Mzamo P. Mangaliso

The Strategic Usefulness of Management Information as Perceived by Middle Managers

The study sought to investigate the impact of the contextual variables of decentralization and environmental uncertainty on the strategic usefulness of management information as perceived by middle managers of an overseas subsidiary of a large, diversified multinational corporation. Management information was expressed in terms of the characteristics of aggregation, scope, and timeliness. Factor analysis was used to verify these dimensions. Data were collected through the use of a questionnaire. Three hypothesized relationships between the contextual variables and the information characteristics were tested through multiple regression analysis. The results indicated that there was a significant relationship between the management information characteristics and perceived environmental uncertainty. Two of the information characteristics-scope and timeliness-showed no significant relationship with decentralization. Aggregation of information, however, only showed a relationship with decentralization through...

Antecedents and implications of uncertainty in management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain the antecedents of environmental uncertainty in management using a historical framework. The goal of developing passion and compassion in management practice and research cannot be achieved unless a better understanding is developed of the main challenge facing researchers and practitioners – uncertainty.Design/methodology/approach – The antecedents of uncertainty in management are explored using a historical framework. This enables the generation of insights into the nature and use of uncertainty over the decades.Findings – The importance of environmental uncertainty is escalating. The papers historical, philosophical and critical view helps scholars explain and interpret uncertainty within their own research and formulate new research questions.Originality/value – Understanding the epistemological assumptions underlying paradigms will better enable researchers and practitioners to face a future filled with uncertainty and equivocality.

The corporate social challenge for the multinational corporation

The modern corporation has come to be regarded as a dynamic force for subverting traditional norms in repressive societies. However, the role that MNCs can play in transforming the socio-political landscapes of most host countries is largely circumscribed by the actions that host governments can take. In the case of South Africa, the vast disparities and inequalities created and maintained by many years ofapartheid rule are limiting factors to the “trickle-down” effect that would normally take place. The paper argues that under the existing circumstances, the corporate withdrawal strategy proved to be the most effective catalytic role MNCs could play in the transformation of SA society.

Managing Ethically in Times of Transformation Challenges and Opportunities

Ethics has taken center stage in the management of organizations. The underlying values of individuals, groups, and organizations have a significant impact not only on organizations but also on society as a whole. In the past few years, corporate America has witnessed what Rockness and Rockness (2005) described as “the largest dollar level of fraud, accounting manipulations, and unethical behavior in corporate history and certainly the most economic failures and scandals since the 1920s” (p. 31). The bankruptcy of Enron and Global Crossing, the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, and the indictment of senior executives from these and other companies such as Health South and Worldcom/MCI emphasize how a disregard for ethics in decision making can have profound consequences at multiple levels. One way for troubled organizations such as these to rebuild organizational effectiveness is through developing cooperation and trust among organizational entities with which it collaborates (Costa & Katinka, 2007; Vlaar, Van den Bosch, & Volberda, 2007) by focusing on ethics and making their organizational stakeholders believe that their actions are driven by appropriate values. Consequently, companies, the government, and regulatory bodies have become increasingly sensitive to the issues of ethics and social responsibility. Ethics refers to the standards of conduct and moral judgment that individuals and institutions develop throughout time (Gandz & Hayes, 1988). Although ethics provide standards for moral judgment, there are infinite workable sets of norms from which people and institutions make choices, which Group & Organization Management Volume 33 Number 6 December 2008 756-759

Pipeline to the Future: Seeking Wisdom in Indigenous, Eastern, and Western Traditions

In this chapter, we explore the ways in which the dominant wisdom, economic, and social traditions of the West can potentially integrate with some of the wisdom, economic, and social traditions of indigenous and Eastern cultures in the interest of creating a more complete understanding of links between wisdom, economics, and organizing. Western thinking tends to be based not only on a modality of constant growth but also on a worldview that is based on linear thinking and atomization and fragmentation of wholes into parts as paths that lead to understanding. These ways of thinking have resulted in the West’s putting economics, materialism, consumerism, and markets ahead of other types of values and issues. In contrast, many indigenous and Eastern traditions offer a more holistic, relationally based set of perspectives that might provide better balance in approaching issues of work, economics, and organization. Indigenous wisdom traditions, illustrated through African, Chinese, Indian, Islamic, Japanese, Māori, and Native American worldviews, offer insights into a worldview of relatedness where foundational values inform members of society on how to lead a wise life through serving others, including the environment. We believe that by integrating the perspective of wisdom traditions that offer these more holistic, interconnected, and nature-based views of the world, Western traditions could be more appreciative of the intrinsic worth and ontological differences of people and environment and that such perspectives can be very useful in our globally connected, interdependent, and, in many ways, currently unsustainable world. We offer this synthesis as a beginning of that conversation.

Disinvestment by Multinational Corporations

What role did foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) play in South Africa’s transition to democratic rule? At best, corporate codes of conduct, adopted by foreign MNCs as an alternative to sanctions, provided comfort for only a few South Africans, mostly company employees. Only disinvestment from critical industries enabled MNCs to be an effective catalyst for socio-political transformation.

Transformation to an Equitable Socioeconomic Dispensation Observations and Reflections on South Africa

The corporate divestment movement is generally acknowledged as one of the catalysts that transformed South African society from apartheid rule to a democratic social order. However, the dream that the abolition of apartheid would bring prosperity to a majority of South Africans has proven to be elusive. Even though democracy has delivered the much-anticipated universal franchise to all, questions still linger about the redistribution of economic power, which still largely remains concentrated in the hands of those who had it before. What lessons can be learned from the experiences of sanctions and divestment from South Africa as an instrument for the socioeconomic transformation of the country? In this article, we discuss the merits of the divestment strategy, offer our observations about current disparities in postapartheid South Africa, comment on the initiatives by the new government to restore equity, and conclude with some final thoughts and reflections.

Making Strategic Management Research Relevant to Emerging Market Countries

Purpose – The goal of the chapter is to propose a different approach to conducting strategic management research in emerging market countries (EMCs) by moving away from the current practice which ignores the fundamental differences in the infrastructural context and philosophical worldviews between EMCs and the industrialized countries of the West. Design/methodology/approach – Most of the conceptual and theoretical foundations of strategic management are based on the Western, Anglo-Saxon context. In this chapter, we argue that the differences between developed nations and EMCs are paradigmatic and extend the whole gamut from epistemological to ontological and ideological differences. These differences are typically superficially treated by investigators whose research merits are judged by their quantitative rigor and other positivist yardsticks. We borrow from the work of (Guba & Lincoln, 1994) and suggest that the choice of the research design be matched with the goal and intended outcomes of the research. For example, exploratory research intended to uncover and understand the fundamental concepts from the EMC worldview should be matched with an emic approach and phenomenology and hermeneutics research methods. Confirmatory research intended to test the generalizability of the concepts should be matched with an etic approach, and multiple case studies, questionnaires, as the most appropriate research designs. Findings – We believe that research designs that take these factors into account are likely to deliver results that are more robust and representative of the true realities in emerging market countries. Furthermore, the bias toward empirical and quantitative approaches was clearly delineated to further support the need for a more comprehensive approach in conducting research in the field of strategic management. Originality/value – This chapter contributes to the ongoing discourse and conversations about conducting the research in strategic management more responsive and engaging with people in emerging market countries rather than dictating to them what they need to learn and know. A more enriched discourse will likely come out of such interactions which would strengthen the discipline due to the utilization of multiple approaches to conducting research in diverse environments.

Culture as the Context of Environmental Uncertainty, Structural Decentralization, and Strategic Significance of Information: A Three Country Comparison

With the rapid rate of globalization, the volume and complexity of the information that managers use has increased exponentially. However, there is little research to understand the characteristics of information considered important by managers. This study empirically investigated the impact of culture, environmental uncertainty and decentralization on the usefulness of information in three countries. We found that the contextual variables had an impact on the perception of information usefulness. Future studies should consider the preexisting epistemological differences among different countries. Expected national cultural differences were not significant. The tentative results support global management systems to deal with contemporary global business issues.

Perception of Environment, Strategic Choice and Firm Performance: An Empirical Study of U.S. And South African Executives

The underlying tenet of this study was that perception of the environment and firm performance influences executives’ propensity to choose a given strategy. Hypotheses were formulated and tested using senior executives from the largest corporations in South Africa, and from the largest U.S. firms with operations in South Africa. Data were collected through a mail questionnaire and personal interviews conducted both in the U.S. and South Africa. One of the hypothesized relations to be significant: perception of higher performance was related to preference for entrepreneurial strategies. Another was found to be opposite what was hypothesized: distance from the subsidiary was found to have an attenuating effect on the perception of environmental turbulence.