Innovation, Futures Thinking and Leadership

There are at least three strands of innovation: generating value from putting ideas into practice; creativity and inventive space; and macro-level social change. Recognizing the sources of and barriers to innovation in the public sector, this article reflects on how innovation and creativity in these senses can be nurtured and how the public sector can improve its policy and organizational processes to increase innovation.     

Australian retail fund performance persistence

The present study extends the Australian fund performance persistence literature through the use of five performance metrics: raw returns, the Sharpe ratio, the single‐factor model and two multifactor models, the Carhart (1997) model and the Gruber (1996) model, in analysis of Australian retail fund performance over the period 1991–2000. Analysis suggests that performance persistence is sensitive to fund objective and appears to be driven by inadequate adjustment for risk.     

Are German,Japanese and Anglo‐Saxon Strategic Decision Styles Still Divergent in the Context of Globalization?*

abstract Issues of globalization and divergence in terms of national systems and cultures are equally contentious, yet equally important, in the context of increasing cross‐continental co‐operation. This article investigates comparative strategic decision styles in Britain, the USA, Germany and Japan. An industry at an advanced stage in terms of globalization, vehicle components manufacture, was selected in order to explore the extent of convergence and whether this has changed. Between 1989 and 1998, field case studies were made of 100 strategic investment decisions (SIDs) by manufacturers in these four countries. Longitudinal judgements were supplemented by earlier comparative strategy field research carried out in 60 suppliers between 1980 and 1983, and two longitudinal case studies, one from the UK and one from Japan, interviewed throughout both these periods and again in 2002. Two competing hypotheses, derived from rich research literatures, are investigated. The first (H1) suggests that national institutional and cultural factors exert profound differences, and should therefore be afforded more significance as globalization proceeds further. The second (H2) is apparently contradictory and emphasizes that institutions and organizations are likely to respond to convergence pressures, spurred by global capital markets and competition on the one hand, and a diffusion of ‘professional management’ practices on the other. Japanese firms generally, and German family firms in particular, were still found to exhibit deep‐rooted differences from the Anglo‐Saxon model, which appears to confirm H1. However study of German public companies reveals that their strategic approaches are far less divergent from what is now an increasingly consistent Anglo‐Saxon model than they were a decade ago, which appears to confirm the competing hypothesis H2.