Developing management effectiveness : The nexus between teaching and coaching

As a contribution to the evolving debate about the future of business schools, we explore the complementary value of teaching and coaching in executive education to offer a more holistic individualised learning experience. Beginning in each case with teaching, some enriching differences are: focus on knowing at a macro-level versus doing at a micro-level; pre-determined context-free knowledge versus self-determined context-specific knowledge; impersonal access to many subject experts versus personal access to one process professional; directively taking people out of themselves versus nondirectively taking people into themselves; critical feedback centred on normative reference points versus supportive feedback centred on personalised, formative reference points. The differences reveal limitations in each approach that the other can address. We propose that the greatest benefit for adult learning and management performance can be found at the nexus of the two approaches, when teachers and coaches integrate the qualities of both approaches. This entails not just appreciating some value in the other, but actually incorporating insights and methods from the other approach into their practice.https://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijme2021-03-01hj2020Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS

Partners in learning: Redefining mentorship for a learning organization

Mentorship programmes are popular for the development of black managers in South Africa. In the literature, controversy surrounds attempts to institutionalize mentorship. In this article it is argued that the concept of a learning partnership should replace that of mentorship, particularly in what are seen to be learning organizations. Many mentorship programmes are predicated on the belief that a warm and caring relationship is a prerequisite for effective development of protégés. Redefining the desired relationship as a learning partnership removes this demand on the relationship and places it squarely in the confines of a normal business affiliation in which the focus is mutual learning. Essential to the process of black advancement is empowerment. There are a number of dimensions to empowerment. In this article three key dimensions are discussed in relation to the development of black managers, namely objective power, subjective power and empowerment in competence. Based on insights gained in the initial phases of a mentorship programme implemented in a leading information technology company, a number of principles are offered for implementing learning partnerships in a learning organization. These revolve around the need to use a new paradigm to interpret the learning experiences that constitute a developmental relationship between a young and promising employee and a more experienced and knowledgeable manager

Cultural values, sources of guidance, and their relevance to managerial behavior: A 47-nation study

Data are presented showing how middle managers in 47 countries report handling eight specific work events. The data are used to test the ability of cultural value dimensions derived from the work of Hofstede. Trompenaars, and Schwartz to predict the specific sources of guidance on which managers rely. Focusing on sources of guidance is expected to provide a more precise basis than do generalized measures of values for understanding the behaviors that prevail within different cultures. Values are strongly predictive of reliance on those sources of guidance that are relevant to vertical relationships within organizations. Hock ever, values are less successful in predicting reliance on peers and on more tacit sources of guidance. Explaining national differences in these neglected aspects of organizational processes will require greater sensitivity to the culture-specific contexts within which they occur

Demographic effects on the use of vertical sources of guidance by managers in widely differing cultural contexts

Data provided by 7380 middle managers from 60 nations are used to determine whether demographic variables are correlated with managers’ reliance on vertical sources of guidance in different nations and whether these correlations differ depending on national culture characteristics. Significant effects of Hofstede’s national culture scores, age, gender, organization ownership and department function are found. After these main effects have been discounted, significant although weak interactions are found, indicating that demographic effects are stronger in individualist, low power distance nations than elsewhere. Significant non-predicted interaction effects of uncertainty avoidance and masculinity-femininity are also obtained. The implications for theory and practice of the use of demographic attributes in understanding effective management procedures in various parts of the world are discussed