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Over the past decade there has been an upsurge of interest in the study of mediation. Much of the current interest is the consequence of mediation's apparent success in the management of labor‐management conflicts. It is suggested here that a critical examination of mandated mediation—a long standing, but neglected part of negotiation under the Railway Labor Act of 1926—can make substantive contributions to the development of mediation theory. This paper proposes a conceptual model for understanding context, process, and outcome constraints on the performance of mandated mediation.

Libancell is one of several experiments in post‐war privatization in Lebanon. It was established in 1994 through a contract to build and operate a mobile communication network. In the three year period described in this case study, Libancell grew from 0 to 255 employees. This rapid growth, the uniqueness of the privatization experiment, and the company's high national profile provide an excellent opportunity to examine the interface between the HR system and work experience of organization members. Using archival research, interviews, and survey data, this study describes the rich and complex interaction between the HR system and other essential components of the organization.

In the management literature there are numerous studies examining the relationship beween satisfaction and individual organisational variables. Studies have shown employee satisfaction to be correlated with leadership style, motivation, job characteristics, absenteeism and turnover, role ambiguity, autonomy, life satisfaction and goal setting. The subject of satisfaction is closely related to the well‐being of organisation members, thus it is considered to be a major variable in organisational life and a most popular topic in applied and theoretical studies.

There are many known reasons why hot start‐ups fail – new technologies, new markets, new distribution channels, inexperienced management teams, etc. – but an unquestionably critical factor is the leadership ability of the entrepreneurial CEO. Conventional wisdom states that professional managers should replace founders because they customarily do not have the necessary leadership skills and experience to further the continued growth of the organization. Recent research, however, has found no evidence that professional managers perform better in high‐growth firms than the original founder. This investigation analyzed the experiences of 27 entrepreneurial CEOs who successfully defied conventional wisdom by leading their organizations from tenuous start‐up to professionally managed enterprise. The research revealed two distinct sets of leadership competencies – labeled self competencies and functional competencies – required of entrepreneurs aspiring to remain at the helm of growth‐driven high‐tech firms.

The meaning of work among Saudi managers is examined. One‐hundred‐and‐thirty‐two managers completed questionnaires used to measure work centrality and norms about work. The results show that 94 per cent of the participants would continue working even if they had enough money to live comfortably without doing so. Furthermore, the results indicate that family and work are the most important activities in life, and that Saudi managers are highly committed to both entitlement and obligation dimensions of work norms. Saudi attachment to work is found to be slightly influenced by organisational or personal backgrounds.

The purpose of this paper is to examine entrepreneurial leadership and to determine the entrepreneurial leadership skills which are important for success in a developing economy environment. Specifically, the focus of this research was on entrepreneurial leadership within the retail pharmacy sector in Nigeria.

This study was guided by an interpretivist-constructionist perspective. By adopting a qualitative approach, the lived experiences of the retail pharmacy entrepreneurs could be understood. In total, 51 semi-structured interviews were the mode of data collection, and data were triangulated via three sources: entrepreneurs, employees, and literature.

From the study results, a vivid picture of entrepreneurial leadership was formed, which in turn provides the basis for an empirical skill-based model of this phenomenon in a developing economy. This study identifies four distinct entrepreneurial leadership skill categories. These include technical/business skills, interpersonal skills, conceptual skills, and entrepreneurial skills. The findings of this study also show the factors and conditions necessary for entrepreneurial leadership in a developing economy.

The findings of this study have implications in theory and practice. Its results provide an empirical, skill-based framework on entrepreneurial leadership in a developing economy, a subject area for which there exists a lack of background literature. In practice, the findings of this study serve as a useful reference for practitioners and policy makers of the skills and other factors required for people to succeed as entrepreneurial leaders.