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1 – 10 of over 8000Jeremias De Klerk and Bernard Swart
Background: Amid increasing leadership failures in the global business context, the mining industry is one of the industries with many adverse incidents, affecting employee…
Abstract
Background: Amid increasing leadership failures in the global business context, the mining industry is one of the industries with many adverse incidents, affecting employee safety, the environment, and surrounding communities. Emerging economies tend to have unique socio-economic challenges and greater relative economic dependence on mining, presenting unique challenges to leaders. The purpose of this research was to study the realities of responsible leadership in the mining industry in an emerging economy.
Methods: A qualitative research study, consisting of semi-structured interviews was conducted. Nine senior mine managers were selected to represent perspectives from different operations and mining houses. Data was gathered from August to October 2020 in South Africa, an emerging economy with significant mining operations. A thematic analysis of interview transcripts was conducted through the use of software, rendering five themes, with 12 sub-themes.
Results: The research found that requirements on mining leaders in emerging economies demand consistent balancing of a complex set of competing risks, whilst attending to paradoxical requirements among operations, and internal and external stakeholders. Leaders face several competing requirements from stakeholders, the environment, mining practices, and time frames. Responsible leaders must navigate a paradoxical maze of needs and time horizons, with several conflicting forces and dilemmas, and dichotomous relationships. Responsible leadership in the mining industry of an emerging economy is a proverbial minefield of paradoxes and dilemmas between responsible intentions and practical realities. These paradoxes and dilemmas are specifically acute in the context of emerging economies due to the dire socio-economic situations. A total of 10 competencies emerged as essential responsible leadership requirements in this context.
Conclusions: The study provides an in-depth understanding of the intricacies of responsible leadership in the mining industry of an emerging economy. This understanding will contribute to capacitating leaders in the mining industries of emerging economies to act responsibly.
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Chaolin Lyu, Can Peng, Ruixue Li, Xiaona Yang and Dongqin Cao
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and sustainability performance. In addition, this study also discusses how ambidextrous…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and sustainability performance. In addition, this study also discusses how ambidextrous leadership affects sustainability performance through employees' green creativity and green product innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study obtained research data from a questionnaire survey of 307 manufacturing enterprise leaders in China and used regression and bootstrap analysis to test the research hypotheses.
Findings
(1) Ambidextrous leadership positively influences sustainability performance. (2) Employees' green creativity mediates the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and sustainability performance. (3) Green product innovation also mediates the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and sustainability performance. (4) The intermediary chain constructed by employees' green creativity and green product innovation has serial mediation effects on the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and sustainability performance.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature on leadership and corporate sustainability by clarifying the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and sustainability performance. Meanwhile, this study reveals the influence mechanism of ambidextrous leadership on sustainability performance by analyzing the serial mediation effects of employees' green creativity and green product innovation.
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Geoffrey N. Soutar and Shaun Ridley
Conjoint analysis is a useful research technique, but has not been used in the leadership area. This study aims to examine its relevance in exploring the trade‐offs followers make…
Abstract
Purpose
Conjoint analysis is a useful research technique, but has not been used in the leadership area. This study aims to examine its relevance in exploring the trade‐offs followers make about leaders and the value of the leadership attributes examined.
Design/methodology/approach
Eight leader attributes were obtained from three focus groups. Past research and a sample of followers indicated their preferences for a number of leader profiles developed from the attributes, as well as assessing their present leaders on the same attributes. This enabled an estimation of the trade‐offs followers made in assessing leaders and the computation of a value “score” for their leader.
Findings
The study finds that participants traded off leader attributes sensibly, providing useful information about the attributes' value. Inspiration, trust and communication were the most valued leader attributes. However, most leaders were not viewed positively.
Research limitations/implications
Respondents were participants in development programmes, which may have impacted on the responses, but the results suggested the approach had merit. Research with more general samples of followers and a wider range of leadership topics is needed.
Practical implications
Future development programmes should focus on the “valuable” attributes and organisations also need to consider such attributes when selecting and evaluating leaders.
Originality/value
This paper uses a conjoint approach that has not been used in the leadership area. The results provide additional insights into the way followers view leaders and enabled a leader “score” to be computed, giving insights into the state of leadership within the group from which responses were obtained.
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Alexander Styhre, Adam Roth and Jonas Roth
Health care organizations are increasingly demanded to balance the institutional logic of “medical professionalism” and “business-like health care,” that is, to both recognize…
Abstract
Purpose
Health care organizations are increasingly demanded to balance the institutional logic of “medical professionalism” and “business-like health care,” that is, to both recognize physicians’ professional expertise while locating it in a wider social, economic, and political organizational setting. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications from this shift in terms of leadership work in health care organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
Case study methodology including interviews with 15 residents in Swedish health care organizations.
Findings
A study of the willingness of residents to take on leadership positions show that leadership roles are treated as what is potentially hindering the acquisition of the know-how, skills, and expertise demanded to excel in the clinical work. Consequently, taking on leadership positions in the future was relatively unattractive for the residents. In order to overcome such perceived conflict between professional skill development and leadership roles, top management of health care organizations must help residents overcome such beliefs, or other professional groups may increasingly populate leadership positions, a scenario not fully endorsed by the community of physicians.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates how complementary or completing institutional logics are influencing debates and identities on the “shop floors” of organizations.
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Eline Ree, Siri Wiig, Camilla Seljemo, Torunn Wibe and Hilda Bø Lyng
This study aims to explore nursing home and home care managers’ strategies in handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore nursing home and home care managers’ strategies in handling the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
This study has a qualitative design with semistructured individual interviews conducted digitally by videophone (Zoom). Eight managers from nursing homes and five managers from home care services located in a large urban municipality in eastern Norway participated. Systematic text condensation methodology was used for the analysis.
Findings
The managers used several strategies to handle challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including being proactive and thinking ahead in terms of possible scenarios that might occur, continuously training of staff in new procedures and routines and systematic information sharing at all levels, as well as providing different ways of disseminating information for staff, service users and next-of-kins. To handle staffing challenges, managers used strategies such as hiring short-term staff that were temporary laid off from other industries and bringing in students.
Originality/value
The COVID-19 pandemic heavily affected health-care systems worldwide, which has led to many health-care studies. The situation in nursing homes and home care services, which were strongly impacted by the pandemic and in charge of a vulnerable group of people, has not yet received enough attention in research. This study, therefore, seeks to contribute to this research gap by investigating how managers in nursing homes and home care services used different strategies to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between administrative entrepreneurship and bureaucratic (administrative) leadership in government bureaucracies.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between administrative entrepreneurship and bureaucratic (administrative) leadership in government bureaucracies.
Design/methodology/approach
This topic is empirically examined in the context of India’s district administration. A within-case analysis is conducted of a District Collector’s efforts to initiate change using a case study research methodology. Data from elite interviews, analyzed in NVivo 11, are used to draw descriptive inferences that are tested against a set of conditions using the process tracing technique.
Findings
The District Collector in the study aspired to be a transformational leader by demonstrating administrative entrepreneurship, but in reality due to the formal organizational structures, the style of bureaucratic leadership functioning is transactional.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to furthering public leadership theory as it opens up the classic question: what type of leadership is expected out of administrative leaders in government bureaucracies? This is a critical issue given that District Collectors are responsible for the welfare of one-sixth of the world’s population.
Practical implications
District Collectors need to get comfortable with the duality inherent in their position – that their organizational structures allow them to be both administratively entrepreneurial and rigid – and learn the art of navigating these complex structures. Public sector training academies for career civil servants need to engage with the subject of administrative entrepreneurship and leadership.
Originality/value
This is the first study, to the best of knowledge, to develop an analytical typology that can be used as a diagnostic tool for administrative leaders to holistically assess their leadership style.
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Y.Y. Yusuf, E.O. Adeleye and K. Sivayoganathan
Agile manufacturing is a response to competition in environments characterised by unpredictable change, so having the ability to vary capacity, respond to sporadic changes in…
Abstract
Agile manufacturing is a response to competition in environments characterised by unpredictable change, so having the ability to vary capacity, respond to sporadic changes in demand, mass customise at the cost of mass production, and compete in both mass and custom markets is crucial. Empirical justification of the benefits of implementing agile manufacturing is rare in the literature and an in‐depth empirical study of the benefits of implementing agile manufacturing practices is lacking. This article aims to address this gap by conducting a preliminary analysis of a much wider empirical research. The adoption and impact of a set of tools – enablers of agile manufacturing – were studied through a survey by questionnaire. The results show lower volume flexibility at higher levels of adoption of the five enablers, thus the resource competencies for enhancing it were not in place. Also, volume flexibility ranked very low in hierarchy of future improvement plans. Suggests virtual cells, and its extension into supply chain networks, as a solution to volume flexibility.
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The contemporary life of an Australian academic has changed in almost every way imaginable in response to the challenges and opportunities emerging from global and national policy…
Abstract
The contemporary life of an Australian academic has changed in almost every way imaginable in response to the challenges and opportunities emerging from global and national policy agendas. In this context, the subject coordinator11A subject coordinator may also be referred to as a Unit Chair, Unit Coordinator or Course Coordinator at different universities. represents the frontline of a move towards increasingly distributed forms of leading and learning. The knowledge that managing teaching responsibilities does not provide a clear route to promotion (with active research status providing a more well established path) means that academics may proactively minimise the time they spend on the discretionary tasks of leading and managing teaching well. Tasks that include adopting a proactive longer term of curriculum development, team building and teaching innovation, in addition to the more immediate needs for compliance and measurable outcomes. Research from an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) project provides evidence that despite lack of formal recognition for many of the discretionary responsibilities of subject coordination, coordinators believe they are executing their job well. This chapter discusses factors that impede discretionary academic leadership behaviours in Australian higher education and suggests strategies to empower leadership and thus improve engagement with discretionary teaching and learning responsibilities.
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For years we have talked about managing change, now it's leading change. Why the shift?
Alan T. Belasen, Anat M. Belasen, Abigail R. Belasen and Ariel R. Belasen
This paper aims to contribute to the growing body of research on health-care leadership by demonstrating the value of dyads and triads in strengthening capabilities of health-care…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute to the growing body of research on health-care leadership by demonstrating the value of dyads and triads in strengthening capabilities of health-care settings and providing action pathways to accelerate gender parity in senior health-care positions.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the evidence that when single-leadership models are used and women are under-represented in leadership, the health-care industry may miss out on opportunities to increase efficiency and quality of care. Next, the paper describes a co-leadership model with distinct and overlapping roles, which promotes women’s participation and inspires administrative and clinical leaders to collaborate and achieve optimal performance.
Findings
The dyad as the enabling track for women in health-care leadership creates opportunities for health-care systems to bridge the gender gap in senior positions as well as improve the delivery of cost-effective quality care.
Practical implications
The inclusive co-leadership model with distinct and overlapping roles is a promising pathway for increasing health-care system efficiency and for promoting women to senior roles by tapping into the leadership skills and expertise that women bring to these roles.
Originality/value
The current paper demonstrates the dual effects of using co-leadership in senior health-care positions and fixing the gender imbalance. It has significant implications for advancing similar pathways in other industries as a means for accelerating gender parity in senior management.
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