Editorial

Citation

Strange, W. (2011), "Editorial", Strategic Direction, Vol. 27 No. 11. https://doi.org/10.1108/sd.2011.05627kaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Strategic Direction, Volume 27, Issue 11

In our final issue of Volume 27, we are pleased to present five reviews of the 2011 EFMD Excellence in Practice Award winning papers in recognition of our ongoing relationship, now in its third year, with the EFMD. The EFMD is recognized globally as an accreditation board of quality in management education, corporate universities and technology-enhanced learning programs. With more than 700 member organizations from academia, business, public service and consultancy in 80 countries, EFMD provides a unique forum for information, research, networking and debate on innovation and best practice in management development.

The EFMD Excellence in Practice Award attracts case studies describing an effective and impactful Leadership and Development (L&D) intervention. These programs can be deployed by an organization (company, public sector, charity etc...) either together with their in house L&D organization or with an external L&D provider.

Now in its fifth year, the Award attracts case studies on best practices of cooperation between companies and business schools or executive education centers.

Our first piece: “Nerves of steel in glocal challenge” is a review of the award winning paper from the EFMD Excellence in Practice “Special Cases” category, entitled: “Global push … local pull: mobilising and sustaining enterprise-wide training globally at ArcerlorMittal” by Sapna Arora (ArcelorMittal), Chris Crosby (TMA World) and Steven Pritchard (TMA World).

The case study details the evolution and sustainability of consistent enterprise-wide training globally, to support management development and organizational alignment. The partnership between client and provider is sustained using continuous improvement as a management tool for leading change. The case also demonstrates the successful migration of the funding model from corporately-financed training (push), towards the fulfillment of regionally-driven training needs funded by local businesses (pull), whilst maintaining the global brand mark.

The second review: “Philips links leadership development and innovation” explores a paper by Padmaja Korde, Regina Eckert, Paula Nielsen-Lazo and Deb Giffen entitled: “Philips Octagon – a partnership for leadership excellence and innovation” and is the winning entry for the EFMD Excellence in Practice “Talent Development” category. The review describes the collaboration between multinational company Philips, the Wharton business school of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Center for Creative Leadership, a global provider of executive education. It describes how Philips continually assesses how it can develop a strong and sustainable pool of “top talent” leaders while also fostering innovation that brings significant revenue growth to the firm, and how it has successfully achieved these goals.

“RBS reshapes its long-term future” outlines the design and implementation of a development program for Royal Bank of Scotland leaders at a critical point in the global financial institution’s history – the bank’s rescue by the UK government and its CEO Sir Fred Goodwin’s fall from grace in a review of the EFMD Excellence in Practice “Organizational Development” category award winning paper by Peter McGrath (RBS), Eric Weiner (Wharton Executive Education) and Mark Roberts (INSEAD Executive Education) entitled: “RBS leadership development programme”.

“Leading from the Front Lines” is based on “Innovation through partnership: creating a global leadership program at Microsoft benefiting leaders, the business and society”, the winning paper by Shannon Banks (Microsoft) and Matthew Farmer (Emerging World, formerly Adopt a Business) in the EFMD Excellence in Practice Award 2011 “Executive Development” category.

The review details “The Front Lines program”; an enterprising operation which appears to bring indisputable results. The keenness of partners to get involved is telling, and the research makes a useful distinction between immediate post-event gain and those that are sustained over a significant period.

“Specialists move up to higher ground” reviews “Accelerating professional development and strategy execution: the ING Group high impact performance program for specialists”, the winning submission paper for the EFMD Excellence in Practice Award “Professional Development” category, by Gert-Jan van Wijk, Jetske van Heusden and Kate Ng. The HIP seems, on the evidence here, to work as a fine stepping stone for people with technical expertise taking on new responsibilities without necessarily taking on managerial responsibility. Perhaps its best achievement will lie in encouraging ambitious and talented individuals to pursue their careers with ING rather than moving on.

We follow these articles with our more traditional review articles:

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  “Environmental scanning in a public institution” offers an insight into the nature of the environmental scan – a novel instrument for assessing the value of FM. Financial managers and bursars, as well as senior administrators, deans and presidents of colleges and similar institutions will benefit from an additional, intelligent and sensitive tool for measuring service quality and effectiveness.

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  “A cost-effective way to innovate” offers interesting perspectives into innovation – learning from their failures, balancing an innovation portfolio and identifying innovation types.

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  “Doing well by doing good” reviews a case study of a leading Spanish technology company, drawing attention to the challenges and benefits of strategy development from the perspective of corporate social responsibility.

William Strange