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The merged pension plan should reflect the merged firm's culture.

Technology has changed the way companies do business. As such, it has changed the way consultants dispense their expertise. Without a thorough re‐evaluation of the technology vs consultant ratio, companies are likely to squander funds and waste valuable resources and opportunities. Following the Second World War, companies started offering a plethora of company‐sponsored benefit plans. As these plans grew in complexity, consultants where brought for their experience and expertise. With stretched resources and companies expected to do more with less employees, HR outsourcing has become a nationwide trend. With this came many opportunities for consultants. With all these opportunities come situations where technology could be leveraged to complete projects better or in a more cost‐effective manner than consultants. With the advent of the internet, companies can leverage existing tools and services to do what a consultant does for a fraction of the cost. The value of a good consultant may be how he or she interacts with and augments face‐and‐brain time with technology. This article proposes that understanding and evaluating the return on investment of outsourcing consulting services in light of the new role of technology is vital for companies and their budget.

For some years now, there has been a huge crisis developing for companies around how to effectively manage their pension plans. The gist of the crisis is this: pension plans have lost almost half their value while liabilities have skyrocketed due to the current low interest rate environment. Analysts have attempted to characterize this crisis as a “Perfect Storm”, likening it to the hazards described in the book and the movie of the same name. However, a more apt scenario might be that of an earthquake.

Companies that adopt lean operations and lean accounting ultimately should achieve better profitability and cash flows than similarly situated companies that do not adopt lean operations and lean accounting.

Archival data is analyzed through Wilcoxon signed-ranks, matched-pairs tests.

Lean companies had greater returns on net operating assets (RNOA), returns on total assets (ROA), operating cash flows, and cash-adequacy ratios than Non-Lean companies. These results were driven by the larger Lean companies. The profit margins and financing-assets ratios also were marginally better for the Lean companies than the Non-Lean companies.

Lean companies have achieved benefits proposed by the proponents of lean operations. The present study provides a starting point for further research on the financial performance of Lean companies using archival data.

There is limited research on the financial performance of Lean companies that is based on archival data. The present study fills a void in the academic literature. This study measures RNOA, which does not confound operating and financing activities. Additionally, this study utilized a methodology that provides reasonable assurance of the identification of both Lean companies and Non-Lean companies from publicly available data.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between effective leadership practices, leadership dispositions and child upbringing in six Mexican successful elementary school principals who improved the achievement, work climate, and resources in their schools. In this study, culture; order; discipline; resources; curriculum, instruction, and assessment were the most salient leadership responsibilities. The present study confirmed that trust is one of main leadership dispositions that may be related to child upbringing. The most frequent behavior displayed in the families of these principals was generating a sense of trust. Likewise the findings shed some light on the importance of secure attachment, setting limitations, and establishing rules to foster dispositions for good leadership. These exploratory findings suggest that resilience is another important leadership disposition. Results are discussed.

Psychological research on leadership deals mainly with the effect of leadership styles on workers' attitudes and performance. This paper seeks to focus the attention to patterns of preference of followers to different types of leaders.

In the two studies presented in the paper, followers classified on the basis of attachment theory as having secure attachment style or avoidant attachment style were asked to indicate their preference for a personalized charismatic leader or for a socialized charismatic leader.

Subjects with a secure attachment style preferred a socialized charismatic leader, while those with an avoidant attachment style preferred personalized charismatic leaders.

The study adds knowledge regarding compatibility between leaders' and followers' personality characteristics. This knowledge could serve processes of selection and assignments to teams and missions.

This study provides a relatively new angle for looking at leader‐led dynamics and is an attempt to examine the initial (unconscious) attractions of followers to different types of leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of podcasts, online radio broadcasts, YouTube channels, and other technology medium to deliver information and professional development to peers in the field and professionals in librarianship.

This paper explores five case studies of librarians and library professionals who have created online programs specifically geared to the field using technologies such as podcasting, YouTube channels, Twitter Chats, and Google Hangouts. The case studies include librarians in the public, academic, and school settings as well as one professional from The American Library Association. Interviews via Google Hangouts took place to gather information for each narrative. NVivo 10 qualitative data analysis software was used to pull out themes and commonalities among narratives. Some examples include, intended audience, program focus, platform topics, technology, and challenges.

Face-to-face delivery of information and professional development can be difficult with librarians and professionals located across the USA and the world. These five interviewees share new opportunities and examples in the delivery of training and information in the field of librarianship without ever needing to leave an office or desk.

Podcasting in librarianship is a topic of modest popularity but it is typically used with students and at the academic library level where the topics of podcasts and libraries are addressed. The topics of podcasts, online radio broadcasts, and other technologies in librarian peer-to-peer instruction and professional development are uncharted territory in the field of scholarly research. This piece opens research to multiple opportunities in both practice and scholarship in how technology can aid in professional development and information delivery to peers and practitioners in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of leaders’ attachment orientation and social self-efficacy on the enactment of abusive supervision.

Data were obtained from a sample of leader-subordinate dyads (n=114), and were collected using a Panel Service.

The results show that a Close/Depend attachment orientation was negatively associated with abusive supervision, while an Anxious attachment orientation was positively associated with abusive supervision. Social self-efficacy mediated these relationships.

The results generate a deeper understanding of the etiology of destructive leadership. Applying attachment theory to the study of abusive supervision also offers a new theoretical perspective on potential precursors of this behavior.

The findings suggest organizations might benefit from attempts to alter leaders’ destructive attachment orientations, and by extension, reduce their abusive behavior. It may also be possible to reduce the occurrence of abusive supervision by implementing leadership development initiatives aimed at enhancing leaders’ confidence in their social skills.

By identifying several potential precursors to abusive supervision, this study highlights possible points of intervention to combat a form of leadership that is linked with employee suffering. Thus, the findings can be used to help improve the working lives of those who are affected by this destructive workplace behavior.

Until now, research has not considered leaders’ attachment orientation as an antecedent to abusive supervision, nor has it explored the meditational role of social self-efficacy. The use of leader-follower dyads in this study also helps reduce issues related to social desirability biases and common method variance.

Although previous research has highlighted the importance of innovative intermediary services that are delivered through cluster initiatives to foster own attractiveness and the development of business, little emphasis has been placed on examining the patterns and influencers of such a change in new organisational forms from a management perspective. The present study investigates the change patterns of core intermediary activities in cluster initiatives as well as the influence of various stakeholders on change in those core activities.

The empirical data of this work illustrates the general picture of change within new organisational forms and therefore emerges from a survey study carried out among numerous European cluster initiatives originating from different industries. The main propositions for testing have roots in and are discussed through the prism of Stakeholder Theory as well as entrepreneurship, change and intermediary (middle-hands, brokerage) literature.

The findings reveal that intermediary activities are under continuous change, and the changes appreciated by the initiative members tend to gradually increase in intensity over time. Internal stakeholders are actively engaged in the change process activities, and external stakeholders are too, but to a limited extent. This leaves space for creativity and action for the initiatives.

This research combines stakeholder theory and literature on intermediation (new forms of organisations), change, and entrepreneurship. The outcome of the study might serve as a ground for theoretical classification of cluster initiatives as a particular type of intermediary in accordance with their specific occupation. This would add to the ongoing discussion on definition and typologies of intermediaries as well as lift the awareness on the peculiar constellation of stakeholders within these innovative organisations – their engagement expectations and level of involvement.

Knowledge on which stakeholders can turn to in the event that a special service is needed can shorten implementation times and improve the quality of services. This knowledge is a way to choose suitable and influential networking partners who can assist by pushing existing working mechanisms in a favourable direction.

The study illustrates the patterns behind changes of intermediary activities/services over time, which would form solid ground for developing new methods to assist in achieving stakeholder satisfaction through cluster-initiative services. Therefore, this work can serve as a benchmarking example for traditional organisations that find themselves in “sleeping” mode or that aim for revitalization.

The contribution of change and engagement mechanisms to effectivization and innovativeness of organisations are highlighted as main value added of this research.