Thought Leaders: Wayne Cascio on Responsible Restructuring
An interview with Wayna Cascio
Rich DiGeorgio
Wayne Cascio’s latest book is Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Work, Profits. He recently spoke with Rich DiGeorgio about the book and his work.
Published 01-02-2005

Moving FORWARD with solution-focused change
A results-oriented and appreciative way of making progress
Coert Visser en Gwenda Schlundt Bodien
The solution-focused approach has helped coaches, trainers, consultants and managers to be more effective in realizing their goals. Moreover, it has often made their work more enjoyable. This article presents a simple, new, and - hopefully - sticky model to describe the solution-focused approach: the FORWARD-model.
Published 27-02-2007

Do MBA's make lousy managers?
David Creelman
Got your MBA at Insead, Harvard or Erasmus University? That’s too bad. There are a lot of critics of MBA’s, but perhaps the most insightful is Dr. Henry Mintzberg. His latest book, "Managers Not MBA's: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development", makes a compelling case that businesses would be better off not hiring MBA's into management positions. Mintzberg's book has attracted a fury of criticism. This review by our Canadian correspondent, David Creelman, clarifies why MBA programs can be so damaging.
Published 20-04-2004

Designing the head office of a multinational corporation
Pieter Klaas Jagersma
Multinationals are reorganising in response to the changing environment, hoping to capitalize on opportunities for growth. These new business challenges often lead to changing corporate focus and, consequently, a changing role for the headquarters.
Published 05-06-2000

The Nature of Organizations
Interview with Arie de Geus
David Creelman
Arie de Geus has received international acclaim as an author. Here, he takes a critical stance in regard to the tendency to think in terms of ' shareholder value'. This mindset often leads to companies treating people like products or skills to be bought for a limited purpose before being disposed of. Other methods of 'governorship' must be found to serve as an alternative to the 'limited liability company'. De Geus outlines the possibilities that he sees.
Published 24-02-2004

Online coaching is human work
Cultural and social aspects of online coaching
Sylvia van de Bunt-Kokhuis
Modern multimedia facilitates the management development (MD) process, allowing for more trainees and managers to undergo online coaching. This article concentrates on the issue of online coaching and explores the competencies (knowledge, skills, behaviour) essential to it.
Published 06-03-2000

Resistance: how do you handle your emotional response towards it?
Odette Moeskops
Managers often feel personally affected by resistance they experience at work. As a result, managers and their organisations could find themselves trapped in a negative systemic pattern. Systemic patterns are self-reinforcing processes of action and reaction. When change processes stagnate, the same patterns seem to repeat themselves. A manager’s emotional response to resistance constitutes an important obstacle to seeing these feedback patterns and overcoming them. In this article we show how this mechanism works.
Published 29-03-2005

Organizational behavior in historical perspective
Part 1: The taming of emotions
Willem Mastenbroek
The current high degree of self-discipline and control looks quite natural and selfunderstood. It definitely is not. Morerover our ways of emotion management show a close relation with patterns of power and dependency. This is another neglected area. How helpful is modern skill-training in its disregard of emotional drives and power differences?
Published 17-08-2005

Young Professionals: Cultivate the Habits of Friendship
You don’t have to be a natural to get better at this
David Maister
Most young professionals realize that skill in generating business will be an important determinant of their success. However, many believe that, in the early stages of their career, they do not have much opportunity to develop these skills. This could not be further from the truth.
Published 06-01-2006

Strategic sourcing; a bridge too far?
Teije Bakker, Matthieu Goede en Gert Teusink
The concept of sourcing is gaining popularity in both organisation and management studies. This article offers a conceptual framework that regards sourcing as a strategic function of a company. Using a handful of real world examples, the authors illustrate how different levels of improvement in the sourcing function can be attained.
Published 24-12-2002