Rethinking managership,leadership, followership,and partnership

Organizations underperform, or fail, when members avoid partnering with managers—whether through subtle resistance, disagreement, protest, or walkout—to achieve common purpose. Managers should boost partnering not by affecting a pretense of leadership but through a nuanced balance of managerial authority and understanding of members’ points of view. The objective of this article is to sharpen attention on the concept of partnership with organization members and how it relates to some of the important previous literature. We also argue that some of the previous scholarly work contributes to misconceptions related to these concepts. Our work is forward-looking in that it is motivated by the dangerous societal and cultural differences evident in the world, differences that surround management’s decisions and that may induce an overuse of authority to quash disquiet. Using our experiences in both industry and academia, we argue that the crucial link between managers and members is leadership—not leadership thought of as directional and inspirational, but leadership as building a relationship toward common purpose through partnership. “Lead” and “leader” are sorely misused terms, and worse, substituting “leader” for “manager” is just plain wrong. We believe that managers become leaders only when followers agree to follow, not when the managers simply step forward energetically with direction. Managers are cheated by mistaken definitions. Reviewing past perspectives about what makes good leaders and managers, we rethink ways to enhance organizational harmony through a clearer understanding of managership, leadership, followership, and partnership. Only by thinking and acting as partners in common purpose can managers and members form the core of success in organizational endeavors.     

The visible hand: the role of government in China’s long-awaited industrial revolution

China is undergoing its long-awaited industrial revolution. There is no shortage of commentary and opinion on this dramatic period, but few have attempted to provide a coherent, in-depth, political-economic framework that explains the fundamental mechanisms behind China’s rapid industrialization. This article reviews the Embryonic Economic Development theory put forth by Wen (2016a). This article reviews the Embryonic Economic Development theory put forth by Wen . It illuminates the critical sequence of developmental stages since the reforms enacted by Deng Xiaoping in 1978: namely, small-scale commercialized agricultural production, proto-industrialization in the countryside, a formal industrial revolution based on mass production of labor-intensive light consumer goods, a sustainable ‘industrial trinity’ boom in energy/motive power/infrastructure, and a second industrial revolution involving the mass production of heavy industrial goods. This developmental sequence follows essentially the same pattern as Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution, despite sharp differences in political and institutional conditions. One of the key conclusions exemplified by China’s economic rise is that the extent of industrialization is limited by the extent of the market. One of the key strategies behind the creation and nurturing of a continually growing market in China is based on this premise: The free market is a public good that is very costly for nations to create and support. Market creation requires a powerful ‘mercantilist’ state and the correct sequence of developmental stages; China has been successfully accomplishing its industrialization through these stages, backed by measured, targeted reforms and direct participation from its central and local governments.     

新自由主义思潮的全球化历程及其影响

新自由主义思潮在向全球扩张蔓延的过程中,对拉美、东欧和前苏联国家产生了巨大而深刻的影响。对新自由主义的危害,正处于改革发展关键阶段的中国应有清醒而足够的认识。     

Consensus Among Economists—An Update

In this article, the authors explore consensus among economists on specific propositions based on a fall 2011 survey of American Economic Association members. Results are based on 568 responses and provide evidence of changes in opinion over time by including propositions from earlier studies in 2000 (Fuller and Geide-Stevenson 2003) and 1992 (Alston, Kearl, and Vaughan 1992). Propositions focus on microeconomics, macroeconomics, distributional and international topics, as well as pedagogy. Results indicate a movement toward an overall higher level of consensus, mainly because of a drop in the incidence of no consensus. Especially in the area of distributional propositions, economists display an increased concern with income inequality and potential effects on growth. In the area of macroeconomics, current opinions are more similar to those of the 1992 survey than the 2000 survey.     

我国遗产税开征的社会情绪、基本常识与共识基础

2013年11月份结束的又一轮关于我国遗产税开征的社会讨论,非常有必要进行梳理、总结和反思。在这次讨论中,我国普通民众对遗产税开征的普遍而强烈的反对声,实质是对我国改革中存在的众多问题和矛盾的紧张、失望、担心、忧虑、不安、不满、厌恶和愤怒等社会情绪的宣泄,但是,各种严重违反当代遗产税基本常识的传言实则起到了乘风放火、火上浇油的作用,而这样的传言之所以能有如此大的影响力,则是因为我国遗产税的开征缺乏坚实的共识基础。因此,必须重视反对我国遗产税开征的社会情绪,普及我国遗产税开征的基本常识,夯实我国遗产税开征的共识基础。     

Product risk reduction using consensus theory

Product analytics is a blend of computational methods with the express purpose of facilitating the multifaceted process of decision-making based on demographic and consumer preferences. This complex subject is derived from consensus theory and includes structured analytics, categories, and the combination of evidence. The methodology is applicable to a wide range of business, economic, social, political, and strategic decisions. The paper describes a product allocation application to demonstrate the conceots.     

博客营销在企业网络营销中的作用管窥

互联网的迅猛发展给博客(BLOG)提供了一个迅速成长的成熟环境。而企业在网络营销业务中的博客营销则是一种基于包括思想、体验等表现形式的个人知识资源及它的网络信息传递形式。这种网络营销工具已在企业网络营销业务中起到越来越大的作用。     

Image Repair: Research,Consensus, and Strategies: A Study of the University College of Cape Breton

ABSTRACT

The University College of Cape Breton is located in Nova Scotia, Canada and is the only university college in the region. This unique model has created somewhat of an identity crisis for the institution, which in turn has fuelled a negative image in its local community. Image restoration, research, consensus building, and strategic planning will be discussed theoretically, with application to the university college experience. Benoit's theory of image restoration is tested and utilized within this post-secondary educational construct.     

Influence Allocation Methods in Group Decision Support Systems

Influence allocation processes are voting and opinion aggregating methods that allow members to distribute some or all of their decision making influence to others in the group in order to exploit not only the group's knowledge of the alternatives, but its knowledge of itself. Only with the common use of group decision support systems (GDSS) has their use become practical. In this paper we reconsider SPAN, an influence allocation process introduced by MacKinnon (1966a). Experimental comparison shows SPAN to be significantly better at selecting a correct option from a set of options than two common voting methods. An alternative influence allocation process that we call RCON (Rational Consensus), is based on a weighting method proposed by DeGroot (1974) and has been explicated as a normative standard for combining opinion by Lehrer and Wagner (1981). The judgmental inputs to SPAN would appear to be logically related to those for RCON. Submitting the SPAN inputs from the experiment, transformed in this logical way, to the RCON process results in somewhat better performance than with SPAN. However, evidence indicated that the two methods are conceptually and psychologically sufficiently different that an experimental comparison is needed between them.     

Building consensus in strategic decision making: System dynamics as a group support system

System dynamics was originally founded as a method for modeling and simulating the behavior of industrial systems. In recent years it is increasingly employed as a Group Support System for strategic decision-making groups. The model is constructed in direct interaction with a management team, and the procedure is generally referred to as group model-building. The model can be conceptual (qualitative) or a full-blown (quantitative) computer simulation model. In this article, a case is described in which a qualitative system dynamics model was built to support strategic decision making in a Dutch government agency.Since people from different departments held strongly opposite viewpoints on the strategy, the agency had discussed its strategic problem for more than a year, but was obviously not able to reach consensus. The application of group model-building was successful in integrating opposite points of view, as well as in fostering consensus and creating commitment.The purpose of the article is twofold: first, to illustrate the process of group model-building with system dynamics; second, to evaluate why it was successful. Evaluation results reveal the importance of both systemic thinking through model-building and the role of the facilitator in catalyzing the strategic decision-making process.