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The purpose of this paper is to report data empirically linking competencies of individual leaders to business profitability and demonstrate that competencies are cross‐culturally valid.

Participants in the initial competency study were 15 business unit managers identified as high performing. Data were collected using Critical Incident Interviews that were systematically coded using thematic analysis to identify the presence of competencies. Competencies identified were then adapted into a behaviourally‐based questionnaire used in a follow‐up validation study. Participants in the validation study (n=70) were managers from North America and two European countries who were participants in a management development program. Boss ratings of competencies were then correlated with business unit profitability.

A set of competencies was identified as predictive of unit profit growth in managers in both North America and the European Union. Subsequent regression analysis showed that 17 per cent of the variance in business unit profitability could be accounted for by four competencies, specifically team leadership, developing others, achievement orientation, and impact and influence. Cross‐cultural validity was demonstrated to the degree that similar competencies predicted performance in both North America and the European Union as evidenced by the correlation between boss rating of subordinate competencies and profit growth.

The initial study using Critical Incident Interviews was conducted with a small sample size and did not employ a comparison group of average performers.

Initial competency research using empirical methods should be used to help focus competency models used for selection, feedback, training, and performance management.

The study is one of the few published studies that link competencies to business unit profitability. The paper demonstrates that competencies have a degree of cross‐cultural validity.

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, to add to the empirical literature related to the validity and practical utility of emotional, social, and cognitive competencies in the workplace. Second, using data from two different European samples, to demonstrate the methods for validating competency models for applied use. Third, to discuss the impact of role demands and culture on the manifestation of competencies most predictive of performance.

The basic design used in both studies is to compare data from outstanding performers against data from typical or average performers in order to determine competencies which predict performance. The data presented here are based on operant assessment of competencies using critical incident interviews, which are then systematically coded using thematic analysis to yield behavioural evidence of specific competencies.

The results indicate that, while some competencies such as achievement orientation and team leadership are consistently linked to performance in both studies, the correlation of other specific competencies with performance varies among the samples. Moreover, the relative importance of specific competencies in terms of the amount of variance in performance explained also varies across the two samples.

The criterion measures available, i.e. client ratings of performance, did not provide the continuous objective performance data that are generally considered preferable so as to provide a clearer picture of the value added by superior performance. A further limitation was that there was no opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the various initiatives which were put in place to improve managers' competencies after their initial assessment.

This is one of the few articles that explore the validity of competencies within the European Union across different organizations using a common competency framework and methodology. Both studies were originally initiated as applied consulting projects and the findings of the research applied to human resource practices within each organization. Although competencies are ubiquitous in today's global workplace, the number of published studies with data to support the validity of competency‐modelling techniques has been limited. The current research adds to the growing literature in this area and adds to one's confidence in the ability of emotional, social and cognitive competencies to predict performance in a variety of settings and cultures.

The purpose of this paper is to subject the short lived “Policy Analysis Market” (PAM) – “a Pentagon betting market on terror attacks” – and media and academic reactions to it, to some critical analysis.

The paper engages sustained invocation of the relationship between simulation and representation, for the story of the Policy Analysis Market (PAM) and its demise is replete with the tension between the two. It interrogates a range of accounts of the (un)timely demise of PAM, from the fearful senators and the moralistic media who subsumed and buttressed their position to the market evangelists for whom the failure of this particular market was merely proof of the veracity of markets elsewhere.

It is found that, inter alia, PAM was not really market‐like enough and, indeed, that it duplicated in impoverished form already existing markets that pertain to its objects of interest; that it was too much a market, given that its “goods” are seemingly inappropriate for market trade; and that it exposed too much of the truth of the actual operation of existing markets via the difficulties it confronted with regard to the possibility of insider dealing.

By contextualising PAM within the so‐called war on terror of which it was part, we see in the tension between representation and simulation, tension between a singular and a manifold reality; a set of tensions which make clear the extent of the gap that must exist between cause and effect, truth and prediction. The paper concludes by joining the celebration of PAM's demise whilst yearning for a similar fate to befall the other monologues that brought it to silence.

Leadership matters in public contexts. It influences employee development and, in turn, the effective delivery of public services. Harmful leadership limits the fulfilment of both these requirements. Although there are many studies of public leadership, few explore aspects of poor leadership focusing on leading people, in the unique public sector context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the public sector environment as one that can enable harmful leadership, and identifies what those aspects of harmful behaviours are. In particular, it focuses on common, day-to-day forms of harmful mediocre leadership rather than more dramatic, but rarer, forms of destructive or toxic leadership.

The study was conducted over three phases. In study one (N=10) interviews using the critical incident technique identified harmful behaviours. Study two (N=10) identified perceived causal processes and outcomes of these processes. Study three was a validation check using two focus groups (n=7) and two further interviews (n=6).

Four dimensions of harmful behaviour were found: micromanagement, managing up but not down, low social and career support and reactive leadership. Several pathways to harm were found, including lessened employee confidence, motivation, collaboration, learning and development.

This research is limited by a small sample and data collected in one public sector system. But its implications are still meaningful. The research identified some ways that harmful leadership can occur, that is missed in existing studies of harmful leadership, which tend to focus on more toxic forms of harm. The role of NPM and other reforms as important shapers of current leadership behaviours are also discussed.

To address these behaviours further investment in leadership development, selection and performance management is recommended.

Social implications include the hindering of effective service delivery and limited ability to deal with increasingly dynamic and complicated problem.

Public sector leadership studies are often rose tinted, or describe what should be. Instead, this paper describes what sometimes is, in terms of day-to-day mediocre but harmful leadership.

Despite scholarly effort to understand customers’ recovery evaluation, little progress is evident in deciphering how customers develop online failure/recovery perception. This paper aims to address this issue.

Social constructivism was the epistemic choice for this study. This approach is holistic and offers a comprehensive understanding of each side of the phenomena. This provided social scientific descriptions of people and their cultural bases and built on, and articulated what was implicit in interpretations of their views.

Online banking customer groups were identified as: exigent customers, solutionist customers and impulsive customers. Customers’ position in each group determined failure perception, recovery expectation and evaluation, and post-recovery behaviour. Comparisons were observed and discussed in relation to Albania and Kosovo. It was suggested that banks should expand their presence in social media platforms and offer a means to manage online customer communication and spread of online WOM.

For exigent customers, the failure/recovery responsibility is embedded within the provider. This explains their high sensitivity and criteria to define a failure.

Online banking customers’ request of a satisfactory recovery experience included: customer notifications, customer behaviour, customer determination, and the mediator of request. 10;Providers should examine customer failure/recovery experiences in cooperation with other banks which should lead to a higher order understanding of customer withdrawal and disengagement activities.

Post-recovery behaviour is linked to the decline of online banking usage, switching to new providers, and the spread of negative online and off-line word-of-mouth.

This is the first empirical study on online service failure and recovery strategy to provide information on customers’ unique preferences and expectations in the recovery process. Online customers are organised into a threefold customer typology, and explanation for the providers’ role in the online customer failure-recovery perception construct is presented.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drivers of customer value, and their respective relationships with customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions, between two culturally distinct groups of adventure tourists.

The study adopted a descriptive design and compared data from 301 Japanese and Western adventure tourists who experienced the same adventure tour. The respondents were split into two groups, and a path modeling approach was used to examine similarities and differences.

The results indicated that Japanese tourists attached more importance to emotional value and novelty value. Western tourists, however, attached relatively more importance to the utilitarian dimension of price value for money.

The main implication of this study is that tourism operators should account for differences in value perceptions between Japanese and Western tourists when planning tour operations, training tour guides, and managing tour itineraries. Operators should also consider customizing their tour products to fit the specific needs of these different cultural groups. This reinforces the adaptation argument when marketing tourism to international consumers.

This study highlights that different value drivers affect the satisfaction and behavioral intentions of Japanese tourists, relative to Western tourists. The need for adaptation of tourism products toward certain international tourists is thus necessary. The research also reinforces the importance of conceptualizing and measuring customer value as a multidimensional construct in an international adventure tourism context.

British Aerospace announces the appointment of Mr. Donald (Don) McClen as Corporate Executive Public Affairs with effect from August 27, 1984, in succession to Mr. David Bainbridge.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to extend the work of Robson (1991, 1992) by exploring the accounting implications of the way in which subsets of non-financial accounting numbers are constructed. In particular, the study investigates whether the different procedures for organising subsets of a set of accounting data may lead to different conclusions about (the same) reality.

The empirical analysis focuses on the procedures by which organisations translate work-related injury outcomes to accounting numbers. First, existing procedures are problematised within their institutional context. This highlights complementary elements of translation and neo-institutional theory that together explain how institutional factors might operate to constrain the problematising process. An empirical analysis of workers’ compensation data covering a ten year period is then conducted to calculate and contrast performance using two competing logics of accounting for injury.

The findings demonstrate that different representations of reality may result not only from accounting choices as to “what” is measured, but also from accounting choices as to “how subsets of measured data are organised”. Specifically, different ways of organising injury data into subsets led to different representations of the reality of overall injury performance. The evidence further suggests taken-for-granted assumptions and institutionalised practices may prevent adequate problematisation of the underpinning logic that guides the procedures for organising translations of work-related injury and illness to accounting numbers.

The results suggest the existing logic of accounting for injury fails to recognise the financial or non-financial complexity of non-fatal injury outcomes. “Lost time injury” measures are revealed as neither valid nor reliable measures of injury (or safety) and therefore inappropriate for informing the occupational health and safety (OHS) decisions of managers, boards and external stakeholders. These findings reveal an urgent need for change in injury accounting practice and, in turn, raise serious concerns about the increasingly institutionalised global template for external disclosure of OHS performance information.

This paper takes a novel look at the construction of social performance measures and suggests further attention to the construction of accounting subsets is warranted. In demonstrating serious problems in accounting logic that underpin existing, and deeply institutionalised, measurement and reporting practices, the findings reinforce the need to routinely re-problematise accounting practices. Failure to critically review those accounting translations that underpin decision-making may prove a fatal mistake.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how HIWS may shape organisational capabilities, in particular organisational ambidexterity (OA) – the ability to be both adaptable to the wider world, and internally aligned so that existing resources are used well. Given the demands on public agencies to manage conflicting objectives, and to do more with less in increasingly complex environments, this paper improves our understanding of how HIWS can contribute to public sector performance. The paper sheds light inside the black box of the HIWS/organisational performance link.

This multi-level quantitative study is based on a survey of 2,123 supervisory staff, and 9,496 non-supervisory employees in 56 government organisations.

The study identifies two paths to organisational performance. The first is a direct HIWS performance link. The second is a double mediation model from HIWS to organisational systems, to OA and then performance.

A focus on developing HIWS provides an alternative means to public sector performance, than restructuring or other performative activities.

This is one of the few studies that explore how HIWS can develop collective as well as individual capabilities. Studies in the public sector are particularly rare.