了一个新的里程碑.     

An analysis of process industry production and inventory management systems

The process industries — those firms that add value by mixing, separating, forming and/or chemical reactions by either batch or continuous mode — continue to lag behind the discrete industries in the identification and implementation of effective production and inventory management (P&IM) techniques. A contributing factor is that the process industries have traditionally been lumped together and contrasted from the discrete industries as a whole, thus leading to misunderstandings regarding individual process industries. From site interviews and the literature, we identified four critical dimensions — planning resource requirements (for materials and capacity), tracking resource consumption, control of work-in-process (WIP), and degree of computerization — represented by seven variables by which to contrast and analyze process industries. Based on in-depth field studies of 19 diverse process plants, we find that there exist at least four distinct types of process industry P&IM systems: (1) simple, (2) common, (3) WIP-controlled, and (4) computerized.     

Creating a healthy working environment with leadership: the concept of health-promoting leadership

In this paper, a concept of health-promoting leadership is presented that focuses on the interaction between working environment and leadership behavior. Seven key aspects define health-promoting leadership: health awareness, low workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. The self-assessment version of the questionnaire was used in this study for the first time. Analyzing the data of 299 leaders, the results showed satisfactory reliability and validity coefficients for all dimensions. Structural equation modeling indicates that all dimensions can be assigned on a main factor of health-promoting leadership. The questionnaire offers two main advantages: first, it is possible to measure health-promoting behavior strategies of leaders and thus show their leadership potential. Second, the instrument allows analyzing critical aspects in the working environment and further helps establish basic conditions in the workplace, where a health-promoting workplace can be created.