Jon Billsberry

Attracting for values: an empirical study of ASA's attraction proposition

Purpose – This paper seeks to report an empirical test of Schneiders attraction proposition that organizations attract similar types of people.Design/methodology/approach – The person‐people (PP), person‐group (PG) and person‐organization (PO) fit of applicants to eight utility firms were compared with the similar fits of members of a suitable comparison group.Findings – The results show an effect for person‐vocation (PV) fit but, once this is controlled for, all significant effects disappear. In other words, the PP, PG and PO fits of applicants to the utilities were no different from those in the comparison group once PV fit was controlled for.Research limitations/implications – These results suggest that applicants choose which organization to apply to based on their desire for a particular type of work rather than their attraction for particular companies, which is contrary to Schneiders attraction proposition. One reason for this might be the nature of graduates who are largely unaware of the organi...

Should we do away with teleworking? An examination of whether teleworking can be defined in the new world of work

This empirical paper analyzes data gathered from self-employed tele-workers, matching this against tele-workings defining characteristics, which appear in the literature. Our evaluation leads us to question whether the term tele-working has lost much of its value in todays working world. We therefore suggest the new term home-anchored worker as a less complex and more useful replacement.

Convergence and Divergence Dynamics in British and French Business Schools: How Will the Pressure for Accreditation Influence These Dynamics?

This paper focuses on convergence and divergence dynamics among leading British and French business schools and explores how the pressure for accreditation influences these dynamics. We illustrate that despite historical differences in approaches to management education in Britain and France, these approaches have converged partly based on the influence of the American model of management education but more recently through the pursuit of accreditation, in particular from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and the European Quality Improvement Standard. We explore these dynamics through the application of the resource‐based view of the firm and institutional theory and suggest that, whilst achieving accreditation is a necessary precursor for international competition, it is no longer a form of competitive advantage. The pursuit of accreditation has fostered a form of competitive mimicry reducing national distinctiveness. The resource‐based view of the firm suggests that the top schools need a more heterogeneous approach that is not easily replicable if they are to outperform the competitors. Consequently, the convergence of management education in Britain and France will become a new impetus for divergence. We assert that future growth and competitive advantage might be better achieved through the reassertion of national, regional and local cultural characteristics.

Management as a contextual practice: the need to blend science, skills and practical wisdom

This paper contributes to the debate regarding whether or not management is, or should become, a profession. Using the principles of dialectic logic, arguments for the thesis that management is a profession and the antithesis that management is more akin to an art or a craft are critically reviewed. Aristotles intellectual virtues episteme (science), techne (skills) and phronesis (practical wisdom) are introduced as a synthesis to this debate. Rather than characterizing management as a profession, it is argued that management is a contextual practice that requires a blend of all three intellectual virtues.

Daring to Be Different Unconferences, New Conferences, and Reimagined Conferences

In management education, 2013 is the Year of the Daring; a year for those daring to be different. “Daring to Be Different” is the bold theme of this year’s Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference (OBTC) taking place in Asheville, North Carolina, in June. Compared with other conferences, OBTC has always had a different edge to it, but this year they are turning up the amp to 11 and creating an innovative and supportive space for management educators to explore new ideas (http://obtc.org/content/2013). The Academy of Management is similarly daring to be different this year with the launch of a new conference focused on management teaching. Called the “Teaching and Learning Conference at the Academy of Management,” or more catchily, the TLC@AOM, the one-day conference is situated on the Sunday between the professional development workshops and the scholarly program. The press release says that the “2013 TLC@AOM will (1) focus on practice to improve teaching and learning, addressing the needs of both novice and veteran members, and (2) represent all disciplines in AOM Divisions and interest groups with interdisciplinary topics and sessions.” In addition to these two daring innovations, 2013 saw the first “unconference” in management education. The Research in Management Learning and Education (RMLE) Unconference was held on February 1, 2013 at Bond

MOOCs Fad or Revolution

Looking back over the year that was 2013, one subject dominated management education discussion like no other topic has ever done so before. That subject, of course, is the MOOC, or to give it its full name, Massive Open Online Courses. Over the past 12 months, MOOCs have arrived like an alien invasion threatening to overturn centuries of tradition in education. And just like a scene from Mars Attacks! there are supporters waving “Welcome to Earth” banners while others are lining up the tanks. Yet there is one strange feature of MOOCs, despite the cacophony in the corridors and at conferences; there has been silence in the academic journals. This is simply because data are scarce and only just becoming available, and the necessary time required for thinking, writing, reviewing, and production. Next year, and probably for several years after, MOOCs are likely to dominate the pages of education journals and the Journal of Management Education in particular. In this editorial, I want to explore the initial hype and hyperbole about MOOCs as a way of setting the scene for the future.

From Persona Non Grata to Mainstream The Use of Film in Management Teaching as an Example of How the Discipline of Management Education Is Changing

My first encounter with the use of film in management teaching came in 2000 at the Academy of Management meeting in Toronto. Joseph (Joe) E. Champoux ran a professional development workshop on the use of film in management education. About 40 people were dotted around a large, spacious room listening intently to what Joe had to say. He showed clips from four or five films and explained how he used them to illustrate theory in his teaching. It was an interesting and engaging session, as Joe’s sessions always are. At an appropriate moment, probably when Joe was changing tapes over, I introduced myself to the chap sitting behind me. I asked him if he used films in his teaching. His response succinctly captured my own situation: “No. I’d love to, but I wouldn’t be taken seriously by my colleagues. I’m hoping no one saw me come in.” As I looked around the room, I sensed furtiveness in the rest of the audience as if the people were attending some form of illicit entertainment. Everyone seemed to sitting individually, quietly, desperately trying not to attract attention to themselves. This attitude toward the use of film in management education was replicated in the articles of the time. In these, judging by the published output,

The Social Construction of Leadership Education

Most leadership theories assume that leadership is a quality of leaders (e.g., trait theory), or a response to environments (e.g., situational theory), or a combination of both (e.g., contingency theory). In all these approaches leadership is something knowable and definite. However, after years of research there is no agreed definition of what leadership is or any universal agreement about who might be regarded a leader. This paper outlines an alternative approach in which leadership is a contested construct and describes two engaging teaching techniques that align pedagogic approach with the underlying theory. In doing so this paper makes a case for the adoption of socially-constructed theories in leadership education.

Technology as the Enabler of a New Wave of Active Learning

Education has always been slow on the uptake of new technology. As instructors, we have established, time-worn methods of teaching, and the performance nature of the job puts an emphasis on reliability and predictability. The last thing an instructor wants to be doing is fumbling around trying to make something work in front of an audience of 200 undergraduates. Although LCD projectors and whiteboards have made purely blackboard-based teaching less common, instructors have resisted more complicated and exotic forms of teaching technology. The bandwidth was not there, the technology was hard to understand and use, and the supporting technology was not robust enough to ensure a reliable, positive learning experience. But things have dramatically changed in the past 10 years. Though we still keep progressing along Moore’s Law and benefit from yearly increases in computer processing speed and cheaper storage, we are finally seeing education technologies that are easy-to-access on a variety of computer platforms, easy-to-use for both students and faculty, and much more robust and failureproof. All of a sudden, we see instructors keen and eager to bring technology into their classrooms and actually doing so in new and exciting ways. We are teaching in a period when the pace of technological change is quite breathtaking. When we wrote the Call for Papers in the summer of 2010, the Guest Editors’ Corner

Desk-Rejects 10 Top Tips to Avoid the Cull

One of my greatest sorrows as editor is that so many manuscripts we receive are rejected at the first hurdle. About half of all submissions that come in are immediately “desk rejected” by me or one of the associate editors. Contrary to popular belief, editors do not like rejecting submissions. We are not sadistic monsters who thrive on the misery of others. Instead, we tend to be sympathetic souls who give up their time because we want to help people develop their manuscripts to publishable standards. We love reading new and interesting ideas, and we live in fear of “White Page Fever,” the terrible dread that one day there will be nothing to print. Our main concern is to find papers to publish, and the fact that half of our submissions so miss the mark that they cannot even be sent out for review means that a huge pool of talent is misdirecting its efforts. There is already a lot of advice available on how to prepare an interesting manuscript. Our website supplies guidance on our requirements and what we are looking for. We regularly present at conferences and workshops, and the associate editors and I are always happy to give advice on email or over the phone. Despite all of this, as just mentioned, we still desk reject half of the submissions that come in. This advice clearly is not connecting with many authors. In reflecting on why this might be, I find myself thinking that telling people what to do might come across as both patronizing and a little abstract. So I think it is time to change tack and make it easier for those determined to receive a rapid negative decision. Describing the real reasons why papers are instantly rejected might be a stickier way of getting the message over. So, based on our immediate rejection decisions over the past 2 years, here are my Top 10 Tips to ensure that your beloved manuscript is returned to you posthaste. I hope you find these useful.