Organisational politics: reconciling leadership's rational-emotional paradox

Purpose – Effective leadership action requires managers to harness power that is intrinsically political. This paper aims to study and characterise the political nature of a manager's behaviour when taking leadership action. Design/methodology/approach – The methodological approach is qualitative and examines three organisations over a three-year period when these entities experienced a major product failure. The paper analyses the actual managerial behaviour of managers and provides insight into the factors that most strongly influence the effectiveness of managers when taking leadership action. Findings – Political behaviour when taking leadership action can be conceptualised in terms of rationality and emotionality. In so doing, it can be clarified how behaviour must be modified to ensure that leadership action is consistently effective. Research limitations/implications – A case study of three multinational engineering companies engaged in the design, development and manufacturing of turbomachinery provides the platform for the research. The concepts presented in the paper will require validating in other organisations of different demographic profiles. Practical implications – The concepts presented and the implications discussed provide insight into the political nature of managerial behaviour when taking leadership action. The paper highlights the practical steps individual managers can embrace to ensure that their behaviour is appropriate to context, even under the most traumatic situations. Thus, the paper provides managers with a model that facilitates effective leadership action. Originality/value – This paper provides insight into how managers behaved in circumstances that mattered to them. Through immersion in events at the time they took place, the authors captured situations in which managers were under real pressure and, in so doing, avoided the bias inherent when interviewing a manager about past events. As such, the paper concludes that the political behaviour in which managers engage when taking leadership action is rooted in the reality of the adversity that the most capable managers have both experienced and overcome. This detailed study reports behaviour in a situation where managers' business and future prospects were in jeopardy. This paper identifies why some managers were able to use the experience positively, helping them to adopt politically intrinsic behaviour to facilitate effective leadership action.

RMetS special interest group meeting: high resolution data assimilation

Data assimilation (DA) systems are evolving to meet the demands of convection-permitting models in the field of weather forecasting. On 19 April 2013 a special interest group meeting of the Royal Meteorological Society brought together UK researchers looking at different aspects of the data assimilation problem at high resolution, from theory to applications, and researchers creating our future high resolution observational networks. The meeting was chaired by Dr Sarah Dance of the University of Reading and Dr Cristina Charlton-Perez from the MetOffice@Reading. The purpose of the meeting was to help define the current state of high resolution data assimilation in the UK. The workshop assembled three main types of scientists: observational network specialists, operational numerical weather prediction researchers and those developing the fundamental mathematical theory behind data assimilation and the underlying models. These three working areas are intrinsically linked; therefore, a holistic view must be taken when discussing the potential to make advances in high resolution data assimilation.

Impact of non-hydrostatic effects and trapped lee waves on mountain wave drag in directionally sheared flow

The orographic gravity wave drag produced in flow over an axisymmetric mountain when both vertical wind shear and non-hydrostatic effects are important was calculated using a semi-analytical two-layer linear model, including unidirectional or directional constant wind shear in a layer near the surface, above which the wind is constant. The drag behaviour is determined by partial wave reflection at the shear discontinuity, wave absorption at critical levels (both of which exist in hydrostatic flow), and total wave reflection at levels where the waves become evanescent (an intrinsically non-hydrostatic effect), which produces resonant trapped lee wave modes. As a result of constructive or destructive wave interference, the drag oscillates with the thickness of the constant-shear layer and the Richardson number within it (Ri), generally decreasing at low Ri and when the flow is strongly non-hydrostatic. Critical level absorption, which increases with the angle spanned by the wind velocity in the constant-shear layer, shields the surface from reflected waves, keeping the drag closer to its hydrostatic limit. While, for the parameter range considered here, the drag seldom exceeds this limit, a substantial drag fraction may be produced by trapped lee waves, particularly when the flow is strongly non-hydrostatic, the lower layer is thick and Ri is relatively high. In directionally sheared flows with Ri = O(1), the drag may be misaligned with the surface wind in a direction opposite to the shear, a behaviour which is totally due to non-trapped waves. The trapped lee wave drag, whose reaction force on the atmosphere is felt at low levels, may therefore have a distinctly different direction from the drag associated with vertically propagating waves, which acts on the atmosphere at higher levels.

The excitation of ionospheric convection

This review presents recent observations of high-latitude ionospheric plasma convection, obtained using the EISCAT radar in the 'Polar' experiment mode. The paper is divided into two main parts. Firstly, the delay in the response of dayside high-latitude flows to changes in the interplanetary magnetic field is discussed. The results show the importance for the excitation of dayside convection of the transfer of magnetic flux from the dayside into the tail lobe. Consequently, ionospheric convection should be thought of as the sum of two intrinsically time-dependent flow patterns. The first of these patterns is directly driven by solar wind-magnetosphere coupling, dominates ionospheric flows on the dayside, is associated with an expanding polar cap area and is the F-region flow equivalent of the DP-2 E-region current system. The second of the two patterns is driven by the release of energy stored in the geomagnetic tail, dominates ionospheric flows on the nightside, is associated with a contracting polar cap and is equivalent to the DP-1, or substorm, current system. In the second half of the paper, various transient flow bursts observed in the vicinity of the dayside cusp are studied. These radar data, combined with simultaneous optical observations of transient dayside aurorae, strongly suggest that momentum is transferred across the magnetopause and into the ionosphere in a series of bursts, each associated with voltages of 30-80 kV. Similarities between these bursts and flux transfer events observed at the magnetopause are discussed.

The excitation of plasma convection in the high-latitude ionosphere

Recent observations of ionospheric flows by ground-based radars, in particular by the European Incoherent Scatter (EISCAT) facility using the “Polar” experiment, together with previous analyses of the response of geomagnetic disturbance to variations of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), suggest that convection in the high-latitude ionosphere should be considered to be the sum of two intrinsically time-dependent patterns, one driven by solar wind-magnetosphere coupling at the dayside magnetopause, the other by the release of energy in the geomagnetic tail (mainly by dayside and nightside reconnection, respectively). The flows driven by dayside coupling are largest on the dayside, where they usually dominate, are associated with an expanding polar cap area, and are excited and decay on ∼10-min time scales following southward and northward turnings of the IMF, respectively. The latter finding indicates that the production of new open flux at the dayside magnetopause excites magnetospheric and ionospheric flow only for a short interval, ∼10 min, such that the flow driven by this source subsequently decays on this time scale unless maintained by the production of more open flux tubes. Correspondingly, the flows excited by the release of energy in the tail, mainly during substorms, are largest on the nightside, are associated with a contracting polar cap boundary, and are excited on ∼1-hour time scales following a southward turn of the IMF. In general, the total ionospheric flow will be the sum of the flows produced by these two sources, such that due to their different response times to changes in the IMF, considerable variations in the flow pattern can occur for a given direction and strength of the IMF. Consequently, the ionospheric electric field cannot generally be regarded as arising from a simple mapping of the solar wind electric field along open flux tubes.

Exploration of relational factors: Sino-foreign joint-venture partnering

Purpose – Despite recent threats of economic contraction, China still offers attractive opportunities for foreign companies seeking to expand their business activities through joint venturing (JV) partnering entry strategies. Recent research has indicated a growing recognition of the importance of relational factors in JV partnering. The purpose of this paper is to build on recent research findings that identify critical relation success factors in JVs and explores these in the context of a Hong Kong-based civil aviation services company seeking to expand business activities in Greater China. Design/methodology/approach – While the extant management literature focuses primarily on factors relevant to the inter-partner relationship between partners in the formation stage of a joint venture, this research takes a dynamic stakeholder perspective in respect of the relevant relational factors over the evolution of a partnership. The research described in this paper is based on a case-based study that identifies and examines the relevance and importance of uniquely Chinese factors such as guanxi, renqing and mianzi in the specific context of a strategic partnering relationship. Findings – This phenomenological study provides empirical evidence of critical linkages of these to intrinsically Chinese notions of guanxi, mianzi and renqing – it links these to key strategic partnering success factors identified to be trust, conflict resolution, commitment and cooperation. This study thereby reinforces the importance of the uniquely Chinese relational context in cross-border JVs. Moreover, the research findings suggest that these factors underpin the dynamic bi-directional stakeholder relationship in a Sino-foreign strategic partnership. Originality/value – This study conceptually links the uniquely Chinese relational factors (guanxi, mianzi and renqing) to key success factors supporting the establishment of a strategic partnership in a Sino-foreign context; moreover, it contributes empirical evidence substantiating the proposed conceptual linkage.

Conversion in late antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and beyond

The papers in this volume were presented at a Mellon-Sawyer Seminar held at the University of Oxford in 2009-2010, which sought to investigate side by side the two important movements of conversion that frame late antiquity: to Christianity at its start, and to Islam at the other end. Challenging the opposition between the two stereotypes of Islamic conversion as an intrinsically violent process, and Christian conversion as a fundamentally spiritual one, the papers seek to isolate the behaviours and circumstances that made conversion both such a common and such a contested phenomenon. The spread of Buddhism in Asia in broadly the same period serves as an external comparator that was not caught in the net of the Abrahamic religions. The volume is organised around several themes, reflecting the concerns of the initial project with the articulation between norm and practice, the role of authorities and institutions, and the social and individual fluidity on the ground. Debates, discussions, and the expression of norms and principles about conversion conversion are not rare in societies experiencing religious change, and the first section of the book examines some of the main issues brought up by surviving sources. This is followed by three sections examining different aspects of how those principles were - or were not - put into practice: how conversion was handled by the state, how it was continuously redefined by individual ambivalence and cultural fluidity, and how it was enshrined through different forms of institutionalization. Finally, a topographical coda examines the effects of religious change on the iconic holy city of Jerusalem.

Do good deeds make bad people?

According to the so-called ‘self-licensing effect’, committing to a virtuous act in a preceding choice may lead to behave less virtuously in the succeeding decision. Consequently, well-intentioned policies can lead to overall counter-productive effects by licensing people to behave badly in related behaviors. On the other side, motivational crowding theory argues that constraining people to adopt a desirable behavior can backfire. We use of a classroom experiment to test whether a regulatory framework to incentivize individuals to adopt pro-environmental behavior generate similar spillovers in terms of licensing effect than a non-regulatory framework. We show that the way the good deed is caused doesn’t seem to influence the licensing effect. Nevertheless, we found that business- and environmental-orientated majors react adversely to the regulatory framework. We show that environmental-orientated students exhibit higher intrinsically motivations than business-orientated ones. Accordingly, we suggest that the licensing effect is more likely to arise when the preceding ‘virtuous’ act is freely chosen (respectively regulatory caused) for non-intrinsically (respectively intrinsically) motivated individuals.

Optimized hash for network path encoding with minimized false positives

The Bloom filter is a space efficient randomized data structure for representing a set and supporting membership queries. Bloom filters intrinsically allow false positives. However, the space savings they offer outweigh the disadvantage if the false positive rates are kept sufficiently low. Inspired by the recent application of the Bloom filter in a novel multicast forwarding fabric, this paper proposes a variant of the Bloom filter, the optihash. The optihash introduces an optimization for the false positive rate at the stage of Bloom filter formation using the same amount of space at the cost of slightly more processing than the classic Bloom filter. Often Bloom filters are used in situations where a fixed amount of space is a primary constraint. We present the optihash as a good alternative to Bloom filters since the amount of space is the same and the improvements in false positives can justify the additional processing. Specifically, we show via simulations and numerical analysis that using the optihash the false positives occurrences can be reduced and controlled at a cost of small additional processing. The simulations are carried out for in-packet forwarding. In this framework, the Bloom filter is used as a compact link/route identifier and it is placed in the packet header to encode the route. At each node, the Bloom filter is queried for membership in order to make forwarding decisions. A false positive in the forwarding decision is translated into packets forwarded along an unintended outgoing link. By using the optihash, false positives can be reduced. The optimization processing is carried out in an entity termed the Topology Manger which is part of the control plane of the multicast forwarding fabric. This processing is only carried out on a per-session basis, not for every packet. The aim of this paper is to present the optihash and evaluate its false positive performances via simulations in order to measure the influence of different parameters on the false positive rate. The false positive rate for the optihash is then compared with the false positive probability of the classic Bloom filter.

Genetic diversity at the Dhn3 locus in Turkish Hordeum spontaneum populations with comparative structural analyses

We analysed Hordeum spontaneum accessions from 21 different locations to understand the genetic diversity of HsDhn3 alleles and effects of single base mutations on the intrinsically disordered structure of the resulting polypeptide (HsDHN3). HsDHN3 was found to be YSK2-type with a low-frequency 6-aa deletion in the beginning of Exon 1. There is relatively high diversity in the intron region of HsDhn3 compared to the two exon regions. We have found subtle differences in K segments led to changes in amino acids chemical properties. Predictions for protein interaction profiles suggest the presence of a protein-binding site in HsDHN3 that coincides with the K1 segment. Comparison of DHN3 to closely related cereals showed that all of them contain a nuclear localization signal sequence flanking to the K1 segment and a novel conserved region located between the S and K1 segments [E(D/T)DGMGGR]. We found that H. vulgare, H. spontaneum, and Triticum urartu DHN3s have a greater number of phosphorylation sites for protein kinase C than other cereal species, which may be related to stress adaptation. Our results show that the nature and extent of mutations in the conserved segments of K1 and K2 are likely to be key factors in protection of cells.

Heterogeneous tensor decomposition for clustering via manifold optimization

Tensor clustering is an important tool that exploits intrinsically rich structures in real-world multiarray or Tensor datasets. Often in dealing with those datasets, standard practice is to use subspace clustering that is based on vectorizing multiarray data. However, vectorization of tensorial data does not exploit complete structure information. In this paper, we propose a subspace clustering algorithm without adopting any vectorization process. Our approach is based on a novel heterogeneous Tucker decomposition model taking into account cluster membership information. We propose a new clustering algorithm that alternates between different modes of the proposed heterogeneous tensor model. All but the last mode have closed-form updates. Updating the last mode reduces to optimizing over the multinomial manifold for which we investigate second order Riemannian geometry and propose a trust-region algorithm. Numerical experiments show that our proposed algorithm compete effectively with state-of-the-art clustering algorithms that are based on tensor factorization.