“Why did I do this?”: Understanding leadership behavior through a dynamic five‐factor model of leadership

Leadership theories referring to complex adaptive system theory (CAS) describe leadership as a dynamic process of interdependent, cooperating agents. However, research on leadership behavior focuses mainly on the leader as an influencing, active agent. This article offers a different perspective by focusing on factors that influence leadership behavior. A dynamic five‐factor model of leadership is introduced, which identifies (1) the leader's individual competence, (2) the group, (3) the organization, (4) the context, and (5) the immediate situation as all influencing factors on leadership behavior. To address the problem of the procedural nature of leadership behavior, the dynamic five‐factor model is combined with a scenario‐based approach. The scenario approach focuses on situational developments in a given context, whereby a previous situation influences a leader's behavior in the subsequent situation. By integrating the dynamic five‐factor model into a scenario approach, one can understand a leader's behavior in its procedural nature. The practical usability of the dynamic five‐factor model and the scenario approach was assessed in a leadership development program with 81 military officers. Structured feedback from participants indicated that the model and the approach were perceived as helpful and relevant for understanding leadership behavior.     

Housing and Health

Deprived housing is recognized as a source of poor health, but there is still little evidence of a causal relationship between housing and health. While existing literature identifies neighborhood effects and the individual dwelling as factors which affect health, it does not offer a joint examination of these factors. Moreover, endogeneity is a concern in analyses of both problems. Thus far, studies addressing endogeneity have done so through experimental design or instrumental variables. The first approach suffers from problems of external validity and the latter from the lack of reliable instruments. We therefore adopt an alternative strategy which considers both sources of endogeneity in order to identify the effects of housing on health by estimating fixed‐effect models. We reveal how housing problems affect health depending on living conditions and socioeconomic status. Our results therefore indicate that living in poor housing is an important short‐term socioeconomic determinant that directly affects health.     

Cheating in Contests

Much of the interest in the study of sports from the perspectiveof an economist lies in the empirical application of contestsas efficient mechanisms for eliciting effort. Contestants respondto contest incentives, and these incentives include the incentiveto cheat. This paper discusses different forms of cheating:sabotage, doping, and match fixing. The paper discusses howthese forms of cheating arise and how they can be treated. Inparticular, we look at specific forms of cheating in soccer,baseball, and cricket. In the appendix we develop a simple modelof match fixing.     

Credit Constraints in Manufacturing Enterprises in Africa

We investigate the question of whether firms in Africa's manufacturingsector are credit constrained. The fact that few firms obtaincredit is not sufficient to prove constraints, since certainfirms may not have a demand for credit while others may be refusedcredit as part of profit maximising behaviour by banks. To investigatethis question, we use direct evidence on whether firms had ademand of credit and whether their demand was satisfied in theformal credit market, based on panel data on firms in the manufacturingsector from six African countries. Of those firms with a demandfor credit, only a quarter obtained a formal sector loan. Ouranalysis suggests that while banks allocate credit on the basisof expected profits, micro or small firms are much less likelyto get a loan than large firms. We also find that outstandingdebt is positively related with obtaining further lending. Therole of outstanding debt is likely to be a reflection of inefficiencyin credit markets, while the fact that size matters is consistentwith a bias as well, although we cannot totally exclude thatthey reflect transactions costs on the part of banks. We presentan analysis showing how much more profitable small firms mustbe to obtain a loan than large firms.     

Embedding employee involvement and participation at work

Most quantitative studies analysing the nature and impact of employee involvement and participation (EIP) have used data that differentiate between its absence and presence. However, the application of EIP practices varies substantially, and impact may depend on how embedded EIP is at workplace level. Developing the concept of ‘embeddedness’ as a combination of measures of the breadth and depth of EIP practices, we use WERS98 to examine the impact of EIP on employee perceptions. Our results show support for propositions that greater breadth and depth of EIP practices are associated with higher levels of organisational commitment and job satisfaction.     

The Sustainability Balanced Scorecard – linking sustainability management to business strategy

The Balanced Scorecard of Kaplan and Norton is a management tool that supports the successful implementation of corporate strategies. It has been discussed and considered widely in both practice and research. By linking operational and non‐financial corporate activities with causal chains to the firm's long‐term strategy, the Balanced Scorecard supports the alignment and management of all corporate activities according to their strategic relevance. The Balanced Scorecard makes it possible to take into account non‐monetary strategic success factors that significantly impact the economic success of a business. The Balanced Scorecard is thus a promising starting‐point to also incorporate environmental and social aspects into the main management system of a firm. Sustainability management with the Balanced Scorecard helps to overcome the shortcomings of conventional approaches to environmental and social management systems by integrating the three pillars of sustainability into a single and overarching strategic management tool. After a brief discussion of the different possible forms of a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard the article takes a closer look at the process and steps of formulating a Sustainability Balanced Scorecard for a business unit. Before doing so, the basic conventional approach of the Balanced Scorecard and its suitability for sustainability management will be outlined in brief. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.