3588 Posts Found

Recent surveys reveal that although business executives firmly believe that people are the most important asset, most executives are at a loss to prove that investments in people lead to improved business results. Common metrics like economic value added (EVA™) and return on investment (ROI) shed little light on how an organization’s human assets are performing. They say even less about whether an organization’s people … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: James M. Benton, Peter Cheese, Robert J. Thomas | Source: Accenture | Subject: Organizational Behavior

American culture loves the myth of the lone individual hero. It is built into our cultural DNA as a nation and yet it’s not even supported by the evidence of our own history – the West was settled by groups of people not lone individuals; the great industrial advancements of the 1800s and early 1900s were not accomplished by lone geniuses but achieved by people … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subjects: Culture, International

It was interesting to note that these good to great companies spent no time ‘motivating’ people as such – it just wasn’t something they wasted time and energy on. The very idea of motivating people doesn’t make any sense if you have self-motivated people.

Content: Quotation | Source: Emerald Now | Subjects: Best Practices, Organizational Behavior

The principal strategic challenge for global companies is the reconciliation of seemingly conflicting goals: thinking long-term while delivering short-term results, developing global scale while being locally responsive, and investing in innovation while increasing operational efficiency. In each aspect of this challenge there is a tension between two necessary but apparently opposing goals, which needs resolution.

The solution to both kinds of tension is to convert … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Arun N. Maira | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subject: Organizational Behavior

This short, self-assured novel by Australian-born Jennings (Snake) brilliantly depicts the complicated life of a working woman on Wall Street during the dot-com boom. Cath, a freelance writer in her 40s, is married to Bailey, who’s 25 years her senior. When he develops Alzheimer’s, she takes a speech-writing job at an investment bank to pay for his expensive medical care. Wry but realistic, and realizing … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Kate Jennings | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Women in Business | Industry: Investment Banking

Effective communication does not consist in speech. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot encompass it. It must consist in the speaker, in the subject, and in the occasion.

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Communication, Persuasion

Faced with a rapidly evolving competitive marketplace, the chief executives of many of today’s leading companies have embarked on major change initiatives. The goal is twofold: to challenge the existing ways of conducting business and to drive step-level improvements in operating performance. The method is two-pronged as well: cut costs significantly and build capabilities to better serve the marketplace. These initiatives, then, often involve the … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: David J. Ortiz, Edith Howle, Gary L. Neilson | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

How customers perceive or feel about a firm changes over time. Building trust and a mutually satisfying relationship with customers is an important goal for many organizations. Understanding how these relationships build and deteriorate is thus critical. By helping shed light on that process, this study by Professors Sandy Jap and Erin Anderson offers some important insights into relationship management.

Content: Article | Authors: Erin Anderson, Sandy D. Jap | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Marketing / Sales, Organizational Behavior

Listed as 1 of the top 10 management books to have in your management library by Richard Donkin.

Content: Book | Authors: Bernard M Bass, Gerald V Barrett | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Great or miserable or in-between, the core group sets the organization’s direction. The organization goes wherever its people perceive that the core group needs and wants to go. The organization becomes whatever its people perceive that the core group needs and wants it to become. If a goal is perceived as irrelevant to the core group, then it will not be reached, no matter how … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subject: Organizational Behavior

Entrepreneurs come in two flavors-near-term and future-oriented. They mix like oil and water, but companies need both to sustain innovation and execute brilliantly. This piece talks about how to strike the right balance.

Content: Article | Author: Jane C. Linder | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

This pair of Canadian b-school profs detail a change process utilizing 10 “Winning Conditions” to create shared understanding, speed, and critical mass. They also show how to apply the process to five common organizational challenges: acquisition integration; new venture launches; IT roll-outs; organizational turnarounds; and culture changes.

Content: Book | Authors: Elspeth Murray, Peter Richardson | Subjects: Change Management, Organizational Behavior

In an age of mergers and acquisitions, identity management is becoming increasingly difficult, yet necessary in terms of both customers and employees. The key to make it work? Creating a feeling of community.

Content: Article | Author: David Berreby | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Say what you will about how the United States is superior to Denmark, Finland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand and Colombia, but those countries have us beat when it comes to how much vacation time they give employees. Even the stingiest of these countries – New Zealand and Colombia – give employees 50 percent … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Business Finance Magazine | Subjects: International, Organizational Behavior

In even the largest and best-managed companies, hundreds of organizational muddles take place every day. Throughout the economy, they add up to a staggering waste of our national resources.

Editor’s note: This article comes from the fifth chapter of Marvin Bower’s 1966 book, The Will to Manage. It is interesting how timeless the analysis is…

Content: Article | Author: Marvin Bower | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

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No one wants to be the one to challenge the importance of diversity. But a new study shows that we need to look more closely at how much diversity initiatives really contribute.

Content: Article | Author: Melissa Master | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

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According to Prospect Theory, if you want to drive decision-makers towards a riskier decision, convince them that they are already losing. If you want to drive decision-makers towards a risk-averse decision, convince them that they are ahead and stand to lose quite a bit.

Content: Quotation | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Economics, Personality / Behavior

You can dismiss it as the rumor mill, but the truth is that this form of communication has its place in the corporation. Here’s how to work with, not against, this phenomenon.

Content: Article | Author: Shannon T. Kalvar | Source: TechRepublic | Subject: Organizational Behavior