A selection of interesting articles we came across recently on manager performance.
Comparing Dutch and British high performing managers
National cultures have a strong influence on the performance of organisations and should be taken into account when studying the traits of high performing managers. At the same time, many studies that focus upon the attributes of successful managers show that there are attributes that are similar for managers across countries. This article reports on the development of empirically validated profiles of Dutch and British high performing managers. Based on a sample of 808 Dutch and 286 British managers and using the cross-cultural framework of Excellent Leadership by Selvarajah et al., the profiles of excellent Dutch and British managers was derived.
The profiles of Dutch and British high performing managers can be described by a four-dimensional factor structure consisting of Managerial behaviours, Environmental influences, Personal qualities and Organisational demands. Based on these validated profiles, the similarities and differences in attributes for managerial success between Dutch and British high performing managers can be identified.
Read more: André A. De Waal, Beatrice I.J.M. Van der Heijden, Christopher Selvarajah and Denny Meyer. 2015. Comparing Dutch and British high performing managers.
Journal of Management & Organization
FirstView article – DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2015.39
What connects CEO charisma with firm performance?
Stephan Boehm, David Dwertmann, Heike Bruch and Boas Shamir suggest that CEO charisma is related to firm performance via its effect on two important mediators. First, charismatic CEOs are expected to raise the transformational leadership climate within an organization. Second, both CEO charisma and transformational leadership climate are proposed to increase a firm’s organizational identity strength (OIDS), which in turn, relates positively to firm performance. The authors tested these propositions on a sample of 150 German companies (20,639 employees) with a three-path mediation model at the organizational level of analysis, utilizing four independent data sources.
This study helps open the black box of organizational leadership and organizational performance by demonstrating top-level leadership’s (CEO charisma) cascading effect on the TFL climate throughout the organization and by showing that OIDS mediates both leadership levels’ relationships with firm performance. Further, this study is the first to investigate the relationship between OIDS and performance at the organizational level of analysis.
Read more: Stephan A. Boehm, David J.G. Dwertmann, Heike Bruch and Boas Shamir. 2015. The missing link? Investigating organizational identity strength and transformational leadership climate as mechanisms that connect CEO charisma with firm performance.
The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), 156–171.
Exploring the influence of chief executive officer professional development and work context on organisation performance: A multi-theoretic perspective
Understanding the value the right chief executive officer selection and tenure choices can bring to an organisation is under researched in legal jurisdictions such as Australia where there is strong separation of the role of the chief executive officer and chairperson. The chief executive officer is the key organisation strategist and plays an important role in formulating and implementing strategy as well as keeping the board of directors informed of the work of the executive team.
This paper reviews and synthesises the corporate governance literature to develop the argument that a chief executive officer’s professional development background and work context will impact his or her ability to favourably influence organisation performance. A series of research propositions of interest to a range of stakeholders inside and outside the organisation are developed drawing on a number of corporate governance theories (e.g., agency theory, stewardship theory). This conceptual paper develops a substantial future empirical research agenda.
Read more: Christian A. Taniman and Timothy F. O’Shannassy. 2015. Exploring the influence of chief executive officer professional development and work context on organisation performance: A multi-theoretic perspective.
Journal of Management & Organization, 21(5), 675-694.
The impact of executive job demands on dismissals of newly appointed CEOs
Why are some newly appointed CEOs dismissed from their positions while others are not? Is it hard for newly appointed CEOs to survive in highly diversified firms? Drawing upon the concepts of executive job demands and information-processing theory, the authors argue that newly appointed CEOs face entirely different degrees of complexity and challenges in their role, and that firms’ product diversification and international diversification predict dismissals of newly appointed CEOs after controlling for other possible explanatory variables.
Additionally, they propose that appointment of a new outsider CEO makes newly appointed CEOs more vulnerable to dismissal and consequently strengthens the predicted relationships. The empirical results support their arguments. These results suggest that the demands faced by a high degree of (product or international) diversification are likely to present challenges that increase the likelihood of corporate disruption through the departures of newly appointed CEOs. Contributions to the CEO dismissal and succession literature are discussed.
Read more: Yu-Kai M Wang and Kun M Yang. 2015. The impact of executive job demands on dismissals of newly appointed CEOs.
Journal of Management & Organization
FirstView article – DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2014.91