Visiting Scholar in Catholic Thought: Dr. André L. Delbecq - 2010

In what way does Christian spirituality impact contemporary business leadership? This short article provides examples of some executives whose personal spiritual tradition deeply informs and shapes their leadership. Themes reported include a sense of leadership as a calling, the desire to integrate deeply held personal values with the leadership role, and spirituality as a source of courage when facing daunting challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the author's views on researcher Michael Goldberg's article on university-based researches. Opinion that Goldberg provided an eloquent discourse defending the university-based researches; Information that what distinguishes a university from training programs, journalistic summaries of contemporary thinking, or simple surveys of current practices is the unique currency of theory and research; View that good theory orders inquiry surrounding a topic and provides careful attention to contingencies; Report that quality research points out paradoxes and unintended consequences, clarifies magnitudes, helps create realistic expectations, and tests significance; View of Goldberg that there is no shortcut to the process of carefully studying complex subjects through the lenses of theory and the calibration of research results.

This research evaluated four methods of eliciting subjective likelihood ratio estimates. The methods differed in terms of amount and structure of interaction permitted between estimators. These processes were individual estimates, and three group processes: a Talk-Estimate process approximating an interacting group, an Estimate-Feedback-Estimate process as an approximation of a Delphi group, an Estimate-Talk-Estimate process as combination of nominal and interacting groups. In this study the Estimate-Talk-Estimate group process was superior in approaching correct estimates in this judgmental task. This is consistent with the long research tradition which favors group as opposed to individual problem-solving in judgmental situations. The individual Estimate process and the Estimate-Feedback-Estimate technique performed about equally well with respect to both error and variability. If anything, written feedback appeared to lead to a reduction in the quality of estimates. Finally, the relatively poor results from the Talk-Estimate process are consistent with other studies which have pointed out dysfunctions of inter- acting group processes for judgmental tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the concerns on the role of women in business. Encouragement of responsibility and raising of morale in the workforce; Reflection of a whole confidence in the movement for women; Discrimination of pregnant women in the corporate world.

This paper classifies alternative mechanisms for coordinating work activities within organizations into impersonal, personal and group modes. It investigates how variations and interactions in the use of these coordination mechanisms and modes are explained by task uncertainty, interdependence and unit size. Nine hypotheses that relate these three determining factors to the use of the three coordination modes are developed in order to test some key propositions of Thompson (1967) and others on coordination at the work unit or departmental level of organization analysis. Research results from 197 work units within a large employment security agency largely support the hypotheses. The findings suggest that there are differences in degree and kind of influence of each determining factor on the mix of alternative coordination mechanisms used within organizational units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Available via Interlibrary Loan

Focuses on the views of investment officers on the effect of finance on management behavior. Predictors of financial performance; Interview with Rex J. Bates, financial vice president of State Farm Insurance Companies on the issue; Conflict between financial models and behavioral theories.

The article introduces two interviews with significant persons in the fields of higher education and health care management Interviews include one with Peter Frost, the Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Professional Programs at the University of British Columbia and another interview with Frank E. Murray of the Kaiser Permanente organization.

Presents an introduction of articles on the international concept of firm management. European conceptualization of management; Perception on employee motivation; Importance of understanding other cultures for managing in a global context.

This article reflects on the self-reported experiences of senior executives who encounter “dark and destructive” personalities among professionals who “suck the life juices” from their organizational group, crippling the group in such a way that all positive spirit is lost. Shying from clinical terms outside their domain, these executives label this behavior as evil. The article undertakes a description of evil as reflected in their reports and sets forth tentative recommendations and cautions for dealing with this complex subject. It concludes that management theory by avoiding this difficult topic gives greater power to the dark side of organizational life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the issues surrounding innovations in health care in the United States. Four innovation lessons learned from other industries; Need to stimulate shared direction through scouting and forums; Need for physicians to preserve their basic professional autonomy; Description of the three innovation phases.

This article extends the concept of corporate culture to the level of industry culture and examines regional influences on management practices in Silicon Valley and Route 128. In-depth interviews with CEOs and executives in mature electronics firms were conducted. Results from the data indicate that these high-technology cultures and related management practices differ significantly and are influenced by particular regional characteristics. Conceptual and consulting implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the non-fiction book 'Housing Heaven's Fire: The Challenge of Holiness,' by John Haughey.

Book Review

The author presents his experience to illustrate how the religious traditions of calling and spiritual friendship influenced his life as teacher or scholar. After completing his doctorate, he pondered how he might commence his career. He remember vividly praying for insight. The author was bothered about the method of utilizing his education to serve people. The author was called by a dean of the College of Business at the University of Toledo. The dean wanted to build a connection between the College of Business and the Toledo community caught in the vice of two challenges: the need to transition to contemporary manufacturing and the ethnic and racial struggles characteristic of the industrial Midwest ml 960 prior to the civil rights movement. The author accepted this call as a chance to fulfil his desire. The author established a lifelong pattern of interdisciplinary scholarship. The second religious influence central to the authors career has been spiritual friendship. He cites a short story to present this aspect of spirituality.

The article focuses on the innovation challenges faced by the executives of Silicon Valley. In excellent organizations, innovation is also revealed by Silicon Valley executives as a major element affecting profitability. For these executives, being adroit at innovation is not simply a strategic option; rather, innovation has become essential to survival as a corporate player. Unless firms learn to institutionalize the innovation process, the previously cited admonitions hardly suffice. This article suggests that innovation as practiced by top managers in Silicon Valley is a critical survival skill predicated on a developmental sequence. Executives within these companies develop norms important to each phase of the innovation process and coach those who volunteer to champion innovation through each phase. Elements of the structure and process encompassed in these phases are also described in the article. The use of phased development also allows firms to compare the pace of their innovation process relative to that of global competitors.

Presents an excerpts of the speech related to career development given by Andre Delbecq at the American College of Physicians Fellows Induction Ceremony on April 2004 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Focuses on the managerial practices enhancing innovation. Definition of innovation; Components of a healthy organizations; Effect of innovations on performance of employees; Information of process of innovation in organizations.

This article presents the author's views on the death of Larry L. Cummings, editor of the "Academy of Management Journal" and professor at the University of Minnesota. Larry and the author were doctoral students together at Indiana University in 1961 through 1963 sharing an office, classes, and the trials of graduate studies. Even as a doctoral student, Larry infected everyone with his special love of psychologically oriented theory and research. For the author's generation, he was the spokesman for what was then a new behavioral approach to management thought. In classes, conversations, and tutorials, Larry was always a source of information and provoked new ways of thinking. He possessed a remarkable patience when trying to unravel intellectual puzzles, a command of a vast body of literature, and was generous in bringing his insight to bear on our scholarship, however different our topics might be front his own current research agenda. Everyone in the academy know that this generous guidance to young scholars was a charisma that continued throughout Larry's entire career.

The book 'Rethinking Management Education,' edited by Robert French and Christopher Grey, proved to be a critical inquiry into the philosophical underpinnings of managerial education, which the editors see 'has for better or worse, a crucial role in producing and reproducing the practices of management' (p. 2) but which must be critically assessed against the intellectual constructs of the Roman-Greco classics, humanism, neo-Weberianism, neo-Marxism, Foucauldianism, environmentalism, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My decision about whom to select as the Academy of Management's Executive of the Year revolved around the concept of values. I wanted to showcase a leading CEO who has been successful in creating an innovative and highly profitable company, and who has done so based on a strongly held system of personal values that permeate the organization and everyone in it. In making my selection, I enlisted the help of Professor Andre Delbecq, director of the Institute for Spirituality of Organizational Leadership at the University of Santa Clara. The executive he recommended, Hatim Tyabji, fulfills these criteria in outstanding ways. Mr. Tyabji has had a significant impact on the telecommunications industry. In 1998. he founded Saraide to drive the convergence between the Internet and wireless communications. The company delivers a wide range of wireless Internet services to customers around the world. In 1999, he negotiated the sale of 80 percent of Saraide to lnfoSpace.com, a leading Internet information and commerce infrastructure provider, creating the largest global alliance in the wireless Internet services market. As a result, customers using pagers, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or television-set-top boxes can access a wide range of wireless services, including address books and calendars, stock quotes, travel information, local business locator services, personal banking, price comparison shopping, and purchasing. By combining Infospace.com's leadership in Internet-based information services and Saraide's leadership in sophisticated wireless data services, the notion of "the web in your pocket" is rapidly becoming a compelling solution for commerce, communication, and collaboration. Hatim Tyabji was born in Bombay, India, in 1945, moved to the U.S. in 1967, and became a naturalized citizen. He holds a B.S. from the College of Engineering in Poona, India, an M.S. from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and an MBA in international business from Syracuse University. From 1986 to 1998, he was the founding chairman and CEO of VeriFone, Inc., and held executive positions at Sperry from 1973 to 1986. He is a member of the board of the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. The following pages record a conversation that I asked André Delbecq to conduct at the 2000 Academy of Management meeting in Toronto, Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steingard's essay is refulgent with theoretical insight. It is, however, easy to slip by important nuances unless one is steeped in the literature and language he references. So perhaps briefly sharing a more descriptive perspective from a dialog with more than 350 managerial participants in the seminar, Spirituality of Organizational Leadership offered at Santa Clara University can be complementary (Delbecq, 2000). This article clearly shares a subjective overall perspective. In any group of managers there will be a range of responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the impact of executive roles on families and how top executives seek to maintain personal balance and reduce stress when occupying top management positions. A sample of 16 chief executive officers are reported in this study. There were 14 men and 2 women. All were married to college-educated spouses. All of the high-survivor executives work the typical 60-plus-hour executive week. They typically rise early, often leaving home before other members of the family rise from their beds. Many of the executives stop by at an athletic club on the way to work or jog before going to work. Lunch is almost always a working meal, and the executives leave their offices 2 or 3 hours after most employees have gone home, taking time at the end of the day to write important notes or dictate follow-up memos and letters. Weekends were considered sacred family time. The weekends tended to focus on recreational and social activities with family. Among these executives, it was dear that the spouse played the predominant role in early child rearing. It was the spouse who dealt with early parenting, early school, and early childhood burdens.

Presents an interview with Peter Frost, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Professional Programs at the University of British Columbia, about the teaching mission in the North American business school. Frost's reflections on the teaching mission in business education.

Presents an interview with Western Academy of Management president Newton Marguiles on professional transitions. Educational and professional background; Views on the importance of education; Management of career changes.