Erika Hayes James

Linking Crisis Management and Leadership Competencies: The Role of Human Resource Development

The problem and the solution. Most executives are aware of the negative consequences associated with an organizational crisis and focus on communications and public relations as a reactive strategy. However, many neglect the other leadership responsibilities associated with organizational crises.This may result from lack of formal training and on-the-job experiences that prepare executives to lead crises. Executives who enable their organizations to recover from a crisis exhibit a complex set of competencies in each of the five phases of a crisis—signal detection, preparation and prevention, damage control and containment, business recovery, and reflection and learning. In this article, through the use of qualitative research design and the analysis of firms in crises, we examine leadership competencies during each phase of a crisis. In addition, this article links the important role of human resource development to building organizational capabilities through crisis management activities.

When Firms Fail to Learn The Perpetuation of Discrimination in the Workplace

Scholarly and anecdotal evidence suggests that despite an increasing tolerance for diversity among many Americans, workplace discrimination is on the rise. This article addresses the role that learning, or more specifically barriers to learning, plays in the perpetuation of discrimination. The authors use several organizationally based learning theories to illustrate ways in which firms may fail to learn how to manage diversity challenges effectively, such as a discrimination lawsuit. They conclude the article with two relatively successful learning situations involving the Georgia Power Corporation and the Denny’s restaurant chain, both of which have faced discrimination lawsuits in recent years. They use this discussion to highlight reactive versus reflective learning strategies and how each may lead to successful discrimination lawsuit resolution.

Toward an Understanding of When Executives See Crisis as Opportunity

Whereas it has long been noted that crises may be sources of opportunity for organizations and their constituents, relatively little is known about the conditions under which executives come to perceive crises as opportunity. The authors delineate some factors that affect the tendency of executives to adopt a “crisis as opportunity” mindset as well as the behavioral concomitants of their having done so. The analysis also includes a future research agenda, a consideration of some of the challenges in enacting that agenda, and a few suggested ways to overcome those challenges.

Crisis Management: Informing a New Leadership Research Agenda

As the business community becomes more complex, crisis events are likely to increase in both prevalence and severity. Whether management scholarship has kept pace with this new reality is debatable...

Gender and Diversity in Organizations: Past, Present, and Future Directions

This introduction reviews some of the key issues that have been studied by researchers focused on gender and diversity in organizations. Issues such as discrimination, affirmative action, barriers to career advancement, and sexual harassment at work are discussed. Although the study of gender and diversity in organizations has expanded in the last decade, key areas of research are still underrepresented. Issues for future research in this area are discussed.

When Firms Fail to Learn

Scholarly and anecdotal evidence suggests that despite an increasing tolerance for diversity among many Americans, workplace discrimination is on the rise. This article addresses the role that learning, or more specifically barriers to learning, plays in the perpetuation of discrimination. The authors use several organizationally based learning theories to illustrate ways in which firms may fail to learn how to manage diversity challenges effectively, such as a discrimination lawsuit. They conclude the article with two relatively successful learning situations involving the Georgia Power Corporation and the Denny’s restaurant chain, both of which have faced discrimination lawsuits in recent years. They use this discussion to highlight reactive versus reflective learning strategies and how each may lead to successful discrimination lawsuit resolution.

Managing Energy: A Team in Crisis

Volatility can emerge in any working group, particularly in a flat hierarchy with no established leader; add diversity and exhaustion to the mix, and a group is vulnerable to buckling under the pressure of its own goals. This fictional account of a contentious learning team at a business school dramatizes both the words and thoughts of the participants as frictions lead them to consider disbanding. It provides a means of discussing the nature of leadership among peers and in particular the critical but easily overlooked role of personal energy management––mental, physical, and emotional; even when the strengths of diversity are leveraged proactively, interpersonal interaction still requires a significant reservoir of positive energy, whereas its depletion can sabotage even the best of intentions.