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Book part
Publication date: 8 April 2005

Ricardo Madureira

This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of…

Abstract

This paper illuminates the distinction between individual and organizational actors in business-to-business markets as well as the coexistence of formal and informal mechanisms of coordination in multinational corporations. The main questions addressed include the following. (1) What factors influence the occurrence of personal contacts of foreign subsidiary managers in industrial multinational corporations? (2) How such personal contacts enable coordination in industrial markets and within multinational firms? The theoretical context of the paper is based on: (1) the interaction approach to industrial markets, (2) the network approach to industrial markets, and (3) the process approach to multinational management. The unit of analysis is the foreign subsidiary manager as the focal actor of a contact network. The paper is empirically focused on Portuguese sales subsidiaries of Finnish multinational corporations, which are managed by either a parent country national (Finnish), a host country national (Portuguese) or a third country national. The paper suggests eight scenarios of individual dependence and uncertainty, which are determined by individual, organizational, and/or market factors. Such scenarios are, in turn, thought to require personal contacts with specific functions. The paper suggests eight interpersonal roles of foreign subsidiary managers, by which the functions of their personal contacts enable inter-firm coordination in industrial markets. In addition, the paper suggests eight propositions on how the functions of their personal contacts enable centralization, formalization, socialization and horizontal communication in multinational corporations.

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Managing Product Innovation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84950-311-2

Book part
Publication date: 1 August 2019

Valentina N. Parakhina, Olga A. Boris, Galina S. Shelkoplyasova and Gelani I. Khanaliev

The purpose of the chapter is to develop and substantiate the necessity for delegating authorities in the process of decision making in modern business systems, as well as…

Abstract

The purpose of the chapter is to develop and substantiate the necessity for delegating authorities in the process of decision making in modern business systems, as well as conditions, principles, and criteria of successful delegation in view of the applied approach. The methodology of the chapter is based on the method of analysis of causal connections, which is used for determining the necessity and essence of delegation, evaluating and comparison of the possible concepts and means of its implementation in the process of decision making, and studying the managers' opinions for determining the problems of delegation. This allows determining the conditions and criteria of successful delegation and developing an optimal set of principles that allow for effective implementation of the process of delegating authorities. As a result, the authors determine conditions and limitations that determine the possibility of delegating authorities in the process of decision making and offer criteria of successfulness of the process: preliminary task setting, interest and readiness of employees, briefing, written form of delegating authorities for complex and responsible tasks, accessibility of any necessary information, support from manager, and controllability of the process and result. The concepts of delegation are studied, and priority of its new model is established. Based on this, 11 principles of successful delegation were formulated: determination of goal, certainty, parity of rights and responsibility, adequate support, motivation of effective solutions, participation, “finite character,” structural limitations, complex nature of tasks, succession, and vision of perspective.

Complexities of the process of delegation in the process of decision making in business systems are described – their knowledge helps developing own styles of delegation and improving it.

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Specifics of Decision Making in Modern Business Systems
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-692-7

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 12 July 2022

Joseph Naimo

Abuse and misuse of Substitute Decision-Making (SDMg) authority impacts the lives of children and adults with decision-making disabilities. The concerns raised in this paper

Abstract

Abuse and misuse of Substitute Decision-Making (SDMg) authority impacts the lives of children and adults with decision-making disabilities. The concerns raised in this paper amplify previous attention addressed by advocacy agencies and law reformists such as the Law Commission of Ontario. I analyse problems associated with Plenary Guardianship from both the lived experience of the non-guardian perspective and from the authority bestowed to the Guardian pursuant to the Guardianship and Administration Act 1990 of Western Australia legitimating the unintended capacity to abuse one’s substitute decision-making authority. Substitute decision-making arrangements enable decisions to be made on behalf of a person with a decision-making disability; usually made when such arrangements are necessary and subject to safeguards. Detrimentally, the substitute decision-maker (SDM) can assert broader powers beyond sensible measures that include thwarting investigations undertaken by family members; removing family members from the life of the person for whom an order is made; inappropriately applying a paternalistic or ‘best interest’ approach to decision-making where other approaches are required; failing to consider the individual’s wishes or making decisions contrary to those wishes; having insufficient contact with the individual; and, sharing insufficient or incorrect information. Moreover, they may subject the individual for whom an SDM order is made to experimental medical treatment in tandem with imposing or condoning severe and harmful restrictive-practices. Consequently, the second issue addressed in this paper concerns normalising both chemical and physical restrictive-practices that are both morally abhorrent and clinically highly questionable. Furthermore, often undertaken by service providers and their contracted psychiatrists and treating teams, endorsed under authority of a collaborating Guardian or SDM.

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Who's Watching? Surveillance, Big Data and Applied Ethics in the Digital Age
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80382-468-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2023

Kate Hawks, Karen A. Hegtvedt and Cathryn Johnson

We examine how authorities' use of fair decision-making procedures and power benevolently shape workers' impressions of them as competent and warm, which serve as a mechanism…

Abstract

Purpose

We examine how authorities' use of fair decision-making procedures and power benevolently shape workers' impressions of them as competent and warm, which serve as a mechanism whereby authorities' behaviors shape workers' emotional responses. We investigate how the role of these impressions differs depending on authority gender and consider whether emotional responses differ for male and female subordinates.

Design/Methodology

We conducted a between-subjects experimental vignette study in which we manipulate an authority's behaviors and gender. We use multigroup mediation analysis to test our predictions.

Findings

Authorities who employ procedural justice and benevolent power elicit reports of heightened positive emotion experiences and intended displays and reports of reduced negative emotion experiences and intended displays. These behaviors also enhance views of authorities as competent and warm. The mediating role of impressions differs by authority gender. Authority behaviors prompt reports of positive emotions through conveying impressions that align with authorities' gender stereotypes (competence for men, warmth for women). In contrast, warmth impressions mediate effects of behaviors on reported negative emotions when authorities are men, whereas when authorities are women, benevolent power use directly reduces reported negative experience, and procedural justice reduces negative display. Female respondents are more likely to report positive emotion experience and display toward male authorities and negative display toward female authorities.

Originality

By examining competence and warmth impressions as mechanisms, we gain insight into how the process by which authority behaviors affect worker emotions is gendered and shed light on micro-level dynamics contributing to gender inequality at work.

Details

Advances in Group Processes
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83797-477-1

Keywords

Abstract

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Organisational Roadmap Towards Teal Organisations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-311-7

Book part
Publication date: 9 December 2013

Mark J. Kaswan

To examine how different types of ownership, including investor-owned, employee-owned, and mixed models, affect the dynamics of participatory practices in the workplace, and the…

Abstract

Purpose

To examine how different types of ownership, including investor-owned, employee-owned, and mixed models, affect the dynamics of participatory practices in the workplace, and the broader social effects of these differences.

Design/methodology/approach

Brings together literature from democratic theory and empirical research in workplace participation and employee ownership. The first step is to articulate the range of democratic practices from nondemocratic to strongly democratic. The essay then discusses the different forms that participation can take and the threshold for what can be considered democratic participation. It then considers different models of ownership and the impact of ownership type on participatory practices.

Findings

It is found that investor-owned firms cannot be considered strongly democratic and that worker cooperatives are more likely to be strongly democratic and cannot fall below the threshold of weak democracy. However, strong democracy is not necessarily a feature of worker cooperatives.

Originality/value

Little work has been done to consider the way the type of ownership affects the kind or degree of democratic practices that may be present in an enterprise.

Details

Sharing Ownership, Profits, and Decision-Making in the 21st Century
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-750-4

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 19 May 2009

Shelley D. Dionne and Peter J. Dionne

Previous literature has compared the effectiveness of different styles of leadership, yet most of this research has not compared different levels of analyses regarding leader…

Abstract

Previous literature has compared the effectiveness of different styles of leadership, yet most of this research has not compared different levels of analyses regarding leader styles or behaviors. This shortcoming often limits our understanding of how leadership acts on a phenomenon of interest to a single level of analysis. This article develops a computational model and describes a levels-based comparison of four types of leadership that represent three different levels: individual, dyad, and group. When examined across a dynamic group decision-making optimization scenario, group-based leadership is found to produce decisions that are closer to optimal than dyadic-based and individual-based leadership. An alternative computational model varying individual cognitive and experience-based components among group members also indicates that group-based leadership produces more optimal decisions. First published in Leadership Quarterly (Dionne, S. D., & Dionne, P. J. (2008). Levels-based leadership and hierarchical group decision optimization: A simulation. Leadership Quarterly, 19, 212–234), this version offers an updated introduction discussing simulation as a theoretical development tool and supplies additional evidence regarding the growth of simulation methods in leadership research.

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Multi-Level Issues in Organizational Behavior and Leadership
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-503-7

Book part
Publication date: 12 July 2005

Jordan Naidoo

Over the past decade most central governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have begun to decentralize some fiscal, political, and administrative responsibilities to…

Abstract

Over the past decade most central governments across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have begun to decentralize some fiscal, political, and administrative responsibilities to lower-levels of government, local institutions, and the private sector in pursuit of greater accountability and more efficient service delivery, often in an attempt to solve broader political, social, or economic problems (SARA, 1997). Education, in particular, has been fertile ground for such decentralization efforts. From Ethiopia to South Africa, SSA countries have engaged in some form of education decentralization, though the pace has been quite uneven. Ethiopia, Uganda, Senegal, and South Africa, for example, are proceeding fast, while Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe are under way more slowly. Guinea, Niger, Zambia, and Nigeria are at the other end of the continuum. Decentralization of social services, including education appears to be embedded in the political changes occurring in the region. In almost all SSA countries the introduction of decentralized systems are accompanied by popular elections for local councils as part of the general trend of the introduction of or return to democratization.

Details

Global Trends in Educational Policy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-175-0

Book part
Publication date: 30 December 2011

Tingting Qi

This chapter integrates current Chinese education reform into the unique socioeconomic context of China in a transitional time and explores the complexity of education…

Abstract

This chapter integrates current Chinese education reform into the unique socioeconomic context of China in a transitional time and explores the complexity of education decentralization in China through an in-depth analysis on changes in education finance, administration, and curriculum development. Mark Hanson's theory of education decentralization is cited to build a conceptual framework for examining education decentralization in China. Previous studies, government documents, laws, and regulations related to the current wave of Chinese education reform are reviewed to capture a true picture of education decentralization in China. In investigating the background, actual actions, and motive of the current Chinese education reform, the chapter demonstrates that the on-going Chinese education reform is moving toward a centralized decentralization. Linking education with the unified national goal of economic modernization, the paradoxical mixture of centralization and decentralization is a strategic means to avoid loss of centralized control. Literature on decentralization reform in Chinese education primarily concentrates on changed Chinese education policies in the reform. This chapter places the focus on the contextual factors that shape the decentralization trend in current reform.

Details

The Impact and Transformation of Education Policy in China
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-186-2

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 30 August 2008

Sally K. Gallagher

Based on 178 in-depth interviews with evangelical Protestants in 23 states and data from the Evangelical Identity and Influence Survey (n=2,087), this chapter assesses the…

Abstract

Based on 178 in-depth interviews with evangelical Protestants in 23 states and data from the Evangelical Identity and Influence Survey (n=2,087), this chapter assesses the articulation of evangelical subcultural ideals with gendered family life, democratic individualism, and a two-earner, middle class lifestyle. Compared to other Protestants, evangelicals put more emphasis on husbands’ spiritual leadership, authority, and engaged fatherhood, and interpret wives’ employment as a pragmatic necessity and the outcome of expressive individualism. These ideals, in tension, produce a sense of “invested individualism” that embodies evangelical subcultural identity and facilitates the management and negotiation of gender, work, and family life.

Details

Advancing Gender Research from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-84855-027-8

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