Análisis del concepto de liderazgo y sus aplicaciones en el contexto empresarial

El presente trabajo se realizó con el objetivo de tener una visión completa de las teorías del liderazgo, teniendo de este una concepción como proceso y poder examinar las diversas formas de aplicación en las organizaciones contemporáneas. El tema es enfocado desde la perspectiva organizacional, un mundo igualmente complejo, sin desconocer su importancia en otros ámbitos como la educación, la política o la dirección del estado. Su enfoque tiene que ver con el estudio académico del cual es la culminación y se enmarca dentro de la perspectiva constitucional de la Carta Política Colombiana que reconoce la importancia capital que tienen la actividad económica y la iniciativa privada en la constitución de empresas. Las diversas visiones del liderazgo han sido aplicadas de distintas maneras en las organizaciones contemporáneas y han generado diversos resultados. Hoy, no es posible pensar en una organización que no haya definido su forma de liderazgo y en consecuencia, confluyen en el campo empresarial multitud de teorías, sin que pueda afirmarse que una sola de ellas permita el manejo adecuado y el cumplimiento de los objetivos misionales. Por esta razón se ha llegado a concebir el liderazgo como una función compleja, en un mundo donde las organizaciones mismas se caracterizan no solo por la complejidad de sus acciones y de su conformación, sino también porque esta característica pertenece también al mundo de la globalización. Las organizaciones concebidas como máquinas que en sentido metafórico logran reconstituirse sus estructuras a medida que están en interacción con otras en el mundo globalizado. Adaptarse a las cambiantes circunstancias hace de las organizaciones conglomerados en permanente dinámica y evolución. En este ámbito puede decirse que el liderazgo es también complejo y que es el liderazgo transformacional el que más se acerca al sentido de la complejidad.

La construcción de sentido (‘sensemaking’) de un entorno estratégico turbulento por parte de los altos directivos: un estudio en una multinacional automotriz

Este artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación realizada al interior de dos contextos. Por un lado, el teórico, en el marco de uno de los discursos más relevantes en los campos de la estrategia organizacional, de la managerial and organizational cognition (MOC) y, en general, de los estudios organizacionales (organization studies): la construcción de sentido (sensemaking). Por el otro, el empírico, en una de las grandes compañías multinacionales del sector automotriz con presencia global. Esta corporación enfrenta una permanente tensión entre lo que dicta la casa matriz, en relación con el cumplimiento de metas y estándares específicos, considerando el mundo entero, y los retos que, teniendo en cuenta lo regional y lo local, experimentan los altos directivos encargados de hacer prosperar la empresa en estos lugares. La aproximación implementada fue cualitativa. Esto en atención a la naturaleza de la problemática abordada y la tradición del campo. Los resultados permiten ampliar el actual nivel de comprensión acerca de los procesos de sensemaking de los altos directivos al enfrentar un entorno estratégico turbulento.

O compromisso organizacional como o grande desafio da gestão estratégica de recursos humanos : O caso dos projectos de outsourcing da IBM Portugal

Num contexto empresarial globalizado, a gestão de recursos humanos assume importância crescente. A valorização do capital humano e a preocupação com o compromisso e produtividade das pessoas revelam-se imperativos para a gestão de recursos humanos na contemporaneidade. As políticas e práticas de recursos humanos revelam-se a forma mais eficaz de comprometer as pessoas e, consequentemente, melhorar a performance organizacional. Este trabalho final de mestrado resultou de um estágio realizado num agrupamento complementar de empresa da IBM. Além das actividades desenvolvidas em contexto organizacional, efectuou-se urna descrição de todo o processo de gestão de recursos humanos e analisou-se a relação entre as políticas e práticas de recursos humanos e o compromisso organizacional, nas suas diferentes dimensões. Os resultados deste diagnóstico revelam que os colaboradores apresentam índices elevados de compromisso organizacional para com o ACE. Este compromisso materializa-se no alinhamento dos objectivos de negócio com os objectivos dos colaboradores. A principal causa destes índices elevados de compromisso são as políticas e práticas de recursos humanos. ABSTRACT: ln a globalized business environment, HRM assumes increasing importance. The human capital and concern for the commitment and productivity of people tum out to be imperative for the contemporary human resource management. Policies and practices of human resources prove to be the most effective way to engage people and thus improve organizational performance. This scientific work resulted from one stage held in a complementary group of the IBM Company. Besides the activities in organizations, took place a description of the whole process of resource management and examined the relationship of policies and practices in human resources with organizational commitment, in its various levels. The results of this diagnosis show that employees have high levels of organizational commitment towards the ACE. This commitment is materialized in the alignment of business goals with employee objectives. The main cause of these high levels of commitment are the policies and practices of human resources.

Evaluating social and environmental impacts at Embrapa.

A strategic planning process has been implemented at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Agency (Embrapa) to introduce sustainable development objectives in all steps of agricultural Research and Development. An essential component of the institutional mission statement hence devised has called for the systematic assessment of social and environmental impacts (in addition to the traditionally studied economic ones) of all technology innovations resulting from R&D. The proposed approach emphasizes the interest of promoting close interaction between R&D teams and technology-adopting producers, under actual field contexts, in order to improve both the technology development and the demand probing processes. Given the multiplicity of technological applications ensuing from Embrapa?s very broad research encompassment, and the variety of environmental and productive contexts involved, a customized impact assessment system has been proposed. Directed at the appraisal of agricultural technology development research projects (ex-ante) as well as their ensuing innovations (ex-post), the Ambitec-Agro System comprises a set of integrated socio-environmental indicators, constructed in modules suited to Agricultural, Animal husbandry, and Agro-industrial activities, besides a specific module for Social Impact Assessment. The system has been routinely applied in technology appraisal in all of Embrapa?s Units, as a basis for their institutional performance evaluations, and toward the formulation of the annual Social Balance Report. Following the inception of this institutional technology appraisal initiative, several methodological innovations have been proposed within Embrapa, including technical improvements and applicability adaptations of the Ambitec-Agro system, and approaches to further-reaching objectives, such as the sustainable development of rural communities, and the environmental management of agricultural activities.

Operationalizing the resource based view for nascent and young firms : developing scales for resource advantages and disadvantages

Principal Topic: It is well known that most new ventures suffer from a significant lack of resources, which increases the risk of failure (Shepherd, Douglas and Shanley, 2000) and makes it difficult to attract stakeholders and financing for the venture (Bhide & Stevenson, 1999). The Resource-Based View (RBV) (Barney, 1991; Wernerfelt, 1984) is a dominant theoretical base increasingly drawn on within Strategic Management. While theoretical contributions applying RBV in the domain of entrepreneurship can arguably be traced back to Penrose (1959), there has been renewed attention recently (e.g. Alvarez & Busenitz, 2001; Alvarez & Barney, 2004). This said, empirical work is in its infancy. In part, this may be due to a lack of well developed measuring instruments for testing ideas derived from RBV. The purpose of this study is to develop a measurement scales that can serve to assist such empirical investigations. In so doing we will try to overcome three deficiencies in current empirical measures used for the application of RBV to the entrepreneurship arena. First, measures for resource characteristics and configurations associated with typical competitive advantages found in entrepreneurial firms need to be developed. These include such things as alertness and industry knowledge (Kirzner, 1973), flexibility (Ebben & Johnson, 2005), strong networks (Lee et al., 2001) and within knowledge intensive contexts, unique technical expertise (Wiklund and Shepard, 2003). Second, the RBV has the important limitations of being relatively static and modelled on large, established firms. In that context, traditional RBV focuses on competitive advantages. However, newly established firms often face disadvantages, especially those associated with the liabilities of newness (Aldrich & Auster, 1986). It is therefore important in entrepreneurial contexts to expand to an investigation of responses to competitive disadvantage through an RBV lens. Conversely, recent research has suggested that resource constraints actually have a positive effect on firm growth and performance under some circumstances (e.g., George, 2005; Katila & Shane, 2005; Mishina et al., 2004; Mosakowski, 2002; cf. also Baker & Nelson, 2005). Third, current empirical applications of RBV measured levels or amounts of particular resources available to a firm. They infer that these resources deliver firms competitive advantage by establishing a relationship between these resource levels and performance (e.g. via regression on profitability). However, there is the opportunity to directly measure the characteristics of resource configurations that deliver competitive advantage, such as Barney´s well known VRIO (Valuable, Rare, Inimitable and Organized) framework (Barney, 1997). Key Propositions and Methods: The aim of our study is to develop and test scales for measuring resource advantages (and disadvantages) and inimitability for entrepreneurial firms. The study proceeds in three stages. The first stage developed our initial scales based on earlier literature. Where possible, we adapt scales based on previous work. The first block of the scales related to the level of resource advantages and disadvantages. Respondents were asked the degree to which each resource category represented an advantage or disadvantage relative to other businesses in their industry on a 5 point response scale: Major Disadvantage, Slight Disadvantage, No Advantage or Disadvantage, Slight Advantage and Major Advantage. Items were developed as follows. Network capabilities (3 items) were adapted from (Madsen, Alsos, Borch, Ljunggren & Brastad, 2006). Knowledge resources marketing expertise / customer service (3 items) and technical expertise (3 items) were adapted from Wiklund and Shepard (2003). flexibility (2 items), costs (4 items) were adapted from JIBS B97. New scales were developed for industry knowledge / alertness (3 items) and product / service advantages. The second block asked the respondent to nominate the most important resource advantage (and disadvantage) of the firm. For the advantage, they were then asked four questions to determine how easy it would be for other firms to imitate and/or substitute this resource on a 5 point likert scale. For the disadvantage, they were asked corresponding questions related to overcoming this disadvantage. The second stage involved two pre-tests of the instrument to refine the scales. The first was an on-line convenience sample of 38 respondents. The second pre-test was a telephone interview with a random sample of 31 Nascent firms and 47 Young firms (< 3 years in operation) generated using a PSED method of randomly calling households (Gartner et al. 2004). Several items were dropped or reworded based on the pre-tests. The third stage (currently in progress) is part of Wave 1 of CAUSEE (Nascent Firms) and FEDP (Young Firms), a PSED type study being conducted in Australia. The scales will be tested and analysed with a random sample of approximately 700 Nascent and Young firms respectively. In addition, a judgement sample of approximately 100 high potential businesses in each category will be included. Findings and Implications: The paper will report the results of the main study (stage 3 – currently data collection is in progress) will allow comparison of the level of resource advantage / disadvantage across various sub-groups of the population. Of particular interest will be a comparison of the high potential firms with the random sample. Based on the smaller pre-tests (N=38 and N=78) the factor structure of the items confirmed the distinctiveness of the constructs. The reliabilities are within an acceptable range: Cronbach alpha ranged from 0.701 to 0.927. The study will provide an opportunity for researchers to better operationalize RBV theory in studies within the domain of entrepreneurship. This is a fundamental requirement for the ability to test hypotheses derived from RBV in systematic, large scale research studies.

Open Specification for BIM : Sydney Opera House Case Study

Executive Summary The objective of this report was to use the Sydney Opera House as a case study of the application of Building Information Modelling (BIM). The Sydney opera House is a complex, large building with very irregular building configuration, that makes it a challenging test. A number of key concerns are evident at SOH: • the building structure is complex, and building service systems - already the major cost of ongoing maintenance - are undergoing technology change, with new computer based services becoming increasingly important. • the current “documentation” of the facility is comprised of several independent systems, some overlapping and is inadequate to service current and future services required • the building has reached a milestone age in terms of the condition and maintainability of key public areas and service systems, functionality of spaces and longer term strategic management. • many business functions such as space or event management require up-to-date information of the facility that are currently inadequately delivered, expensive and time consuming to update and deliver to customers. • major building upgrades are being planned that will put considerable strain on existing Facilities Portfolio services, and their capacity to manage them effectively While some of these concerns are unique to the House, many will be common to larger commercial and institutional portfolios. The work described here supported a complementary task which sought to identify if a building information model – an integrated building database – could be created, that would support asset & facility management functions (see Sydney Opera House – FM Exemplar Project, Report Number: 2005-001-C-4 Building Information Modelling for FM at Sydney Opera House), a business strategy that has been well demonstrated. The development of the BIMSS - Open Specification for BIM has been surprisingly straightforward. The lack of technical difficulties in converting the House’s existing conventions and standards to the new model based environment can be related to three key factors: • SOH Facilities Portfolio – the internal group responsible for asset and facility management - have already well established building and documentation policies in place. The setting and adherence to well thought out operational standards has been based on the need to create an environment that is understood by all users and that addresses the major business needs of the House. • The second factor is the nature of the IFC Model Specification used to define the BIM protocol. The IFC standard is based on building practice and nomenclature, widely used in the construction industries across the globe. For example the nomenclature of building parts – eg ifcWall, corresponds to our normal terminology, but extends the traditional drawing environment currently used for design and documentation. This demonstrates that the international IFC model accurately represents local practice for building data representation and management. • a BIM environment sets up opportunities for innovative processes that can exploit the rich data in the model and improve services and functions for the House: for example several high-level processes have been identified that could benefit from standardized Building Information Models such as maintenance processes using engineering data, business processes using scheduling, venue access, security data and benchmarking processes using building performance data. The new technology matches business needs for current and new services. The adoption of IFC compliant applications opens the way forward for shared building model collaboration and new processes, a significant new focus of the BIM standards. In summary, SOH current building standards have been successfully drafted for a BIM environment and are confidently expected to be fully developed when BIM is adopted operationally by SOH. These BIM standards and their application to the Opera House are intended as a template for other organisations to adopt for the own procurement and facility management activities. Appendices provide an overview of the IFC Integrated Object Model and an understanding IFC Model Data.

Who or what decides how stakeholders are optimally engaged by governance networks delivering public outcomes?

As the problems involving infrastructure delivery have become more complex and contentious, there has been an acknowledgement that these problems cannot be resolved by any one body working alone. This understanding has driven multi-sectoral collaboration and has led to an expansion of the set of actors, including stakeholders, who are now involved in delivery of infrastructure projects and services. However, more needs to be understood about how to include stakeholders in these processes and the optimal ways of developing the requisite combination of stakeholders to achieve effective outcomes. This thesis draws on stakeholder theory and governance network theory to obtain insights into how three networks delivering public outcomes within the Roads Alliance in Queensland engage with stakeholders in the delivery of complex and sensitive infrastructure services and projects. New knowledge about stakeholders will be obtained by testing a model of Stakeholder Salience and Engagement which combines and extends the stakeholder identification and salience theory (Mitchell, Agle, and Wood, 1997), ladder of stakeholder management and engagement (Friedman and Miles, 2006) and the model of stakeholder engagement and moral treatment of stakeholders (Greenwood, 2007). By applying this model, the broad research question: “Who or what decides how stakeholders are optimally engaged by governance networks delivering public outcomes?” will be addressed. The case studies will test a theoretical model of stakeholder salience and engagement which links strategic management decisions about stakeholder salience with the quality and quantity of engagement strategies for engaging different types of stakeholders. The outcomes of this research will contribute to and extend stakeholder theory by showing how stakeholder salience impacts on decisions about the types of engagement processes implemented. Governance network theory will be extended by showing how governance networks interact with stakeholders through the concepts of stakeholder salience and engagement. From a practical perspective this research will provide governance networks with an indication of how to optimise engagement with different types of stakeholders.

Submission to Brisbane City Council : Draft Brisbane Economic Development Plan

As with any strategic planning process, evidence-based estimates are needed to plan effectively for the future. Comments below are based upon data drawn from the Brisbane Long Term Infrastructure Plan (Department of Local Government, Planning, Sport and Recreation, 2005) and the Brisbane Long Term Planning Economic Indicators (National Institute of Economic and Industry Research, 2005), as these are cited as the underpinning research for the economic plan. This submission focuses on one critical aspect of the strategic plan — the relationship between population growth, employment growth, and infrastructure provision. While the focus of the strategic plan is on the changes which would occur within Brisbane, it is important that consideration of predicted changes in surrounding local government areas be also carried out.

Infrastructure project planning decision making : challenges for decision support system applications

Most infrastructure projects share the same characteristics in term of management aspects and shortcomings. Human factor is believed to be the major drawbacks due to the nature of unstructured problems which can further contribute to management conflicts. This growing complexity in infrastructure projects has shift the paradigm of policy makers to adopt Information Communication Technology (ICT) as a driving force. For this reason, it is vital to fully maximise and utilise the recent technologies to accelerate management process particularly in planning phase. Therefore, a lot of tools have been developed to assist decision making in construction project management. The variety of uncertainties and alternatives in decision making can be entertained by using useful tool such as Decision Support System (DSS). However, the recent trend shows that most DSS in this area only concentrated in model development and left few fundamentals of computing. Thus, most of them were found complicated and less efficient to support decision making within project team members. Due to the current incapability of many software aspects, it is desirable for DSS to provide more simplicity, better collaborative platform, efficient data manipulation and reflection to user needs. By considering these factors, the paper illustrates four challenges for future DSS development i.e. requirement engineering, communication framework, data management and interoperability, and software usability

Making sense of the resource-based view?

The Resource Based View (RBV) of strategic management has been criticized for relying on inconsistent assumptions of rationality, and mutually inconsistent underlying hypotheses. In this paper, I outline how these critiques can be addressed by re-building RBV on a sense-making foundation. The core notions from sense-making of bounded cognition, retrospective sense-making, incrementalism, loose coupling, causal maps and organizational paradigm are introduced. These are then used to propose a re-construction of key RBV constructs, extending some conceptual discussions, and providing for a conceptually consistent formulation. Implications for the use of RBV as a theory and future research are discussed.

A comparative study : regulatory requirements on subdivisions for increasing passive cooling

A major project in the Sustainable Built Assets core area is the Sustainable Sub-divisions – Ventilation Project that is the second stage of a planned series of research projects focusing on sustainable sub-divisions. The initial project, Sustainable Sub-divisions: Energy focused on energy efficiency and examined the link between dwelling energy efficiency and sub-divisional layout. In addition, the potential for on site electricity generation, especially in medium and high-density developments, was also examined. That project recommended that an existing lot-rating methodology be adapted for use in SEQ through the inclusion of sub divisional appropriate ventilation data. Acquiring that data is the object of this project. The Sustainable Sub-divisions; Ventilation Project will produce a series of reports. The first report (Report 2002-077-B-01) summarised the results from an industry workshop and interviews that were conducted to ascertain the current attitudes and methodologies used in contemporary sub-division design in South East Queensland. The second report (Report 2002-077-B-02) described how the project is being delivered as outlined in the Project Agreement. It included the selection of the case study dwellings and monitoring equipment and data management process. This third report (Report 2002-077-B-03) provides an analysis and review of the approaches recommended by leading experts, government bodies and professional organizations throughout Australia that aim to increase the potential for passive cooling and heating at the subdivision stage. This data will inform issues discussed on the development of the enhanced lot-rating methodology in other reports of this series. The final report, due in June 2007, will detail the analysis of data for winter 2006 and summer 2007, leading to the development and delivery of the enhanced lot-rating methodology.

Closing the cultural distance gap: managing value-based knowledge in MNC by using MEP

Today more than ever, generating and managing knowledge is an essential source of competitive advantage for every organization, and particularly for Multinational corporations (MNC). However, despite the undisputed agreement about the importance of creating and managing knowledge, there are still a large number of corporations that act unethically or illegally. Clearly, there is a lack of attention in gaining more knowledge about the management of ethical knowledge in organizations. This paper refers to value-based knowledge, as the process of recognise and manage those values that stand at the heart of decision-making and action in organizations. In order to support MNCs in implementing value-based knowledge process, the managerial ethical profile (MEP) has been presented as a valuable tool to facilitate knowledge management process at both the intra-organizational network level and at the inter-organizational network level.

Globalisation and corporate real estate strategies

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of globalisation on corporate real estate strategies. Specifically, it seeks to identify corporate real estate capabilities that are important in a hypercompetitive business climate. ---------- Design/methodology/approach: This paper utilises a qualitative approach to analyse secondary data in order to identify the corporate real estate capabilities for a hypercompetitive business environment. ---------- Findings: Globalisation today is an undeniable phenomenon that is fundamentally changing the way business is conducted. In the light of global hypercompetition, corporate real estate needs to develop new capabilities to support global business strategies. These include flexibility, network organization and managerial learning capabilities. ---------- Research limitations/implications: This is a conceptual paper and future empirical research needs to be conducted to verify the propositions made in this paper. ---------- Practical implications: Given the new level of uncertainty in the business climate, that is, hypercompetition, businesses need to develop dynamic capabilities that are harder for competitors to imitate in order to maintain what is considered a “momentary” competitive advantage. The findings of this paper are useful to guide corporate real estate managers in this regard. ---------- Originality/value:– This paper is original in two ways. First, it applies the strategic management concept of capabilities to corporate real estate. Second, it links the key challenge that businesses face today, i.e. globalisation, to the concept of capabilities as a means to maintain competitive advantage.

How government agencies engage with stakeholders

As a result of the managerial reforms adopted by government agencies since the 1980s, the stakeholder approach has become more widely accepted as a strategic management tool. However it remains a difficult and demanding task for agencies to determine who their stakeholders are and to optimise interactions with them. This paper examines how government agencies identify, classify and engage with stakeholders who have competing demands, differing access to resources and the ability to exert political pressure. To do this, the stakeholder approaches of nine agencies at three levels of government in Queensland were studied. This resulted in the development of a Stakeholder Classification Model for Public Agencies which could be used to create more focused and relevant stakeholder interventions.

Developing strong social enterprises : a documentary approach

Social enterprises are diverse in their mission, business structures and industry orientations. Like all businesses, social enterprises face a range of strategic and operational challenges and utilize a range of strategies to access resources in support of their venture. This exploratory study examined the strategic management issues faced by Australian social enterprises and the ways in which they respond to these. The research was based on a comprehensive literature review and semi-structured interviews with 11 representatives of eight social enterprises based in Victoria and Queensland. The sample included mature social enterprises and those within two years of start-up. In addition to the research report, the outputs of the project include a series of six short documentaries, which are available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/SocialEnterpriseQUT#p/u. The research reported on here suggests that social enterprises are sophisticated in utilizing processes of network bricolage (Baker et al. 2003) to mobilize resources in support of their goals. Access to network resources can be both enabling and constraining as social enterprises mature. In terms of the use of formal business planning strategies, all participating social enterprises had utilized these either at the outset or the point of maturation of their business operations. These planning activities were used to support internal operations, to provide a mechanism for managing collective entrepreneurship, and to communicate to external stakeholders about the legitimacy and performance of the social enterprises. Further research is required to assess the impacts of such planning activities, and the ways in which they are used over time. Business structures and governance arrangements varied amongst participating enterprises according to: mission and values; capital needs; and the experiences and culture of founding organizations and individuals. In different ways, participants indicated that business structures and governance arrangements are important ways of conferring legitimacy on social enterprise, by signifying responsible business practice and strong social purpose to both external and internal stakeholders. Almost all participants in the study described ongoing tensions in balancing social purpose and business objectives. It is not clear, however, whether these tensions were problematic (in the sense of eroding mission or business opportunities) or productive (in the sense of strengthening mission and business practices through iterative processes of reflection and action). Longitudinal research on the ways in which social enterprises negotiate mission fulfillment and business sustainability would enhance our knowledge in this area. Finally, despite growing emphasis on measuring social impact amongst institutions, including governments and philanthropy, that influence the operating environment of social enterprise, relatively little priority was placed on this activity. The participants in our study noted the complexities of effectively measuring social impact, as well as the operational difficulties of undertaking such measurement within the day to day realities of running small to medium businesses. It is clear that impact measurement remains a vexed issue for a number of our respondents. This study suggests that both the value and practicality of social impact measurement require further debate and critically informed evidence, if impact measurement is to benefit social enterprises and the communities they serve.