Emotional and interpersonal competencies and leader development

A variety of recent leader development programs have focused on improving leaders' emotional and interpersonal competencies. Decades of leadership research suggest that these “people skills” are crucial for leader effectiveness. This paper reviews the history of these leader development programs as well as research on emotional and interpersonal competencies. Suggestions for grounding leader development programs in sound research on emotional and social competencies, as well as an agenda for future research on the development of leader emotional and interpersonal skills, are provided.     

Innovation in start-ups: Ideas filling the void or ideas devoid of resources and capabilities?

We investigate how access to different types of resources affects the success of entrepreneurial start-up firms at early stages of development in small isolated economies by studying 12 start-ups based in New Zealand. We find that successful commercialization of innovations depends on the availability of complementary assets, and that capability-based resources, especially dynamic capabilities, have a greater impact on competitive advantage of start-ups than other intangible and tangible assets. For the start-ups in our study, alliances with partners are particularly important, and so the ability to form alliances is a key capability. Successful start-ups leverage their available resources to attract alliance partners in order to access necessary complementary resources. The start-ups in our study clearly demonstrated the ability to attract partners locally but struggled to do so internationally, thereby limiting their growth potential.     

Outsourcing,Intellectual Property Rights and Corporate Hollowing Concerns

ABSTRACT

As lower priced competition continues to grow in the global arena, firms are increasingly turning to outsourcing, both in the manufacturing and service sectors. This article explores the long-term costs which may occur as a result of outsourcing: a firm's loss of control of its intellectual property, and even more debilitating, the loss or dilution of the core competencies which made the firm a success. Outsourcing of numerous key functions can actually lead to a “hollowing” of the corporation, which is a difficult phenomenon to reverse. Additionally, this article takes a look at how intellectual property protection is becoming a competitive advantage for those countries trying to attract outsourcing contracts. Finally, the authors suggest ideas for future research.     

国企技术管理人员岗位胜任特征模型及在人力资源管理中的应用

技术创新是企业生存和发展的根本保证,也是一个地区、一个国家经济增长的不竭动力,要增强国有企业技术创新能力,提高国有企业技术水平,就应当加强对技术管理人员的人力资源开发与管理,从一定程度上讲,技术管理人员的素质与企业的技术创新能力是息息相关的,是构成企业核心竞争力的重要因素。     

Determinants and outcome of career competencies: Perspectives of hotel managers in China

This study aims to explore the determinants and outcome of career competencies. Based on the notion that organizations and individuals have respective obligations in the career management of employees’, this study developed perceived “organizational career management’ (OCM) and “career commitment” as determinants and career satisfaction as an outcome of career competencies. Data were collected in the state-owned hotels in China, and structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed relationships. The findings indicate that both perceived OCM and career commitments have positive, direct effects on career competencies. The findings of this study may benefit both hotels and hotel employees by providing valuable implications.     

Institutional constraints on conservation auction: Organizational mandate,competencies and practices

Auctions appeal to analysts and policy designers because of their potential efficiency in recruiting new areas for nature conservation. The failure to develop genuine auctions and competitive tender processes is typically blamed on the design and the attractiveness of the instrument. However, the institutional constraints that a new competitive mechanism faces when placed in a real-world ecological-institutional setting are only partly anticipated by the theoretical and analytical approaches. This paper explores the theory-based principles of cost-effectiveness against a real-world auction instrument designed for forest biodiversity conservation in Finland. The instrument, called “Natural Values Trading”, specified that the tenders should be invited and compared on an annual basis but the competitive procedure was not operationalized. Instead, sites were evaluated on a first come – first serve basis, applying ecological criteria and pricing based on opportunity costs. The institutional constraints of the auction mechanism centred on the difficulty that public authorities geared toward implementing law and treating citizens equally faced with a competitive arrangement. The pressure to generate instant impact overrode experimenting with new mechanisms and exiting an administrative comfort zone. The findings conform to the institutional theories that identify challenges with matching organizational mandate, reallocating and developing organizational competencies as well as changing informal organizational and professional practices. The design of biodiversity conservation mechanisms will not go far by focusing solely on cost-effectiveness; instead, the institutional friction should be taken seriously and organizational mandates, competencies and practices should be addressed explicitly.     

Crisis Management Competencies

Since public networks became widespread, doubts have arisen over how to make them succeed. Scholars have traditionally addressed the issue in different ways, thus variously shedding light on the network structure, mechanisms, or managers as predictors of the network performance. The aim of our article is to explore the possibility of an interaction effect between the abovementioned factors. Our results show that there may be a relationship between network structure, mechanisms, and managers that jointly affects network performance. Therefore, important suggestions can be made about how to manage public networks successfully: (1) ensure that your network mechanisms and managerial abilities are coherent with the structure of your network; and (2) if you are in a well-established and integrated network, allow yourself some flexibility. Data were collected through a multiple case study that focused on collaboration for joint provision of home care services in Switzerland.     

Influence of technological support,skills and competencies,and learning on corporate entrepreneurship in European technology firms

In the today′s changing environment, firms are hardly competing with each other to achieve a competitive advantage that can differentiate them from others and improve their organizational performance. In this sense, it is crucial to develop corporate entrepreneurship and promote strategic variables that foster it.The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of different technological variables (top management support to technology, technological skills and technological distinctive competencies) and organizational learning on corporate entrepreneurship, and thus analyze the influence of corporate entrepreneurship on organizational performance in the context of technology firms.A sample of 160 European technology firms was selected from the database Amadeus in 2009 with CEOs as our main informants. The hypotheses studied are empirically confirmed by using a hierarchical regression model.     

Merit and Evaluation Models for Managers in the National Health System： An Empirical Study

The national health system （NHS） complexity increase requires a review of the managerial human resources evaluation and recruiting methods, considering that nowadays doctors need to improve not just their clinical capabilities, but also managerial competences. At this end it is important to develop performances control models and to identify appropriate results indicators, with the aim of introducing an effective doctors selection system for managerial roles. The paper considers the Italian situation and tests the current evaluation and selection methods, by analysing the literature and the existing legislation and by interviewing experts. Moreover, in order to reach an innovative model, complex organizations have been taken into account as benchmarks. Three different categories of experts have been interviewed and texted： national health care organizations managers, companies managers, and business consultants. The 137 interviewed experts have been asked about four main questions concerning the evaluation for hiring managers as chief medical director, department director, and head of complex units. The conducted research suggests four different options in order to evaluate and to select heads of complex unit for the most strategic roles. By consequence, the analysis shows that required characteristics must be managerial attitudes as well as clinical capabilities.     

Inter-firm learning and knowledge-sharing in multinational networks: An outsourced organization's perspective

This research provides insights into how learning and knowledge are exchanged multinationally between customer firms and their outsourced suppliers who provide non-core, yet essential, services. The paper seeks to understand: (1) how information is exchanged in these networks; (2) how cumulative knowledge adds value in these networks; and (3) how boundary-spanners assist in the dissemination of knowledge and learning within the network. Based on a pharmaceutical industry case, the results suggest that: (a) multinational firms operate more effectively and interact by sharing knowledge with outsourced firms which reflect the customers' structure and fit; (b) networked firms benefit from interactions through economies of scope, but knowledge is not necessarily shared equally among partners; (c) learning and knowledge-sharing interactions are tightly coupled at the product development stage; and (d) outsourced firms interact with external boundary-spanners as needed. The research provides insights for managers of multinational organizations and managers of firms from where essential services are outsourced.