Organisational Behaviour

Leadership and personality are few of the factors which explain the leader-subordinate relationship in any organisation. Studies seldom explored the relationship between leadership and personality on commitment of organisational members differentiating gender role in the small and medium scale industries. Hence this study focuses on the relationship between leadership and personality on commitment of SME managers. Following cross sectional descriptive study design with purposive sampling, the study conducted among 285 managers of SMEs in the Klang Valley region of Malaysia. The study used SPSS to analyse the data providing managerial implications to SME entrepreneurs.

Keywords: Leadership, personality, gender, SME.

This chapter explores the idea of the Church as a mother and the impact it has on creating a healthy Church and adults for the Church. It uses the psychoanalytic hermeneutic, organisational behaviour theory, and recommendations from researchers on dealing with the aftermath of sexual abuse in church institutions. The article promotes that if the Church is to truly enact its mission, the idea of the mother as an unconscious principle operating beneath unhealthy cultures within the church, must be investigated.

This is a part of a book chapter on the organisation of the traditional krampus groupings in Austria published in "Wild und Schön":

Die Mitglieder einer Krampus Pass finden auf verschiedene Weise zueinander und sind genauso vielfältig organisiert. Die hier beschriebene Anifer Krampus Pass verdeutlicht wie eine Pass von Innen aussehen kann und welche Aufgaben wie zugeteilt werden. Die Kultur-und Sozialanthropologie versteht es nicht nur oberflächliche Beschreibungen zu liefern, sondern auch auf dahinterliegende Strukturen aufmerksam zu machen. Daher ergab diese vorliegende Untersuchung, dass die Aufgabenverteilung nicht auf einem Zufall beruht, sondern unter anderem dadurch begründet ist, wie Mitglieder auf unterschiedliche Art und Weise sich auch außerhalb der Pass kennen. In anderen Worten geht dieser Artikel darauf ein, wie Mitglieder der Anifer Krampus Pass zueinander in Beziehung stehen. Das zeigt sich in dem Fall der Anifer Krampusse deutlich in Freundschaften, Verwandtschaften und im Verein der freiwilligen Feuerwehr. Die Erfahrung und die erbrachte Leistung in der Pass-" wie man sich in die Gruppe einbringt "-ist ebenso ausschlaggebend für die Position in der Gruppe und wird hier nur beiläufig behandelt.

From a philosophical viewpoint and a technical perspective, this paper claims that learning organizations are the most effective organizations which 1) demonstrate transformative leadership practices, 2) work to instigate a learning-based organizational environment, and 3) continually promote learning behavior at all levels, to name a few of its key characteristics. Like other organizations, educational organizations would exhibit individual behavior, collective actions and interactions which define their norms and values. The purpose of this paper is to explore: what it means to be a learning organization; what are and should be its key characteristics; and how to create a learning organization. The findings of this study show that learning organizations are characterized by a collective struggle to achieve organizational goals, where  culture and climate concerns become paramount, and learning is viewed as part of everyone’s business regardless of individual differences, roles, and responsibilities. It is the leadership in a learning organization that builds the culture and climate conducive to bring about transformation at individual, organizational and societal levels with the concepts of lifelong learning.

Keywords: Learning Organization;Organizational Learning;Lifelong Learning;Organizational Citizenship Behavior;Transformative Leadership

Organisational cultures rest on a shared understanding of common meanings and values. However, organisations are not homogenous entities, and there is often variation in the extent to which different sectors of an organisation adopt the same values and assumptions. A previous paper illustrated how organisational cultures can be usefully construed as social representations. This paper explores the relationship between social representations and social identification within the organisation. It is proposed that social identity processes mediate the development of shared social representations in the organisation, which may or may not be congruent with dominant social representations. This models permits analysis of the psychological mechanics of organisational diversity, and of the role of the working group in facilitating, or otherwise, organisational change.

Leadership has assumed immense importance in today’s times. The quality of leadership prevalent in an organization and country is ultimately detrimental to its growth and existence. Leadership dimensions have also evolved over a period of time. There is an increasing acceptance of leaders who are innovative and action oriented rather than preachers. There are number of young leaders who are embracing corporate positions and are taking their organizations to unprecedented success. A number of dynamic political leaders are also leading their countries and deciding their destinies.
The young generation is seeing this exciting paradigm shift in leadership styles .The study tries to find out the perception of leadership amongst the young generation of today. The study also tries to find out the various qualities expected in a leader as required by the young generation. In addition the study will also provide insights on male and female differences of leader expectations. In addition the research will also shed light on the leaders who are admired by the younger generation of today.

This study explores school leadership behaviour patterns emphasising on either taskoriented behaviour or relations-oriented behaviour or a combination of both task and relations as a readiness for leadership to embark for a ‘grand leap’. A ‘grand leap’ is defined in this dissertation as a cumulative progressive development that transforms a school. This study explored the grand leap as a process en-route towards the future
development of a school with the practice of school leadership through two types of behaviour patterns and awareness of contextual intelligence by school leaders. These aspects were explored through leadership that facilitated motivation, fostering commitment, and thereby enriching the school climate. These were the prerequisite
conditions, as seen in this study, for exploring school leadership en-route towards a grand leap. Leadership flexibility and core competencies initiated leadership effectiveness by facilitating a school’s transition towards a ‘grand leap’, which is a systematic leadership process in achieving school success. In examining school leadership in this research, guidelines were constructed with a theoretical foundation that enabled the exploration of leadership readiness. In exploring leadership cross-cultural research offered a wide range of social, political and cultural dimensions in explaining the phenomena at play. Case studies of three schools each from two countries – Finland and Nepal – were used for the purpose of leadership exploration, amounting to six schools in total. Based on a qualitative research design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with different stakeholders employed at the schools participating in this research. Two sets of interview schedules were prepared - one for the school leaders and the other for the professional community comprising the teachers, administrative
staff and school management committee members. Although the school contexts in the two countries differed, similarities were also observed. Similarities included the changing contexts of school organization in both countries, which resulted in shaping leadership behaviour patterns, demonstrating that school leaders were either high on task-oriented behaviour or high on relations-oriented behaviour en-route to a grand leap or systematically advancing the development of their school. School leadership en-route to a grand leap is an on-going process. This study discusses how a grand leap of a school was  determined by the contextual settings of the school where emerging leadership readiness can shape the necessary behaviour patterns, together with leadership core competencies of experience and intelligence. The results of this study suggest that external factors have dominance over the construction of the context, as reflected in the contextual variations of each school that participated in this research. These contextual variations offer school leaders a reference to the immediate context, in turn, leading to the possibility of proposing
initiatives to address any issues of concern or challenges encountered by leaders. This offers a Referee Leadership Style – enabling leaders to understand the immediate contextual variations for developing leadership effectiveness. Although many factors are involved with the progressive development of a school, this study focused on the core areas of leadership by exploring motivation, commitment and school climate. The results suggest that leadership effectiveness and
growth needs were encouraged through emphasizing task-oriented behaviour. The results further suggest that leadership that emphasized task-oriented behaviour also fostered attitudinal commitment. However, leadership high on relations-oriented behaviour enabled relatedness needs and incorporated behavioural commitment. That
is, contextual experiences of leadership contributed to relatedness needs and behavioural commitment. These aspects offered social harmony, producing a positive working climate within schools. The contextual intelligence of leadership also contributed towards attitudinal commitment and enabled leadership flexibility. This study discusses the competencies of leadership that enabled school leaders to adapt or be flexible in generating the elasticity of leadership in coping with
the dynamic environment to maintain appropriateness of leadership styles to adjust to continuous changes. Leadership elasticity further enabled school leaders to demonstrate leadership equilibrium by maintaining flexibility in leadership behaviour patterns and leadership contextual intelligence. Leadership equilibrium was found to be essential as leaders must maintain the style flexibility and the style drift for
leadership effectiveness to arrive at a grand leap.

Key words: Leadership behaviour, task oriented, relations oriented, contextual intelligence, crosscultural, leadership elasticity, Referee leadership style

Socio-cultural realities are important components in the Nigerian business environment. There is dearth of literature and studies that linked socio-cultural realities to business development and performance. This paper provides an analysis of the results of a qualitative Nigerian study regarding the effects of socio-cultural realities on small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Lagos state. Socio-cultural realities were measured from three major factors, namely attitude; religion and values: each were further categorised into several level of constructs. A purposive non-random sampling technique of ten (10) SME owners/representatives cut across key industries and the five (5) major districts of Lagos state, respectively provided the primary data used in this study. The primary data were collected with the aid of semi-structured, pre-tested sets of interview timetables, administered through face-to-face interviews and discussions so as to produce the required information from the respondents. Responses from the ten (10) SME owners identified socio-cultural realities as the underlying factors affecting their businesses. The study concludes that socio-cultural realties play a major role in business performances and developments. Government, policy makers, regulators should collaborate with the SMEs operators within the socio-cultural realities of their values, religion and culture for entrepreneurial development in Nigeria.

This article is informed by the Fun Theory, a theory that calls for the institutionalisation of fun in social settings. It highlights how the academic and non-academic literature shows some individuals to find the practice of graffiti to be fun. It then attempts to build an empirical framework for the idea of institutionalising this fun practice in the social settings of the higher education sector. It addresses the research question: To what extent does the institutionalisation of graffiti in the societal culture of higher education institutions enhance public expression among members through their reflection on daily social and academic life? This question was addressed by a semester-long experiment, wherein graffiti was incorporated into the day-to-day social activity of a Saudi public university, by officially allocating certain walls that members could legally write upon and, further, draw whatever they wanted. The experiment appeared to be fruitful in the sense that the allocated walls were full of writings and drawings, enabling and promoting among members a sense of public articulation based on consideration of their own daily academic and social experience. Thus, it could be suggested that the Fun Theory in general and the institutionalisation of graffiti in particular could hold value for organisations in general and for higher education institutions in particular.

Deviance and loneliness at work are two constructs, the public interpretation of which locates them as social and economic problems that risk wellbeing and productivity at work. In line with the dominant framing of these two concepts, the authors first examine the overlap between them, explicating how and why deviance and loneliness may be similar. Through exploration of academic evidence and framing of both concepts, they provide a typology of deviance and loneliness that flesh out both destructive and constructive interpretations of the two concepts with a view to identify behavioral patterns at their intersection.

This article examines the relationship between perceived gender discrimination and the dimensions of work engagement and the role of future time perspective on this relationship. Based on a social cognitive frame work, it was hypothesized that future time perspective is positively related to work engagement. Further, it was also expected that future time perspective would work as a compensatory motivational resources and weaken the negative relationship between gender discrimination and work engagement. These questions were examined using a sample of female employees working in textile and apparel companies in Chennai and the Puducherry region of India (N=234). Results indicate that future time perspective has a positive relationship with physical, cognitive as well as emotional engagement of the respondents. It also moderates significantly the relationship between perceived gender discrimination and cognitive as well as emotional dimensions of work engagement. However, no significa...

As we move into the 21 st century it is becoming clear that no country is immune from the globalisation process and/or its impact. As a result of this process there is an increasing need for organisations operating in the global environment to increase their competitiveness. In doing so they ...

Trust in business and many companies is at a low level. If investors, customers, employees and other stakeholders are sceptical and sometimes feel disadvantaged because ambiguous material has been issued or relevant information has been concealed from them, questions should be asked as to whether board members have exercised the degree of independent judgement and scepticism expected of a competent director. Individually and collectively they may need to do more to critique board papers, question assumptions and challenge proposals with a greater degree of detachment, objectivity and healthy scepticism, Examines differing perceptions of reality and how to critique, raise sensitive issues, understand boardroom games and escalation options, be wary of fashions and fads and deal with conflict in the boardroom. Directors need to make time available and board chairs have an important role to play in ensuring scepticism and challenge and building trust.

Published as: Coulson-Thomas, Colin (2018), Scepticism, Challenge and Trust in the Boardroom, Director Today, Vol. IV Issue V, May, pp 53-56

The business environment in which an organization operates is highly competitive,
unpredictable, and unstable. Many organizations constantly change in order to survive. This
includes organizations in the hospitality industry. Moving towards a change, a paradigm in
which the hospitality industry operates may change, die as an organization fails, or continue
on as before. This significantly depends on how people understand a paradigm change and
cope with it. Investigating the paradigm change can offer a useful way of looking at what is
happening to most organizations in the hospitality industry. One way of doing this is through
the meta-theory of Knowledge Cybernetics (KC). Examples of the issues involved are
provided by the brief examinations of the organizational growth of Starbucks Coffee
Company, the Texas Pacific takeover of Midwest Airlines, and Thai Airways Internationalis
privatization.

This dissertation aims to explore the impact of performance management on organisational success at McDonald’s. Performance management is an important element of the Human Resource activities in a professional business environment. The importance of performance management has been significantly increased over the past few years because it has a direct impact on the overall productivity and growth of the organisation. Performance management is directly associated with employees motivation in the organisation because if employees are motivated and satisfied at the workplace​ they will be able to perform in a more effective way at the workplace. It is essential for any organisation to design the compensation and rewarding system in a way which can increase the employee’s satisfaction at the workplace. Employees are the most important asset for any organisation and performance of the employees always has an impact on the bottom line of the organisation .The study also aims at evaluating the role of performance management in the human resource management process

Based on the OCAI model, our study analyses and compares two things (1) the corporate culture of the University of Debrecen Faculty of Engineering as it is perceived by its engineering management students; and (2) the culture they think would be ideal. According to the respondents the existing culture is closer to the clan type and further from the market type compared to the average. Their ideal culture is closer to the clan, adhocracy and further from the market (compared to the average). The perceived current and the ideal culture are significantly different only in the adhocracy type. From the 20 items of the OCAI questionnaire 7 were significantly different from the average in the case of the perceived culture and 13 in the case of the ideal culture. Differences between ideal and present cultures are statistically supported only in the following dimensions: dominant characteristics (clan is currently stronger, adhocracy is weaker), corporate leadership (market is currently stronger), strategic emphasis (hierarchy is currently stronger).

Tanulmányunk OCAI modell segítségével elemzi a Debreceni Egyetem műszaki menedzser hallgatói által észlelt és ideálisnak tartott szervezeti kultúrát. A válaszadók a klán típushoz az átlagostól szignifikánsan közelebbinek, a piacitól pedig távolabbinak érzik szervezeti kultúrájukat. Az adhokrácia és a hierarchia esetében nem érzik azt az átlagostól eltérőnek. Ideálisnak az átlagostól klánhoz és adhokráciához közelebbi, a piactól távolabbi kultúrát tartanának. A jelenlegi és a kívánatos közti jelentős eltérés csak az adhokratikusság esetében mutatható ki. Az OCAI vizsgált kérdései (20) közül a jelenlegi észlelések 7, az ideális értékek 13 esetben térnek el jelentősen az átlagostól. A jelenlegi és az ideális szintek közül a jelenlegi szignifikánsan magasabb a következők esetében: domináns jellemzők (klán), leadership (piac), stratégia (hierarchia). Alacsonyabb pedig a domináns jellemzők (adhokrácia), esetében.

Le monde de la complexité n’est en rien un paradis idyllique où régneraient la paix et la concorde universelle. Le conflit et les paradoxes font eux aussi partie du catalogue des comportements émergents, au sein des organisations post-modernes. Et en gérer au mieux les effets pernicieux et les composantes observables, un devoir et une nécessitée. Ainsi, à un « nouvel Art de la guerre » doit correspondre corrélativement un « nouvel Art de l’organisation ». Celui-ci doit faire fi des anciens systèmes de commandements centralisés et trop hiérarchiques.  Chacun le constate aujourd’hui,  il est en train de voir le jour partout ailleurs et pourrait même bien devenir – peu ou prou –  le « modus operandi » ingénieux d’un futur modèle d’organisation décisionnel pour l’institution militaire.

This article offers brief commentary in response to the Organisational Trust dimension of the survey conducted in Southern Africa. Global social trends are used in an attempt to allow for sense-making from the findings. Globally, choice is gaining prominence in social systems and leading to public expression.

Purpose – The purpose of the article is to share certain findings of a five-year investigation.

Design/methodology/approach – It draws upon under-pinning research reports and analysis of early adoptions of what the evidence suggests is the most affordable route to high performance organisations.

Findings – Many corporate culture change programmes are unnecessary if their purpose is to quickly change behaviours and can be problematic in organisations that need to embrace a diversity of cultures and a variety of approaches and behaviours across different functions and business units.

Practical implications – Performance support can be a cost-effective way of changing behaviour, ensuring people remain current and competitive and delivering multiple objectives without requiring a change of culture or structure.

Originality/value – The article suggests that a “new leadership” and shift of emphasis is required.

A BIM report based upon a survey of chairmen, CEOs and managing directors of organizations employing three million people which identifies the need for more responsive and flexible forms of organization with processes in place for the facilitation of adaptation and learning, continuous development the responsibility of all managers and profit and people responsibilities pushed down the organization. A later three volume set of reports with methodology for creating a more responsive organization with new ways of working, case studies and relevant tools and techniques entitled The Responsive Organisation is available from Policy Publications (www.policypublications.com)