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This report summarizes research on gender, diversity and related topics presented at the 2007 Southern Management Association (SMA) conference in Nashville TN.

The SMA is a regional affiliate of the Academy of Management. SMA's annual conference promotes its mission of advancing the research, teaching, learning and practice of management.

Diversity topics were scheduled throughout the conference and included in five of the eight tracks. One symposium was devoted to deep‐level diversity.

The papers presented at the SMA conference highlight the growing interest in and variety of diversity research.

Leaders model behaviors they want followers to emulate, and they use various technologies to enhance their message, but which tools are most effective? Using two studies, this paper sets out to compare the effectiveness of newer and older computer technologies used by leaders for describing and demonstrating desired behaviors.

The first study, an interdisciplinary experimental design, involved 110 students across two college campuses and data were analyzed using a 2 (modeling and no modeling)×2 (older and newer technology) between‐subjects ANOVA. The second study further explored modeling with both technologies on one campus, and data were analyzed with independent samples t‐tests.

Newer technology was more effective than older technology in increasing desired behaviors but only when coupled with modeling of those behaviors by the leader. However, after the novelty of the new technology had worn off, no significant difference in production of desired behaviors was observed.

Justifying the expense of purchasing new technology to replace functional older equipment is an important consideration for businesses and universities. Organizational leaders need factual, unbiased data to guide their decisions about allocating limited financial resources.

The studies were designed to provide decision‐makers with some much‐needed empirical data.

Evaluates the effect of the library component of a freshman orientation program on student attitudes and library anxiety. A modified version of Bostick's Library Anxiety Scale was administered to 1,027 true freshmen enrolled in the Connections First‐Year Experience program at Utah State University in the fall of 2003. First year students showed a moderate level of library anxiety prior to their library orientation sessions. This anxiety was significantly decreased after the orientation sessions. A control group reported similar anxiety levels on the pre‐test and a much smaller degree of improvement on the post‐test. Proposes that academic libraries should participate in the First‐Year Experience programs on their campuses. These activities reduce the levels of library anxiety felt by first‐year students and reduce possible barriers to academic achievement. Concludes that this paper will be of use to librarians seeking administrative and campus‐wide support for inclusion of a library component in First‐Year Experience programs. The survey can be used to assess efficacy of activities for those libraries already participating in such programs.

Two distinct phases of ERP have been identified. The first phase refers to the changes that an organization undergoes in transforming from the old system and “going live” with the ERP system. The second phase, also called the second wave of ERP, refers to the actions subsequent to ERP implementation, that enable the organization to achieve the full capabilities and benefits of ERP. The paper examines the problems organizations frequently experience with ERP implementations, and suggests strategies for extending the value of ERP systems.

The increasing use of complex, nonfinancial environmental performance measures in managerial decisions motivates consideration of contextual influences that potentially impact managerial judgments in environmental settings. This study extends general evaluability theory (GET: Hsee & Zhang, 2010) to environmental accounting by investigating the combined effects of evaluation mode and incomplete supplemental evaluability information (SEI; e.g., benchmark data) on management decisions. To elaborate, evaluation mode is the display format in which the accounting information system (AIS) provides available information for analysis; e.g., a manager’s or business unit’s performance is assessed either comparatively (i.e., in joint mode) or individually (i.e., in separate mode). GET suggests more decision weight on measures containing SEI in separate mode because that evaluation mode contains less context in which to analyze information. On the other hand, more decision weight should result for measures that do not contain SEI in joint mode because that mode already contains more context for analysis (e.g., comparing multiple performances with each other). To test these predictions, experimental participants (n = 53) evaluated environmental measures for factories with similar environmental performances. To operationalize the information available in many environmental AIS, some, but not all, performance measures contained benchmark data (incomplete SEI); factories were evaluated either jointly or separately. Participants evidenced decision intransitivity; i.e., in separate evaluation mode, factories rated higher when a favorable measure contained SEI, while in joint evaluation mode, factories rated higher when a favorable measure lacked SEI. The results extend previous AIS and management accounting research by investigating contextual influences, and potential systems design elements, in judgments using environmental AIS.

The purpose of this paper is to reacquaint researchers and practitioners with Barnard's contributions to understanding of the moral conditions that underlie the authenticity of organizational leadership.

The paper identifies Barnard's insights on leadership and uses them as inputs to theorizing about authentic leadership.

As an outcome of theorizing, the paper identifies the conditions that are likely to lead to inauthentic, pseudo‐authentic or authentic leader behavior.

Examining authentic leadership from a historical perspective can open promising avenues for future research.

Leadership development programs should incorporate concepts of responsibility and conflicts of responsibility in order to provide executives with the knowledge base required for ethical decision making.

By placing contemporary discussion of authentic leadership in its proper historical context, scholars can draw on a wealth of existing theory to advance the study of authentic leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of a new undergraduate one-term double module called management practice and skills – which sought to change the learning environment for the new intake of undergraduate students based on constructivist ideas aimed at creating a high level of student engagement.

Action research focusing on the evaluation stage of the first cycle of an intervention. The intervention is described in a case study explaining the features of the new module combined with the statistical analysis of the hard data collected on the first cohort of students taking the module using mainly correlation techniques.

The module design did achieve to a great extent the objective of catering to all learning styles and personalities within the cohort. The results from the first cohort established the elusive nature of the concept of student engagement and the challenge in measuring it quantitatively.

This is an evaluation of one case example of the application of constructivist ideas in teaching and hence can make no claim to generalisability. The quantitative measure of student engagement was developed for this study – hence it needs to be applied in other situations and tested for credibility. The student data did not include any measures of their views on the module. The collection of their levels of satisfaction at the end of the module and again after two more years at university would offer a richer view of student engagement.

This type of module makes high demands on the teaching staff. It requires, for example – design effort, tutors with both business and teaching experience, administration of the logistics, expertise in handling moodle. The role of the moodle virtual learning environment is key to delivering the module and to collecting much of the data.

The module design explicitly aims to foster students’ social interaction and create a community of learning among them. It supports students’ personal development, development of individual business and team working skills as well as relevant management theory.

The paper describes an unusual application of constructivist concepts to teaching in a business degree and the development of an innovative and distinctive approach to the creation of a quantitative measure of student engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the perceptions of safety officers on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) norms extended to the workforce in Indian industries, understand implementation levels and find out deficiencies existing therein.

In this study, the authors utilized factor analysis to develop an instrument specifically responsible for assessing OHS norms in three major industrial sectors through a broad‐based questionnaire survey. The pattern of influence of input parameters on outputs such as injury level and material damage is difficult to establish, possibly due to existence of some nonlinear relationship among them. Therefore, a neural network approach is adopted to carry out sensitivity analysis and identify important deficient items.

Exploratory factor analysis has been carried out on the responses to the designed questionnaire. In total, nine factors with 23 items have been extracted and interpreted. As neural networks are capable of mimicking human cognitive process, the perceptions mechanism of safety officers can be easily modeled via neural networks. Sector‐wise deficient items have been identified and strategies for their improvement have been proposed.

The major limitation may be the number of industrial sectors considered in the study. Although the proposed model is quite generic, its performance needs to be tested with other categories of industries.

Although perceptions of safety officers on their immediate work environment help to formulate constructive safety policy and procedures, involvement of a few representatives from the workforce during the implementation level may assist to substantially reduce injury level and material damage, since the workers are more conversant with work practices, are exposed to risk environments and can sustain injuries if accidents occur.

The paper uses advanced statistical and intelligent techniques for assessment of OHS practices. A comparative evaluation of present practices among three major types of Indian industry has been made. Further, the paper proposes an OHS instrument for Indian industry. The paper offers new directions for researchers to devise a comprehensive methodology that aims at reducing occupational health risks.

Two years ago the writer noted that the territories of the Caribbean, while executing MLAT's with various extra‐regional territories, had not by and large embraced global counter‐narcotics initiatives. The balance has now been decisively and radically altered. This article attempts an assessment of some of the more noteworthy current developments against certain basic norms in international law.