Inclusive/exclusive talent management, responsible leadership and organizational downsizing

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on three Egyptian public business schools in an attempt to explore the effect of inclusive/exclusive talent management on the organizational downsizing of academics and the mediating role of responsible leadership. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 330 academics were contacted and given a set of questionnaires. After three follow-ups, a total of 240 responses were collected with a response rate of 72.73 percent. Multiple regressions were employed to show how much variation in organizational downsizing can be explained by inclusive/exclusive talent management and responsible leadership. Findings: The findings highlighted a very weak statistical association between academics’ inclusive talent management and organizational downsizing, whereas a strong statistical association has been discovered between exclusive talent management and organizational downsizing. Statistical analysis showed that responsible leadership has no role in mediating the relationship between inclusive/exclusive talent management of academics and their downsizing. Research limitations/implications: The authors have focused on only three Egyptian public business schools, the matter that may limit opportunities to generalize the results of this study to private business schools and other faculties in Egypt. Future research could use a double source method. Practical implications: By preparing a set of academic competences, business schools will be able to classify their academic staff into talented and non-talented, and accordingly they can initiate their tailored downsizing strategies. Furthermore, undertaking a responsible strategy of downsizing, which includes and is not limited to justifying the need to decrease academic staff numbers to guarantee post-redundancy care practices for laid-off academics may alleviate many of the negative psychological, societal and economic consequences of downsizing. Originality/value: This paper contributes by filling a gap in HR management and higher education literature, in which empirical studies on the relationship between talent management and academics’ organizational downsizing have been limited until now. This may create better research opportunities for cross-disciplinary papers that should be done by HR, higher education and leadership scholars

The relationship between student’s MBTI, preferences and academic performance at a Syrian university

Purpose: The main purpose of this paper is to find whether a correlation exists between students’ natural preferences or what is known as psychological type as determined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI); the extent of their enthusiasm measured by their level of “like” to the subject, and students’ grade point average (GPA). Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 89 students who took the MBTI inventory in five selected faculties at Damascus University in Syria. In order to rate the subjects’ like or dislike level, the students were asked to complete a form prepared for this purpose. The students’ GPAs were also included in the analysis. Findings: Using paired sample t-test, the results indicate a statistically significant correlation between type of student and his/her faculty of study, type of student and overall study subject like, and type of student and his/her GPA. There was, however, a statistically significant correlation between various personality dichotomies of the type (Extraversion-Introversion, Sensing-Intuition, Thinking-Feeling, Judging-Perceiving) and faculty, individual subjects like, and GPA. The study also indicates a statistically significant correlation between study like and GPA, and faculty and GPA. The most critical conclusion from the study is that Sensing-Intuition dichotomy of the MBTI inventory has the strongest correlation to distribution of students among faculties, the subject's like or dislike, and the GPA. In addition, the higher the level of like for a subject, the higher the GPA is. Research limitations/implications: The study results were based on a sample of students from a specific subject area of study. To validate the results of the study, future research is highly needed on a larger sample of students from different subject disciplines. Practical implications: Empirically, this study provides decision makers of the higher education sector with relevant information regarding the intended future attempts to reform the university admission policy with regards to the career path. Originality/value: The usefulness of MBTI inventory has not been assessed in the Arab countries before. This study is therefore considered as one of the initial studies in this field

Talent management practices: perceptions of Egyptian academics

Purpose –This paper focuses on three out of 24 business schools in Egypt in order to investigate talent management practices of academics there. Design/ methodology/ approach – A total of 350 academics were contacted and 245 of them were interviewed in 49 face-to-face focus groups. The interview length for each focus group is about 45 minutes and is conducted in Arabic, the mother tongue of all respondents. . Upon conducting the interviews, the authors used thematic analysis to determine the main ideas in the transcripts. Findings – The authors did not detect any systematic approach for the management of academic talent in the chosen public business schools. Instead, there were irresponsible unorderly procedures undertaken by these business schools in staffing, empowering, motivating, evaluating and retaining those talents. Furthermore, the authors realized an absence of many cultural and technical dimensions like adaptability, consistency and knowledge sharing which may hurdle academic staff desires to do their best effort in teaching and conducting research. Moreover, these addressed academic members narrow perception of the concept “talent” that includes only musical and sports figures - the matter that reflects their lack of understanding for one of the hottest concepts in HR academic and practical arenas nowadays. Research limitations/ implications – The focus is only on a single perspective (academics) and a single area (Upper Egypt) - a matter that neglects a variety of views (e.g. minister of Egyptian higher education and schools’ deans). Additionally, the results/ findings of this study cannot be generalized to academic settings in other countries because the data is collected only from public business schools in Upper Egypt. Practical implications – The authors recommend officials in Egyptian public business schools foster constituting academic talents pool which will determine the main academic features, practical characteristics and research focus that academics should address. Moreover, the authors suggest business schools establish continuous academic rapport and feedback reports which would assist in monitoring talented academicians’ level of satisfaction towards their departments’ procedural justice, distributive justice, work-related communication and most importantly, the level of inclusion they feel. Originality/ value – This paper contributes by filling a gap in HR management, in which empirical studies on the practices of managing talents have been limited so far

Responsible management education in Egyptian public business schools: Are academics ready?

Purpose – This paper focuses on three out of the 24 public business schools in Egypt in order to investigate how responsible management education is perceived and exercised by academics there. Design/ methodology/ approach – A total of 168 academics were contacted and interviewed in 42 focus groups. The length of each focus group was about 45 minutes, and interviews were conducted in Arabic as most respondents have no mastery of the English language. The authors used thematic analysis to extract the main ideas in the transcripts. Findings – Based on data analysis of the perceptions of academics concerning business education, research and management process at the target business schools, the authors of this paper found that responsible management education is not considered a priority in the work agendas of the three Egyptian public business schools. Besides a lack of general acceptance and awareness of the need for responsible management education, there are functional, procedural and edu-academic barriers that these schools need to overcome first before proceeding with implementation and expecting positive outcomes. Research limitations/ implications – This research maybe subject to criticism because the authors address only the perspectives of academics in the chosen business schools while neglecting other academic partners, particularly those in managerial positions, such as rectors and heads of departments. Future researchers may use the same research questions to investigate a managerial level perspective to depict a more holistic picture of the situation. Moreover, including Egyptian private business schools may also enrich the findings. In fact, the authors suggest that scholars from different academic disciplines such as sustainability management, business ethics, higher education, sustainability and cultural diversity work together to produce more interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on the global responsibility themes business schools have to manage. Practical implications – If the administration of the addressed business schools seek to implement responsible management education, they should overcome the following barriers. Firstly, the functional barrier (the limited financial budget and need for official approval to address both sociocultural and environmental aspects). Secondly, procedural barriers (lack of channels for formal and/or informal collaborations with governmental bodies, private enterprises, NGOs and social activist groups). Thirdly, Edu-academic barriers (lack of CSR inclusion in business school strategy, faculty promotion and incentives not tied to their proactive embedding of sustainable development and other socio-cultural issues into their curricula, research and academic practices, and no incentive or support for interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary collaboration with researchers and faculty from other departments and faculties). Originality/ value – This paper contributes by filling a gap in sustainability, HR management, business ethics, and higher education literature in which empirical studies on responsible management education and the responsible practices of academics have been limited so fa

Organizational learning, authentic leadership and individual-level resistance to change: a study of Egyptian academics

Purpose – This paper focuses on academics in three private foreign universities located in Cairo (Egypt) to explore the effect of organizational learning on individual-level resistance to change with and without the mediation of authentic leadership.Design/ methodology/ approach – A total of 960 academics were contacted and all of them received a set of questionnaires. After four follow ups, a total of 576 responses were collected with a response rate of 60.00 percent. The author used the chi-square test to determine the association between organizational learning and authentic leadership. Multiple regressions were employed to show how much variation in individual-level resistance to change can be explained by organizational learning and authentic leadership.Findings – The findings highlight a statistical association between organizational learning and authentic leadership. Moreover, another statistical association is explored between authentic leadership and individual-level resistance to change. Furthermore, the statistical analysis proved that having an authentic leadership in the workplace fosters the effect of organizational learning in alleviating individual’s resistance to change.Research limitations/ implications – Data was collected only from academics and did not include rectors and/or heads of academic departments, the matter that may lead to an inflation of statistical relationships. Future research could use a double source method. Moreover, focusing only on private foreign universities working in Egypt diminishes the author’s potential for generalizing his results.Practical implications – The author recommends establishing a unit for knowledge management inside every university. The function of this unit includes but is not limited to examining prospective socio-political, cultural and economic changes/challenges in the surrounding environment and preparing the possible scenarios for dealing with them. This in turn should comprise involvement and learning opportunities for academics work in these universities. The suggested units should also organize monthly meetings between academics and representatives from different Egyptian sectors such as NGOs personnel, CEOs of private and public companies, environmentalists and politicians to address what change those actors seek universities to undertake to guide academics to fulfil their expectations.Originality/ value – This paper contributes by filling a gap in HR management and organization literature in the higher education sector, in which empirical studies on the relationship between organizational learning, authentic leadership and resistance to change have been limited until now

Multi academy trusts in England: a scenario of cooperation with universities

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the authors’ views of university–multi academy trusts’ (MATs) opportunities for future interconnectivity that could support successful partnerships. Design/methodology/approach: The authors developed a matrix of university–MATs partnerships that could help identifying potential scenarios of collaboration between universities and MATs. Findings: Four potential scenarios of collaborations are proposed (board membership, academic supervision, recruitment support and academic support). Research limitations/implications: Scholars in the field can further investigate the four proposed scenarios in the matrix in future studies. Practical implications: The matrix will be useful for universities and MATs management for potential cooperation in the future. Originality/value: The study proposes four scenarios of cooperation between MATs and universities

A framework for customer relationship management strategy orientation support in higher education institutions

A number of generic Customer Relationship Management (CRM) implementation frameworks have been developed, yet no systematic framework has been developed to help HEIs orientate CRM strategy to align with university business strategies and stakeholder needs. This research iteratively develops the CRM Strategy Orientation Support (CRM-SOS) framework, which aims to support HEIs in orientating their strategic CRM system at the pre-implementation stage and align CRM strategy with the business strategy; thus, reducing the chance that HEIs will experience CRM implementation failure. To reach our proposed CRM-SOS framework, we employed Design Science Research (DSR) methodology steps by analysing UK HEIs specific CRM implementation case studies, conducting semi-structured HEIs-based interviews, followed by evaluation of the resulted framework by HEI Information Systems (IS) experts. We concluded with a new CRM-SOS framework for HEIs consisting of five stages. The framework can be used to personalise the stages until they fit the strategic outputs and match the top management KPIs. Although existing research agrees that intensive attention should be given to CRM planning, there is no consensus or developed framework, for use within HEIs, demonstrating how CRM strategy can be orientated to align with university strategies and customer needs

Gender, diversity management perceptions, workplace happiness and organizational citizenship behaviour

Purpose/ Aim: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether females have different perceptions of diversity management and workplace happiness compared to their male colleagues. Furthermore, the paper explores whether diversity management perceptions mediates the relationship between workplace happiness and organisational citizenship behaviour. Design/Methodology/Approach: A total of 260 questionnaire from a number of public hospitals in Egypt were analysed using both t-test and Structural Equation Modelling. Findings/ Results: We found that female physicians perceive diversity management policies/protocols more positively than their male colleagues. Moreover, gender has no or little effect on physicians’ perceptions of workplace happiness. We also found that workplace happiness positively affects physicians’ organisational citizenship behaviour, and finally, diversity management practices can mediate the relationship between workplace happiness and physicians’ organisational citizenship behaviour. Social and practical implications: We believe that managers can raise the feeling of workplace happiness among their staff if they maintain some personal relationships with physicians, care about the physicians’ work/life balance, promote after work gatherings, initiate coffee time talks, encourage open communication practices and more. Originality: The paper is based on the argument that although employees might be happy in the workplace through (engagement, job satisfaction, affective commitment), however their happiness will be unlikely reflected into a positive organizational citizenship behaviour towards their organisation, except (social exchange theory) they feel or perceive (equity theory) the overall practices of diversity management in that organization positively. Thus, studying the mediating effect of perceptions towards diversity management is mainly our contribution