To distribute leadership or not? A lesson from the islands

There is a dearth of literature in the area of tourism leadership. This article identifies the theoretical aspects of distributed leadership which features collective responsibility and collective flexibility, and argues how it might be advantageous for tourism firms in general. A longitudinal qualitative case study is used to consider different forms of distributed leadership and their impact upon organisational outcomes. The analysis is presented in terms of the presence or absence of distributed leadership within the case organisation. Evidence is provided of where this style of leadership would support success, but also identifies why it has been so hard to recognise this and then maintain and support it over time. It is argued that it may prove advantageous for tourism firms to actively consider whether distributed leadership would potentially offer increased organisational performance.     

商业生态系统核心企业的领导者素质浅析

本文首先简述了商业系统核心企业的内涵和核心企业领导者的重要性,归纳出商业生态系统中核心型企业领导者素质简要关系图,继而从摩尔提出的商业生态系统的四个阶段出发,研究并总结了每个阶段的成功发展核心企业领导者所需要具备的基本素质,旨在加深对成功的商业生态系统中核心企业的领导者角色的理解和认识,给予其他商业生态系统中的核心企业领导者一点启发。     

Interim succession: Temporary leadership in the midst of the perfect storm

The corporate governance environment has changed. The rate of CEO successions is naturally trending up, succession planning is in dire need of repair, and boards are under increasing pressure to focus on oversight. This confluence of events creates a ‘perfect storm.’ Within this new environment, interim successions are on the rise. But is it all bad news? This article explores the decision of corporate directors to use temporary chief executive officers (CEOs) and the roles served by these interim leaders. We include a typology of interim CEOs and prescribe the contexts in which organizations can strategically pursue this type of succession. We conclude with a list of recommendations for how boards can most effectively manage interim leadership in the new corporate governance environment.     

The ‘Leadership–Stakeholder Involvement Capacity’ nexus in stakeholder management

It is increasingly accepted that stakeholders affect the achievement of organisational plans and that ineffective ‘stakeholder involvement’ in developmental initiatives can hinder the achievement of business objectives. Using the context of sustainability, case study research demonstrated that ‘stakeholder involvement’ (how stakeholders become active or inactive) is a complex process influenced by a range of interlinked personal and externally driven factors. Principally, the process is influenced by the type of leadership (leadership quality) and the capability of stakeholders to become involved (stakeholder involvement capacity). These two forces play a significant role in stakeholder involvement and constitute the main part of the ‘Leadership–Stakeholder Involvement Capacity’ (LSIC) nexus that is presented in this paper. The LSIC nexus sheds light on our understanding of key complex issues that underpin the lack of, or ineffective, stakeholder participation in developmental initiatives including stakeholder relationships, stakeholder mind-sets, information quality and accessibility, contextual circumstances and implementation priorities.     

Will AI ever sit at the C-suite table? The future of senior leadership

As the sophistication of artificial intelligence (AI) systems develop and AI becomes a key element of organizational strategy across a wide spectrum of industries, new demands are being placed on senior leaders. To understand the growing challenges leaders will face in the age of AI, we conducted interviews with 33 senior leaders in several countries across a wide range of industries. Our research highlights key capabilities and skills that leaders will require. Underlying these capabilities is a mindset oriented toward continuous learning and self-development, which will enable ongoing and rapid adaptation to change. Our findings identified the following key capabilities: digital know-how, data-driven focus, networking, ethics, and agility. To successfully navigate the coming era, senior leaders will need to focus on reskilling the workforce, recruiting and retaining highly skilled talent, building an intrapreneurial culture, and managing unprecedented changes in technologies and the nature of work.     

A cross-cultural meta-analysis of how leader emotional intelligence influences subordinate task performance and organizational citizenship behavior

Global human resource managers need to understand which personality characteristics contribute to leadership effectiveness in different cultures for both selection and training purposes. This meta-analysis demonstrates that leaders’ emotional intelligence (EI) demonstrates incremental validity and relative weight in predicting subordinates’ task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) after controlling for the Big Five and cognitive ability. The relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ task performance is stronger in collectivistic, feminine, and high uncertainty avoidance cultures. The relationship between leaders’ EI and subordinates’ OCB is stronger in high power distance, collectivistic, feminine, high uncertainty avoidance, long-term oriented, and restraint cultures.     

Developing cross-cultural competencies through international corporate volunteerism

We propose three features of cross-cultural experiences, contextual novelty, project meaningfulness and social support, facilitate the development of cross-cultural competencies. Using a longitudinal design, the employees in Study 1 participated in an international corporate volunteerism program designed with all three features. These results found a positive change over time in cross-cultural competencies. Results of Study 2, also longitudinal, suggest that the participants’ post-assignment cross-cultural competencies are the highest: (1) when employees with higher baseline cross-cultural competencies work in high contextual novelty (i.e., international location) and (2) when employees with lower baseline cross-cultural competencies work in low contextual novelty (i.e., domestic location).     

Design thinking for innovation: Considering distinctions,fit, and use in firms

As firms struggle with high failure rates when developing new products and services, they seek new approaches to innovation. One method garnering attention is design thinking (DT), a design-based method of problem solving. Businesses as varied as Airbnb and PepsiCo are embracing DT in growing numbers, but some may be joining the bandwagon without understanding its distinctions compared to the main alternative, the Stage-Gate (SG) methodology. SG, a project-review process, is used in many firms today to create innovations. To guide managerial consideration of DT, this article provides an explanation of DT as compared with SG, a framework to assess DT’s fit with the firm, and ways DT may be effectively used.     

Measuring performance during crises and beyond: The Performance Promoter Score

Many organizations are curtailing or even abandoning performance management because of difficulties measuring performance and disruptions in performance-based pay due to the COVID-19 crisis. Contrary to this growing and troubling trend, we argue that it is especially important during the crisis to not only continue but also strengthen performance management to communicate a firm’s strategic direction, collect valuable business data, provide critical feedback to individuals and workgroups, protect organizations from legal risks, and retain top talent. To do so, we offer a solution to overcome the challenges associated with measuring performance during a crisis. Specifically, we extend and expand upon the well-established Net Promoter Score measure in marketing and introduce the Performance Promoter Score (PPS) to measure performance. We offer evidence-based recommendations for collecting PPS information for individuals, workgroups, and other collectives, computing a Net Performance Promoter Score (NPPS); using multiple sources of performance data, and using PPS for administrative and developmental purposes as well as to provide more frequent performance check-ins. PPS is a convenient, practical, relevant, and useful performance measure during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is also an innovation that will be useful long after the pandemic is over.