Journal of Applied Leadership and Management

Emotional and Cognitive Impacts of Organisational Change

Daniel Wladar — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Is there a relationship between the lack of a change vision and negative emotions in the affected employees? Does insufficient communication during organisational change lead to negative emotions?

Hypotheses are tested by means of quantitative primary research in the form of an employee survey at a medium-sized automotive supplier in Germany. The study is based on a questionnaire that was developed specifically for the topic of this study. The questionnaire was answered by 102 employees.

The analysis shows that the lack of a change vision leads to negative emotions in the affected employees. In particular, a change vision that is not perceived as desirable leads to strong negative emotions. Against the findings of the literature review, this study did not find a significant correlation between the perception of the change communication and the emotions of the change-affected employees.

Using Intervention Research to Adopt Evidence-Based Management as a Practical Leadership Capability

Robert Alan Young — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

How could strategic decision-makers in the public sector determine whether System 1 or System 2 thinking would be most effective? How could a leader’s readiness to adopt evidence-based management be assessed? What organizational intervention could a public sector organization apply to integrate evidence-based management to strengthen strategic decision-making?

A design-based case study employed an analytic workflow that included observations of team workshops to surface coded indicators of critical thinking. Additionally, heuristic-based questions during interviews with a purposeful sampling of leaders, managers, and employees explored the shared experiences throughout the intervention. Applied nexus analysis and interdiscursivity informed the content in the next phase with a deeper understanding of where shared perspectives aligned and where disconnects existed. The approach generated insights to inform the planning of subsequent workshops.

The leaders in this study were found to rely instinctively on their non-expert intuitions (System 1) rather than seek to supplement their perspectives with data, information, or other perspectives (System 2) when facing new challenges. Practitioners face a challenge in seeing the relevance of evidence-based approaches to solving their strategic problems. Furthermore, the value of an interventional framework (with nexus analysis and interdiscursivity) as a change management approach was beneficial. This study showed the benefit of focusing on the relevance of the results and the intended audience, recognizing that perhaps all or only some of the findings may be helpful to others in different settings.

Increasing Gender Diversity in Organisations: What Works?

Luciana Vieira — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Which practices were effectively implemented by organisations in Germany to promote and manage gender diversity and which key performance indicators (KPIs) did they implement to support gender diversity management? What is the maturity level of this implementation? Which practices for the promotion and management of gender diversity contributed more to advancing the participation of women in the workforce and in management?

Empirical primary research and quantitative analysis were used to answer the research questions and test hypotheses. Data on the implementation of 22 diversity and inclusion (D&I) practices and 12 supporting KPIs to promote and manage gender diversity were collected through a survey with 139 D&I or human resources (HR) professionals and managers in large organisations in Germany that are publicly committed to D&I.

Practices to promote and manage gender diversity and supporting KPIs are widely used in the surveyed organisations. The maturity of the implementation is on intermediate to advanced levels. Organisations that reported an increase in the female workforce have more diversity practices and more maturity in the use of targeted recruitment and bias reduction in promotion decisions, as well as in the use of KPIs to monitor new hires and attrition rates by gender. Organisations where the proportion of women in management increased use more diversity practices, more supporting KPIs, and have higher maturity in the implementation of both. Particularly, these organisations are more mature in the use of women’s networks, measures to raise the visibility of role models, diversity/anti-bias trainings and practices to manage diversity, such as D&I staff, D&I committees, and reporting mechanisms to the CEO. A correlation analysis showed that higher increases in the proportion of women in the workforce are associated with higher maturity in using gender-diverse interview teams.

New Challenges in the Area of Supply Chain Risk Management: Unpredictable Events and Their Effects

Kevin Lohner-Moeslang — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

How important are SCRM and joint approaches for companies, and do they have established reasonable KPIs in their organisations, if recent events had such a tremendous effect to their SCs?

The basis of the study was a survey specifically designed to collect data from German supplier companies operating in the special machine building segment, which was distributed to company professionals employed for specific roles within their supply chains.

The results of this study show that supply chain risk management is generally a management tool that attracts a lot of attention in companies. In addition, it was found that the identified collaborative aspects are taken into account with varying degrees of intensity, so that general applicability cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore, different correlations to the associated sub-activities were found whereby the focus clearly lies on greater flexibility, efficiency and improved dynamics. Eventually, it was found that key performance indicators are almost exclusively based on financial-based measurement systems and that a shockingly large number of companies have not even established them.