Search results

The move of organizations towards corporate global responsibility (CGR) is often a major change process that requires leadership throughout the organization. Despite an array of studies on managerial competencies in this area, previous research on leadership for CGR has not studied the actual leadership practices that are employed in a company's journey to CGR. The paper aims to fill this gap and to show how leadership for CGR is enacted by individuals and organizations that are highly successful CGR leaders.

The paper uses a comparative case‐study approach of five multinational companies that are recognized as industry leaders for CGR. A total of 54 semi‐structured interviews with senior managers were complemented by ten focus groups and an examination of company reports, value charters and mission statements. Interviews as the main source of information were double‐coded in a three‐step process with the goal of knowledge development.

The paper identifies eight interrelated categories of leadership practices for global responsibility: developing CGR vision, strategy, and goals; integrating CGR into business decisions and operations; top management role modeling of CGR; engaging across boundaries; employee development and empowerment; systematic communication about CGR; developing accountability for CGR; and visible integrity in management behavior and decision making.

The findings suggest that focusing on these leadership practices helps organizations build a strong leadership culture that is supportive of CGR.

The examination of actual leadership practices on multiple levels complements the existing knowledge on individual management competencies that are useful for driving CGR in organizations.

The literature on corporate responsibility (CR) increasingly recognizes the importance of leadership in support of organizational change. This is particularly the case when CR provides the basis for the business contribution to sustainable development, which is understood to involve organizational and social innovation leading to change. The paper draws on theoretical and empirical studies to examine leadership for CR as a particular example of management innovation.

The paper develops a model of leadership for CR as the business contribution to sustainable development by confronting and integrating the literatures on management innovation and leadership for CR. The proposed model is consistent with the direction, alignment, commitment (DAC) framework that fosters a culture of organizational leadership relevant to the specific case of business and sustainable development.

The process model described in the paper connects leadership in organizational change with literature on management innovation. The paper draws on theoretical and empirically grounded literature on management, corporate responsibility and organizational psychology. It puts forward a sequence of mechanisms that contribute to successful change and discusses how they are linked. This sequence provides a process model of leadership practices for CR as the business contribution to sustainable development viewed as a particular form of management innovation, which involves the advancement of leadership practices for CR as organizational and social change.

The model is useful as a reference to practice and as a basis for leadership development. In terms of theory the model needs to be more thoroughly tested in empirical settings to understand better the interdependencies between leadership practices for CR and management innovation.

This process model is the first attempt to develop a comprehensive understanding of CR in a management innovation framework. In doing this it moves beyond the recent focus on leadership skills and competences of individuals.

The purpose of this study is to test the relationships of learning, organizational commitment and talent retention across managerial generations in Europe.

Hypotheses are developed to explain the influence of learning and organizational commitment on talent retention across generations. A total of 1,666 European managers completed a survey on these issues. Depending on year of birth, they were categorized into four generational cohorts. Their answers were analyzed with statistic procedures.

Findings reveal that younger generations are less willing to remain in the same organization and have lower organizational commitment. The youngest generations (Early and Late Xers, born 1960 and after) show stronger learning orientation and lower organizational commitment than older generations (Early and Late Boomers, born 1946‐1959). Learning orientation predicted the intention to remain in the same organization for Early Xers and Late Xers. Organizational commitment mediated this relationship. For Late Boomers and Early Xers, it mediated the relationship between specific leadership development intentions and intention to stay.

Managerial, job‐related learning is confirmed as an important antecedent for the intention to stay/leave one's current organization. The differential meaning of learning and commitment across generations needs to be better understood in order to develop effective strategies for the retention of talent in all generations. In particular, differences in the psychological contract between organizations and their managers need to be understood.

The findings suggest an approach of generation‐specific HR practices for talent retention.

The study is one of the first to date to address leadership development and learning orientation in the context of talent retention, as well as one of the first to address the discussion of generational challenges in Europe and across the specific population of people in managerial roles.