Search results

The purpose of this paper is to identify the underlying organisational features, according to the gendered organisation theory, that have contributed to high levels of representation of women executives, contrary to the trend in the South African financial services industry.

A critical realist approach was employed, using semi-structured interviews, based on a theoretical framework of the gendered organisation. Data were aligned to the theoretical levels of critical realism.

The research found that the pool from which the successful candidates were appointed was influenced by two features. The first was the perceived attractiveness of the organisation as an employer, composed of organisational prestige, opportunity for altruism, and the sex of the CEO. The second was the role of the CEO as gatekeeper, most notably the CEO’s network and the impact of the similar-to-me paradigm during selection.

The utilisation of critical realism as an approach allowed for organisational features embedded in the theory of the gendered organisation to be identified and gives an indication of how the number of women at executive management level may be increased. The salient factors are the role the woman CEO played in the inclusion of more women at the executive level by virtue of her being a woman, and the attractiveness of the organisation to women employees. Organisational features identified were gendered towards the feminine.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the misunderstandings that hamper the graduate identity development process of black South African graduates in the first year of work. The authors introduce the role of an independent mediator in supporting identity development in a graduate development programme (GDP). The independent mediator mediates between graduate and manager when misunderstandings occur that inhibit the warranting process during professional identity development.

In seeking to understand the graduate transition from student to professional, the authors used identity studies as the foundation from which to track a group of 21 graduates on a year-long GDP, in a financial institution in Johannesburg, South Africa. A model of emergent graduate identity was utilised to gain insight into the warranting process and associated behaviours that graduates employ in their interactions with others in the workplace.

As warranting is based on people’s own assumptions and beliefs about a particular situation or role, misunderstandings can occur during the warranting process when graduates are determining their professional identity, and managers are either affirming of disaffirming this identity. These misunderstandings were exacerbated by the fact that the graduates were often South African multi-cultural, first-generation professionals who lacked insight into and experience of corporate dynamics, this impacted on how they found their place in the organisation. Both graduates and managers were often not equipped to deal with cultural, racial, and other differences. When the graduate programme manager stepped in to play the additional role of independent mediator, helping to mediate misinterpretations during the identity formation process, the negative impact of misunderstandings was lessened, and graduates transitioned to a professional identity with greater ease. Managers also learned about managing multi-cultural individuals and their own, often limiting, experiences and worldviews.

This highlights the value of a third-party intervention in graduate identity transitions, particularly in contexts where the graduate has little or no experience of what it means to be professional, and where managers are not equipped to deal with people who come from backgrounds that differ vastly from their own.

The role of a third-party in shaping the identities of graduates during the identity warranting process, referred to as the independent mediator in this paper, has not been presented in research before. Studies of this nature would give us insight into how best to support graduate identity development and improve the design of GDPs.

Studies of strategic change are mainly characterized by a linear time view, treating time as a variable, a package of narrative events or as a path that the organization “travels” over time. The purpose of this paper is to move beyond this view providing an alternative, nonlinear conception of time.

Framed by the logics of consequence and appropriateness an empirical example of strategic change within the Scandinavian consumer co‐operation is given, illustrating the exploration of business opportunities and the exploitation of socially and historically rooted values and principles. Drawing on philosophical hermeneutics a qualitative method is chosen, the basis on which the empirical material through interviews and documents is generated.

The empirical study illustrates that the logic of consequence communicates with the logic of appropriateness in a nonlinear manner while interrelating the future and the past. The exploration of business opportunities shapes the past, which is brought to light when opportunities are expressed through the present, continuously forming and reforming the present and in turn shedding new light on the past.

Although various forms of intellectual bridging and transfer are encouraged within the field of strategic management, notably lacking are studies that focus on time. This paper brings to the fore an alternative conception of time. It acknowledges the past in its hermeneutical significance when ascribing the past a dynamic repetitive role.

The purpose of this paper is to test eight hypotheses to understand the relationship between information (Cervical Cancer Prevention (CCP) advertisements via endorser types and advertising appeals), motivation (attitude and effectiveness towards advertisements, audiences’ reported self-health consciousness, motivation to learn more information) and behaviour intentions (accept and intent to receive CCP vaccination) using the information-motivation-behavioural skills (IMB) model.

An experimental study was conducted using a sample of 668 young people aged 18-25 in Hong Kong. Participants were asked to respond to questions relating to self-health consciousness, motivation to learn more information, attitudes and effectiveness towards the assigned print advertisements randomly drawn from a set of eight (4 × 2 full-factorial) experimental designs and behavioural intentions.

Results revealed that celebrity endorsers had the most effective CCP ad appeal among young consumers regardless of advertising appeal in Hong Kong. The findings suggested that highly self-health conscious young people are motivated to learn more information about CCP and have a more positive attitude and effectiveness towards the CCP advertisement. Furthermore, effective advertisement predicts higher motivation and behavioural intention, whereas higher “self-health consciousness” and “motivation to learn more information” predicts more positive advertisement attitude.

By investigating young consumers’ attitude and effectiveness towards CCP advertisements, this paper aimed to expand the knowledge of previous studies and contribute to advertising theory by focusing on CCP aspects in Hong Kong context.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Entrepreneurial brand building is an area of study in its infancy. The nature of entrepreneurship which typically implies serious limitations on the availability of resources suggests that entrepreneurs need to take an unconventional approach to brand building. This article provides an analysis of how one entrepreneurial manufacturing concern in the UK, Dyson Appliances, successfully built a strong brand of vacuum cleaners during the 1990s. In particular it considers the importance of brand image and the role of product attributes and the development of the brand’s personality in creating this. It argues that a key aspect of a brand’s personality is its values and therefore one of the tasks of brand builders is to find a way of imbuing the brand with these values. One of the richest sources of society’s values is mythology, which emphasizes especially the values of its heroes. A brand can be imbued with these values through association with mythology. This was the approach adopted by Dyson Appliances as it built its vacuum cleaners into a leading national brand.