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This commentary explores the integration of management and sustainability literature, using the work of Gonçalves et al. (2024) as a starting point. I situate their work within the broader context of literature that connects the management and sustainability fields, tracing historical developments and diverse perspectives. Key areas for further exploration include the fields' different levels of analysis, the commensurability of theoretical foundations, the balance between theoretical and applied research and the importance of interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and systems approaches in advancing sustainability research and practice. The commentary serves as a starting point for further research aimed at supporting the transformative changes needed for a more sustainable society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has found school working conditions—particularly school leadership—to be linked to teacher retention. At the same time, evidence from the management literature has suggested that obtaining 'buy‐in' from staff is critical to employee performance and instigating change. This paper brings these two literatures together, being the first study to explore the relationship between buy‐in and teachers' plans to continue working at their current school. The analysis illustrates how teachers who buy into the leadership team's strategy are much more likely to intend to continue working at the school, over and above their views on workload, pay and the quality of their relationships with their colleagues. We conclude by considering what school leaders might do to improve buy‐in amongst their staff, while also highlighting areas where further research is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential significance of mindfulness for social relations at work has been recognized in the recent management literature, yet a thorough investigation has been lacking into how mindfulness may help leaders tap into their other-orientation. In this study, we examine whether and how mindfulness training contributes to the development of leaders' social awareness by studying the experiences of 62 leaders who participated in an 8-week-long mindfulness training program. Our study contributes to the literature on management learning and mindfulness in leadership in three ways. First, it identifies how the leaders who participated in mindfulness training see themselves developing toward becoming more socially aware in situations involving followers across the three interlinked domains of human functioning—the cognitive, affective, and behavioral—clarifying mindfulness as an interpersonal phenomenon. Second, it highlights mindfulness as a value-based developmental practice instead of merely a personal stress reduction and attention-enhancement technique. Third, it proposes mindfulness training as a viable approach to enhance leaders' social awareness through a combination of a formal program and continuous self-development, departing from the views of mindfulness as a "quick fix." It also provides a conceptual framework that illustrates the pathway with the potential to build social leadership capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of "Ethical Leadership" is one of the new notions which earnestly found its way into the management literature at the last decades of the twentieth century. According to this theory, besides the significance of enforcing ethical laws for the society or the organizations, scientists hold the demonstration of ethical behaviors by the leader of the society in the personal and social relations as well as the transfer of these norms to the common people via various ways play the main role in the realization of social ethics and the advancement of sublime goals. Because in Islam it is necessary to know, analyze, and explicate the elements of "ethical leadership," the present article attempts to investigate the elements of the aforesaid theory in the governmental conduct of Imām Alī (a) with a descriptive-analytical approach. Moreover, for this goal it tries to provide a suitable and evidence-based model which can be analyzed and assessed based on the leadership theories in the knowledge of management. Therefore, the goal of this research is to analyze the elements of this theory and compare them with the approach of Imām Alī (a). To do so, via a narrative approach with the pivotal role of Nahj al-Balāgha, the elements of "ethical leadership" in the talks and behavior of Imām are extracted and analyzed; and with the provision of tangible instances of his life, it is shown these elements can be operational. The obtained results show that the aforesaid elements contain all the personal, ideological, relational, managerial, etc. indexes both in personal and social dimensions and can efficiently act as a model for leading the society. There can be seen, of course, ideological differences in some aspects like in self-control. Thus, despite noticeable similarities, these differences accentuate the discrepancy of this theory with the political and governmental thought and teachings of Imām 'Alī (a). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research regarding ethics programs represents an important segment of business ethics literature. In the last thirty years, scientific discourse on ethics programs has flourished. Numerous studies examined their functions, composition, application in organizational practice, and impact on employee ethical behavior and many other organizational variables. However, so far there has been no study that would comprehensively map this particular field. Given that, this paper aims to examine discourse on ethics programs in its complexity within business and management literature. Based on a sophistically composed search protocol in the Scopus database, and after multiple rounds of checks, we extracted a final sample of 287 documents that matched the selection criteria. The sample was thoroughly analyzed by means of advanced bibliometric analytics tools. The results show the quantitative impact of ethics program literature via publication and citation metrics, a network of co-occurring themes and clusters of scientific inquiry, and the evolution of respective discourse over time. This detailed analysis results in a set of conclusions provided in the last part of the paper summarizing the quantitative performance and thematic scope of literature on ethics programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iraq is witnessing many ongoing crises that have affected the performance of the infrastructure and the development of the construction field. Therefore, it is necessary to devise and develop effective crisis management strategies during the three phases of crises before, during, and after the crisis, which makes the development of such a system extremely important. This study focuses on developing and analyzing a framework for crisis management in construction projects. Our view is based on the work of several previous crisis management researchers. This research aims to provide an appropriate crisis management approach to the Iraqi construction industry. This study proposed an integrated crisis management model, based on a comprehensive examination of the crisis management literature and extracting crisis criteria in three phases: before, during, and after the crisis. The researcher, using the Fuzzy DEMATEL method, analyzed the relationships between the criteria. In addition to devising an integrated crisis management model, crisis criteria are categorized by measuring the weights of key components, and finally by ranking criteria according to their importance, enabling managers to respond to threats quickly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature of LEADERSHIP (and Leaders, etc) is legion. From Plato's great work- The REPUBLIC to uncountable others such as several of Shakespeare's plays where the concept is explored through intense drama writers have put forward many ideas and views that suggest what Leadership connotes and just how puzzling and complex it can be. There are paradigms that also surface: for instance, one posits that God is the ultimate Leader and all subsequent follow HIM- either by expanding or by challenging and even negating HIS expectations and wishes. The discussion proceeds unabated!. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on interpersonal collaboration for creative work started in the early 1970s by management scholars. Later on, the concept of value co-creation was first presented in the marketing literature by Prahalad and Ramaswamy in 2004. Since then, there has been significant development on the value co-creation concept by marketing scholars who contributed a lot regarding value co-creation literature. Due to this reason, a perception was developed that the concept of relational co-creation is related only to the field of marketing. However, over the period, the concept of value co-creation transformed into a relational co-creation construct that has been increasingly used in the literature of human resource management as well. Concepts such as relational co-creation, HR co-creation, and intimate co-creation are getting the increased attention of management scholars. However, there is no previous narrative review that summarized the co-creationbased literature concerning its emergence from marketing towards human resource management. The current study has addressed this literature gap with the help of a narrative literature review by reviewing 46 peer-reviewed research papers and 4 books from established databases. Results revealed that the concept of value co-creation in marketing had an inspiration from the co-innovation concept earlier applied in the field of design engineering. The value co-creation concept’s popularity in marketing literature and practice made it a source of discussion for relational co-creation in HRM and management literature with the evolution of intimate co-creation and HR co-creation in the literature of management. These developments have exceptional implications for management scholars and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate diplomacy is an emerging concept within the management literature. It describes corporate conduct in the international arena, particularly in challenging political and social environments. Management scholarship and practitioner literature have focused on the communication processes and instrumental benefits associated with corporate diplomacy, exploring and explaining how managers negotiate stakeholder relationships to achieve a firm's profit-oriented goals. We enrich the current understanding of corporate diplomacy by viewing it as an umbrella concept that encompasses scholarship from political corporate social responsibility, international relations, diplomacy, and peace studies. We also suggest that corporate diplomacy includes the political role that multinational enterprises play in addressing social issues and governance gaps affecting less developed and potentially conflict-prone host countries where they operate. Based on this approach, the concept of corporate diplomacy builds on the premise that multinationals have an expanded role and responsibilities in terms of global governance and that the practice of corporate diplomacy can play a role in resolving social or political conflicts, leading to wider societal benefits beyond corporate profits. To illustrate our concept of corporate diplomacy, we focus on the governance gaps addressed in the literature on peace through commerce, discussing instances where firms implement corporate diplomacy through peacemaking or peace building to accomplish both private and public goals in conflict-prone regions. We conclude with the practical implications of corporate diplomacy as well as suggestions for research to further develop a richer understanding of corporate diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Spiritual Psychology & Counseling is the property of Halil Eksi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There are enduring misconceptions in the marketing and management literature about the potential biasing effects of Common Method Variance (CMV). One belief is that the biasing effect of CMV is of greater theoretical than practical importance; another belief is that if CMV is a potential problem, it can be easily identified with the Harman one-factor test. In this article, we show that both beliefs are ill founded and need correction. To demonstrate our key points with greater generality, we use analytical derivations rather than empirical simulations. First, we examine the effects of CMV on correlations between observed variables as a function of measure unreliability and the sign and size of the "true" trait correlation. We demonstrate that, for negative trait correlations, CMV leads to a substantial upward bias in observed correlations (i.e., observed correlations are less negative than the trait correlation), and under certain conditions observed correlations may even have the wrong sign (assuming that the method loadings are both positive or both negative). We also show that, for positive trait correlations, the downward bias due to measurement unreliability does not always mitigate the upward bias due to CMV (again assuming that the method loadings are either both positive or both negative). Importantly, our results indicate that the inflationary effect of CMV is larger at lower levels of (positive) trait correlations, whereas the deflationary effect of unreliability is larger at higher levels of trait correlations. Second, we demonstrate analytically the serious deficiencies of the popular Harman one-factor test for detecting common method variance and strongly recommend against its use in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As countries around the world experience the graying of their populations, longer life expectancies mean greater possibility of illness and incapacitation. At the same time, demographic trends are altering the traditional arrangements for eldercare. Given that a high percentage of caregivers are employed outside the home, the tension between employment and caregiving responsibilities is likely to increase. However, the relationship between eldercare responsibilities and work outcomes is understudied, especially in the management literature, and the results are inconclusive. This article analyzes 31 empirical studies on the relationship between eldercare and work published in peer-reviewed academic journals since 1995. Although methodological limitations exist in the current literature, a number of noteworthy advances have been identified that have implications for future research directions and the ways in which organizations respond to the eldercare needs of their employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El papel de las mujeres en el mundo de la gerencia parece haberse convertido en uno de los temas centrales de la agenda política y mediática actual. Una de las herramientas de difusión de los modelos de liderazgo asociados a dicho grupo es la literatura gerencial o managerial, que difunde modas de gestión empresarial entre la clase directiva y el público general. Con el objetivo de identificar si el modelo de liderazgo asociado a las mujeres se aleja del rol de género femenino tradicional, trataremos de identificar los valores que se les asignan a través de un análisis de la literatura managerial. Así pues, en el presente artículo se realizará una propuesta de aplicación metodológica de la Appraisal Theory para el estudio de la evaluación y las prescripciones morales contenidas en la literatura managerial. The role of women in management world seems to have become one of the central themes of the current political and media agenda. One of the dissemination tools of the leadership models associated with this group is the managerial literature, which spreads management fashions to the directive class and the general public. In order to identify if the roles assigned to women leaders move away from the traditional femenine gender stereotype, we will try to identify the values that are associated to them through an analysis of managerial literature. Thus, in the present article a proposal of methodological application of the Appraisal Theory will be made for the study of the moral prescriptions contained in the managerial literature.

Copyright of Revista Española de Sociología is the property of Federacion Espanola de Sociologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Over the past two decades an increasing number of research papers have signalled growing interest in more responsible, sustainable and ethical modes of management education. This systematic literature review of peer-reviewed publications on, and allied to, the concept of responsible management learning and education (RMLE) confirms that scholarly interest in the topic has accelerated over the last decade. Rather than assuming that RMLE is one thing, however, this review proposes that the literature on responsible management education and learning can be divided into four distinct categories: (1) Teaching Responsible Management; (2) Organizing for Responsible Education; (3) Responsible Individual Learning, and; (4) Responsible Organizational Learning. Although the literature on RMLE has grown, work on how managers learn responsible management in organizational or workplace settings, particularly without the intervention of external educational providers, is minimal. The Special Issue of the Journal of Business Ethics is the first to address this significant lacuna. The vast majority of published peer-reviewed research is related to organizational provider-centric organizing for responsible management education. Each category is explored and the implications of organizing the literature this way for the field of RMLE are discussed. Finally, an agenda for future research and theory development on RMLE is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Earth is facing pressing societal grand challenges that require urgent managerial action. Responsible management learning (RML) has emerged as a discipline to prepare managers to act as responsible leaders that can effectively address such pressing challenges. This article aims to extend current knowledge on RML in the domain of corporate sustainability (CS) through the application of threshold concepts, novel ideas which provide a doorway to new knowledge and transform a learner's mindset. Specifically, after conducting a systematic review of the management literature, we identify 33 CS threshold concepts that are useful for mainstream managers and practitioners in their RML process. We group them into six CS threshold concept themes that can help managers understand the complexities and interconnectedness that characterize CS. Finally, we map CS threshold concepts with key competences for effective RML. Therefore, our contribution relies on translating existing CS theoretical frameworks into transformative, specific, understandable and applicable pieces of knowledge that might help mainstream managers to embed CS principles in their daily management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responsible management competences are the skills of managers to deal with the triple bottom line, stakeholder value and moral dilemmas. In this paper, we analyse how managers develop responsible management competences and how the competences interact with capabilities at the organisational level. The paper contributes to the responsible management literature by integrating research on absorptive capacity and organisational learning. By creating intersections between these disparate research streams, this study enables a better understanding of the development of responsible management competences. The paper is a systematic literature review on environmental competences, which are a type of responsible management competences referring to the managerial skills aimed at improving environmental sustainability. The findings demonstrate that managers who are able to recognize and acquire external knowledge develop environmental competences, and organisations capable of assimilating, transforming and exploiting knowledge develop environmental capabilities. The paper establishes that a dynamic and recursive relation exists between environmental competences and capabilities. Antecedents and contextual conditions specific to a sustainability context, such as eco-centric values and stakeholder pressures, influence the development of environmental competences. The study shows that environmental competences have a positive direct effect on environmental performance, and an indirect effect as a mediator between environmental capabilities and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sales leadership research has typically taken a leader-focused approach, investigating key questions from a top-down perspective. Yet considerable research outside sales has advocated a view of leadership that takes into account the fact that employees look beyond a single designated individual for leadership. In particular, the social networks of leaders have been a popular topic of investigation in the management literature, although coverage in the sales literature remains rare. The present paper conceptualizes the sales leadership role as one in which the leader must manage a network of simultaneous relationships; several types of sales manager relationships, such as the sales-manager-to-top-manager and the sales-manager-to-sales manager relationships, have received limited attention in the sales literature to date. Taking an approach based on social network theory, we develop a conceptualization of the sales manager as a "network engineer," who must manage multiple relationships, and the flows between them. Drawing from this model, we propose a detailed agenda for future sales research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the co-occurrence of technological and organizational learning processes by analyzing the adoption and use of four types of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, rewarding, problem-solving, top-down management, and decentralization, in the 1990s, across different technological learning environments. Using a sample of British workplaces, we show that the level of use of diverse HRM practices, aimed at creating different learning incentives, is persistently heterogeneous across technological learning environments, suggesting that HRM forms an essential part of the technological learning structure of firms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A speech is presented from James P. Walsh, the President of the Academy of Management at the University of Michigan, given in 2010 in which he discusses the sacred and secular cultures of management research and business education, as well as scholarship, management journals, and organizational studies.

An article is presented that shares the editor's views on publication and the field of management research. The editor addresses myths and misconceptions about the periodical related to the authorship of papers for publication and the processes of publishing and reviewing. The article also discusses why some research is rejected for publication by the Editorial Board, describing the differences in theoretical and empirical management research. Information is also provided on research methodology, peer reviewing, and international scholarship.

Textbooks have been described as vehicles through which research is transferred to future practitioners. However, the sociology of scientific knowledge suggests that textbooks are not simply collected accounts of discrete "findings," but rather represent a highly stable and institutionalized pedagogy. The question then becomes, to what extent are new areas of research that have gained traction in the academic literature moved into textbooks, particularly when that research would introduce a new paradigm to a coherent pedagogical story? To explore this question, we examine textbooks to uncover the extent and manner of integration of recent research using institutional theory to study topics in strategic management. Finding significant variation in integration among textbooks, we discuss factors that can explain this variation and suggest avenues for systematic, theory-driven research on the textbook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how competition has influenced scholarly productivity in the field of management from 1988 to 2008. Our study reveals three primary findings that may interest management scholars. First, we found that the number of scholars publishing papers each year in top-tier management outlets increased significantly over time. This increase was evident even when controlling for the fact that several journals have increased the number of articles published per year. Second, we found the majority of scholars required more than 5 (or 10) years to publish five (or ten) top-tier articles. In fact, results show the average time required to publish five (or ten) articles increased from 5.35 (6) years at the beginning of our sample to 9.72 (15.13) years at the end of our sample. Finally, our results indicate that increased competition to publish articles in top-tier journals has affected the scholarly productivity of both micro (primarily focused on individuals or groups) and macro (primarily focused on organizations) researchers. However, the results suggest that this negative influence on productivity is more pronounced for macro scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literatures of business ethics and international business have generally had little influence on each other. Nevertheless, the decline in the power of nation states, the emergence of non-governmental organizations, the proliferation of self-regulatory bodies, and the changing responsibilities, roles, and structure of multinational corporations make constructive engagement between these two disciplines imperative. This changing institutional landscape creates many areas of common concern. In this article, we describe the changing institutional context of global business and suggest ways in which both business ethics and international business may inform each other more fruitfully. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses how advances in the statistical methods and computer software used to analyze random coefficient models have allowed researchers to more thoroughly investigate context specific data. The author suggests these advances have begun to reshape the field of management research through the examination of the concept of context as an important variable to be included in both macro and micro management theories. The author explores how context has been studied in management literature and discusses some of the challenges researchers face in testing context theories.

The issue of trust is an important one in the marketing literature. To assess the nomological validity of trust-related measures, this research uses an item-level measurement meta-analysis based on correlations from 32 studies that measure trust-related constructs in the context of a buyer's assessments of sellers. Analysis reveals that 16-item measures converge into three constructs that are indicative of the seller's credibility, expertise, and compatibility and three items each that are indicative of trust and trustworthiness. In a structural equation model based on the meta-analysis, a seller's characteristics are predictive of trust and trustworthiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodological fit, an implicitly valued attribute of high-quality field research in organizations, has received little attention in the management literature. Fit refers to internal consistency among elements of a research project--research question, prior work, research design, and theoretical contribution. We introduce a contingency framework that relates prior work to the design of a research project, paying particular attention to the question of when to mix qualitative and quantitative data in a single research paper. We discuss implications of the framework for educating new field researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some articles become building blocks for future scholars, whereas others remain unnoticed? The authors aim to answer this question by contrasting, synthesizing, and simultaneously testing three scientometric perspectives—universalism, social constructivism, and presentation—on the influence of article and author characteristics on article citations. They study all articles published in a sample of five major journals in marketing from 1990 to 2002 that are central to the discipline. They count the number of citations each of these articles has received and regress this count on an extensive set of characteristics of the article (i.e., article quality, article domain, title length, the use of attention grabbers, and expositional clarity) and the author (i.e., author visibility and author personal promotion). They find that the number of citations an article in the marketing discipline receives depends more on “what is said” (quality and domain) and “who says it” (author visibility and personal promotion) than on “how it is said” (title length, the use of attention grabbers, and expositional clarity). The insights gleaned from this analysis contribute to the marketing literature and are relevant to scientific stakeholders, such as the management of scientific journals and individual academic scholars, as they strive to maximize citations. They are also relevant to marketing practitioners; they inform practitioners on characteristics of the academic journals in marketing and their relevance to decisions they face. Conversely, the insights also raise challenges regarding how to make journals accessible and relevant to marketing practitioners: (1) Authors visible to academics are not necessarily visible to practitioners; (2) the readability of an article may hurt academic credibility and impact, but it may be instrumental in influencing practitioners; and (3) it remains questionable whether articles that academics assess to be of high quality are also managerially relevant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manufacturing-marketing interface has received substantial consideration in the operations management literature. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of information systems in facilitating manufacturing-marketing integration. As integrated cross-functional systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are well-suited to provide manufacturing-marketing integration. Based on information-processing theory, the central proposition of this paper is the greater the interdependence between manufacturing and marketing, the greater the benefit of ERP. Specifically, the first hypothesis (H1) states that the greater ERP-enabled coordination between manufacturing and marketing, the greater the benefit of ERP to the plant. The second hypothesis (H2) states that the degree to which ERP-enabled manufacturing-marketing coordination improvements are realized depends on the amount of interdependence between manufacturing and marketing. Using multiple regression, the model is tested on survey data from 107 manufacturing plants running ERP. The data support H1 and H2. These findings support the general proposition that interdependence between functions is one factor that influences the degree to which organizations reap benefits from their ERP investments. Based on the ERP literature, the model controls for the amount of time that ERP has been running in the plant; this factor was found to be insignificant in the model. However, exploratory analysis finds that time is associated with other ERP benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transaction cost economics (TCE) has guided a variety of research on governance in the strategic management literature. An important question arises, however, as to whether the TCE framework is equally appropriate for all types of firms in all business settings. In this paper, we argue that TCE is not and suggest that firms with high market power may be able to lower transaction costs under high asset specificity and uncertainty in nonintegrated distribution channels, avoiding the need to utilize highly integrated channels as a result. We test our hypotheses with data collected from 40 manufacturers of electronic and telecommunications products in 109 product-markets in the United States. The results support our hypothesis that transaction cost factors are better at explaining forward channel integration for firms with low market power than for firms with high market power. Our results indicate that the basic TCE framework must be supplemented by the market power construct to adequately explain forward channel integration decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We advance first mover advantage (FMA) theory by examining how the pace of market evolution and technology evolution potentially enables or disables FMA. Integrating several streams of literature, we elaborate on the interplay among these two environmental (macro) conditions and the "isolating mechanisms" that underpin FMA. We model these dynamics to help researchers negotiate the current debate, arising from conflicting empirical evidence, on the conditions necessary for FMA to exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While firm scaling has been overlooked in previous management literature, this study provides an in-depth examination of the micro- and macro-level factors that enhance firm scaling. Viewing firm size, age, and scaling in prior period as micro factors of scaling, such as foreign employees as potentially rich international knowledge sources as well as regional economic development, we draw attention to the likelihood of firm scaling using panel data spanning 971,504 UK-based firms and 9,220,892 firm-year observations during 2002–2017. Our results show that (a) firm age decreases the likelihood of scaling, while firm size and scaling in prior period enhances the likelihood of scaling, (b) firms in regions with higher economic development are more likely to scale while the effect of localized knowledge spillovers from foreign employees on firm scaling depends on firm size. • This study provides an in-depth examination of the micro- and macro-level factors that enhance firm scaling. • Results show that firm age decreases the likelihood of scaling, while firm size and scaling in prior period enhances the likelihood of scaling. • Firms in regions with higher economic development are more likely to scale while the effect of localized knowledge spillovers from foreign employees on firm scaling depends on firm size. • We find that foreign ownership reduces scaling in sales and employment, while industry competition reduces scaling in sales and increasing scaling in employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant view in managerial practice assumes that competencies are universal constructs whose meaning is independent from any specific context. The universalist approach ensures a high degree of efficiency through standardization of competency codebooks. However, the effectiveness of this approach has often been questioned. Overgeneralization makes the description of competencies ambiguous and does not provide HR managers with adequate practical information. An alternative, situationalist approach defines competencies as situated, idiosyncratic constructs whose meaning is deeply influenced by organizational culture and by the unique way people make sense of their jobs. We propose a methodological approach to competency management based on a situationalist perspective. Through a field study carried out in a large Italian organization, we discuss the issues relevant to consider when developing competency-management systems though a situationalist approach. In particular, we show that the situationalist approach, by ensuring higher attention to the meaning and to the situated nature of competencies, is more capable of dealing with some of the critical management challenges outlined in the recent literature, such as the demand for more participative approaches and the increasing emphasis on emerging competencies. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, a steady stream of academic research and practitioner articles has examined the adoption and use of information technology (IT) applications in sales and customer services. In much of this literature, sales-related IT tools have been heralded as enhancing salespeople's customer service delivery, professionalism and general sales effectiveness. However, the literature has yet to investigate the precise nature of salespeople's experience with IT tools in their daily sales tasks. Specifically, a core area of salespeople's skills -- namely their ability to practice relationship selling -- has been ignored by the sales management literature examining the impact of such tools. This research investigates how the incorporation of IT tools in salespeople's customer interactions affects salespeople's perceived relational competencies. Results indicate that while IT tools can enhance some relational competencies, they are likely to inhibit other competencies that may be crucial in industries where close personal customer relationships are core to a firm's success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new venture team is a particular type of top management team neglected by the literature. This study investigated the effects of team inputs and processes on team members' perceptions of team viability and satisfaction in nascent ventures. These outcomes are important as they may be antecedents of team perseverance. The study of 51 new venture teams showed that the presence of a distinct leader was positively related to team satisfaction, while member diversity in educational backgrounds was positively related to perceived team viability. Intrateam processes of social integration and open communication were positively related to both perceived team viability and member satisfaction. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management literature appearing in Library Quarterly, 1931–2004, is examined in this essay. A total of 145 articles are identified that focus on administrative and managerial issues related to libraries during this period. Management literature is construed expansively and includes accounting, administration, assessment, budgets, facilities, organization, outcomes, personnel, planning, purchasing, unions, and library use. Articles are reviewed within a decade-by-decade format, beginning with key national management trends and followed by a brief list of seminal thinkers/contributors. In this way, Library Quarterly articles can be evaluated, in part, in the larger national context. Articles are categorized by type of library, topic, and method of investigation. Noteworthy contributors are identified, and citations to Library Quarterly library management articles are evaluated in terms of their appearance in other relevant library serials and a citation database. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section provides information on the international management research history of the Academy of Management Journal (AMJ). Several trends evident in past international management research are discussed, and the successful transition of AMJ from being primarily North American in focus to being a truly international journal is described. This transition is evident by the dramatic increase in international management research in the 1990s and the continuing growth in international management research in the first half-decade of the 21st century.

A growing body of empirical literature supports key assertions of the resource-based view. However, most of this work examines the impact of firm-specific resources on the overall performance of a firm. In this paper it is argued that, in some circumstances, adopting the effectiveness of business processes as a dependent variable may be more appropriate than adopting overall firm performance as a dependent variable. This idea is tested by examining the determinants of the effectiveness of the customer service business process in a sample of North American insurance companies. Results are consistent with resource-based expectations, and they show that distinctive advantages observable at the process level are not necessarily reflected in firm level performance. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed along with a discussion of the relationship between resources and capabilities, on the one hand, and business processes, activities, and routines, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of publications received by the journal including "The Art and Discipline of Strategic Leadership," by Mike Freedman and Benjamin B. Tregoe, "The Changing Global Context of International Business," by Peter J. Buckley, and "Customer Service: Empowerment and Entrapment," edited by Andrew Sturdy, Irena Grugulis, and Hugh Willmott.

A large literature has successfully employed transaction cost economic theory to describe how exchange conditions affect the optimal form of organization. However, this approach has historically not accounted for the influence of firm -specific attributes on the governance decision. This paper develops a model based on insights from transaction cost economic's, the resource-based view, and real options theory to examine how transaction-level characteristics, firm-specific capabilities, and product-market scope influence the governance of production. Empirical evidence derived from analysis of 469 make-or-buy decisions involving 117 semiconductor firms indicates that decisions regarding the governance of production activities are strongly influenced by both transaction-and firm-level effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the diversification literature, studies, particularly those using accounting-based performance measures, have found that related diversifiers are more profitable and that related diversifiers are in more profitable industries than unrelated diversifiers. Due to the very nature of these studies based on cross-sectional data, however, the causal relationship between diversification strategy and performance was not clear. This paper focuses on a single event of a large acquisition, which enables us to better identify the sequential relationships between prior firm profitability, prior industry profitability, and subsequent acquisition strategies. By doing so, this paper makes clearer the causal relationships between firm profitability, industry profitability, and acquisition strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural perception that human beings are a resource to be used in the pursuit of shareholder value may be challenged by a view that people have a value in their own right. The two classic world systems of management, American and Japanese, may provide the archetypal distinction between two ways of valuing people in organizations and the basis of the ideal types which are referred to in the international management literature as Western and the converse non-Western management practices. There is a growing interest in the relationship between indigenous and Western cultures in the practice and development of management and organization internationally. If organizations are regarded as fulfilling collective social needs such as providing full employment, or serving the needs of people as part of a collective in-group, this may be reflected in the level to which organizations are seen to be fulfilling the needs of their people. Going against this type of view within individualistic societies may be a belief that the corporation has only a contractual obligation to its employees. In a society with collectivistic socio-cultural values, individuals may be valued as part of the wider collective.

A letter from the editor is presented which discusses the role of meta-analysis and replication research in the articles submitted to the periodical for review. The author points out that the journal uses the idea of articles having an important contribution to the field of management as a basis for review. This leads many of the articles to contain information on relatively new ideas, even though some of those ideas contain information of little importance. For this reason, the periodical accepts articles containing replication research and meta-analysis.