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The main goal of this paper is to establish whether there is some relationship between organizational charts (OC) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in banks. The analysis is based on contents disclosed in their CSR/sustainability reports, as well as Mintzberg's taxonomy for OC.

This paper describes, from a theoretical point‐of‐view, both issues (CSR and social responsible actions), as well as OC patterns according to Mintzberg's taxonomy. Then, an empirical review is gained of CSR/sustainability reports published by a representative sample from the banking industry in the EU‐15. Using a triangular methodology, an attempt has been made to verify whether there is some correlation between Mintzberg's OCs patterns and their CSR contents disclosed, mainly referring to internal management issues.

The paper found no solid evidence to accept or reject a possible relationship between both variables (type of OC adopted by each bank and reporting contents revealed). However, this is a promising research line for future analysis, using a bigger sample and more CSR reporting issues.

This paper opens a new research path in CSR/Sustainability and OCs, for a possible link between both variables, a matter that has not been previously explored.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relevancy of traditional managerial role frameworks as perceived by practicing managers, and to identify emerging role requirements or skills required for career success.

A mixed-methods approach was conducted including survey research, empirical analysis and semi-structured consensual qualitative research interviews with 259 managers from 200 organizations.

This study demonstrates a widening gap between entrenched organization role constructs and emerging practice-driven role skills. The empirical analysis indicated little to moderate relevancy of traditional role constructs by practicing managers while follow-up interviews revealed new role requirements driven by contemporary market realities and changing managerial motivations. The findings suggest that inclusion of new practice-driven role requirements or skills are likely to be mutually beneficial and influence career success.

The findings may limit the ability to generalize without further comparative analysis in similar/dissimilar economies.

Individuals will benefit by the inclusion of revised role requirements and policies that are designed to support employee-driven needs and “employability” skills that are more consistent with a careerist orientation. The organization will also benefit by having a more highly skilled workforce in key areas of competitive advantage including networking, innovation and opportunity identification.

The value of this examination is twofold. First, it extends the understanding of the diminishing relevancy of traditional managerial roles within a context of major global and social transformation. Second, it underscores the growing importance of “employability” skill sets and capabilities for managerial career aspirants facing new market realities.

On 10 September 2007 the world was stunned by the news that Anita Roddick – the founder of The Body Shop – was dead at the age of 64. Everyone recognizes the success of The Body Shop, but it is not easily explained using traditional strategic thinking. This paper aims to shed new light on Anita Roddick's entrepreneurial and managerial flair, as well as on her legacy to the field of management.

Configuration as a quality is an intriguing and intuitively appealing new idea. The main innovation is the premise that organizational elements form common gestalts such that each can be best understood in relation to the other elements in the configuration. This paper probed the conceptual notion of configuration as a quality in an empirical sense by revisiting one of the classic Harvard Business School (HBS) case studies: The Body Shop International.

The paper shows The Body Shop as a good example of a comprehensive configuration that allows immediate intuitive apprehension of the new idea of configuration as a quality.

The main issue is the limited depth of analysis that has been achieved through the single HBS case as the main source of evidence. As such, although the propositions put forward seem highly plausible, the supplementary explanation still remains incomplete, opening opportunities for further research.

Re‐visiting classic case studies such as the HBS Body Shop International can stimulate the debate and fuel the process of theory building through the amalgamation of diversified old and new perspectives of the same phenomenon.

Recent research suggests that organizations cycle through a small set of possible configurations. Each buying center as an informal organization within one of these four viable types of structure will exhibit distinct configuration attributes. Describing and predicting the buying center's configuration as indicated by organizational structure are the purpose of this research.

Data collected via mail survey are used to classify organizations into hypothesized segments via K‐means cluster analysis. Buying center structure is contrasted and tested for differences using MANOVA, MDA, and post hoc t‐tests.

The extensivity or level of participation in the buying center is significantly related to the type of organization. Organizational formalization and centralization are consistently related to the formalization and centrality of the buying center.

The generalizability of the findings is limited as the sample is from a single US geographical area. Buying center participation and structure may be a function of the product. Research findings are limited to a specific service.

Awareness of the structure of the buying center is useful for marketing and sales managers. This knowledge can guide their efforts to allocate scarce sales resources at appropriate levels for business customers.

This paper closes a gap in the business‐to‐business marketing literature about antecedents to the buying center's structure.

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the way middle managers picture their career success and the business strategy of their firm with the following key question in mind: “Is there a relationship between the two?”.

This research is based on a “polar sample” of two companies of the Canadian aerospace industry that use generic business strategies which differ considerably along the continuum of strategic approaches from one another. A list of 50 people was made in collaboration with the executives of the companies investigated. A total of 74 percent (37) of the middle managers invited to be interviewed accepted the invitation. The interviews lasted on average 90 minutes. They were analyzed using NVivo software.

The analysis yielded a set of four empirical configurations of career success. The idea of central orchestrating theme has been at the core of configuration theory since its inception but few researchers have set the task to investigate them let alone in studying career success. Four core unifying themes were found: “just watch me”, “one for all and all for one”, “eureka”, and “thanks but no thanks”. Each of the company strategies provides a receptive context for no more than two coexisting configurations of career success, one leading to a rapid ascent and the other to a slower one.

Few studies have looked into how middle managers portray career success for themselves. Furthermore, the literature is wanting in another crucial respect: the researchers do not take into consideration the particular strategic context of the firm. This paper argues that the paths toward career success must be understood in the context of the business strategy of the firms that give them form, meaning, and substance.

This paper researches the effects of the cultural context from values' ground on leadership roles and the effects of roles on styles. The idea behind this study is to show that cultural communities have different cultural models regarding the kinds of roles leaders should or should not play.

The sample was chosen from the part of the town where the immigrant workforce is growing, as well as it is the closest growing economic area to Europe in Turkey.

The analysis shows that cultural values significantly affect leadership roles. Additionally, there is a correlation between roles and paternalistic leadership style. Asian cultural values do affect leadership roles more than Western values. Additionally, each culture is diminishing the other. As leadership roles increase, they are acting as paternalistic leadership substitutes.

Interestingly we have introduced paternalistic leadership substitutes to literature and showed that paternalistic leadership is not only culturally but also contextually bounded.

The paper aims to examine whether power distance and management style predict social power choice and whether management style also acts as a mediator in a model linking all three variables.

The study was conducted within the Israeli Police Force using regular patrol and special patrol units. A total of 40 captains or officers and 151 policemen/women completed scales assessing power distance, captain's managerial style, and influence tactics chosen by them in conflict situations. The data were analyzed from two different perspectives: captains and policemen.

Harsh tactics were found to differ significantly by power distance whereas the parallel comparison for soft tactics was not significant. The mediation hypothesis tested separately on both samples was supported only for the subordinate group. Management style added significant variance for explaining the dependent variable and also mediated the relationship between power distance and harsh tactic choice.

Using alternative methods for the research design such as observational data or manipulating the independent variables with different scenarios would provide support for the robustness of the findings.

As power distance is increasing, the need to gain compliance in a task oriented situation increases the usage of harsh influence tactics. Conversely, for a similar power distance but in an interpersonal oriented situation, the supervisor may well decide to apply more soft tactics which are more likely to foster a free exchange of ideas and encourage compliance on the part of the patrolman.

Theoretically, the findings of a mediator effect aids in understanding power strategy choice. Specifically, managerial style is not independent of power distance but rather helps maintain the existing organizational culture. Methodologically, the use of two data sets, supervisors and subordinates, reduces bias attributed to common method variance.

Much has been written about the impact of the millennium. The plain fact is that much of what will happen in the early part of the next millennium is already happening. This is not to underestimate the effects of such change. Perhaps chief among all of the major forces for change which will affect organisations and the way in which they are managed will be the impact of knowledge. The need to base competitive strategies on intellectual capacity will directly influence management processes and organisational forms. The paper draws on the work of influential writers in the area of environmental change and knowledge management and attempts to trace the linkages between the need to actively manage knowledge and the resultant changes in organisations. Finally the point is made that although we may be in a new information age the concept of knowledge based strategies is not new and predates the industrial revolution.

This paper investigates the emphasis placed on different managerial roles by the project manager in a public merger and change project.

A research model was designed based on six management roles: leader, resource allocator, spokesman, entrepreneur, liaison and monitor. Empirical data were collected using in-depth interviews. The studied case concerns a large public merger and change project between two municipalities in Norway.

The paper reveals that the project manager emphasized the externally oriented entrepreneur role mostly. The internally oriented resource allocator role that focuses on managing the project was least emphasized. The research identifies a gap between needed and actual competence in basic project management as a barrier to exercise the resource allocator role more thoroughly.

Future research should investigate other public merger and change projects so that these findings may be generalized.

This research concludes that project managers in public change projects should be more internally oriented towards the resource allocator role. Furthermore, public project managers need to make sure that they possess the necessary technical project management competence to practice the resource allocator role effectively.

Rather than stressing the importance of leadership in general to manage a project, this paper is original as it applies a set of management roles to empirically study what a public project manager practice.