3605 Posts Found

While the focus on stakeholders may be a bottom-up movement, the control in corporations is still exercised top-down: The money’s at the top, the pain at the bottom. CEOs today are making well over 400 times the average worker’s salary. If there was any group in the country looking out for the mid-range executive–which there isn’t–they’d have some wicked things to say about the gap … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Corporate Governance, Organizational Behavior

Post-Enron principles for encouraging creativity without crossing the line.

Editor’s Note: offers a detailed look at BP’s management model and the balancing of it’s four components and also offers a quick review of four basic schools of thought on corporate entrepreneurship. A good read…

Content: Article | Author: Julian Birkinshaw | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Are Psychometric tests a reliable method of selection? A US academic, Robyn Dawes and two headhunters, Robert Irving and Stuart O’Reilly of Whitehead Mann, debate the evidence.

Content: Article | Authors: Robert Irving, Robyn Dawes, Stuart O’Reilly | Source: European Business Forum (EBF) | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

Men and nations may behave wisely once they’ve exhausted all other alternatives.

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subjects: Perception, Personality / Behavior

When something goes wrong in an organization, the first question that is often posed is, “Whose fault is it?”

Blaming seems to be a natural reflex in many organizations. Even those individuals who wish to learn from mistakes fall into naming culprits. Once we figure out who’s at fault, we then try to find out what is wrong with the supposed offenders. Only when we … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Marilyn Paul | Source: Prism (Arthur D. Little) | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Centralize your IT department or decentralize? Which gives your company the biggest boost? Depends.

Content: Article | Authors: David R. Laube, Raymond F. Zammuto | Source: Darwin Magazine | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Organizational Behavior

More and more companies say the COO is no longer necessary, but a few still find it essential.

Content: Article | Author: Pamela Mendels | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Trends / Analysis

How businesses treat their people has a demonstrable effect on the bottom line. But few executives know how to encourage the kind of high-performance work practices that will help employees create value for their companies. A comprehensive new human-performance framework can help organizations invest in their people so that performance-and, ultimately, overall business value-will increase in a consistent, predictable way.

Content: Article | Authors: Martin H. Borell, Terence V. Neill | Source: Outlook Journal (Accenture) | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Strategy

The more we have identified our worth (who we are) with our strengths (how we do things), the more likely we are to respond with denial, rationalization, resistance, and distortion when given feedback about the downside of our strengths.

Content: Quotation | Source: CEO Refresher | Subject: Personality / Behavior

If there’s been unusually high turnover in your company’s ranks, take a look at each employee’s first week on the job. Too many managers let snap judgments made during that time affect a new employee’s whole tenure with the company.

Content: Article | Authors: Jean-François Manzoni, Jean-Louis Barsoux | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Career, Organizational Behavior

Fans of the hit TV comedy “The Jerry Seinfeld Show” may remember an episode in which Jerry’s friend George leaves his car parked at work so that the boss will think George is putting in long hours, even when he’s not. The idea, of course, is that George’s apparent productivity will net him a higher raise or bonus. Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer would call George’s … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Wharton | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

This unique book studies how ideas percolate within organizations. It identifies “idea practitioners” (managers who introduce new thinking to their companies), studies the role of management gurus, and describes how to evaluate new ideas for fit. Included are case studies of reengineering and knowledge management, as well as lists of business ideas and leading management thinkers.

Editor’s Note: you can download chapter 1 at … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: H. James Wilson, Laurence Prusak, Thomas H. Davenport | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

Ahead of the customer stand at least seven other people you’d better satisfy-or else.

Editor’s Note: a look at the author’s Core Group Theory of Power.

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

People tend to become so engrossed in activity that they lose sight of purpose.

Content: Quotation | Source: TechRepublic | Subjects: Personality / Behavior, Work

Gary Klein studies decision-making in the field, tagging along with firefighters, standing by in intensive-care units, and watching chess masters play lightning-fast “blitz” games to learn how people make choices with time constraints, limited information, and changing goals. From this research, he and his associates have developed a theory of “naturalistic decision-making.”
Sources of Power essentially lends the validity of scientific research to techniques that many … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Gary Klein | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

One of the greatest myths going is that you’ve got to create a family-friendly company in order to recruit and retain talented employees. Well, you absolutely have to do so, but the myth is thinking that family-friendly policies are going to solve the problem of overwork. I know company after company with generous family-leave policies that enable employees to take sabbaticals and to take time … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Across the Board (ATB) | Subjects: Career, Organizational Behavior

People who don’t share our values are cancerous to the organization, regardless of their performance. In my experience, every time you invest trying to save these people you end up regretting it. It’s simply too difficult to change people’s values.

Content: Quotation | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Human Resources, Organizational Behavior

As markets become more global, organizations face the daunting task of coordinating goals, actions and resources in order to function as one company. The mantra, “think global, act local,” challenges organizations to be more centralized-to leverage size and scale-while simultaneously being more decentralized and able to react to local demands and markets. The need to operate globally but act locally has spawned a flurry of … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Kearney | Subjects: Best Practices, Organizational Behavior

The absence of a vision will doom any strategy — especially a strategy for change. A true vision shapes your hiring, assessment, and promotion of employees, and your behavior toward customers, partners, and investors. It is a more powerful tool for leading an organization than any market analysis or spreadsheet…I invest our resources in vision and values because company culture is inseparable from strategy — … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Leader to Leader | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Vision

U.S. businesses hold 15 million meetings per day. No wonder it’s hard to reach a decision. But there are software tools that can help – group decision support systems (GDSS).

Content: Article | Author: Rod Chapman | Source: Darwin Magazine | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Organizational Behavior