Search results

There is a high degree of uncertainty as to how well organisations are using management development to enhance their strategic performance. This article reports a survey which indicates that most managers believe there is, in reality, considerable scope for improvement in the way their organisations use management development. There appear to be a few organisations which create management development strategies or which lock management development activities into the strategic needs of the business. One solution would be for management development professionals to take a more proactive role than is currently the case in promoting its value.

The issue of implementation consistently appears in both academic and practitioner literature as a problem for marketing. Attempts to address this problem have often adopted the notion of antecedents to enhanced marketing practice as a means of better understanding the issues involved. Within this, however, the link between what needs to be achieved and how marketing knowledge and skills can be utilized to deliver appropriate outcomes remains unclear. Analysis of this gap yields a number of research propositions which require investigation if such knowledge and skills are to influence managerial behaviour. Central to this is the idea that there are a range of competences, which include attitudinal issues, about which greater understanding is required if the implementation debate is to be progressed.

Implementation is widely recognised as one of the greatest Achilles’ Heels for all strategy initiatives. Many organisations have tried to overcome this problem through building the management competencies of their managers. What tends to be absent from the development programmes designed to do this is attention to any higher order or enabling competencies, sometimes referred to as meta‐abilities. Without greater attention to these more fundamental managerial attributes, most management development programmes will lose their strategic impact. A case study is used to illustrate the sort of pitfalls involved and some implications for using management development in this way are suggested. Finally, it is noted that using management development to improve strategy implementation demands a more sophisticated approach than tends to be used currently. However, this will also require organisations to break out of the vicious circle of unsophisticated usage and to challenge their current practices.

With existing approaches to change management failing to deliver results, different ideas are needed. New organisational forms require a greater focus on change that emerges from real business opportunities. The ooportunities can be the basis of pockets of good practice which act as influential role models for change. This paper investigates four case studies of change initiated in this way and identifies five key themes from this research: vision; the self insight and ambition required to take personal risk; positioning of causes; subversion; and political astuteness. The paper concludes with an assessment of why this approach to change is likely to be considered both relevant and practical for managers.

Despite an apparent increase in investment and commitment over the last ten years, more recent studies now give grounds for reservations about overall ability of management development to meet the challenges of radical change and fulfil its strategic potential. Argues that the constraints imposed by a complex array of contextual influences emanating from an increasingly turbulent organisational system pose risks to investment and commitment in development. Unless these influences can be managed effectively, management development may start to lag behind or fall out of synchronisation with the needs and demands of managers and their employing organisations. Examines the case for a shift towards a more situated and contextual view of management development where the complex dynamics induced by radical change are considered and managed alongside or even ahead of development strategies and approaches. Posits a framework for a more relational approach and explores some of the issues this raises.

General European governments slow to support IT. On a visit to London, Euripa's President Robert Weir said that European governments are clearly lagging behind those of the US and Japan in recognising the strategic and economic value of information technology. His visit followed an invitation from Graham Seddon, Managing Director of BRS Europe who believes that the European Information Industry is at a critical stage. ‘European businesses are beginning to appreciate that electronic information is easy to access and significantly contributes to a company's competitive position. A number of European information suppliers are becoming established but governments must help to reduce barriers and provide the right climate for growth,’ Seddon says.

DESPITE all the gloom and doom preached by so many businessmen and politicians today, there are indeed signs that the recession is itself receding and that better times may be closer than we think.