Search results

Examines the findings of a survey aimed at identifying the education needs of leadership personnel in institutions of higher education within a metropolitan service area. Respondents, occupying primarily mid‐level administrative positions, cited administrative behaviour, leadership and personnel management as training areas that best matched their professional advancement needs. Concludes that university‐based seminars, workshops and standard credit bearing courses can provide “corporate level” training to assist mid‐level managers in expanding their leadership vision.

Leadership approaches, or styles, practised by managers in free societies over the last 100 years have shifted from highly directive, or authoritarian, to more non‐directive, or participative. This study surveyed labour and management of a defence industry computer software company to compare management (n=35) and technical employee (n=143) perceptions of preferred management style as measured by the Leader Behaviour Descriptive Questionnaire (LBDQ) Form XII. Subjects were asked to rate their ideal leader in response to the 100 items on the LBDQ. Causal‐comparative data analysis was used to compute descriptive statistics for each comparison group. Findings from the study suggest there is an extraordinary unity of thinking between managers and employees regarding those elements critical to effective leadership; managers agreed to a significantly greater extent than employees that the surveyed variables are critical to effective leadership; and managers and employees agreed that the favoured leadership style is “selling”, as defined by Hersey and Blanchard.

Describes ongoing monitoring of a US department of educational leadership’s performance indices and reports on the processes that support a management by fact (MBF) strategy. Elucidates the university’s key quality indicators (KQI) process. KQI statements were introduced into department course syllabi. Graduates from department graduate education programs were surveyed regarding their perceptions about the KQI outcome statements. Each respondent indicated the degree to which the department had “prepared” them in each of the desired outcomes; and also the degree to which the outcome was perceived to be “relevant” for the conduct of their professional duties. The department learned that strategic planning can lead to cumulative improvements and quality of efforts can be moved forward in higher education institutions through a focus on departmental‐level teaching and learning systems.

Investigates a scientific basis for establishing the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) cut‐off scores. Obtains data on 348 foreign students from 50 US universities. Divides students into three categories according to TOEFL score: below 550; 550‐600; and above 600. Measures academic success by first semester or quarter grade point average (GPA) score. Finds a significant difference in GPA score between international graduate students with TOEFL scores above 550 when compared with those with scores below 550. Results support the national trend towards raising foreign graduate student admission minimum TOEFL scores from 500 to 550.

This paper seeks to apply discriminate analysis to determine principal's leadership styles differences between genders in USA Midwest public schools. A distinction is to be made between “servant” (seen as aligned with emotional intelligence) and “traditional” (or top‐down) leadership. The debate between the traditional (or, top‐down) leadership approach, versus the servant (which is seen as aligned with emotional intelligence) leadership approach is ripe for investigation.

E‐mail based surveys from 445 responding public school principals comprised of men (n=265) and women (n=180) were quantitatively analyzed. The self‐selected sample for the study was drawn from public schools in three Midwest states in the USA. The inventory contained 40 content items prepared on a five‐point Likert scale and one demographic question. Content and construct validity were evaluated and significant difference tests were performed. The study sought to clarify which cluster of items from the Servant‐leadership Styles Inventory (SSI) best described gender membership and, thereby, proffered possibly gender oriented servant‐leadership styles utilizing discriminant function analysis methods.

This study has established that SSI items identified with Servant‐leadership dimension are reliable and valid; however items aligned with Traditional leadership dimensions were found to be less reliable and valid. Additionally these results have shown that Servant‐leadership items can be effective in differentiating between men and women principals. It is important to note that both men and women equally reported that they were reluctant to use Traditional leadership styles. No differences between genders in Traditional leadership styles usage were found. However, there were significant differences between men's and women's Servant‐leadership style usage.

Current research shows that men and women operate differently. What has been lacking, however, is an instrument that discriminated between male and female leadership styles. This study is bounded by the following limitations: by location, the study is restricted to USA Midwest practicing public school principals; to the gender based perceptions of principals in Midwest USA, other factors such a training, experience and longevity are unknown; and it is also unknown as to the instrument's cultural biases when applied to other countries and regions in the USA. However, the instrument may open opportunities for cultural and gender based leadership research studies when applied to new populations.

This paper reports the development of a new research instrument, the SSI. The instrument utilizes 20 traditional leadership styles and 20 servant leadership styles to query subjects. The instrument was found to be reliable and valid, especially the servant leadership items.

The paper shows that four Servant‐leadership styles lend understanding to the field, and help begin a discussion of feminine servant‐leadership style. These four newly identified styles are: daily reflection; consensus building; healing relationships; and drive sense of self worth. The feminine leader is more likely to hold and practice these values than male leaders.

This paper aims to explore how the maieutic role of management accounting (MA) can be sustained in the context of MA digitalization.

The paper begins with practitioners’ descriptions of the context that makes the MA support of non-routine decisions maieutic. To understand how the maieutic characteristics can be sustained in future MA digitalization, the authors then analyze the discourses these practitioners have about artificial intelligence (AI) in providing MA support.

As a basis, the authors’ data show various maieutic characteristics within the use of MA answers in decision-making as well as within the MA process of generating such answers. The paper then identifies three MA digitalization discourses, namely, “computation,” “judgment” and human-AI “interaction” discourse, each with their unique agendas on how AI should be used.

The paper is based on the premises that AI and digitalization are often discussed without sufficient understanding about the context being digitalized. The authors’ data suggest that MA support in non-routine decision-making is fundamentally maieutic, and AI – as it currently stands – is not expected to change this by providing perfect answers. The authors provide novel insights about maieutic MA support and the current discourses on using AI in MA support, and how digitalization does not necessarily compromise maieutic MA support but instead has the potential to sustain or even enhance it.

This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the ideal management accountant image differ from operational managers’ perceived role expectations, how management accountants perceive their identity and how those factors shape management accountants’ understanding of who they are and want to be.

A qualitative design draws upon the case company’s 100 job advertisements and 31 semi-structured interviews with management accountants and operational managers. Those data are entwined with role theory and its core concepts of expectations and identities and also early recruitment-related theoretical aspects such as image and employer branding.

The findings reveal how employers’ perceptions of the ideal image and operational managers’ role expectations shape and influence the identity of management accountants. However, management accountants distance themselves from a brand image and role expectations. They experience identity conflict between their current and desired identity, the perception of not being able to perform the currently desired role. Although this study presents some possible reasons and explanations, such as employer branding for the misalignment and discrepancy between perceptions of employer (image), expectations of operational managers (role) and management accountants’ self-conception of the role (identity), this study argues that the identity of a management accountant results from organizational aspects of image and role and individual aspects of identity.

Image and external role expectations can challenge identity construction and also serve as a source of conflict and frustration; thus, a more comprehensive approach to studying the identity of management accountants is necessary to understand what contributes to the fragility of their identity.

The results provide an understanding of the dynamics of the image, role and identity to support management accountants and employers and to further address the suggested dissonance and ambiguities.

This study contributes by showing how the dynamics and connections between the image, role and identity influence the identity construction of management accountants. Moreover, this study shows how overpromising as a part of employer branding might not reflect the reality experienced by management accountants but may cause frustration and threaten the management accountants’ identity.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

Although typologies of violence have become more common, relatively little attention has been given to Donald Black’s (1983) distinction between moralistic and predatory violence. Moralistic violence is rooted in conflict; predatory violence is rooted in exploitation. We elaborate Black’s typology and show how it is similar to, but distinct from, other typologies of violence. We also address the criteria by which typologies of any kind might be judged. Borrowing from the literatures on typologies and on standards of scientific theory, we argue that explanatory typologies should be evaluated according to four criteria: the degree to which they are powerful, theoretical, general, and parsimonious. Applying the criteria to Black’s typology, we argue that the distinction between moralistic and predatory violence is an important contribution to the arsenal of the student of violence.

Previous research suggests that firms should articulate incongruent sponsorships to provide a rationale for the relationship between sponsor and sponsorship object. Fit articulation is a strategy that communicates shared associations between sponsor and object. Based on conclusion explicitness theory, this paper aims to conceptualize and tests two fit articulation strategies in sponsorships: open-ended and closed-ended.

Research hypotheses were tested in two experiments.

Only open-ended fit articulation improved brand attitudes. Mediation analyses show that while open-ended articulation influenced brand attitudes through brand image (Study 1 and Study 2) and altruistic motive attributions (Study 2), there was an indirect effect of closed-ended articulation on brand attitudes through global fit perceptions (Study 2).

The results from two experiments suggest that incongruent sponsors should use open-ended conclusions about a shared image dimension. Although explicit arguments may increase global perceptions of fit, they may impede a positive impact on the articulated brand image dimension and generation of altruistic motive attribution. Therefore, sponsorship managers should be careful in terms of using explicit arguments for fit when the sponsorship is incongruent because such arguments may hinder articulation from generating goodwill and a positive brand image.

This is the first paper to develop and test different types of fit articulation strategies in sponsorships.