CONCEPTUALIZING LEADERSHIP PROCESSES: A STUDY OF SENIOR MANAGERS IN A FINANCIAL SERVICES COMPANY*

Established methodologies of leadership research have placed unnecessary constraints upon our capacity to examine creatively actual leadership practices and to generate fresh insights into their dynamics. A regeneration of leadership research depends upon the development of new frameworks of interpretation which yield new or deeper understanding of processes to which the term ‘leadership’is usually attributed. To this end, the article presents a conceptual framework founded upon well established traditions of social enquiry which have been underutilized in leadership research. The value of this framework is demonstrated through the analysis of data taken from an intensive field study of leadership processes amongst senior managers. It is argued that this methodology for leadership research serves to answer calls for increasing the practical relevance of leadership research without making unacceptable sacrifices to its intellectual credibility.     

雀巢不想把巢做大?

<正> 不流血的胜利 “如今不管你走到哪里,管理理论家和实践家都会告诉你,变革是有利的,并且是必须的。然而对于雀巢这个世界级的长寿企业而言,情况并非如此。相反,如果你能够慢速地发展,但确定持久地发展,那么就不需要流血的变革而赢得最后的胜利。” 不久之前,一位华尔街的记者问起雀巢的执行总裁彼得·布雷贝克(PeterBrabeck),坐在全球最大的食品公司老总的位置上,他对企业发展有什么看法。布     

Equal pay for equal work in the third world

If the principle of equal pay for work of equal value is valid, then the practice of paying workers in third-world countries at a lower rate than workers doing the same jobs in industrialized nations is unjust. Recently Henry Shue argued that the principle is not valid. In this paper I criticize Shue's arguments and offer additional arguments in support of his conclusion. Hugh Lehman is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph. His most important publications are Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics, Basil Blackwell, 1979, Mathematical Proofs, Gaps and Postulationism, The Monist 67, and Intuitionism and Platonism on Infinite Totalities, Idealistic Studies XIII. He also edited a special issue of Animal Regulation Studies 2 that contained papers from the conference: Ethical Issues Concerning the Use of Animals in Agriculture and Scientific Research.     

Ethical Decision Making and the Employed Lawyer

This article addresses one of the more disturbing questions raised by the major financial failures of the recent past; namely, how it could be that professionals, highly trained both in ethics and technical disciplines, should apparently collude with management in corporate misbehaviour. The article builds on evidence suggesting that professionals in employment contexts find ways of adapting in order to minimise perceived or actual conflict between their professional and organizational obligations and that this, in turn, may affect the way in which they exercise professional judgment. It uses identity theory to propose that professionals may adopt modified identities when employed and that these identities may be expressed, in part, in the way in which they resolve ethical dilemmas. The article reports on the results of a qualitative study in which corporate counsel showed evidence of adopting these identities. The findings suggest that this line of research offers insight into a far more complex world of employed professionals than that traditionally hypothesised and that the popular approach of regulators and others to monitoring corporate governance by appointing professionals as gate-keepers within the organization is perhaps problematic.     

The Non-Robustness of the Nash-Stackelberg-Hybrid Equilibrium

In a simple, standard sequential search model, the Nash-Stackelberg-Hybrid equilibrium is shown, in general, to be non-robust when the assumption that all firms are constrained to operate one outlet is dropped. Unless the firms are constrained from increasing the number of outlets or the price, they will open additional outlets to increase their market power. In a standard duopoly model an equilibrium featuring both firms operating multiple outlets is shown to exist.     

Performance and Performance Persistence of 'Ethical' Unit Trusts in the UK

Abstract:  We examine performance, and persistence in the performance, of UK 'ethical' or SRI funds and find that performance appears to be time-varying, showing that conclusions on performance itself are influenced by whether a static or time varying model is employed. Given evidence that many UK funds which claim to be international in nature may exhibit home bias in their portfolio allocations, we also propose a new measure for performance of international funds that allows for this and show that such recognition has important implications for the conclusions drawn with respect to these funds. We find evidence that supports persistence in performance, particularly at longer time horizons. There is some evidence that for domestic funds, past 'winning' SRI funds outperform 'losing' SRI funds to a greater extent than their control portfolio counterparts.     

The role of the corporate HR function in global talent management

We currently know little of the role of the corporate human resource (HR) function in multinational corporations regarding global talent management (GTM). GTM is explored here from two perspectives: increasing global competition for talent, and new forms of international mobility. The first considers the mechanisms of GTM, and the second, individual willingness to be mobile, especially in emerging markets, and the organizational capability needed to manage this talent. New corporate HR roles are identified which show how these issues might be addressed. We then advance our understanding of GTM theory and practice by considering the major future challenges facing corporate HR.     

Towards a Post-Dualistic Business Ethics: Interweaving Reason and Emotion in Working Life

We highlight and challenge the dominance of rationalist assumptions in business ethics that promote and legitimize a privileging of reason over emotion as a source of moral action. We ask whether it is possible for business ethics not only to challenge this hierarchy but to avoid its reversal. We start by exploring some origins of reason-based ethics and relate these to ideas about organization. Here we hint at some popular examples of this kind of ethics and discuss two of its more important sources of inspiration: Kant and Weber. Next, we consider the relationship between bureaucracy and morality before evaluating Bauman's ideas about morality in bureaucratic organizations. We argue that Bauman fails to challenge the dualism between reason and emotion as he inverts the hierarchical relationship between them. Contending that this hierarchization should be abandoned, we explore how the preceding discussion illuminates business ethics and address some consequences of our anti-dualist position.