Search results

The use of interactive, case method and other experiential teaching has a very recent history in the Czech and Slovak educational systems. Before the “Velvet revolution”, courses were typically taught using non‐interactive lecturing. Along with the recent introduction of the free market economy has come a real need for business administration courses. The Czechoslovak Management Center has attempted to introduce and foster interactive techniques through direct training and through pairing western and Czech/Slovak Faculty in the classroom. Experiences during the first 18 months revealed market resistance to interactive methods among some local faculty and students. Reviews issues which impinge on receptivity to interactive teaching on the part of Czech and Slovak Faculty and students. Identifies lessons learned and makes recommendations.

Post‐socialist countries have more challenges in the change process than merely creating a market economy. Communism eroded the work ethic, created organizations where employees considered it their right to steal from the company, management as a profession was never understood, and party loyalty and networks were the most important criteria of advancement. Suggests that teaching management out of this context creates its own challenges.

The rapid growth of spirituality in the workplace and organization generally, topically and applications, is of major importance for enterprise leaders, HR officials, organizational members and change agents. After providing a working definition of “workplace spirituality” some of the dynamic factors are identified which are contributing to its fast growth. This discussion includes some of the key behavioral ideas and models providing a foundation for these developments. Several case type summaries illustrate the richness and potency of spirituality applications in organizations. The concluding section provides a brief speculative discussion of future developments.

The article introduces the Utopian vision of managing people at work described in Abraham Maslow’s book Eupsychian Management. This essentially foresees a time when organizations are managed by self‐actualising people along lines which would encourage the self‐actualisation of people from all levels of the organization. Maslow’s vision was that this would lead to really effective organizations and a much improved society. The article considers how far such movements as quality of working life, TQM, empowerment and autonomous working groups have moved us towards this sort of management practice. There are definite moves in this direction but considerable constraints on making the practice universal, even though there is growing empirical evidence that positive human resource practices lead to improved efficiency and effectiveness.