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This paper aims to investigate desired leadership characteristics of South African managers, and link differences in desired traits to contextually crucial demographic group differences and managerial advancement.

South African managers (n=205) ranked ten items of the characteristics of admired leadership scale. Aggregate rank analysis and nonparametric ANOVAs reveal significant preference differences in the sample and demographic sub‐groups. The research compares traits across managerial advancement and age, providing an implicit success test.

Managers most highly ranked the three “credibility” characteristics (competence, honesty and inspiration) prevalent in comparative worldwide studies. Key differences exist between managers and employees, many contextually crucial demographic sub‐groups, and higher and lower‐level managers of younger and older ages.

This research provides potentially important information for leadership identification, selection and development, in that it may identify characteristics that current leaders associate with contextual success. The research also identifies discrepancies between employees and managers and demographic groups, which may be sources of dissatisfaction or misunderstanding, and which organizations should address to better align expectations of subordinates and actions of leaders. Individuals might also use the information in self‐development, comparing their own views to successful leaders.

Significant informational and statistical advantages exist over prior studies. This research provides individual‐level analyses, and an explicit test of association with objective success that previous studies have not provided. It includes top management, whereas prior studies have limited samples to subordinates or middle managers. Greater demographic differentiation is provided, allowing for more contextually relevant understanding.

The issue of mounting non-performing assets (NPAs) in Indian banking industry is serious and attracting attention of academia and policy planners. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis whether NPAs in Indian commercial banking have reached at alarming state where they start affecting the technical efficiency levels adversely or not.

The efficiency score have been computed using case model (model with NPAs as bad/undesirable output) vs control model (model without NPAs as bad/undesirable output) methodology under meta-frontier data envelopment analysis framework.

It has been noticed that the effect of NPAs on overall technical efficiency and its various components is insignificant. The comparison of the case models (i.e. model with NPAs as bad output) with the control models (i.e. model without NPAs) reveals insignificant difference in average efficiency scores and rank distribution of commercial banks. The major source of inefficiency is technology gap (i.e. structure, setup and objectives of banking) among public, domestic private and foreign private categories of banks.

Though NPAs are increasing in Indian banking industry and specifically in Indian public sector banks because of their compulsory lending to priority sector yet the banks have huge scope to extend credit to priority sector as the NPAs have not reached at alarming stage where they start affecting adversely the efficiency performance.

Given the fact that the banking penetrations, structure and objectives differ significantly across ownership, separate frontiers for each ownership (public, private and foreign banks) category has been used to evaluate the technical efficiency levels of 81 commercial banks operating in India over the period 2005 to 2013.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate hierarchical impacts on specific transformational leadership (TFL) behaviors (i.e. idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration).

Survey data on TFL, job satisfaction, and hierarchy were collected from 448 managers from a multinational corporation in Sweden.

Idealized influence and inspirational motivation occurred more frequently among upper rather than middle managers, while there were no differences for intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. Also, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation were more effective in strengthening subordinates' job satisfaction among upper rather than middle managers, while individualized consideration was similarly effective in both groups.

The cross‐sectional research design precludes causal conclusions and potentially allows for common method bias. With the main research interest pertaining to hierarchical differences in TFL, however, method bias seems unlikely to fully account for the results.

Study results emphasize the necessity to strengthen TFL on lower managerial levels. Organizations might achieve this by cutting administrative constraints and empowering lower level leaders.

The study addresses repeated calls for a consideration of contextual factors in TFL research. It points to the role of hierarchy as a boundary condition of TFL.

As the current period of recession extends, our understanding of the impact of the associated redundancies and unemployment on individuals should become progressively refined. Only in this way can attitudes to re‐employment and assistance with career redirection become more relevant to the present situation and hence more constructive. This article gives an assessment of career insecurity and job change following redundancy, but which did not involve unemployment.

Towards the end of the twentieth century, the world has witnessed an amazing economic take‐off in the East Asia, especially within the territory of so‐called “Greater China”, encompassing the PRC and Taiwan. Against this economic and cultural background, this study surveyed 258 and 189 employees respectively in Taiwan, and the PRC (Shanghai), to examine generalizability of a generic work‐stress model to the Chinese societies. It further examined the sub‐cultural differences in the work‐stress processes, by drawing contrast of the PRC and Taiwan. In addition, roles of emic constructs of Chinese primary and secondary control beliefs were also examined. Results showed that the generic work‐stress model could be reasonably applied to Chinese urban work contexts in the PRC and Taiwan. Work stress related as expected to strain effects. At a more refined sub‐cultural level, it was found that different sources of work stress became salient contributors to strain outcomes in the PRC and Taiwan. These differences reflect the diverse political, social, and economic characteristics of the two Chinese societies. More importantly, emic constructs of Chinese control beliefs were found to have rather consistent direct effects on strain outcomes. However, indirect (moderating) effects of control beliefs were not strong and inconsistent.

With age diversity in the workplace becoming increasingly prevalent, the conflict between younger and older workers can be pervasive because of their increased interpersonal tensions from heterogeneous interactions. Adopting an identity-based approach, this study aims to examine the causes, underlying mechanisms and specific strategies used to manage such conflict. It was hypothesized that there is an interaction effect between age-group identification and organizational identification on conflict strategies and that this relationship can be explained by the mediating role of motivational goal orientation.

A total of 380 clerical workers in Hong Kong, aged 19–65, responded to two hypothetical scenarios about conflict with a younger and an older worker using a structured questionnaire on social identity, motivational goal orientation and conflict strategies. Moderated mediation analyzes were performed to test the hypothesized conditional indirect effects.

Results showed that workers who identified with the organization emphasized less on independent goals (with a younger opposing party) and more on cooperative goals (with an older opposing party) when they did not perceive an age-group differentiation, and thus, they were more likely to respond in a way that de-escalates the conflict, including the use of integrating, obliging and compromising strategies.

Extending age-related conflict research beyond identifying generational differences, this study highlights the role of social identity and suggests that employers and managers should strengthen employees’ organizational identification and build a fair work environment that facilitates positive interaction between younger and older workers.

This study sought to understand how having a calling influenced engagement, work–life balance and career satisfaction for Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) and Golf Course Superintendent of America (GCSA) professionals.

A conceptual model was used to examine callings among golf course supervisors and its impact on their engagement, work–life balance and career satisfaction. This study also explored the moderation effect of employees’ generalized or specialized role on the calling–engagement relationship. Surveys were collected from a single golf management company and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis.

The results revealed significant relationships among all of the variables, with the exception of the impact of having a calling on work–life balance. Additionally, the more having a calling increased, the more important it was for supervisors to have specialized roles to increase their engagement.

This study identifies important differences in factors that promote career satisfaction for golf course supervisors and extends current understanding of role theory.

This research sought to test the existence of fragmentation between home office and overseas management and its potential impact on the planning and control of social responsiveness programs. Results indicate that fragmentation does exist between home office and overseas management especially in the perceived impact of environmental factors on strategic planning. The findings reveal that home office management appears to have a strategic orientation to management while overseas management takes a more operational approach.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

A striking feature of Jaques' work is his “no nonsense” attitude to the “manager‐subordinate” relationship. His blunt account of the origins of this relationship seems at first sight to place him in the legalistic “principles of management” camp rather than in the ranks of the subtler “people centred” schools. We shall see before long how misleading such first impressions can be, for Jaques is not making simplistic assumptions about the human psyche. But he certainly sees no point in agonising over the mechanism of association which brings organisations and work‐groups into being when the facts of life are perfectly straightforward and there is no need to be squeamish about them.