While competition between individuals is a fact of life in the world of business — people vying for that newly opened promotion, for example — a recent study explores the conditions that can turn healthy competition into dangerous conflict.
Nice guys do finish last, according to a series of studies that show agreeable men earn significantly less and have less opportunity for advancement than disagreeable men. Agreeable women aren’t faced with the same backlash, supporting the assumption that agreeable men are being punished for not living up to their stereotypical gender roles.
As leaders and organizations strive to increase engagement, new research shows different nuances to disengagement that undermine the engagement effort. Some teams are pseudo-engaged, with individuals behaving as if they’re engaged but only interested in their own welfare. Others are contented rather than being disgruntled, deciding they want to do the minimum and no more.
Leadership humility is contagious, resulting in a collective humility that focuses the leader’s group or organization around achieving high team performance.
While men are more prejudiced than women against women leaders, a new study demonstrates that when surveyed, women are less likely than men to admit their prejudice.
Avoiding a toxic worker enhances performance and costs less than replacing an average worker with a superstar — even if the superstar performs in the top 1% of employees.
A five-year in-depth evaluation of a new measuring tool for emotional intelligence (EI) called the Emotional Capital Report (ECR) proves the validity of the tool for measuring the emotional and social components of EI, while revealing some interesting nuances.
Can a Goliath company or business entity collaborate on equal terms with a network of Davids? A new case study shows that enforcing network rules might make such a collaboration an insurmountable management challenge.
Taking advantage of the suddenly reduced threat of hostile takeovers of Delaware-incorporated companies, two researchers demonstrate the significant reduction of innovation efforts when competitive pressure is eased. In short, less competition leads to less innovation.
In conversations with new people, most people underestimate how positive of an impression they are making A new study reveals the prevalence of this ‘liking gap’: the fact that most conversation partners like you more than you believe. This liking gap can have implications in the workplace, including the discouragement of collaborative ventures and an additional challenge for new employees.
Managers tend to excuse and forgive ethical lapses by employees who are fatigued or depleted, a new study shows — although if the employees brought the fatigue on themselves (such as from watching a late night sporting event rather than working late), managers are less forgiving.
Researchers use unimpressed market reaction to new product and new client announcements to highlight the insidious damage of CEO incentives to focus on the short-term.
New research using extensive hand-collected data confirms a gender gap in resource allocation (female division leaders receive less resources from their CEOs). This research also reveals the familial origins of gender bias in CEOs, and the negative economic impact of such bias.
A two-year research study reveals — for both those in power and their subordinates — the personal, political and social complexities involved in speaking truth to power.
Despite overwhelming evidence that ‘jerks’ in the workplace undermine the success of a team or organization, they continue to be hired. New research explains why: when one’s money is at stake, decision makers value competence over sociability — which is a long-term mistake.
The author of this research, Maria Jose Parada, teaches on theCEMS Masters in Managementprogram at ESADE - and this Idea is part of our CEMS series.
Managing the family as well as the family business, maintaining dynamic portfolios of businesses, and ensuring continued family control of the organization are some of the factors for keeping family businesses entrepreneurial across generations.
For middle managers, behavioural integrity — the perception by subordinates that management behaviour matches their words — is a key factor for success. Unfortunately, organizations often undermine their middle managers’ behavioural integrity with contradictory policies and decisions — or policies, directives or decisions for which they never acquired middle management buy-in.
While the power of collaboration and teamwork is well-documented, the potential dark side of collaboration — for example, the same people in an organization being over-burdened by requests from others because they’ve acquired a reputation as collaborators — is ignored. A team of researchers warn of the dangers of ‘collaborative overload.’
Can leaders be too smart? A recent study offers a surprising answer: up to a certain point, the smarter you are, the more effective you are as a leader. But being too smart can actually reduce how effective you are perceived— in large part because you lose touch with your subordinates.
New research based on 2800 corporate CEOs shows that extraverted CEOs are more likely to engage their firms in the uncertainty of M&A activities, proving that CEO personality can drive firm behaviour. However, under certain conditions, the situation dictates the options available to CEOs, regardless of their personalities. Thus, for example, even less extraverted CEOs make more acquisitions in highly competitive industries.
Organizations find that knowledge often gets ‘stuck’ within the different professional cliques. In a health care setting, for example, nurses talk to nurses and doctors talk to doctors, and knowledge has difficulty passing between these two professions. However, all organizations have individuals who can act information ‘brokers’, bridging the gap between the professions.
Friendships in the workplace lay the foundation for collaboration and learning. Friendship cliques, however, can also produce fissures that only people with personalities of the diplomats in the organization can span.
Leadership success is built not only on the competencies of the leader but also the perceptions of followers. Conceptualizing perceptions as attitudes unveils a more nuanced and complete explanation of leadership success (and failure).
Research shows that the existence of a generation of ‘digital natives’ and the ability of this generation to multi-task are in fact two harmful myths — myths that lead to erroneous assumptions about learning and work efficiency.
A new study shows that the appearance of self-confidence resulting from high performance gives men greater influence in their organizations. The same is not true for women, who in addition to appearing self-confident must also demonstrate active concern and support for others.
Risk aversion and career concerns are pushing managers to play it safe, reducing the shareholder value of their companies — and the incentive compensation structures meant to motivate managers often have the opposite effect.
Despite its negative connotation, office politics is a fact of workplace life. Successful people are politically savvy but also driven by integrity and authenticity. Vlerick Business School offers a guidebook for navigating the landscape of office politics without losing that authenticity.
A leading researcher on the issue of management-subordinate conflicts explains why it is important for leaders to mend any poor or strained relationships with their subordinates — and what steps to take.
Top management teams with entrenched knowledge bases tend to break into knowledge-based subgroups. CEOs by virtue of their integrative characteristics may be able to reconcile the differences and overcome the potentially negative effects. This study shows that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the effects of knowledge diversity in management teams at multinational enterprises.
New research reveals the 10 structural barriers, from board size to the complexity of a firm, that explains why boards of directors can fail to effectively monitor their companies.
