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Current and future public sector executive leadership role demands are explored from a competing values perspective, using roles previously identified with a private sector population. The roles identified were vision setter, motivator, analyser and task master. The results of a 4×2×4×2 MANOVA indicated that there were significant results for the main factors of leadership roles and time and also for the interaction of these two factors. There were no significant gender differences, with female and male Australian Public Service senior executives offering very similar assessments of current and future role demands. Both groups said that future role demands would be greater than is currently the case. Reasons for the differences in the current and future role demands are discussed, and the scope for future research is highlighted.

The purpose of this research is to study how communication executives perceive their internal and external legitimacy, how they reflect on recent developments in their work, and which future challenges they perceive as being important.

The approach takes the form of in‐depth interviews with communication executives.

Communication executives have a distinct strategic managerial role within their organizations. The executive role involves three different performances: the organizational leader; the communication leader; and the communication manager. Executives perceived high external legitimacy, whereas internal legitimacy varied between organizations, and status and formal position were both dynamic and subject to negotiation. The communication technology development, termed as a “revolution”, has considerably affected executives' work. Future communication challenges such as globalization and organizational change were discussed.

Recent changes have strengthened the roles of the communication executives. Internal status and legitimacy appear to be dependent on the attitudes of the other executives. These relationships and the emerging executive roles will be an important basis for study in future research.

Internal legitimacy was clearly an issue of negotiation, which is important for practitioners to consider. Acting out the educational role, working with communication support and the coaching of managers, and initiating and pursuing strategic organizational issues may be means by which communication executives are further able to enhance their internal legitimacy.

New insights with regard to the legitimacy, practice and self‐perceptions of communication executives are provided. This is the first study of Swedish communication executives, adding to the knowledge base derived from studies from The Netherlands, UK and USA.

This study investigates whether the underrepresentation of women in executive-level roles within the supply chain management (SCM) field is justified or the result of gender injustices. The analysis examines if there is a gender compensation gap within executive-level SCM roles and whether performance differences or other observable factors explain disparities.

Publicly reported executive compensation and financial data are merged to empirically test if gender differences exist and investigate whether the underrepresentation of women in executive-level SCM roles is unjust.

Women occupy only 6.29% of the positions in the sample of 447 SCM executives. Unlike prior studies, we find that women executives receive higher compensation. The analysis does not identify observable factors explaining the limited inclusion of women in top-level roles, suggesting that gender injustices are prevalent in SCM.

This study only considers observable factors and cannot conclusively determine if discrimination is occurring. The low level of inclusion of women in executive roles suggests that gender injustice is intrinsic within the SCM profession. These findings will hopefully motivate firms to undertake transformative actions that result in outcomes that advance gender equity, ultimately leading to social justice for female SCM executives.

The use of social justice and feminist theories, a focus on SCM roles, and an empirical methodology utilizing objective measures represents a novel approach to investigating gender discrimination in SCM organizations, complementing prior survey-based studies.

The purpose of this research study was to obtain healthcare executives’ perspectives on diversity in executive healthcare leadership. The study focused on identifying perspectives about diversity and its potential impact on the access of healthcare services by people of color. The study also identified perspectives about factors that influence the attainment of executive healthcare roles by people of color.

A convenience sample of healthcare executives was obtained. The executives identified themselves as belonging to one of two subgroups, White healthcare executives or executives of color. Participants were interviewed telephonically in a semi-structured format. The interviews were transcribed and entered into a qualitative software application. The data were codified and important themes were identified.

The majority of the study participants perceive that diversity of the executive healthcare leadership team is important. There were differences in perspective among the subgroups as it relates to solutions to improve access to healthcare by people of color. There were also differences in perspective among the subgroups, as it relates to explaining the underrepresentation of people of color in executive healthcare leadership roles.

This research effort benefited from the subject matter expertise of 24 healthcare executives from two states. Expansion of the number of survey participants and broadening the geographical spread of where participants were located may have yielded more convergence and/or more divergence in perspectives about key topics.

The findings from this research study serve to add to the existing body of literature on diversity in executive healthcare leadership. The findings expand on the importance of key elements in contemporary literature such as diversity, cultural competency and perspectives about the need for representation of people of color in leadership roles that guide healthcare policy and access. This study connects contemporary literature to perspectives of executives in the field and offers practical solutions to improving the representation of people of color in executive healthcare leadership roles.

The recommendations offered as a result of this research effort serve to create awareness of the challenges that people of color face in career attainment. Although the process of increasing the representation of people of color in executive healthcare leadership will be a complex task that will involve a number of players over the course of several years, this study serves to provide a practical roadmap with actionable tactics that can be deployed.

This paper is an extension of the work that was done by the author during the course of completing the program requirements for the author’s doctoral program. The findings were previously discussed in the author’s dissertation. The value of these findings is significant because they validate some of the topics in contemporary literature with the perspectives of practicing healthcare executives. This study is also unique from other studies in that it offers a long-term plan to increase the representation of people of color in executive roles by creating an early disposition toward executive level roles and identifies a number of practical steps toward that end.

This monograph seeks to summarise the key influences of a role‐based perspective on leadership when making decisions as to how organisational resources can best be deployed.

Application of new frameworks provides insight into the leadership roles executives can adopt when part of formal, informal and temporary groups within the organisation's senior management team and those parts of the organisation for which they are responsible. The methodology adopted is qualitative, focusing on application of previously developed frameworks.

Adoption of an appropriate leadership role, and the timely switch from one role to another as circumstances change, are found to facilitate improvement in the ability of executives to mobilise organisational resources, and in so doing effectively address those challenges with which the organisation is faced.

A one‐organisation intensive case study of a multinational engineering company engaged in the design, development and manufacture of rotating turbomachinery provides the platform for the research. The research intent is to validate two frameworks in a different organisation of a similar demographic profile to those in which the frameworks were developed. The frameworks will require validating in organisations of different demographic profiles.

The concepts advanced, and implications discussed, provide an insight into the role‐based nature of leadership. The practical steps individual executives can take to develop their ability to adopt different leadership roles are highlighted.

This monograph is an investigation into, and study of the contribution of theory that provides insight into, the process by which executives effectively mobilise organisational resources. This differs from the original contributions to theory, which focused on methodology, data gathering and validation in contrast with the current study that is focused on practical application.

This study proposes that executives need to be prepared to switch roles and membership of groups in order to fulfil their leadership responsibilities effectively.

A validated framework provides insight into the leadership roles that executives can switch between as they move from one formal, informal or temporary group to the next within the organisation's wider senior management team. The methodology adopted is qualitative, focusing on inquiry‐based learning which enabled the authors to gather data on those aspects of context that relate specifically to the leadership roles executives switch between.

Changing role is found to facilitate improvement in each executive's decision‐making effectiveness and, over time, in the decision‐making capability of an organisation's wider senior management team.

A one‐organisation intensive case study of a multinational engineering company engaged in the design, development and manufacture of rotating turbomachinery provides the platform for the research. The concepts advanced will require validating in other organisations of both similar and different demographic profiles.

The concepts advanced, and implications discussed, provide an insight into the nature of leadership as a network of relationships. The practical steps individual executives can take to develop their ability to adopt different leadership roles are highlighted.

This paper attempts to assist executives within the wider senior management team to better adapt and coordinate their behaviour with other executives. In so doing, it is suggested that executives contribute more positively to the organisational decision‐making processes and wider senior management team interaction by being adaptive and responsive to changes in their surrounding context.

Boards of directors are assumed to exercise three key accountability roles – control, monitoring and oversight roles. By researching one board type – investment fund boards – and the power relations around those boards, the purpose of this paper is to show that such boards are not capable of operating the three key roles assumed of them.

The authors conducted 25 in-depth interviews and a focus group session with investment fund directors applying a grounded theory methodology.

Because of their unique position of power, the authors find that fund promoter organisations (that establish and attract investors to the funds) exercise control and monitoring roles. As a result, contrary to prior assumptions, oversight is the primary role of investment fund boards, rather than the control role or monitoring role associated with corporate boards. The findings can be extended to other board-of-director contexts in which boards (e.g. subsidiary boards, boards of state-owned entities) have legal responsibility but limited power because of power exercised by other parties such as large shareholders.

Shareholders and regulators generally assume boards exercise control and monitoring roles. This can lead to an expectations gap on the part of shareholders and regulators who may not consider the practical realities in which boards operate. This expectations gap compromises the very objective of governance – investor protection.

Based on interviews with investment fund directors, the authors challenge the control-role theory of investment fund boards of directors. Building on our findings, and following subsequent conceptual engagement with the literature, the authors differentiate control, monitoring and oversight roles, terms which are often used interchangeably in prior research. The authors distinguish between the three terms on the basis of the level of influence implied by each.

Describes a survey, undertaken by the Nolan Norton Institute in mid‐1995, of Australia’s senior IT (information technology) ranks. The objective of the survey was to gain a better understanding of the continent’s senior IT executives. The results show a grim reality for many of the region’s chief information officers. Australian IT executives are striving for recognition. Compared to their overseas counterparts, they rank lower in their respective organizations, do not report directly to their chief executive officers and are not members of their executive committees. Given these factors, the “senior executive” label seen as most descriptive of the role may be a bit of wishful thinking. Concludes that Australian IT executives’ roles are evolving from a traditional project‐oriented focus to a strategic decision‐making responsibility. IT executives would like to see their role in the organization elevated, giving them more “clout”, stature and visibility, as has increasingly been the case in North America and the UK. Once these issues have been addressed, the Australian IT executive can concentrate on building the management practices and focusing on strategic goals.

This study aims to elucidate the role of social ties in facilitating the career progress of senior officers within public companies in an emerging market.

The authors followed the career track of 2,151 senior officers serving on management and supervisory boards of Polish public companies. The authors used multivariate econometric modeling to investigate the factors shaping their career progress.

The authors document an increasing impact of officers’ social networks on the likelihood of assuming multiple consecutive senior positions. It takes progressively less time for incumbent senior officers to find a subsequent/concomitant board position with a network of social ties from prior workplaces facilitating career progress and prior experience being negatively associated with multiple positions. Officers’ social ties at the senior level are also shown to be positively associated with total compensation and with the likelihood of cross-industry career transition in both executive and supervisory roles.

Social network appears to play a more salient role in accelerating careers of supervisory board members even though executives also benefit therefrom. Finally, the network of social ties with former or incumbent supervisory board members exercises a more pronounced positive impact on career progress than ties with former or incumbent executives.

In a review of the literature, supported by six case studies, executive development for senior managers in public and private organisations is explored in depth. The study looks at the roles and responsibilities of the chairman, CEO, executive and non‐executive directors, the required capabilities to achieve successful performance, and the related executive development activity implemented to support these. Methods of delivery, development needs analysis and evaluation are explored in case organisations to ascertain current practice. A detailed review of the leadership and governance literatures is included to highlight the breadth of knowledge required at director level. Key findings of the study include the importance of focusing executive development on capability enhancement, to ensure that it is supporting organisational priorities, and on its thorough customisation to the corporate context. Deficiencies in current corporate practice are also identified.