Search results

Through the years, positive feedback has been accepted as an effective method of improving employee performance. However, recent research reviews question across individual consistency of this effect. This inconsistency may arise from the interaction of feedback type (positive and negative) with individual differences. A Contingency Model of Feedback is proposed. This model integrates previous theory and research. It has implications which would allow service sector managers to select the most appropriate feedback type for each employee.

The implementation of organizational change has long been problematic. Over time two approaches have developed. The participative approach assumes that employee support is a pre‐requisite of change. The unilateral approach argues that behavior must be changed first and attitude will follow. The results of a study of 408 change episodes indicate that unilateral implementation approaches are more effective than participative. While employee support was related to change success, it was the function of change type not participative implementation. Behavioral‐social change types generate more support than technical‐structural changes. The implications for future research are discussed.

Balancing the competing objectives of efficiency and service typically requires management compromises to be made. However, some call centers have found that a compromise is not necessary. By using a “sacrificial HR strategy”, they achieve both efficiency and high levels of service at the same time. This is possible because part of the sacrificial HR strategy is the deliberate, frequent replacement of employees in order to provide enthusiastic, motivated customer service at low cost to the organization. Describes a multiple‐case analysis of four call centers and the sacrificial HR strategy they used. The contingencies leading to the appearance of this strategy are discussed.

The actions of outstanding leaders who are introducing changes in their organizations are best viewed as complex mosaics which pervade most aspects of their management. Argues that these mosaics cannot be produced by a cookbook approach to management. Such action sets can only be generated from leader theories of the employee learning processes. Outstanding leaders were observed in a set of service sector case studies. These leaders use their theory to guide information collection. Information is collected from a network of formal and informal sources. The focus of the theory and information collection is ensuring message reception, creating and embedding an intellectual transformation, motivating, raising self‐confidence and enabling employees to navigate through change. The model challenges the effectiveness of leader development which is conducted out of the leader’s context, is prescriptive or within a single time period.

Based on the experience of a hotel corporation, it is argued that the implementation of a re‐orientation is more likely to be successful if its leadership is shared between a task‐oriented and a relations‐oriented leader. The paper builds on the work of Nadler and Tushman who, for re‐orientations, prescribed shared charismatic and instrumental leadership at the top as well as throughout an organization. However, a little bit of charisma can go a long way. In the implementation phase the critical roles to share are those of task and relations, close to where the change is taking place. The implications for research and for management are noted.

We argue that change management has become ideological and that by selective use of complexity research has used the imperative for change to further political and economic agendas. We seek to redress this situation by developing a critical perspective on change and a new metaphor, the zone of entanglement, to assist critical analysis of change. Central to our argument is that a dynamic of change is non‐change. In this vein, we show that there are deep, robust and persistent structures that dampen change and which, if recognized, may help in achieving organic change, resulting in positive social transformations.

The purpose of this paper is to make recommendations to address the four limitations of Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB).

The paper begins by attributing Singapore’s reputation as the least corrupt Asian country to the CPIB’s four strengths: its independence from the police; its adequate staffing and funding; its adoption of the total approach to enforcement; and its impartial enforcement of the anti-corruption laws. It then proceeds to identify the CPIB’s limitations and provides four suggestions to address these limitations.

The sentencing of Edwin Yeo, a senior CPIB officer, to ten years’ imprisonment on 20 February 2014 for misappropriating US$1.76 million for nearly four years reveals that there were weaknesses in the CPIB’s internal controls and procurement procedures in spite of its effectiveness in curbing corruption. This paper recommends that the CPIB addresses its four limitations by strengthening its internal controls and procurement procedures; enhancing public trust and confidence by further improving its outreach to the population; improving the external oversight of its activities; and developing its in-house research capabilities.

This paper will be useful for those scholars, policy-makers, and anti-corruption practitioners who are interested in how the CPIB can further enhance its effectiveness even though Singapore is perceived as the least corrupt Asian country.

Limited published research has examined the role of leaders and managers in building learning capability and learning organizations. It is speculated that leaders and managers will assume roles such as facilitators of learning, coaches, and teachers. However, these roles and the micro‐behaviors manifested in them remain an area that has not been fully explored. This article reports specific findings from a qualitative critical incident study that was designed to investigate the multiple ways exemplary managers facilitate their employees’ learning in organizations considered to be learning organizations. Thirteen behavior sets emerged from this research that help to define the role of facilitator of learning. Implications for management development are discussed and areas for future research are identified.

Workers live two overlapping lives, at work and outside work. The spillover of favourable workplace experiences into non-work domains of life means that the workplace can be a means by which organisational members who experience network poverty arising from adverse social factors can overcome social exclusion. Social acceptance and interaction data from 105 adults with mild to moderate learning disabilities working in eight social enterprises in the UK and Ireland is examined to establish the link between organisation culture and workplace social integration. In this study organisation cultures in which user/worker-involvement in management and control decision-making is emphasised seem to engender a positive influence on the social interaction experiences of members with learning disabilities in work and non-work domains of life, having regard to difference in demographic factors, employment characteristics, country of residence, and level of disability. The study accentuates the importance of workplace democracy in enhancing the quality of life of working adults with learning disabilities, who might otherwise be disenfranchised in numerous areas of life.