Guest editorial

Citation

(2007), "Guest editorial", Managerial Finance, Vol. 33 No. 12. https://doi.org/10.1108/mf.2007.00933laa.001

Guest editorial

Managerial Finance is a multidisciplinary journal used as a resource by financial managers to help make keen financial decisions. The business environment is increasingly competitive and although market and business information is freely available and profuse, it is taking more and more time to sift through the data to make good financial decisions. Information management is becoming a more and more important issue for most companies. In this issue different techniques of decision making are discussed which can assist the financial manager in sorting out the data to better manage resources.

Penny Clayton and Janet Kimbrell look at the thought processes of auditors to help identify what thinking styles are associated with different stages of management. They show that "whole-brain" thinkers (creative and analytical) tend to move to the top as partners, while "left-brain" thinkers (mostly analytical) are usually associated with staff. Their article, "Thinking Preferences and Managerial Styles as a Diagnostic and Learning Tool and a Predictor of Auditor Success" is a fascinating read with implications for staff development. Perhaps by cultivating financial managers' creative side, decision making can be enhanced.

Barbara Leonard and Jerry Biberman examine multiple studies of decision making in their paper, "Utilizing multi-dimensionality in the workplace: a meta-study". They examine styles of decision making such as rational, intuitional, emotional, systemic and spiritual styles of decision making. They present studies which indicate that rational decision making alone may not be practiced by decision makers and may not be optimal. Studies are reviewed which present evidence that utilizing more than one modality of decision making can lead to better decisions and leadership. These studies have implications for those in financial management positions.

Margaret Benefiel examines the questions, how should spirituality in organizations be defined and what correlation can be established between an organization's spirituality and its financial performance She begins by mapping the terrain of spirituality in articles concerning organizations, and suggests ways to expand on this line of research in her article, "Pathfinders and trailblazers: exploring the territory of spirituality in organizations".

Wendy L. Pirie and Michael K. McCuddy contend that successful contemporary companies incorporate both financial and stewardship considerations into their decision making. Stewardship is taking care of the resources available to the company, both owned and public resources. They looked to see if hypothesis-relevant features of the mission statements significantly differed for the companies that were ranked at the top, middle and bottom of their industries. They find that that organizational success cannot be achieved by focusing primarily on financial or stewardship considerations, but rather company success depends upon emphasizing both financial and stewardship considerations within the context of a clearly articulated mission focus. Their papers, "Spirituality, stewardship, and financial decision making: toward a theory of intertemporal stewardship" and "A preliminary test of the validity of a proposed intertemporal stewardship theory" develop this theory and test it with a global list of companies.