Touch it, feel it and experience it: developing professional IS skills using interview-style experiential simulations

The IS education field has made increasing use of computerised experiential simulations, but few attempts have been made to create an authentic learning environment that combines and balances elements of video-based computer simulation with real-life learning activities. This paper explores the design principles used to develop a CD-ROM simulation where learners use interviewing skills to elicit system requirements from simulated employees in an authentic context. The employees are videoed actors who converse with each other and with learners within a dynamic interaction model. The paper also describes how we combined this simulation with other teaching approaches such as in-class discussions, student team work, formal presentations, etc.

Leadership, culture and employee deceit : the case of the National Australia Bank

The National Australia Bank (NAB), one of Australia's largest banks, announced losses in 2004 of AUD$360 million due to unauthorised foreign currency trading activities by four employees who incurred and deceptively concealed the losses. The NAB had in place risk limits and supervision to prevent trading desks ever reaching positions of this magnitude. However, the risk management policies and procedures proved ineffective. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the deceit, via a content analysis of official investigative reports and other published documents, to determine the extent to which the Bank's culture and leadership may have influenced the rogue traders' behaviour. The findings suggest that cultural issues, and the role played by the Bank's leaders, were influential in creating a profit-driven culture that ultimately impacted the Bank's foreign exchange operating activities.

Leadership and learning: facilitating self-directed learning in enterprises

Purpose - To show that a key aspect of learning and development of individual employees is that of self-directedness. This paper will consider the role of the leader in facilitating workforce development in terms of employees' self-directedness for learning. The research was designed to investigate the views that 'learning leaders' in organizations have towards the development of self-directedness in employees; and to identify strategies that are feasible in developing self-directedness in operating organizations.

Design/methodology/approach - Draws on a national research project undertaken in 12 organizations in Australia, representing a range of sizes and a number of industry sectors. Data collection involved interviewing learning and development managers in each organization to gauge the relative feasibility of the implementation of a number of pre-identified strategies designed to develop self-directedness among employees within operating work environments.

Findings - Showed that: learning managers and leaders were generally well disposed towards the development of self-directedness, and some had already moved to do so; and identified a number of possible strategies for implementation of varying degrees of feasibility. The paper will consider these findings in relation to the concept of a 'learning leader'.

Research limitations/implications - Although the research was conducted in a diverse set of 12 enterprises, applicability of the results across an even wider set of enterprises would need to be tested.

Originality/value - The findings of this research provide guidance to learning and development personnel on feasible strategies to use within their own organization to assist with the development of self-directed learning among employees.

The 'V' factor: thinking about values as the epicentre of leadership, learning and life

This paper places the ‘V’ factor at the epicentre of meaningful and productive living, learning and leadership endeavour. It explores the authors’ reflections upon their own professional experiences, research studies and review of the literature as they work towards establishing ‘working with’ leadership practices appropriate for a knowledge era. This paper also reports on Nanschild’s preliminary PhD research findings of “A Values-Based Approach to Leadership Development: Implications for Organisational Change”.

Equity and access in an e-enhanced, international, university environment: learning style implications

Globalisation and technological development have simultaneously pressured universities to provide students with flexible and innovative learning options. Among the ways universities address these issues are by internationalising their curriculum and investing in educational technology. These changes have affected pedagogical and andragogical approaches and outcomes. Learning styles potentially affect the strategic approach of academics when utilising innovative technological tools in their teaching, which converges with internationalisation of the curriculum and a diverse student body to accentuate the issues of equity and access. The literature in this field is explored in context with the authors’ diverse experiences to provide policy makers, academics and other education stakeholders with a new perspective.

The effects of facilitation on punctuated equilibrium in e-collaboration projects

Information technology has transformed the “heartland” of education around the world. Classrooms are global, students international, but traditional methods and their adjacent challenges persist or are exacerbated in online schoolhouses. There is reason to believe that team performance of online students completing team projects can be significantly improved by the active participation of a facilitator. What could explain such improvement? Given the communication barriers that learners can experience using e-learning technologies, the skill of a teacher at facilitating an understanding of e-collaboration and the prescient need to facilitate collaborative skills at all times is essential to a successful educational result. There may also be generational learning style issues to consider. One practical, proven tool is progress reporting. This paper reviews the literature and reflects on author experiences in the online education of Management students at universities in the United States and Australia to draw theoretical connections with communication, leadership, and punctuated equilibrium relevant to contemporary educational practice. The implications of effective facilitation of student teams for Management education and management of student performance are explored.

Managing professionals : the emerging leadership role of Victorian Maternal and Child Health coordinators

Drawing on research into cultural and organizational change in the Victorian Maternal and Child Health Service during the 1990s, this paper examines implications for the nursing leadership provided by service coordinators. The project included a quantitative survey of nurses and semistructured interviews with managers and coordinators. Under a strongly neoliberal state government in Victoria, Australia, services were fundamentally restructured through tendering processes. A competitive, productivist culture was introduced that challenged the professional ethos of nurses and a primary health orientation to the care of mothers and infants. This paper focuses on the pressures that the entrepreneurial environment presented to maternal and child health nurses' identity and collegial relations and to the coordination role. It argues that coordinators emerged as a Significant nursing management group at the interface of administrative change and the management of professional practice. Although many nurses skilfully negotiated tensions with peers and management, their leadership role needs further clarification and support.

The serendipity of leadership effectiveness in management and business practices

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to conceptualize the serendipity of leadership effectiveness in management and business practices. The term “serendipity” is defined as the mix of leadership effectiveness by accident and sagacity in management and business practices.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a conceptual discussion of the serendipity of leadership effectiveness in management and business practices.
Findings – This paper contributes a number of models and a matrix that are introduced to address the underlying criteria of the cause-effect relationship between leadership effectiveness and organizational achievements.
Research limitations/implications – This paper challenges the idealistic picture that flourishes in the management literature and in management practice of the direct, positive impact of leadership on prosperous management and business practices. In fact, it reinforces and underpins the critical or sceptical views of leadership effectiveness raised in the literature.
Practical implications – Normally, views of organizational achievements are based on the assumption that contextual, timely and skilful precisions in leadership effectiveness are high. Shareholders and stakeholders may benefit from a thorough examination of these issues in organizational achievements. It would not be surprising to find that leadership effectiveness in management and business practices to a minor or major extent is derived from pure luck and coincidence in contextual and timely precisions: right place, right time. This means that such leadership effectiveness may be based on serendipity rather than skilfulness in terms of organizational achievements.
Originality/value – The authors contend that the term “serendipity” contributes to enhance the ongoing discussion in the literature of the link between leadership effectiveness and organizational achievements. It also provides a fundament of understanding, explanation and prediction of leadership effectiveness in management and business practices.

Sustainable components of leadership effectiveness in organizational performance

Purpose – The objective is to describe a selection of sustainability components of leadership effectiveness in organizational performance.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a conceptual discussion. Findings – The paper contributes to descriptive models that address sustainability components of leadership effectiveness in organizational performance. The study highlights some common views that exist in the management literature and in prosperous management practice related to the direct impact of the relationship in organizational performance between leadership and effectiveness. In fact, it also highlights the critical or sceptical views of leadership effectiveness in organizational performance raised in the literature. Research limitations/implications – The paper contends that the actual leadership effectiveness in organizational performance varies over time and across contexts. At times, the achievement in organizational performance is the outcome of prosperous and conscious leadership, while it at other times may be the outcome of poor and deficient leadership. The topic at hand is positioned and limited to the interface that may describe and explain the connection between these two views. Furthermore, it is limited to corporate decision making and business behaviour in relation to leadership effectiveness and organizational performance. Practical implications – The leadership of an organization need not only to be successful today, but they also need to be successful tomorrow to stay in control and to flourish. Quality control and quality assurance are no longer enough for most organizations. They need to build an awareness of the sustainability components into processes of their management and business practices (i.e. internal and external ones) in order to be judged as successful in corporate decision-making and business behaviour in organizational performance in the long term. Originality/value – The principal contributions of the study are a model of timely leadership effectiveness, a model of contextual leadership effectiveness, and a typology of leadership effectiveness in corporate decision-making and business behaviour. These contributions provide theoretical and managerial ideas and insights into the sustainability components of leadership effectiveness in organizational performance.

Parenting style as a moderator of the effect of temperament on adolescent externalising and internatlising behaviour problems

The direct and interactive effects of temperament and parenting were examined in the prediction of early adolescent externalising behaviour problems (conduct disorder and hyperactivity), internalising problems (depression and anxiety), and substance use, using data on 1,402 13- and 14-year-olds. Significant direct effects were found for four temperament factors (negative reactivity, task persistence, activity, and approach), and four parenting factors (warmth, power assertion, physical punishment, and monitoring). For those high in persistence, low in negative reactivity, or low in activity, problem outcomes were generally very rare, regardless of parenting. Prevalence of behaviour problems was generally elevated among those low in persistence, high in negative reactivity, or high in activity, even in cases where parenting was high in positive qualities such as warmth and monitoring. Prevalence of certain behaviour problems was substantially elevated when low persistence, high negative reactivity, or high activity occurred in combination with lower parental warmth or lower monitoring. The results suggest that parenting can play an important moderating role in the relationship of particular temperament characteristics to behavioural problems. [Author abstract]

Regional development through the enterprise of arts leadership

The literature in the field suggests that a community without arts-practice risks its future. Contemporaneously, evidence suggests that the future of some communities, specifically regional or rural communities, are at risk because of the withdrawal of essential services, which leads to economic and social decline. There is also evidence that arts practice has revived economic and social activity (and performance measures) in regional cities and towns. In this article, I argue that the arts foster regional sustainability, and I propose that an arts leadership that is collective in nature and associated with vision and creativity is needed if the arts are to achieve regional sustainability.