Succession planning for small and medium-sized family advertising agencies in Cyprus

Leadership succession is not a single measure, but rather a complex process (Sharma et al., 2001) that is necessary to ensure continuity of effective managerial control and engagement in a business entity (Charan et al., 2001). Thus, the aim of this work-based project involves addressing and examining the question of succession planning in family-owned and managed small and medium-size Cypriot advertising agencies, as well as developing a feasible model of leadership succession for such agencies. It takes into consideration the four major stakeholders in advertising agencies, namely non-family employees, owner-managers, clients, and the media. The study’s roadmap draws on Freeman’s (1984) Stakeholder Theory and Ajzen’s (1991) Planned Behaviour to explore the attitudes and perceptions of important stakeholders at work, as well as on Hofstede’s (2001) Cultural Dimension Approach to understand the cultural context of Cyprus. Moreover, research adds to extant literature by providing information regarding stakeholders such as media and clients, and by placing emphasis on the feelings and needs of non-family employees in the context of the family firm’s working environment. To that end, this action research project involves semi-structured interviews and focus groups to investigate a) the attitudes of the four major stakeholders towards succession-related issues; b) non-family employees and owner-managers’ perceptions of what important and influential stakeholders in advertising agencies think about succession in such agencies; c) the behavioural intentions of non-family employees to stay or leave their workplace in connection with the family firm’s succession, and the owner-managers intentions to keep succession in the family or engage non-family employees in the firm’s succession planning; and d) explain findings on organisational mentality regarding succession through the cultural lens. The findings of this study reveal that succession is not a top priority issue of advertising agencies’ owner-managers who view succession as a single event rather than a long-term planning process. Moreover, findings support that all stakeholders participating in the research perceive succession as a family matter, while the impact of the Cypriot culture is a determinant of the creation of such perceptions and attitudes. This study’s results also underline the importance of adopting strategic planning for leadership succession that includes skilled non-family employees, since talent and expertise are necessary ingredients for success in such a competitive and complex field as advertising. The project’s outcome is a model of leadership succession that takes into account insights of the major stakeholders in advertising agencies and provides a map of the succession planning process, indicating important steps and features necessary for its successful implementation. As such, the proposed model of leadership succession has an impact on advertising agencies as business entities, as well as on the four major stakeholders involved in such agencies, since it incorporates their personal and professional needs alongside their positions regarding succession and ensures a smooth leadership takeover by talented non-family professionals responsible for leading a family firm forward. The workability of the leadership succession model has been tested at Contact Advertising, the researcher’s workplace, and it is at the disposal of all family-run advertising agencies in Cyprus

The management of a bullying policy at an ex-model C school in Gauteng.

Title: The Management of a Bullying Policy at an Ex-Model C School in Gauteng Research question: What factors in a school appear to contribute towards the success or failure of a policy to manage bullying amongst learners? General aim of the study: The purpose is to investigate factors in a school that appear to contribute towards the success or failure of a policy to manage bullying amongst learners. Research methodology: The approach used in this study is that of a qualitative case study design. In order to enhance the study there is also an element of quantitative research where statistical methods are used to explore the expectations and perceptions of teachers with regards to the school promoting a healthy non-bullying environment. Conclusion: Factors such as culture, identity, strategy, structures and procedures and leadership, management and governance appeared to contribute towards the failure of a policy to manage bullying amongst learners

Case study: Dynamic performance of a MTDC network in Zhoushan city

This paper presents dynamic responses of a multi-terminal high voltage DC (MTDC) network in Zhoushan islands, China. The conventional methods of controlling MTDC networks suffered from poor dynamic performance. In this paper, an optimal strategy is derived through three main steps: DC load flow, optimum power flow and N-1 security for MTDC networks. The strategy is fulfilled by incorporating the loss minimization in a MTDC network. The advantages of the strategy are verified by dynamic simulations using MATLAB/Simulink package

On the Influence of Thermal Mass and Natural Ventilation on Overheating Risk in Offices

Free cooling strategies are gaining importance in design practice due to the increased risk of overheating in well-insulated buildings with high internal loads such as offices. The state of the art highlights that the most efficient passive solution for indoor temperature stabilization and control is the integration of thermal mass with an optimized ventilative cooling profile to enhance the thermal cycle of heat storage. Due to its cyclical behavior, thermal mass effects are difficult to predict and quantify with the traditional steady-state approach to building thermal performance. Dynamic thermal simulations help to assess a building’s behavior under transient situations, including the thermal mass influence. However, building codes usually include thermal simulations based on standard assumptions: typical meteorological year (TMY), standard occupancy, standard daily-based lighting and appliances profiles, and standard weekly-based occupancy. Thus, when assumptions change, the actual behavior of the building may vary consistently from the predicted conditions. In this paper, we focused on the ability of thermal mass to contrast the influence of variations from the standard assumptions, especially in relation to climate and ventilation profiles. The results show the necessity of encompassing different risk scenarios when evaluating a free cooling solution performance. Among the different scenarios simulated, natural ventilation misuse shows greater influence on the thermal indoor environment, especially if coupled with low thermal mass

Rapid faults detection for controlling multi-terminal high voltage DC grids under AC grid contingencies

To control power flow for integration of distributed energy onto urban power grids, rapid and accurate detection of the amplitude, phase-angle, and frequency offset of the grid voltage's positive and negative sequence components especially under grid fault conditions are more significant. This paper presents a new faults detection method that is capable of tracking signal deviations on the grid-voltage accurately and rapidly even in the case that bus-voltage contains high order harmonics and random noises. The experimental results verify the validity of the proposed method under various grid-fault conditions