Leadership

In this chapter we revisit the empirical findings of Rugman and coauthors concerning overwhelming home-regionalisation among the world’s largest firms. Using a longitudinal research design and continuous measures of internationalisation we discover a number of secular trends. We find that sales growth beyond the home region is considerably faster than sales growth in the home region. We use our empirical results to critique and augment existing regionalisation theory. In particular, we raise doubts about the sharp distinction in the literature between expansion in the home region and expansion in host regions. It would seem that firms expand simultaneously within and outside their home region, targeting individual countries rather than entire regions.

"Assessing leadership styles: a contribution to the Italian validation of the Leadership Judgement Indicator (LJI)

Faraci, P.

Objectives: The present account is aimed to validate the Italian version of the Leadership Judgement Indicator (LJI; Lock, Wheeler, Burnard & Cooper, 2005), an unconventional instrument devoted to measure leaders’ judgement and preferred styles − directive, consultative, consensual, delegative − when dealing with a range of decision-making scenarios.
Methods: After forward- and back-translation, psychometric properties were estimated from 250 managers of various levels, who were asked to put themselves in the position of the leader and to rate the appropriateness of certain ways of responding to challenge.
Results: Positive significant correlations with the Agentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ; Borgogni, Petitta, Dello Russo & Mastrorilli, 2008) supported concurrent validity, whereas differences between several groups of managers, ranked in order of seniority, gathered evidence for discriminant validity. Internal consistency was satisfactory.
Conclusion: Findings highlight the Italian adaptation of the LJI has promising metrological qualities, suggesting its use in both organizational and selection settings.
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"Investigation findings suggest a new approach to leadership and governance is required

Many business leaders and business schools are focussed upon generalisations rather than critical success factors for sustainable business growth according to Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas. Speaking in London at the 13th International Conference on Corporate Governance and Sustainability the author of Developing Directors called for a new approach to governance and leadership.

The professor asked delegates how many internet stars and rapid growth company entrepreneurs they had encountered who ascribed their stellar success to their governance structures. According to his recent investigations: “Whether or not boards add value to the growth and development of a company depends upon board behaviours rather than corporate structures. A new approach to leadership and corporate governance is required.”

For Coulson-Thomas, “ Old governance is about structures, planning, head offices and top-down motivation. New governance is about behaviours, implementation and front-line performance support. The emphasis should be switched from directing and motivating people to helping and supporting them. Non-executive directors used to help executive directors rather than check up on them like private investigators. They looked outwards for opportunities rather than inwards for abuses. ”

In the 20 years since which have elapsed since the professor's 1993 book Creating Excellence in the Boardroom and the first edition of Developing Directors, and in over 30 investigations, he has endeavoured to identify what the most successful directors and boards do differently in areas that are vital for corporate performance and success. He believes the  focus should be upon building an effective board of competent directors.

Coulson-Thomas told conference delegates that expensive, time-consuming, multiple and disruptive corporate initiatives should be abandoned in favour of simpler and more affordable approaches set out in Transforming Knowledge Management, Talent Management 2 and Transforming Public Services, the latest reports to be based upon his investigations. He believes “the right performance support can simultaneously deliver multiple objectives and benefit companies, stakeholders and the planet. It can enable ordinary or average people to remain current, cope with change and excel at difficult jobs - and especially activities that impact upon the customer and differentiate.”

The focus of business schools may also need to change. The professor cited the topics being followed by his fellow academics on academia.edu where 18,382 were following Leadership, 6,630 were following governance, and 6,302 were following corporate governance while in comparison only 151 were following pricing, just 53 were following purchasing and just one was following performance support which can enable the delivery of multiple corporate objectives.

Coulson-Thomas suggested that: “Social media is often a distraction. When properly used it can become a key component of performance support. New leadership is about engaging, sharing and providing better support. Smart use of social networking allows effective responses to new opportunities and challenges to be rolled out across a global corporation and its business and channel partners within two or three hours.”

The professor believes boards should contribute greater focus: “They should avoid wasting time producing elaborate corporate plans, restructure organisations, trying to change cultures, or being excellent at everything. Instead, they should focus upon providing better support to key work-groups and customers to enable them to remain relevant, current and vital and lead more rewarding, healthier and sustainable lives. Users of simple, effective and affordable ways of helping customers to help themselves soon identify areas and corporate activities that are no longer required.”

Developing Directors, a handbook for building an effective boardroom team, by Prof. Coulson-Thomas and his recent reports Transforming Knowledge Management, Talent Management 2 and Transforming Public Services on the results of his investigations into a quicker and more affordable route to high performance organisations and achieving multiple corporate objectives, and setting out his views on new leadership and governance can be obtained from www.policypublications.com.

Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas, author of Transforming Knowledge Management, Transforming Public Services, Talent Management 2, Winning Companies; Winning People and Developing Directors, and an experienced corporate director, audit chair and board chairman, has been the vision holder of successful transformation programmes and has held public sector board appointments at national and local level. He has helped over 100 boards to improve board and corporate performance and leads the OLJ International Governance Initiative. His academic roles are at the University of Greenwich and as an adjunct visiting professor at Manipal University. He can be contacted by email: colin@coulson-thomas.com and via www.coulson-thomas.com

The London Global Convention 2013 incorporating the13th International Conference on Corporate Governance and Sustainability and the presentation of Golden Peacock Awards took place at the Hotel The Tower.
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"Individual innovativeness provides an organization basis for high performance, improves firm’s competitiveness and fosters long-term success. This area is of greater interest for entrepreneurs because individual level innovation is linked with firm-level innovation. However, research in this area is still at nascent stage in South Asia, particularly
in Pakistan. This study developed and tested a model of individual innovation and its antecedent factors; creativity and self-leadership. Data were collected from 180 respondents from 10 producer firms in Pakistan;
the response rate remained 72%. Regression analysis was run to test the hypotheses. Results showed that creativity and self-leadership are
important predictors of individual innovation; proving positive direct relationships."

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

The Project Management Institute has commissioned the authors to conduct research into whether the project manager's leadership style is a success factor on projects, and whether its impact is different on different types of projects. In this paper, we review the literature on the topic. Surprisingly, the literature on project success factors does not typically mention the project manager and his or her leadership style or competence as a success factor on projects.

The aim of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is to restore one of the most critical resources for businesses’ sustainability: trust. However, the current practice of CSR begs the question whether CSR initiatives restore trust or simply relieve mistrust in the marketplace. Because people do not really understand what trust implies, they often use CSR activities as publicity stunts, trying to please the public. In particular, they perceive trust as a means of supporting organisational activities rather than a goal of its own. Following Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, we trust those who fully commit to their goals and are ready to take responsibility for all consequences. Trust is a voluntary and altruistic act and independent of society. Trust, ethics and leadership are interlinked. Leadership requires choosing between two good options according to our Theta-Lambda worldview. Thetas are socially-motivated and seek affiliation and security whereas Lambdas are personally-motivated and seek challenge and achievement. Pursuing these worldviews helps us get closer to the ethical truth, and it is this self-investment in pursuing truth which builds trust.A review of various CSR theories shows that organizational CSR seeks a similar outcome, that is to demonstrate the responsibilities which the organisation is ready to assume.

"Using a conceptual framework drawn from contingent theory (Donaldson, 2001),
institutional change theory (Chang, 2002), and diversity leadership theory (Kezar, 2008),
this study used a comparative-case analysis to provide insight into how leaders of
graduate school preparation programs for STEM develop, manage, and sustain their
programs and how their particular institutional context shapes and constrains the
strategies they use to recruit and retain graduate students of color within STEM fields."

"Σκοπός αυτού του βιβλίου είναι να περιγράψει και να εξηγήσει, ως ένα βαθμό, πώς λειτουργεί μια ναυτιλιακή επιχείρηση μέσα στα πλαίσια των θεσμών. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, αναφερόμαστε κυρίως στη φορτηγό ναυτιλιακή επιχείρηση και λιγότερο σ' αυτή που ασχολείται με την επιβατηγό ναυτιλία. Η ναυτιλιακή επιχείρηση δεν διοικείται μόνο με επίδειξη επιχειρηματικού πνεύματος. Η ναυτιλιακή επιχείρηση λειτουργεί μέσα σε πλαίσια που έχουν δημιουργηθεί από διεθνείς και τοπικές ρυθμίσεις, πολλές φορές διαφορετικές από χώρα σε χώρα. Η γνώση αυτών των πλαισίων θεωρείται αυτονόητη και υπό αυτή την έννοια, έχουμε μια κλασική περίπτωση διεθνούς εταιρείας, ιδιαίτερα ευαίσθητης σε κάθε αγορά και κάθε ρυθμιστικό πλαίσιο.
Από πλευράς ναυτιλιακής πρακτικής, λίγο ενδιαφέρει ο τρόπος με τον όποιο παρήχθησαν αυτοί οι κανόνες, ενώ αντιθέτως, τα μέγιστα ενδιαφέρει το τι και πώς έχει ρυθμιστεί. Η εικόνα που κανείς συναποκομίζει από την ανάγνωση αυτού του πονήματος δεν είναι η πλήρης. Η πληρότητα έχει θυσιαστεί στο βωμό της συντομίας και της απλότητας. Η πλήρης εικόνα αποκτάται σχετικά εύκολα με την αναδρομή του αναγνώστη στις πηγές και αυτό συνίσταται οσάκις συζητείται συγκεκριμένη περίπτωση που επιβάλλει τη λήψη αποφάσεων."

Research into senior groups and their political nature has serious gaps. We claim that participants in the process are best placed to be both researchers and, with others, the subject of research. Here we illustrate the shortcomings of current methodologies, such as action research, due to the spatial separation and detemporalisation between what is being researched and the construction of a research interpretation. We highlight a tendency to veer towards the intellectual post hoc interpretation of events at the expense of the visceral nature of immersed human experience. Reflexivity in this paper refers to the attention paid to engaging with one’s own experience and the noticing of one’s sometimes unsettling movement of thought over an extended period of time and by doing so how this in turn affects one’s own practice with others. We give examples of and argue for reflexive practice that understands and overcomes its own immersed nature.

We examined the content and consequences of people’s naïve theories about the effects of group mood. These theories are a potential input in Kelly and Spoor’s (2006) Input- Process-Outcome model of group moods and performance. In Study 1, participants generated potential positive and negative consequences of group moods, which were coded using an adapted form of Bales’ Interaction Process Analysis (Bales, 1970). Participants believed that positive and negative moods have implications for both task and relationship processes, and these consequences varied according to group type (creativity, friendship, decision making, and sport team). In Study 2, participants watched an ostensible group interaction among friends or strangers who had just had positive or negative experiences. Perceptions of the interaction varied in a manner consistent with naïve theories about group moods and their effects. Implications for future research on group moods are discussed.