Suchergebnisse

Empowerment is common to both the scholarly and the popular management literature. However, empowerment's many interpretations have dulled the concept as a research tool. Here, empowerment is separated into perceived environment and individual behavior components. The linkage between organization environment and managerial behavior is tested with a population of 23 effective managers. It is found that an accepting or empowering environment increases the probability that the effective manager will undertake activities outside the job description, but that an empowering environment is not necessary for effective middle-manager behavior.

Using information drawn from biographical statements and resumes, first gathered in 1990 then again in 1993, this paper reports on the types of professional experience that appointed executives brought to the job of state department head. While most demographic, political and decision criteria characteristics fail to differentiate men and women, there are a few noteworthy differences. Women executives differ in political experience, age, substantive work experience, and number of dependent children from their male counterparts. The comparison of 1990 findings and those for 1993 showed a closing of the gap between men and women state department heads.

Managers and scholars have always been ambivalent about the value of friendships among employees to the organization, although anyone who has worked in an office setting knows that working in a friendly place is much more preferable than the alternative. The major focus on office friendship has been on the negative side: Friendship can be related to nepotism; favoritism; gossip; displacement of loyalty; and negative, time-consuming organizational politics. This article offers a more balanced assessment of friendship. The authors examine the opportunity to form friendships and the strength of friendship between employees and their manager and their relationship to a positive work attitude. While examining two countries (South Korea and the United States), the authors find that although the opportunity to form friendships and the strength of that relationship vary by country, friendships between superior and subordinate can positively affect work attitudes.