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The need to develop new skills among middle managers has been increasing since the early 1990s. This need arises from the changes in the workplace environment associated with the realities of downsizing, the quality movement, and the increased use of teams. This article reports on the experience of one downsized, quality‐conscious, team‐based organization in identifying the development needs of its middle managers. The process used by the case study organization to identify the development needs among its middle managers is outlined. This process can be seen as an example of how development needs can be identified. The findings from the identification process within the case study organization present an initial list of development needs among today’s middle managers. Recommendations on training courses for middle management development are proposed. These recommendations provide initial guidance to organizations interested in developing their middle management assets.

College graduates need to have effective management skills in order to be successful in the competitive retail environment. Educators in Clothing and Textile programmes develop and continually update curricula to prepare students. Input from retailers concerning curriculum development is necessary for educators to stay current with industry needs. The purpose of this study was to identify management skill strengths and deficiencies of new managers from a retailer's perspective. The questionnaire consisted of three sections: (a) management skill competencies of individuals entering a management training programme, (b) components of management skills identified in Section A, and (c) demographic information. The sample consisted of three management levels: store managers, division managers and vice‐presidents (upper management) of a men's wear apparel retailer. Upper management reported that new managers have the following management skill competencies: ability to take on responsibilities, ability to work as team, communication skills, goal‐setting abilities, leadership skills, decision‐making skills, problem‐solving abilities, handling job‐related stress/pressure, ability to evaluate job performance, delegating skills and time‐management skills. When asked to identify the most important management skill competencies, upper management rated leadership skills (29 per cent), problem‐solving (11 per cent) and teamwork (10 per cent) as being the most important. Results of ANOVA indicated that three demographic variables had a significant effect on management skill competencies. Management level had a significant effect on delegating and time‐management. Store managers rated new managers' delegating skills and time‐management skills higher than did division managers. Education had a significant effect on employee performance evaluation although no significant differences were found between groups. The number of years as a manager had a significant effect on time‐management with no differences between groups. Educators should consider retailers' assessments of new managers in preparing students for retailing careers. Special attention should be given to strengthening those skills found to be most deficient such as time‐management, delegating and evaluating another's job performance.

Managers frequently experience difficulty in implementing skills they learn in management development courses owing to two obstacles; (1) the conflict between the skills being taught in the course and the manager′s current skills which may be so well learned as to be automatic; and (2) the conflict between the skills being taught and the manager′s assumptions about self, others and the organisation which may not support the new skills. The combination of Action Science (Argyris) and Action Learning (Revans) provides a powerful methodology to surmount these two obstacles. The processes involved are: critical reflection, re‐framing, and unlearning/relearning. These processes are practised in heterogeneous small groups which meet over several months to resolve real organisational problems.

Discusses general skills clusters identified by other researchers as necessary for leadership success. Reports a US study by questionnaire survey on the specific skills viewed by male and female managers as essential for top management posts. Reveals a great deal of agreement, but women as well as men harbour stereotypes of women as being less able to handle their emotions under stress, less career‐committed and not such good team‐players.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perception of skills shortages, namely, skills scarcity and skills deficiencies among managers, and its relationship with organizational characteristics.

The study used a quantitative approach and data were collected from 243 managers working in China. Multivariate analysis of variance and box plots were employed for data analysis.

The results revealed that organizational characteristics were found to have a significant positive impact on managers’ skill levels, and hard-to-fill vacancies caused by skills shortages were found in all types of organizations. Existing and deficient skills were also identified as affecting all organizations.

The results suggest that organizations would benefit from the adoption of a system supporting internal retention, training and development and external recruitment to close the skills gaps.

This is an empirical study that provides an insight into the skills shortages from a multi-organizational context. It highlights the effects of organizational characteristics in relation to skills shortages and provides a foundation to support the skills needed in the context of national and global organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically manager and employee views on employees’ skills utilisation in organisations in Scotland.

Questionnaires to managers and employees, plus three case studies comprising manager interviews and employee focus groups.

Highly significant differences are found between manager and employee views on: the match of employee skills to their current jobs; the extent of utilisation of employees’ skills; and opportunities for promotion. The main difference in views is on the match of employee skills to their current jobs, with employees opining more than managers that employees’ skills exceed the requirements of their job. Also, for managers and employees alike, the meaning of skills utilisation is obscure despite the language of skills being widely used in organisations.

The scale of the empirical research is possibly limited. There is potential for manager and employee bias. A case study of a private sector organisation is not included.

It is apparent that there is potential to increase employees’ skills utilisation in organisations in Scotland. Managers are challenged with better utilising the skills within their workforces by using these skills to drive improvements in work processes and practices.

Previous commentary and research on skills utilisation mainly centres on policy and employer standpoints. This paper focuses on manager and employee viewpoints on employees’ skills utilisation.

The purpose of this study is to unfold the role of managerial characteristics in developing the dynamic capabilities necessary to serve foreign customers and compete in export market ventures.

The authors test their proposed model using path analysis with data collected from export managers working in 204 small- and medium-sized Turkish exporters operating in various sectors.

The findings suggest that the positive effect of export managers’ process thinking skills on dynamic capabilities increases when the export managers’ learning and avoid orientations are low and prove orientation is high and export venture experience (duration and scope) increases. In addition, it has been found that export managers’ process thinking skills have an indirect effect on export performance through export venture dynamic capabilities.

This study makes three contributions. First, the authors conceptualize and operationalize dynamic capabilities in the context of exporting. The authors empirically validate export venture dynamic capabilities as a higher-level construct composed of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring elements pertinent to the firm’s export market operations. Second, based on the micro-foundations approach of competitive advantage, the authors study managers’ process thinking skills in exporting firms and how these abilities support dynamic capability development in export ventures. Finally, the authors investigate how the impact of export managers’ process thinking skills on export venture dynamic capabilities is influenced by their goal orientations and certain objective exporter characteristics pertaining to different aspects of export venture experience.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the country-level drivers of managers' and executives' mobility. Both sub-groups play a fundamental role in entrepreneurship, innovation and ultimately on wealth creation in destination countries. The objective is to capture how the impact of economic, cultural and institutional factors differ for these sub-groups’ vis-a-vis the broad highly skilled group's mobility.

The paper investigates the country-level drivers of managers' and executives' bilateral migration from 190 countries to 32 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. It builds a model on four macro-contextual attractiveness factors of destination countries: economic conditions, cultural affinity, institutions and quality of life. The authors use fixed-effects regressions and carry several model specifications comparing the impact of different attractiveness factors on the migration of lower skilled, highly skilled, managers and executives.

The authors find that economic incentives do not motivate managers' or executives' mobility. The quality of life is more significant in driving executives' mobility than economic measures are. Cultural affinity, institutions and quality of life are more important for managers. Ethnic relations are significant for the overall highly skilled sample.

These results have implications for global companies interested in recruiting managers and executives and their recruitment strategies. International businesses attempting to maximize their access to international managers, for instance, can develop recruitment packages that capitalize on the particularities of the quality of life of the potential destination country. Such packages can contribute to streamlining the process and focusing on candidates' needs to increase the likelihood of relocation. The study’s results, in addition, have policy implications in terms of the “branding” of countries whose aim is to attract managers and other highly skilled talent. Officials can build an effective country-branding strategy on the existence of ethnic networks, effective institutions and quality of life to attract a particular segment of the talent pool. For instance, they can develop a strategy to attract executives by focusing on a specific cultural characteristic and elements of the quality of life such as the effectiveness of their country's healthcare and education systems.

The paper also points out to the issues that policymakers must resolve in the absence of an education system that guarantees the talent pool that the economy needs. For those countries that rely on foreign talent (such as Switzerland, Singapore and the USA), it is paramount to promote safety, quality of life and institutional development, in order to guarantee a sufficient inflow of talent.

Most global studies focus on the complete migrant stock or on highly skilled workers in particular. The authors disaggregate the sample further to capture the drivers of managers' and executives' migration. The authors find that latter sub-groups respond to different country-level attractiveness factors compared to the broader highly skilled sample. In doing so, the authors contextualize the study of mobility through a positively global lens and incorporate the impact of some of the factors generally overlooked.

The purpose of this study is to empirically explore how managers differ from non-managers with regard to learning skills as competencies and learning style in a public-sector work setting. The paper also examined how learning style affects competency development.

This study applied Kolb’s experiential learning theory concomitant with its instruments to analyze 12 skills and 4 learning styles. A total of 457 government officers from the Indonesian Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Internal Affairs participated in this study, including 112 managers and 345 non-managers.

The study had four major findings. Although the two groups were similar in technology skills, managers had stronger skills than non-managers in leadership, relationship, helping, sense making, information gathering, information analysis, theory building, quantitative analysis, goal setting, action and initiative. Relationship skills were important for both managers and non-managers. Managers were more abstract and less concrete learners than non-managers. The learning style with more thinking over feeling affected learning skills development much more than the learning style with more acting over reflecting.

Using experiential learning theory, this study has clarified what competencies of managers are more developed than those of non-managers and how the two groups learn differently.

Research on purchasing managers and their skills requirements supports the training and education of purchasing professionals. This paper offers an in-depth analytical review of the purchasing skills reported in the supply chain management (SCM) literature. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the most important skills and factors that influence these skills.

This paper employs a systematic literature review methodology. Two databases, Scopus and Web of Science, are searched for relevant articles. The selected journal articles are used as sources to obtain a view not only on the relevant purchasing and supply management (P/SM) skills, but also on factors that emphasize certain P/SM skills. This paper also summarizes the ten skills ranked as most important (often described as the “top ten”) among the sample articles.

The paper highlights the essential skills for purchasing professionals, verified both by their frequent appearances in rankings and by citation frequency in the literature. Generic managerial skills, such as communication, cost analysis, teamwork, problem-solving, negotiation, influencing, and persuasion, as well as information technology skills, received the most attention in the literature and rankings of the “top ten” P/SM skills. This paper provides a refined categorization of purchasing skills, which have merged recently with other discussed skills, such as political and entrepreneurial ones, into this categorization. This paper identifies factors that affect purchasing managers’ skills requirements.

This paper presents a structured overview of 57 peer-reviewed articles from high-quality journals about purchasing skills. The review contributes to the purchasing skills literature by showing the most relevant skills and the factors that influence skills requirements. These factors also provide arenas for further research related to purchasing skills.