Mary Barrett

Should they learn to interrupt? Workplace communication strategies Australian women managers forecast as effective

The paper discusses some gender debates in linguistic behaviour and suggests how scenario‐based research techniques may contribute. It then presents a survey‐based study of 157 Australian female, organisationally senior, managers. For each of three workplace communication dilemmas, participants evaluated a series of strategic responses, indicating both how effective and how probable they thought the responses were. Despite the participants’ seniority and confidence as communicators, their evaluation of the strategies often varied with whether they believed the communication strategist in the scenario was male or female. This suggests that even confident, organisationally senior women still maintain some traditional gender‐based ideas about good communication. Despite this, the participants’ own preferred communication strategies did not vary with their seniority or their confidence in expressing opinions. The studys theoretical and practical implications and some limitations are discussed, together with topics for further research.

Revisiting women’s entrepreneurship: Insights from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist economics

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study women’s entrepreneurship from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist (RS) economics. While women’s entrepreneurship is a long-standing topic of research interest, there have been calls for more theory-oriented research and research which takes context factors in women’s entrepreneurship seriously. The paper responds to this by using an RS’s view of economics as a theoretical lens to consider women’s entrepreneurship in family firms. Design/methodology/approach – The paper briefly reviews the potential of the family-firm context for examining women’s entrepreneurship in a non-reductive fashion, then outlines radical subjectivism (RS). The three main elements of RS’s “entrepreneurial imagination” are explained, then linked with other theories of family-firm behaviour and applied to casework on women entrepreneurs in family firms. Findings – Each element of the entrepreneurial imagination, empathy, modularity and self-organization, generates new resea...

How Talent Capability Can Shape Service Analytics Capability in the Big Data Environment

Abstract We know very little about how big data-driven service analytics capabilities (SAC) are built in data-driven service organizations and the potential role of talent capability in facilitating overall SAC and the impact of both on firm performance (FPER). Drawing on the dynamic capabilities (DC) approach, this study investigates the link between SAC and FPER examining the mediating role of talent capability and the moderating influence of a firm’s strategic alignment. On the basis of two Delphi studies and survey data from 267 service analysts in the US and France, the findings show that even though SAC are built on technology, talent and information capabilities, their overall impact on firm performance is mediated by the level of talent capability of service analytics managers. The findings also confirm the critical moderating impact of strategic alignment between dynamic talent capability and firm performance in the big data environment.

The psychological contract of international volunteers: an exploratory study

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the psychological contracts (PCs) of international volunteers (IVs) in international aid and development organizations (IADS). Specifically, it explores four questions: how IVs form PCs; what the content of these PCs is; how IVs’ PCs are maintained; and how they are fulfilled or breached. Design/methodology/approach The study used an inductive analysis of qualitative data: interviews with 27 IVs from a range of IADS. Findings The findings take the form of research propositions: RP1: IVs’ PCs, like those of domestic volunteers, include relational, transactional and, especially, values-based elements, but the balance of these is influenced by their values-based PC; the self-directed way IVs join their organizations; and reliance on peers rather than the organization’s management hierarchy. RP2: the PCs of IVs working for faith-based organizations have an additional element: spiritual support. RP3: the values-based PC means many transactional elements can be “adjusted away”, making it difficult to breach these PCs. RP4: experienced volunteers have very minimal PCs, but are more likely than inexperienced volunteers to expect basic safety and adequately skilled colleagues. Research limitations/implications The authors suggest areas of new inquiry and specific ways each research proposition could be tested empirically. Practical implications To alleviate IVs’ expatriation and repatriation adjustment problems, international aid organizations could facilitate the ways IVs already help each other. This would also help fulfill IVs’ PCs. Originality/value IVs are a growing but underexplored group and aspects of their PCs may be unique.

Planning in the Poncini family business

The case relates the history of a diversified family business, Poncini Enterprises, located in the Trentino region of northern Italy. The firm began in the late 1940s with trucks and gradually diversified into property investment, retailing of bricks and construction tools and, more recently, grape growing. These various stages of diversification have stretched the firm’s resources and heightened long-standing family difficulties and conflicts. The family business includes four siblings, three sons, a daughter, and their elderly, widowed father, who has recently experienced health problems. The youngest son, Lorenzo, has recently returned to the business after an extended period of accounting and wine business studies in Italy and abroad. Lorenzo asked his older brother, Carlo, to explain how the firm became so diversified, an important question, as the family needed to decide whether to maintain its involvement in grape growing. In addition, levels of conflict in the family increased as the family patriarch, Gianni, continued to make the important decisions despite his recent health issues. The case requires a decision regarding how the family should make its decisions in future, while meeting the need to safeguard the interests of both the family and the business.

Industrial Relations Changes in the Maldives: Critical Events and Actors

This paper analyses recent industrial relations (IR) and political changes in the Maldives. Critical incidents were compiled from interview and document data and analysed using a quasi‐grounded theory approach. The analysis shows that, precipitated by the political events of September 2003, profound democratic and IR changes took place, including the emergence of new IR actors and institutions. However, the outcomes of these changes proved short‐lived as old undemocratic practices were reasserted. The paper highlights the reasons why democratic and IR changes occurred as they did in the Maldives and why they reversed.

New Theoretical Perspectives on Family Business Entrepreneurial Behavior

Family business leaders are often characterized as entrepreneurs (Aldrich and Cliff 2003 ; Shepherd and Haynie 2009 ). In attempting to understand the entrepreneurial thinking of family firm leaders, scholars have typically borrowed from the extant literature on entrepreneurship, which traditionally emphasizes characteristics of individual entrepreneurs such as their personalities, propensity for risk-taking, personal values, and so on. 1 However as Aldrich and Martinez ( 2003 ) point out, there are changes afoot in how entrepreneurship is being studied, including (a) a shift in theoretical emphasis from the characteristics of entrepreneurs as individuals to the consequences of their actions, (b) a deeper understanding of how entrepreneurs use knowledge, resources, and networks to construct and reconstruct fi rms, and (c) a more sophisticated taxonomy of environmental forces at different levels of analysis (population, community, and society) that affect entrepreneurship.