Research notes and communications. Toward the development of a planning scale: An example from the banking industry

The study dealt with the degree of formal planning undertaken by the commercial banking industry during 1969, 1972, 1975, and 1978. The study found that the Guttman scaling method can be used to develop a corporate planning scale. An outline of the steps in the construction of a Guttman planning scale is presented. Future research into the relationship between formal planning efforts and organizational performance might incorporate this approach.     

What of the youth? Aspirations and survival strategies from the Eastern Cape

A survey of black matriculants in Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown revealed that career aspirations were somewhat more modest than is popularly assumed and that these differed according to the immediate material circumstances and also the presence or absence of role models during the socialisation process. Such differences have important implications for unemployment relief programmes.     

Central Banks Can Avert Disaster

The history of difficulties in international banking refutes the argument that the Financial system is in crisis, it is claimed by Dr Forrest Capie and Geoffrey Wood, both at the Centre for Banking and International Finance, City University Business School, London. They contend that, despite obvious imperfections, the reliability of central banks as lenders of last resort is an ultimate safeguard against collapse.     

An Instrument to Measure Level 5 Leadership

The objective of this research project was to develop a validated scale to measure Level 5 Leadership using the Collins ( 2005 ) Level 5 attributes. An expert panel reduced the 99 attributes from Collins to 74. The 349 participants evaluated their bosses on a 10‐point semantic differential scale for each attribute. A review of the literature suggested that Level 5 leadership and servant leadership represent the same concept; thus the study used a 10‐item servant leadership scale to check for concurrent validity. Additionally, Collins proposed eight untested questions to determine if individuals qualify as Level 5 leaders. Principal component analysis resulted in two factors that explained 55.2% of the variance; these factors matched Collins's proposed personal humility and professional will constructs. The final instrument contains five attributes of personal humility and five attributes of professional will that yield Cronbach alphas of .83 and .83, respectively. The analysis also revealed statistically significant positive relationships between the Level 5 attributes, servant leadership, and a single factor that represented Collins's eight questions.