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This paper focuses on identifying key factors which condition the occurrence of synergies in multi‐entity companies in relation to the application of knowledge management procedures in the marketing and development function.

The factors have been identified as selected knowledge management subsystems and subsequently validated empirically in the groups of companies under review. The questionnaire used as a research tool included 27 questions on the organisation of the key management processes in the area of marketing and development in terms of knowledge management. The research results are described by means of the correlation and median analysis.

Our observations and research findings appear to support a claim that the management of a multiple organisation that allows identification, selection, organisation, dissemination, and transfer of important information between group members is a crucial determinant of synergies and financial performance of a group of companies.

The enterprises in the former Comecon countries had a relatively little time to make important changes in the organisation and management, to improve their effectiveness and competitiveness. In the Polish economic realities, as the privatisation and restructuring processes of the former state‐owned enterprises got under way, one of the ways in which businesses sought to improve performance was to establish groups of companies. We described the hidden effects of this process, which primary was not included to the direct goals of the group establishing process. However, is one of the most important effects of this activity.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

Introduction Consider a hi‐fi loudspeaker manufacturing company acquired on the brink of insolvency by an American multinational. The new owners discover with growing concern that the product range is obsolete, that manufacturing facilities are totally inadequate and that there is a complete absence of any real management substance or structure. They decide on the need to relocate urgently so as to provide continuity of supply at the very high — a market about to shrink at a rate unprecedented in its history.

The chapter provides a case study of the strategic-level employee involvement (EI) program at a high-performance company, Delta Air Lines. EI at Delta – probably the most extensive in breadth, depth, and representational structure for nonunion workers at an American company – extends from shop floor to board room. Attention here is on the board component: a group of five peer-selected employees called the Delta Board Council (DBC) which has a nonvoting seat on the board of directors and participates in a wide range of strategic decisions and roles. The chapter discusses why this kind of representational EI group, although widespread up to the 1930s, is now quite rare in the United States. The main part of the chapter focuses on the structure, purpose, and accomplishments of the DBC, presented through a question and answer (Q&A) interview with a founding DBC member. Provided are numerous EI “lessons-learned” and “do’s” and “don’ts” for managers.

Purpose – The purpose of the chapter is to provide an analytical overview of information research in the United Kingdom and of the role of the Research Assessment Exercises (RAE) in shaping the form and structure of that research.

Design/methodology/approach – The approach adopted is a detailed content analysis of the submissions made to the last UK RAE. This analysis is carried out in relation to four broad subject categorisations, and specific analysis of accounts of research carried out in the departments and research groups.

Findings – The RAE have played a key role in promoting research specialisms in library and information studies (LIS) research in the United Kingdom. The former general approach to research in information studies has been replaced by more focused research activities carried out in a variety of research groups spread across a diverse range of disciplines and departments, from LIS, to business and management, information systems, and computing and engineering.

Research implications – The prospects for general LIS research departments may be increasingly limited, as research becomes concentrated in sub-groups within larger organisational structures, subverting both departmental lines and conventional subject boundaries.

Originality/value – This overview provides a novel synthesis of information research in the United Kingdom in relation to four broad categories of research in information studies and information science, information management and social informatics, information systems and information interaction, and social computing and computational informatics. The account brings together a fragmented field of research in a compact and intelligible form.

The aim of the study was to analyze the use of power in a strategic change process within a large forest industry company. The organization in question had a total of 7,700 employees, 6‐8 organizational levels, over 30 production units and a widespread international sales network. The study highlighted the organization's internal narration as an important element in the use of power. It started in conjunction with the appointment of the new management group and continued throughout the two‐year monitoring period, so that gradually all organizational layers were involved in interpreting their roles and positions in the new structure.

The empirical data were collected during a period of more than two years through participatory observation and the change narrative was made using the change report method. The use of power was observed from the perspective of the management group. The researcher had a dual role; he served both as a researcher and a member of the management group.

The first conclusion revealed that the change did not represent a separate process that was taking place outside the normal, established functioning and management process of the organization. The second conclusion was that implementing a transformative change in a large organization is a multi‐stage and challenging learning process, both for the change makers as well as for other members of the organization. The third conclusion was that there were no shortcuts to change. It took place through the thinking and actions of the people starting from the understanding of the measures required for the change.

There are three limitations to the study. First, its findings are based on the viewpoint of the new management group. Second, the role of the researcher and the episodic progress narrative edited by himself defined the change process as a five‐phased process. Third, and closely linked to the previous limitation, the possible narrowness of the researcher in his thinking is also a potential limitation.

The results of the study could pave the way to a more realistic understanding of power and change in large multinational companies.

This article is a genuine research paper with profound fieldwork. It broadens viewpoints considering power, change and the role of top management in a large and global Finnish forest industry corporation.

The purpose of this paper is to explore why executives participating in a top management team meeting avoid speaking up when they experience the goal as unclear or the discussion as wandering off track.

A total of 21 executives (CEOs and level 2 managers) from seven top management teams were interviewed, and the interviews analyzed according to the principles of Grounded Theory.

The executives’ silence was primarily governed by a core belief that to speak up about miscommunication is a negative act, which will probably elicit undesirable consequences. This assumption was reinforced by how the executives perceived themselves, other persons and relationships in the group, group norms, and the issue discussed in the meeting. In addition, three other basic beliefs prevented the level 2 managers from speaking up: “We have no tradition for speaking up in this group”, “It's futile to speak up”, and “It's not part of my role to speak up in this group”.

The data were collected from executives representing only seven top management teams from the public sector in Norway, limiting the generalizability of the findings. Future research should increase the number and types of top management teams from which informants are drawn.

Executives should be aware of how their beliefs and perceptions prevent them from voicing their concerns when experiencing miscommunication during the TMT meeting, and how remaining silent in these matters represents an important barrier to team effectiveness in the meetings.

The study shows that even among executives at the top of the organizational hierarchy, people refrain from speaking up when experiencing miscommunication, and that there are more reasons for not voicing concerns than fear of consequences and feelings of futility.

The current study focused on intra‐group conflict by attempting to elucidate individual and situational factors underlying choices along two dimensions of conflict management patterns: engagement versus avoidance and constructive versus destructive. In the study, the role of two types of self‐efficacy (global and social) among group members was investigated, as was the sense of group identification in team dispute resolution preferences modes. Sixty‐seven members of volunteer community service communes in the Israeli Scouting youth movement, 48 females and 19 males, representing 13 intact teams, participated in the study. Self‐report structured questionnaires (previously used and adapted for this study) served as research instruments. Both global self‐efficacy and group identification independently predicted the conflict engagement‐destructive pattern of domination. Social self‐efficacy served as the sole predictor of the preference to manage intra‐team conflict by means of integrating—the engagement‐constructive mode. In contrast, the choice of compromising was also fostered by the joint contribution of social self‐efficacy and group‐identification, beyond the direct effect of social self‐efficacy. The study corroborates the assumption that conflict management patterns within an intact team are related to dispositional variables on the individual level, i.e., global and social self‐efficacy, and to the team‐related variable of group identification.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of stakeholder dynamics and to show how stakeholders demonstrate their dynamic nature in the power/interest matrix. This, in turn, should assist project management and stakeholder management practitioners predict the behavior of different stakeholder groups in their projects, and strategize their stakeholder management approaches accordingly.

The findings in this paper are based on data collected from 12 diverse projects from five different business sectors executed in Norway by means of an online, closed-question questionnaire, which was analyzed using various statistical approaches.

Stakeholder dynamics is a contextual phenomenon, which takes different forms and shapes from one stakeholder group to the other, from one industry or business sector to the other, and even from one project to the other within the same industry or business sector. The stakeholder group of user(s) was the most dynamic in Norwegian projects based on their continuous repositioning on the power/interest matrix from one project phase to the other. Environmental activists/organizations were the least dynamic stakeholder group in the full sample of projects.

This paper presents the first more comprehensive empirically based findings about stakeholder dynamics in projects the authors have been able to find. The study gives project management practitioners insights from various industries and business sectors into how stakeholders change position over time. It also shows that the two attributes of power and interest are strongly connected and affect one another, which might make it possible to control and design a safer and less complex stakeholder environment for future projects.

This research aims to examine the relationship between conflict management in the workplace and member satisfaction in work groups at both individual and group levels.

The objectives were achieved by surveying 135 Korean teachers in 28 kindergartens, treating them as small work groups. A multilevel modeling technique was used to examine the impact of conflict management preferences on individual satisfaction with group processes.

For the cooperation style of conflict management, individual‐level preference and group‐level similarity in preference were related positively to individual satisfaction with group processes. Individual‐level preference and group‐level similarity in preference for the avoidance style, however, did not significantly influence individual satisfaction with group processes. It was also found that the positive relationship between individual preference for the cooperation style and satisfaction with group processes was stronger with less variation (i.e. greater similarity) in group‐level preference for the cooperation style and with greater variation (i.e. less similarity) in group‐level preference for the avoidance style. Research limitations/implications – No causality can be established between conflict management style preferences and satisfaction with group processes. Only two styles of conflict management were assessed with a small number of measurement items.

The study shows how useful a multilevel examination of conflict management style preferences and satisfaction with group processes can be for conflict research.