Marketing management capability:the construct and its dimensions: an examination of managers’ and entrepreneurs’ perceptions in a retail setting

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the relationship between corporate cultural/intangible assets and marketing capabilities by examining managers’ and entrepreneurs’ perceptions in a retail setting.Design/methodology/approach: Nineteen face-to-face interviews were conducted with UK small and medium sized enterprise (SMEs) managers and entrepreneurs to identify six sub-capabilities that form marketing capability. The authors further validated the relationship between marketing sub-capabilities and its antecedent tangible and intangible assets. The qualitative approach used provided a deeper insight into the motivations, perceptions and associations of the stakeholders behind these intangible concepts, and their relationships with their customers.Findings: The research identified that there is a strong relationship between tangible and intangible assets, their components and the following capabilities: corporate/brand identity management, market sensing, customer relationship, social media/communication, design/innovation management and performance management. In addition, companies need to understand clearly what tangible and intangible assets comprise these capabilities. Where performance management is one of the key internal capabilities, companies must highlight the importance of strong cultural assets that substantially contribute to a company’s performance.Originality/value: Previous work on dynamic capability analysis is too generic, predominantly relating to the manufacturing sector, and/or focussing on using a single case study example. This study extends the concept of marketing capability in a retail setting by identifying six sub-capabilities and describing the relationship of each with tangible and intangible assets. Through extensive qualitative analysis, the authors provide evidence that by fully exploiting their embedded culture and other intangible components, companies can more favourably engage with their customers to attain a sustainable competitive advantage.</p

Working at the Speed of Innovation: Impedance Mismatch in Rapid and Innovation Projects

In this paper we report on the results of an ethnographic study of a rapid design innovation (RDI) experiment in NASA Aeronautics. This work is based on the study of the Aeronautics Autonomy Testbed Capability (AATC) team in the Convergent Aeronautics Solutions (CAS) project. This paper focuses on and summarizes one of the key over-arching findings from the study: there is a significant mismatch in the organizational culture in the rest of the organization compared with that required for RDI. And, if this organizational cultural mismatch is not addressed, the likelihood of any organization being able to advance a new and different type of work (such as RDI) will be jeopardized. We delineate several aspects of the two different cultures identified in order to enable leaders and practitioners to better understand what contributes to the cultural dissonance and the implications of the differences in the cultures. As well, we identify ways in which those differences can be addressed. Research from organization and other social sciences are incorporated to highlight the differences. The implications of the research suggest that the significant cultural differences trigger a strong and resistive response from the dominant culture that may negate leaderships strategy to build the new capacity for RDI. While the research results noted the pervasive nature of innovation throughout the workplace, the type of innovation envisioned in RDI is a rare type of innovation that requires significantly new methods, work processes, tools, and skills such that approaches used in the dominate culture cannot be adopted by expediting the existing approaches. Examples include: innovation teaming and leadership; the need for adaptive leadership that changes the relationship of a research leader to the other researchers; and, an interdisciplinary teaming approach which shapes team relationships and activities. Each of these aspects requires new teaming, tools, and skills in order to succeed. Thus, when introducing RDI activities where there is a different dominant culture, teams need to be: well trained; protected; recognized and rewarded. And, team leaders must also be trained in the unique types of teaming and innovation tools used in RDI. Both RDI teaming and team leadership must be sanctioned, supported, and rewarded by leadership. Because of the cultural mismatch, in some organizations looking to add RDI to their existing and established organizations, sep to avoid or mitigate the negative impact of the culture mismatch

Firm Culture and Leadership as Firm Performance Predictors: a Resource-Based Perspective

In this study, we tested part of the resource-based view of the firm by examining two 'soft' resources, firm culture and top leadership, as predictors of 'hard' or bottom-line firm performance.Transformational top leadership was found to predict firm performance directly while the link between firm culture and firm performance was indirect: via transformational top leadership.Firm culture was operationalized as the employees' views about the degree of optimization of four organizational practices (job autonomy, external orientational, interdepartmental orientation, and human resource orientation).We conclude that, rather than strong cultures, firms need best organizational practices and transformational leadership.Organizational culture;Leadership firm performance;Resource-based theory of the firm

Virtual Teams: Work/Life Challenges - Keeping Remote Employees Engaged

Remotely located employees are quickly becoming a norm in the modern workplace in response to evidence that telecommuters save on costs and produce more efficiently. There are many intangible benefits also felt with the increasing prevalence of remote employees. Telecommuters are more satisfied with their work/life balance and report lower rates of job burnout. Though there are also many well-identified setbacks remotely located managers and employees may face. Employers see the most success with telecommuting by first recruiting the people best fit to fill these remote roles. However, the process of developing remote employees is a process that requires constant monitoring. The purpose of this paper is to identify the best practices being used by companies to keep remote employees engaged while simultaneously avoiding burnout

Employability of women managers in the education sector: A study on their leadership role

The teaching profession both in this country and internationally is, with few exceptions, predominated by women as it has traditionally been seen as a ‘suitable’ job for women. However, a look at the statistics reveals that despite the large numbers of women in the profession, they are greatly under-represented in positions of management. Thus the underrepresentation of women in positions of senior management within educational institutions continues to be a matter of some concern. Studies on gender and leadership have revealed a number of barriers to women seeking educational leadership and management positions. This paper discusses the status of women at senior management level within the educational sector. Previous studies have found differences in leadership styles in terms of gender and managerial hierarchy. Discussions on the gender differentiation of leadership have centered on the different qualities and styles of leadership of men and women; that is, the so-called masculine and feminine styles of leadership. In this context this paper examines the literature relating to the leadership styles typically adopted by women in order to explain how such styles will have an impact on the educational sector

Leadership Competencies for Managing Diversity

The new understanding of diversity involves more than increasing the number of different identity groups on the payroll. An important proposal is that the experience of diversity in an organisation results from pervasive styles of management. This article dealt with the specific paradigms of diversitymanagement and leadership style theory used to address the research problem in the empirical study, namely ‘Is diversity management experience related to leadership styles or competencies?’ The models of diversity and inclusion indicators are used to examine the experience of diversitymanagement. The population of this study into the experience of diversity management is two thousand six hundred and sixty nine (2669) respondents. Leadership styles were obtained from four hundred and forty (440) leaders. The Cronbach alpha values were determined in order to indicate internal validity and reliability.diversity management, engaging leadership style, experience, heroic leadership style, management, symbolic interactionism

What Determines Leadership Style?

This project examines selected traits valued in friends by educated individuals, and it seeks to determine if these valued traits vary by gender, race, and generational cohort. A literature review reveals that variations in leadership attributes are evident among these traits. In order to test the broad applicability of this literature, data were taken from the General Social Survey (GSS). The key analyses center on correlations between gender, race, and cohort, on the one hand, and the selected valued traits identified with effective leadership on the other. In some cases, the literature yields weak hypotheses, and in other cases the research is solely exploratory. According to leadership expert Peter Northouse, the personal traits of intelligence, integrity, and sociability are closely tied to effective leadership. This project examines the influence of gender, race, and cohort on how much these traits are valued. The findings of this project have potential usefulness for organizations to better understand how these three leadership traits are associated with gender, race, and age—perhaps ultimately influencing how organizations train and view their managers

Mergers and Acquisitions: revisiting the human factor in the light of a knowledge-based view of the firm and complexity theory

An ongoing argument in the MetA literature is that the human factor has an important impact on the outcome of those operations. Analysis of the HR integration has identified human factors that play an inhibiting role on post-acquisition performance, particularly cultural and organisational mismatch, resistance to change and poor level of strategic integration planning. Yet, less is known about the role of the human factor in the organisational dynamics, which is at work when merging two autonomous entities, and the related impact on performance. The aim of the paper is to study ways of exploring the relationship between the human factor and post-acquisition performance, in discussing possible contributions from a knowledge-based view of the firm (KBV) and complexity theory.

Evolving Role and Nature of Workplace Leaders and Diversity: A Theoretical and Empirical Approach

Blumer (1962) regarded the ‘many possibilities of uncertainty as inherent to the process of joint action.’ Joint action reflects the efforts of participants to work out the line of action in light of what they observe each other doing. Leadership appears to be approached from two fundamental perspectives: an organisational perspective (the influence that is exercised to change the direction of the organisation), and an individual task perspective (the influence that is directed at changing the work behaviour of an individual). In this article, it is suggested that the symbolic interaction of perspective integrates the two fundamental perspectives in that both perspectives require meaningful, reflexive integration and meaning, group membership, organisational role and experience. The evolving role of leaders to attract, retain and connect with a diverse workforce in a changing environment gives rise to interactive leadership competency requirements. This article suggests that managing diversity requires business leaders to adopt an approach to diversity management that is sensitive not only to race and ethnic differences, but also to the background and values of all individuals at work. The empirical study was done and four hundred and forty (440) leadership styles were measured in eleven (11) organisations. The study used the Hall and Hawker (1988) inventory leadership styles and a diversity questionnaire to measure diversity management experience.discrimination, diversity management, engaging leadership style, experience, heroic leadership style, management, transformational leadership