Mind the Perils of Organizational Growth

You’ve managed to overcome the early problems of survival, but now how do you build the business? Many firms face the same challenges. Prof. Donnellon provides insights and solutions on key problems like:

  1. Finding experienced people
  2. Affording the people you want
  3. How to effectively organize your people
  4. preserving an effective culture

Performance Improvement – A Classic Checklist

Improving Performance by Rummler and Brache remains a classic reference for organization design, process re-engineering, and performance improvement. Their central theme is an approach which examines ‘performance’ at three conceptual ‘levels’ – that of organization strategy and structure, that of key business processes, and that of individual ‘job performers’. An effective and integrated approach requires a view of all three dimensions.

Here is a … [ Read more ]

Napolean

To get power you need to display absolute pettiness, to exercise power you need to show true greatness.

Who’s Helping Whom, and Why? A Comparison of American and Indian Software Engineers

Why do people help one another at work? Is it a form of egoism or of altruism? In this working paper, Professors Leslie Perlow and John R. Weeks investigate helping in Indian and American software firms, considering both the motivations behind the action as well as the contexts in which it occurs. Their results may surprise you.

Reading the Signals: Janet Hanson, Founder of 85 Broads, on Networking and Success

Janet Hanson, 14-year veteran of Goldman Sachs and founder of investment advisory firm Milestone Capital, described her rocky but ultimately victorious road to success at the Wharton Women in Business Conference held earlier this month. Later in the day a panel of women in international management positions talked about the cultural challenges that still confront businesswomen both here and abroad.

Jim Clemmer

Far more people act themselves into a new way of thinking than think themselves into a new way of acting.

Money maketh the Internet firm: how funding impacts culture

A quick look at culture implications of the three primary funding models for startups:
– Self-funding from the entrepreneur’s personal resources and “friends and family”
– Funding from venture capital firms
– Funding from larger corporate and governmental agencies

Use the Best, Leave the Rest: New Technologies in Turbulent Times

Identifying, adopting, and exploiting new technologies is a critical part of any firm’s organisational learning, and ultimately, its survival. In today’s fast-paced world, this is a difficult process that raises numerous questions: When should a firm abandon familiar technologies for ones unknown? How does limited information or others’ opinions affect the decision? And what difference do network structures make on innovation adaptation? Andrea Masini and … [ Read more ]

Caught In The Act – How to Acknowledge People Without Turning Them Off

Everybody likes to be acknowledged and appreciated for their efforts. Or do they? Most companies have a formal way of acknowledging employees with such things as annual award banquets, top sales awards and certificates. There are a couple major pitfalls to these programs…

Pulling the Talent Lever

In their book, The War for Talent, Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod predict that the crucial force that will make or break firms in the next two decades will be their ability to attract, develop, and retain managers at all levels.

Do High Consulting Fees Compromise the Independence of CPA Firms?

Certified public accountants, in many people’s eyes, serve as cops on the Wall Street beat, assuring the accuracy of the financial results reported by U.S. companies. But key components of the audit process – the independence and objectivity of auditors – may be eroding because of the huge fees paid by audit clients for non-audit services.

Status: Means to an End Or An End in Itself?

Why is status so important to us? Do we consider it a tool to obtain power or a goal in and of itself? To answer these questions, Bernardo A. Huberman and Professors Christoph Loch and Ayse Onculer ran a human experiment, using a rent-seeking game to examine status and behavior in the US, Hong Kong, Turkey and Germany. Their results may surprise you.

Why Resistance Matters

Resistance is a natural part of change. It protects people from harm. Resistance is not the primary reason why changes fail. It is often the reaction to resistance that creates the problems.

Unknown

The different priorities that employees have can be described by the acronym MORE – Money, Opportunity, Respect, Experience