In the past few decades, corporate attitudes have evolved from a “customer is always right” mindset to the recognition that employees are as vital to the success of a company as customers. Corporate internal and external communications declare that satisfied and engaged employees are as critical to success as satisfied customers. According to a Columbia […]
The importance of a group’s culture cannot be overstated: generally, the group’s culture defines how members of a group are expected to think, feel, and behave. Because culture is typically entrenched and long-lasting, one may sometimes forget the origin, or antecedent, of the culture. From where did the culture of a particular group emerge? Management […]
Read More… from When Leaders Bring Previous Tight Cultures to Their New Groups
Past research has demonstrated that high external performance expectations (e.g., from supervisors, co-workers, clients, family, friends, and the media) can motivate individuals to increase their efforts and be more persistent, leading to higher levels of performance. The source of this motivation is the desire to make a good impression on those who are watching. One […]
Read More… from Setting High Performance Expectations Can Lead to Failure
Friendship in the workplace can be a positive factor as friendly colleagues collaborate harmoniously, share information easily and support each other’s work. On the negative side, friendships can also lead to ‘friendship cliques’, in which the members work closely with each other but consider non-clique members outsiders, and perhaps competitors. Members belonging to a clique […]
With good governance recognized as a key factor in a company’s success, the recruitment of new members to a board is a highly important and consequential task. New research focuses on the often-overlooked criteria of domain expertise — that is, whether having experts in the sector or industry of the company on the board adds […]
Read More… from In Uncertain Times It’s Best to Have Fewer Industry Experts on a Board
The ‘legitimacy’ of a company is based on whether outsiders consider that a company takes appropriate actions — and has the governance structures in place to ensure that it continues to take appropriate actions. One measure of legitimacy is the balance of power between the CEO and the board of directors. In general, investors and […]
Read More… from Reducing CEO Power Can Undermine a Company’s Legitimacy
More and more board of directors have the CEO as the only insider on the board. At first glance, this movement toward near unanimous outside directors would seem to meet the mandate of independent oversight and governance that have defined corporate boards since the corporate scandals of the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, new research […]
Read More… from Corporate Governance: The Power of Outside Directors on CEO-Only Boards
Organizational values can exemplify the old saying that “words are cheap.” Inspiring words about ethics, diversity or sustainability etched on a lobby wall mean nothing if they are not reflected in the performance of actual practices within the organization. While such practices might seem to be developed and formulated at the top management level and […]
Read More… from Corporate Values: Translating Platitudes into Sustainable Practices
Classical and neo-classical economic theory is predicated largely on an ‘impersonal’ model, in which transactions between parties are governed not by social obligations and kinship ties but by rational and objective calculation of individual gains. This model is particularly associated with industrialized societies and the mature market economies of the West. One might, therefore, reasonably […]
Read More… from Modernizing without Westernizing: Social Ties and Indian Business
The speed at which strategic decision-making takes place in an organization has been identified by many researchers as a critical factor for performance. Competitive business environments, shortened life cycles and increasingly global markets have only enhanced the importance of decision-speed. In many organizations, however, decision-making at lower levels, such as in strategic business units (SBUs), […]
Read More… from HQ Controls and the Speed of Strategic Decision-Making
