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With the increasing concentration of stock holdings among a relatively small number of institutional investors, company managers are now viewing their major investors as a strategic asset. Company executives are actively managing relations with their major investor through: courting shareholder support in proxy battles and struggles for company control; bringing the voice of investors into the firm; building enduring, personalized relations with stock analysts and money managers; providing accurate and timely information to major holders; acquiring intelligence on the market, competitors, and stockholders through information trading with analysts; and exercising flexible leadership as shareholder concerns and pressures take fresh directions. Many company executives have learned that working with their major holders--rather than without them or despite them--is required for effective oversight of the firm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We employed a qualitative interview technique to develop an inductive model of punishment from a managerial perspective. Findings suggest that managers feel pressure from a variety of sources-organizations, work groups, punished subordinates, and themselves. Managers are also aware that punishment is a highly charged cognitive and emotional event with broad and far-reaching effects that range well beyond punished subordinates and simply changing their attitudes and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study which explored goal-setting among corporate executives in China. Information is presented about the effects of cultural factors on Chinese work ethics and attitudes. A discussion is presented about the Confucian social ideology and its influence on modern business practices and work attitudes in China. The authors presented an assessment of organizational behavior and socio-economic condition of the country. Details are presented related to the methodology of the study.

Project management in functional organizations provides a fertile field for much-needed reexamination of the presumption of dysfunctional conflict when managers and employed professionals interact in organizations. Systematic analysis must indentify the foundations of human conflict and determine the extent to which the implications of such conflict for organizational behavior are functional or dysfunctional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate departments of organization are growing in number and importance in American business. These departments can be involved in significant organization changes and perform useful organization analyses for their firms. Organization theory and organizational behavior are of more than theoretical interest to these men. The article reviews the characteristics of these men, and the departmental objectives. It analyzes the departmental activities and discusses two approaches to applied organization analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interruptions have commonly been viewed as negative and as something for managers to control or limit. In this paper, I explore the relationship between interruptions and acquisition of routines--a form of knowledge--by teams. Recent research suggests that interruptions may play an important role in changing organizational routines, and as such may influence knowledge transfer activities. Results suggest that interruptions influence knowledge transfer effort, and both knowledge transfer effort and interruptions are positively related to the acquisition of new work routines. I conclude with implications for research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes a technique used to help students glean the multidimensionality in an organizational situation and, thus, better appreciate the manager's point of view. The technique is elaborated through the use of a case study, the Brady Training Program, which appears in the textbook, "Effective Behavior in Organizations." The case addresses the distinction between formal and informal practices and behavior. It is typical of cases used to understand group and organizational dynamics, processes, and cultures.

This paper presents the results of an empirical study of attitudes towards ethical questions in business life among managing directors. They study covers more than 240 Swedish firms of all sizes, from different lines of business, and it is based on a solid theoretical framework. It should be seen as a part of the author's effort to develop a model explaining ethical organizational behaviour. Among the most important conclusions of the study is the concept of "corporate moral view". It seems possible to distinguish between "the humanitarian morality" versus "the organizational morality", depending on who's interests the decision maker prefers to take in a moral dilemma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the possibility that a leader behaves differently to different subordinates. Furthermore, a number of authors have suggested that it is an over-simplification to regard an effective leader as having a general unitary style of behavior. Supervisory styles are examined and analyzed according to intrapersonal and interpersonal differentiations. Results of the study have indicated that: (1) high Least-Preferred Co-worker (LPC) scoring supervisors are highly discriminating in judgments about their subordinates; and (2) a supervisor's differentiation moderates the behavior and the subordinate's rating of his own performance. Moreover, the failure to support the hypothesis is confronted with methodological problems: (1) self-ratings of performance were used; and (2) the rank-order correlations provide the basic data in the analysis are based upon only five people per group.

Research into managerial jobs and behaviour has been appropriately criticized for being acontextual and atheoretical. Hales (1986) suggested that role theory could provide one suitable theoretical framework. This article assesses the merit of that suggestion and then develops it by proposing a theoretical model of the antecedents of a manager's impact on the expectations held by others that partially define the job. The analysis integrates research from the fields of managerial behaviour, leadership dyads, symbolic interactionism, and idiosyncratic jobs to produce a more comprehensive model of the determinants of 'expectation enactment' in managerial jobs. It brings an enactment or 'emergence' perspective to the field of managerial jobs and behaviour that is consistent with recent developments in other parts of the organizations and management studies literature. Implications for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have attempted to examine how American managers actually manage while on assignment in foreign countries or the effectiveness of these managerial behaviors. This study compared the self-reported managerial behaviors of American expatriate managers in Hong Kong to a sample of American managers in the U.S. and Hong Kong Chinese managers in Hong Kong. The results from the study indicated that American expatriate managers in Hong Kong exhibit very similar managerial behaviors to the sample of managers in the U.S. However, while these managerial behaviors were positively related to job performance for the managers in the U.S., they were not related to job performance for the expatriates in Hong Kong, nor were these managerial behaviors related to job performance for Hong Kong Chinese managers in Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of how the events that lead a manager to participate in a training laboratory influence his initial set, his learning in the laboratory, and his subsequent behavior is a very interesting one, about which a number of assumptions exist. This issue has been discussed (see, for example, Schein & Bennis, 1965, Chaps. 15 & 11) and many assumptions have been advanced, but it seems not to have received much systematic attention. In this paper we will analyze and discuss data relating pre-laboratory expectations, laboratory involvement, and follow-up change efforts. The training laboratories studied were the first phase of an extensive organization development program in a large research and development organization (Zand, Steele & Zalkind, 1969). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper was to review the research literature on the relationship between "Consideration," "Initiating Structure," and organizational criteria. The results show a predominance of low to moderate correlations, but almost all of a concurrent validity nature. There is as yet almost no evidence on the predictive validity of "Consideration" and "Initiating Structure" nor on the kinds of situational moderators which might affect such validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]