Silviya Svejenova

Journeys to the Self: Using Movie Directors in the Classroom.

This article suggests that temporary (project based) filmmaking organizations, and film directors as their leaders, lend themselves to examining a plethora of leadership issues, from social sources of power to competencies in network organizations. It advances for classroom discussion and teaching the cases of Almodóvar and Coppola as examples of idiosyncratic filmmakers in a “subsidy-trapped,” craft like European cinema versus a gross and agent-driven Hollywood studio system. The article concludes with a discussion of the journey metaphor as a unique opportunity to look at the philosophical problem of the meaning of life and the achievement of consistency and continuity in one’s trajectory.

Changing the C-suite: new chief officer roles as strategic responses to institutional complexity: Topics and Issues from European Research

The focus of the chapter by Silviya Svejenova and JosA© Luis Alvarez is on the proliferation of top management positions, the so-called ‘C-Suite’ in business firms. In a neo-institutional vein, the increase in the number of such positions is linked to the broader institutional environments in which business firms are embedded. However, according to the authors the above linkage does not automatically trigger a ‘taken-for-granted’ response by which new chief officer roles come into organizational life. Instead, such roles are actively constructed by strategically operating organizations in response to the institutional complexity that is increasingly characterized by competing and at times conflicting logics.

Conclusion: From small numbers to corporate governance regimes

“Do you know,” I said, “that it is necessary that there also be as many forms of human characters as there are forms of regimes? Or do you suppose that the regimes arise ‘from an oak or rocks’ and not from the dispositions of the men in the cities, which, tipping the scale as it were, draw the rest along with them?” “No,” he said. “I dont at all think they arise from anything other than this.” Plato, The Republic , Book VIII, 543 e. M uch has been written on solo structures and executive roles. However, as argued in the Introduction, a book on duos, trios, and larger executive constellations that share governance positions is timely. In Part II of the book we situated the phenomenon of small numbers at the top in the field of organization studies and outlined its most relevant debates. We also introduced our two main theoretical lenses – contingency theory and role theory – through which we investigate the phenomenon. In Part I of the book we concentrated on the phenomenon itself, undertaking a presentation and discussion of examples of the basic types of small-numbers structures: professional duos, trios, and larger constellations. We also delved into the domain of career theories, seeking to grasp the particulars of executives united careers, the most integrated case of small numbers.

Sharing Executive Power: Contingencies of corporate power structures

The executive who must work with the human materials around him must also work with the human materials in himself. Glover and Hower, 1963, p. 4 We believe that socio-psychological attitudes of chief executive officers and general managers are a critical contingency in organizational design and strategy that has not been developed sufficiently in previous studies. Lewin and Stephens, 1994, p. 183 I n the introduction we presented some examples of duos, trios, and other constellations at the governance level of corporations. These examples reveal combinations of role separation, role-sharing, and role integration that differ from the standard solo occupancy of corporate governance positions. They also challenge the common assumption held in corporate governance regulations and codes of best practices that affective and trust-based interpersonal relationships among top executives are to be viewed with suspicion. How then we do account for the abundance of small numbers at the top? If a structure is not congruent with the main contingencies in its internal and external environments, performance results will be less than optimal or unsatisfactory, and will, perhaps, even lead to failure. This is a fundamental tenet of the contingency theory of organizational design. A second fundamental assumption of contingency theory, based on the principle of equifinality (Katz and Kahn, 1978; Gresov and Drazin, 1997), is that any organization can reach the same final state (e.g. a sufficient or satisfactory level of adaptation to the environment) by a variety of paths or, in this case, by different structures.