F. William Brown

Does emotional intelligence – as measured by the EQI – influence transformational leadership and/or desirable outcomes?

Purpose – This study aims to examine the possibility of relationships between and among emotional intelligence (EI), leadership, and desirable outcomes in organizations.Design/methodology/approach – Using a sample of 2,411 manufacturing workers, engineers, and professional staff, the study empirically examined the impact of EI, as measured by Bar‐Ons Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQI), on organizational outcomes; the well documented ability of transformational leadership to predict those outcomes, and the relationship between EI and transformational leadership.Findings – The results confirm previous studies of the extraordinary effectiveness power of transformational leadership in predicting organizational outcomes. However, in this study no support was found for hypothesized relationships between EI and desirable outcomes or a significant relationship between EI and transformational leadership.Originality/value – EI may be a useful concept in understanding leadership and social influence; however, unlik...

Using a business simulation to teach applied skills – the benefits and the challenges of using student teams from multiple countries

The Business Strategy Game is a PC‐based simulation that gives the players experience in developing and implementing strategies. The students run their company in a competitive market setting against other teams. This forces them to take risks and anticipate competitor strategies. This paper is based on an international simulation game involving five teams of postgraduate business students from universities in Ireland, France and the US. The game was run in a “virtual environment” using e‐mail and videoconferencing. The attempt was made to simulate realistic competitive conditions as much as possible so that the concepts learned and solutions generated could be transferred from the classroom to the outside business environment.

Leader self‐awareness and its relationship to subordinate attitudes and performance

This study explored the relationships between a leader’s self‐awareness of his/her leadership behavior and the attitudes and performance of subordinates. Following previous research, leaders were categorized as overestimators, underestimators or in‐agreement. Results indicate that subordinates of underestimators reported significantly higher levels of supervisory and job satisfaction than did subordinates of those who were in‐agreement, and both subordinates of underestimators and those in‐agreement reported significantly higher levels of supervisory and job satisfaction than did subordinates of overestimators. No significant differences were found between the self‐awareness categories and transfer intent. Finally, subordinates of underestimators and those in‐agreement achieved a significantly higher level of productivity than did subordinates of leaders who overestimated their leadership ability.

The impact of emotional intelligence on accuracy of self‐awareness and leadership performance

Purpose – This research paper aims to follow a line of research that examines the impact of elements of emotional intelligence (EI), particularly those related to self‐awareness, on self‐other agreement and performance.Design/methodology/approach – This is a quantitative study that employs the same methodology as Sosik and Megerian to analyze survey data gathered from a matched sample of 146 managers and 1,314 subordinates at a large international technology company based in North America.Findings – The analysis revealed that the relationship between EI and leader performance is strongest for managers who underestimate their leader abilities. Underestimators earn higher follower ratings of leader performance than all other agreement categories (In agreement/good, In agreement/poor, and Overestimators). The analysis also suggests that there appears to be a negative relationship between EI and leader performance for managers who overestimate their leader abilities.Research limitations/implications – Implica...

Rally the troops or make the trains run on time: the relative importance and interaction of contingent reward and transformational leadership

The positive association between transformational leadership and organizational and affective outcomes is well established in the literature. The relationship of contingent reward, a component of transactional leadership, to those outcomes and its additive and interactive relationship to transformational leadership is less well understood. In a study of 660 manufacturing workers working in 25 shop areas, transformational leadership and contingent reward had positive individual and additive impacts on supervisory and general satisfaction at both the individual and group level of analysis and on productivity at the group level. At the individual level of analysis, both satisfaction with supervision and overall satisfaction were enhanced by the interaction of contingent reward and transformational leadership operating together at certain levels. The operationalization of transformational leadership has contributed to the understanding of the inspirational and relationship aspects of leadership and contingent reward explains some, but not all, of the additional elements of successful leadership.

A study of personality preferences and emotional intelligence

Purpose – For over three decades the Myers‐Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a typology of personality preferences based on Jungian psychology, has been one of the most frequently used assessments in personal and managerial development. Over the last decade attention to the possibility of non‐cognitive intelligence based on emotions has attracted considerable attention in both the academic and practitioner communities. This paper aims to report on an empirical study examining the possible relationships between the dispositional factors measured by the MBTI and elements of emotional intelligence (EI) as measured by the Bar‐Ons emotional quotient inventory (EQI).Design/methodology/approach – MBTI, Form G, and EQI data are collected in a population of over 500 managers and professional workers in an international manufacturing facility. Both categorical and continuous analysis of variance is utilized to test ten hypothesized relationships between personality preferences and EI constructs.Findings – Results supp...

Learning To Manage while Learning about Management: A Transition to a Competency-Based Management Curriculum.

Abstract Traditional management education may not be preparing undergraduate students for employment as well as it could. Porter and McKibbin (1988) found that (a) employers were seeking hires with better leadership and interpersonal skills than most business school graduates had and (b) businesses were seeking employees who could “hit the ground running.” In this article, the authors describe how one institution revised its management curriculum to focus on applied, skill-based knowledge to prepare students for operational, tactical, and strategic levels of management. The authors discuss the current state of management education, the process of revising this institutions curriculum, the new courses, and general guidelines.

Utilizing organizational culture gap analysis to determine human resource development needs

The effectiveness of the Competing Values Framework (CVF) as a means to determine human resource development needs was examined. Members of the board of directors and all full‐time employees of a Cooperative assessed the current status of the organizational culture and the nature of culture desired in the future utilizing a CVF based instrument. Both groups desired a future culture different from the present state, and both groups desired movement in the same directions. The study concludes that CVF analysis is a beneficial means for determining information about human resource skills needing to be developed and/or activated and which activities need to be rewarded or reduced in order to effect this movement.

Interpreting Standardized Assessment Test Scores and Setting Performance Goals in the Context of Student Characteristics: The Case of the Major Field Test in Business.

The Major Field Test in Business (MFT-B), a standardized assessment test of business knowledge among undergraduate business seniors, is widely used to measure student achievement. The Educational Testing Service, publisher of the assessment, provides data that allow institutions to compare their own MFT-B performance to national norms, but that procedure fails to take the characteristics of institutional student cohorts into account. Using empirical methods, the authors describe and test a procedure to set a priori goals that take dispositional factors, most notably ACT scores, into account. This procedure enables interpretation of the MFT-B in relation to expectations.

Is Higher Better? Determinants and Comparisons of Performance on the Major Field Test in Business.

Student performance on the Major Field Achievement Test in Business is an important benchmark for college of business programs. The authors’ results indicate that such benchmarking can only be meaningful if certain student characteristics are taken into account. The differences in achievement between cohorts are explored in detail by separating the effect of high-achieving students choosing certain majors (characteristics effect) from the effect of the returns on these characteristics that students realize during their college educational experience (return effect).