130,665 research outputs found
The Hedgehog and the Fox : leadership lessons from D-Day
No full textOn 6 June 2014, it will be 70 years since D-Day. This article, drawn from my book on the topic (Grint, 2008), reconfigures the operation as a contest between two different approaches to war that embody different assumptions about the importance of leadership, management and command. Taking Archilocus’ phrase – ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing’ – I suggest that the success of the Allies was dependent upon their greater attention to all three decision modes and their related problems than their German foes, whose penchant for the Cult of Combat led them to be more effective in battle but less effective in the pursuit of war. I relate this to the difference between Tame, Wicked and Critical problems and comment on the difference between Deficit and Asset models of organizations
Leadership, management and command : rethinking D-Day
No full textThe author argues that the successes and failures of D-Day, on both sides, cannot be explained simply by comparing the competing strategies of each side. Instead he provides an account of the battle through the overarching nature of the relationship between the leaders and their followers
An ethnographic exploration of the effectiveness of formal leadership development programmes within the context of the UK and New Zealand public sectors
No full textThis thesis examines whether formal leadership development programmes can improve the delivery of leadership within the context of four specific sectors. These are UK local government, the UK Fire and Rescue Service, the UK armed services and the New Zealand public services. Theories of leadership development are linked to theories of leadership, with the conclusion drawn that leadership development perspectives are influenced and follow principles of leadership theory. Two broad foci of leadership development are identified, ‘individual’ and ‘collective’. Within these, four particular ‘schools’ of leadership development are discussed in order to establish a guide to consider what may constitute an effective leadership development process - behavioural, authentic, coalition and experiential. These four theoretical models are presented with a view to further testing in the field.
It is suggested that a research method which values and gives voice to the subjective constructions of actors in the process of leadership development should be adopted. The case is made for an ethnographic method – specifically citing its capacity for rich, deep descriptions, data capture over an extended period of time and within a range of settings.
Results are presented offering support for three of the four models presented – authentic, coalition and experiential, but not for behavioural leadership development. The case is made that leadership development programmes, from the perspective of participants and their colleagues, do improve the practice of leadership – at least to a degree. It is stated, however, that it is a basic principle of ethnography that such a finding will always be bound by the context within which the data was gathered.
Furthermore, it is noted that there was evidence present of more than one of the models presented co-existing within leadership development programmes. In fact, where this happened, participants believed a more dramatic improvement had taken place. With this in mind, a synthesis model is suggested, which seeks to view leadership development as a sensemaking process, rather than as a series of separate events
The cuckoo clock syndrome : addicted to command, allergic to leadership
No full textThis article considers the extent to which we are addicted to particular ways of configuring the world and responding in a culturally appropriate way. It suggests that the original Tame and Wicked problems typology of Rittell and Webber (1973) can be usefully expanded to provide a heuristic for explaining this addiction and then focuses upon the most common approach an addiction to Crisis and Command. Some likely explanations for this addiction are discussed and some illustrative examples provided. It concludes that not only does our predilection for Crisis and Command undermine our attempts to address Wicked problems adequately, but also that 'Leadership' (defined as persuading the collective to take responsibility for collective problems) is often regarded not just as difficult and dangerous, but as the enemy of the people'. We are, then, not only likely to be addicted to Command but also likely to be allergic to leadership
Toward 'socially constructive' social constructions of leadership
No full textIn their introductory editorial essay for this special issue, David Grant and Gail Fairhurst have done us a great service by valiantly producing a "Sailing Guide" to the Social Construction of Leadership (Fairhurst & Grant, 2010). As with rounding the Capes, this is not a task for the faint of heart. A sailing guide is designed to provide vital knowledge about a particular sea or coast, providing us with charts, warnings about potential hazards and an indication where we might find safe havens in a storm. Their sailing guide does this to great effect as it skilfully "boxes the compass" by revealing all of the potential directions that one might set one‟s sail by if one was sufficiently foolhardy to embark on a cruise of the social construction of leadership
Egalitarian teams in a military hirearchy: a study of the formation of the Royal Air Force senior leadership team
No full textThis thesis is a participant observer and action research case study of the Royal Air Force’s efforts to improve its senior leadership from2007 to 2010. It addresses the research question: what are the conditions required to establish an egalitarian team in a military hierarchy? It examines the establishment of the Senior Leadership Team, designed to operate as a forum for the dissemination of the leader’s intent, dissemination of information, and generation of ideas. The literature review argues there are four bodies of relevant knowledge that derive from the research question: forming large teams, use of power, changing culture, and building interpersonal trust. From the literature, two models are considered, one for formation of large teams and another for establishing an egalitarian culture in a hierarchy. The theoretical position to examine the case study from is a combination of the four areas and the two models. The conclusions emphasise the need for leadership and facilitation to deal with the issues of behaviour; charade of cooperation; homogeneity and heterogeneity; effects of power, particularly on trust; group size paradox; and creating open discussion. The thesis argues, in this context, culture is akin to organisational identity and it examines how culture might be changed and sustained in a strict hierarchical organisation to ensure open discussion where all opinions are equal. The thesis identifies the fundamental importance of interpersonal trust for large informational or consultative teams that hold a different culture to their host organisation. In conclusion, the thesis argues that the models examined do not provide an adequate framework for this case study and tentatively puts forward a 7-factor model representing the conditions required to establish an egalitarian team in a military hierarchy
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
No full textBoth spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
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