Caracterización de la competencia entre dos organizaciones del sector de seguros en Colombia

En la permanente búsqueda de mejores condiciones que las organizaciones realizan con el propósito de dar respuesta a los cambios del entorno y la complejidad de la interacción con las organizaciones del mismo sector, se encuentra necesario identificar las características que les permiten a estas, sobrevivir, mantenerse en el mercado o crecer en él. En este orden de ideas, en este documento se desarrolla la caracterización de la forma como dos organizaciones importantes y líderes del sector asegurador en Colombia: Seguros Bolívar y Suramericana de Seguros, compiten, desde el punto de vista comercial, con el propósito de identificar como esto influye en cada organización. La investigación se centró en explicar a partir de los autores revisados y analizados con respecto al concepto de la competencia, en particular, la forma como se enfrenta la organización al entorno tanto interno como externo, la influencia de cada organización según su estructura, su importancia, la disponibilidad de los recursos necesarios para desarrollar sus actividades, el impacto y las implicaciones organizacionales a partir de la forma cómo se enfrenta el entorno. Para lo anterior y con base a la revisión conceptual, se realizó la recolección de datos y cifras tanto de las organizaciones como del sector al cual pertenecen, adicionalmente se realizaron entrevistas tanto estructuradas como semi estructuradas al área de ventas, debido a que es el área de las organizaciones encargada de generar estrategias de ventas, posicionar productos en el mercado, identificar el perfil del consumidor, conocer y comprender el mercado y la competencia. Lo anterior con el fin de caracterizar a las organizaciones analizadas, determinando cómo responden a la competencia y al entorno, para finalmente establecer cuáles son los comportamientos recurrentes, similares y diferentes entre ellas. Por lo tanto, los resultados obtenidos en la investigación permiten establecer si dos empresas con estructuras, tamaño y participación en el mercado similares compiten de igual forma y que implicación tiene esto en el comportamiento organizacional.

Banking Union in three steps. CEPS Commentary, 12 June 2012

As the banking crisis in the eurozone becomes even more acute, CEPS Chief Executive Karel Lannoo exhorts the EU to not lose further precious time in creating a fully functional bank union, which would entail three main steps: creating a single supervisory authority, a common deposit protection and a harmonised bank resolution and liquidation system.

Good governance of gender balance. CEPS Commentary, 16 November 2012

CEPS Chief Executive Karel Lannoo observes in this CEPS Commentary that there is a compelling need to attract more women to positions of high responsibility in Europe in light of their demonstrated capacity to contribute significantly to the improvement of governance.

Risking the ire of investors in pursuit of long-term value: an interview with Cynthia Carroll, the CEO of Anglo American plc

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how key strategic decisions are made in practice at successful FTSE 100 companies. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a semi-structured interview with Ms Cynthia Carroll, Chief Executive of Anglo American plc. Findings – The interview outlines a number of important factors on: the evolution of strategy within Anglo American, strategy execution, leadership at board and executive levels, and capturing synergies within the company. Originality/value – The paper bridges the gap between theory and practice. It provides a practical view and demonstrates how corporate leaders think about key strategic issues

John Lewis Partnership lessons in logical incrementalism and organic growth: a case study and interview with the Chairman, Mr Charlie Mayfield

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how strategy is developed and implemented in an organisation with an unusual ownership model. Partnerships are not a prevalent form of ownership but as this case demonstrates they can be extremely effective. Furthermore this case demonstrates how logical incrementalism can be used to implement major strategic decisions. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on company documentary evidence and a semi-structured interview with Mr Charlie Mayfield, Chairman of John Lewis Partnership. A chairman has a helicopter view of business whose perspectives are rarely captured by strategy researchers. This case study offers an insight into strategic thinking of a chairman and chief executive of a successful company. Research limitations/implications – The case study and interview offer a unique insight into the rationale behind strategic decisions within a successful partnership that has grown organically in a highly competitive retail market without high gearing. Originality/value – This case study sheds light on strategic moves within partnership. Furthermore, very few case studies offer insight into the thinking of a chief executive who has successfully managed a business in a turbulent environment.

Extreme bounds of democracy

What determines the emergence and survival of democracy? The authors apply extreme bounds analysis to test the robustness of fifty-nine factors proposed in the literature, evaluating over three million regressions with data from 165 countries from 1976 to 2002. The most robust determinants of the transition to democracy are gross domestic product (GDP) growth (a negative effect), past transitions (a positive effect), and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development membership (a positive effect). There is some evidence that fuel exporters and Muslim countries are less likely to see democracy emerge, although the latter finding is driven entirely by oil-producing Muslim countries. Regarding the survival of democracy, the most robust determinants are GDP per capita (a positive effect) and past transitions (a negative effect). There is some evidence that having a former military leader as the chief executive has a negative effect, while having other democracies as neighbors has a reinforcing effect.

Visceral behaviours and leadership: a dark side of boardroom life?

Purpose – Characteristics of leaders whose behaviour is visceral include taking action based on instinct rather than intellect and exhibiting coarse, base and often negative emotions. Despite the challenge of precisely defining the nature of visceral behaviour, the purpose of this paper is to provide insight into this less attractive side of boardroom life. Design/methodology/approach – Following a literature review of the research into the negative behaviour leaders exhibit, the paper highlights four forms of visceral behaviour based on focused and intimate qualitative case studies involving the experiences of those on the receiving end of that behaviour within a boardroom context. Findings – Based on interviews with an international sample of five chief executive officers (CEOs), plus three subordinates with substantial profit and loss responsibility, the study reveals a distinctly human experience from which no one is exempt. The idiosyncratic nature of the visceral behaviour experienced resulted in each study participant's unique experience. The authors conclude that leaders need to adopt specific measures in order to control and reduce the darker human tendencies. Research limitations/implications – The experiences of study participants are presented in four case studies, providing insight into their experiences whilst also protecting their identity. The study participants were drawn from a sample of companies operating globally within a single sector of the manufacturing industry. The concepts the authors present require validating in other organisations with different demographic profiles. Originality/value – The paper presents a model based on two dimensions – choice and level of mastery – that provides the reader with insight into the forms of visceral behaviour to which leaders succumb. Insight enables us to offer managers strategic suggestions to guard against visceral behaviour and assist them in mitigating its worst aspects, in both those with whom they work and themselves.

A case study and interview with Jill McDonald CEO and President of McDonald's Northern Europe Division

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how strategy is developed and implemented within a subsidiary of a global organization, the relationship between subsidiary and headquarters and the need for continuous change and adaption to remain relevant. Furthermore, this case study describes a successful process of invention and adoption. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on documentary evidence and a semistructured interview with Jill McDonald CEO and President of McDonald’s Northern Europe Division with responsibility for the UK, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and the Republic of Ireland. Management research rarely captures the views of the top executive, yet the top executives have a broad picture and are key strategic decision makers. Findings – The case study and interview offers a unique insight into factors contributing to McDonald’s unprecedented success (it has paid an increased dividend for the past 37 years). It also sheds light on its successful internationalization strategy. Originality/value – The case study draws on published material and augments this with an in-depth interview with the Chief Executive. Very few case studies offer insight into the thinking of a Chief Executive managing a subsidiary of a global organization. Its value lies in the lessons that managers and students of management can draw on the approach adopted by a highly successful global organization.

Age and firm growth: evidence from three European countries

This article provides new insights into the dependence of firm growth on age along the entire distribution of growth rates, and conditional on survival. Using data from the European firms in a global economy survey, and adopting a quantile regression approach, we uncover evidence for a sample of French, Italian and Spanish manufacturing firms with more than ten employees in the period from 2001 to 2008. We find that: (1) young firms grow faster than old firms, especially in the highest growth quantiles; (2) young firms face the same probability of declining as their older counterparts; (3) results are robust to the inclusion of other firms’ characteristics such as labor productivity, capital intensity and the financial structure; (4) high growth is associated with younger chief executive officers and other attributes that capture the attitude of the firm toward growth and change. The effect of age on firm growth is rather similar across countries.

Getting below the surface of the principal recruitment 'crisis' in New Zealand primary schools

Since 1989 in New Zealand, the work of the primary school principal has been transformed in official policy texts from that of leading professional to chief executive officer. Surveys document the changing nature of the role and the workload and other pressures that have resulted, particularly for principals with teaching responsibilities in smaller schools. There is a generally accepted crisis of preparation, recruitment, development and retention. Below the surface, however, are deeper-seated, structural difficulties: women comprise the majority of teachers, yet are a minority of principals and their career advancement is largely limited to small schools and those in poorer socioeconomic areas. This article reviews the situation and examines the reasons why dominant images of the primary school principalship may be both partial and counterproductive.

Securing institutional legitimacy or organizational effectiveness?

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider the impact of a major initiative (the National Competition Policy) and pieces of legislation (the Local Government Act and the Local Government Finance Standards) on the internal practices of a large Australian local authority.

Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical framework is developed using new public management (NPM) and neo-institutional theory literatures to explain the findings. A case study approach was applied to collect the data for the research.

Findings: The findings reveal that the National Competition Policy 1993, the Local Government Act 1993 and the Local Government Finance Standards 1994 mainly have brought about significant changes to the organisation's internal management control processes, such as financial reporting, budgeting and performance appraisal. The changes brought in appeared to be coincidentally similar to NPM ideals. Furthermore, senior managers (such as the chief executive and divisional heads) played a major role in implementing new accounting technologies (activity-based costing and the balanced scorecard type performance measurement system).

Research limitations/implications: Future research on public sector financial management from the outset of organisational contexts could considerably further the stock of knowledge in this area, especially given the rapid changes occurring within the public sector throughout the world. Future research may wish to extend this study by assessing how external legitimating functions become internal reality, the perceptions of reality of the organisational members, and how these perceptions change over time.

Practical implications: The findings reported provide evidence to further our understanding of how the introduction of private sector styles of organisational practices into large areas of the public sector brought about significant changes in the demand for “new” financial management practices.

Originality/value: The findings reported on in this paper will open a new path of research that may increase our understanding about the factors that play a role in the design of management and accounting systems in a public sector context. Further, they will help policy makers and public sector managers in their day-to-day decision-making.

Crafting organization

The recent shift in attention away from organization studies as science has allowed for consideration of new ways of thinking about both organization and organizing and has led to several recent attempts to 'bring down' organizational theorizing. In this paper, we extend calls for organization to be represented as a creative process by considering organization as craft. Organizational craft, we argue, is attractive, accessible, malleable, reproducible, and marketable. It is also a tangible way of considering organization studies with irreverence. We draw on the hierarchy of distinctions among fine art, decorative art, and craft to suggest that understanding the organization of craft assists in complicating our understanding of marginality. We illustrate our argument by drawing on the case of a contemporary Australian craftworks and marketplace known initially as the Meat Market Craft Centre ('MMCC') and then, until its recent closure, as Metro! ‡ Stella Minahan was a board member and then the Chief Executive Officer of the Metro! Craft Centre.

Corporate governance, firm characteristics and risk management committee formation in Australian companies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how a risk management committee (RMC), as a newly evolving sub-committee of the board of directors, functions as a key governance support mechanism in the oversight an organisation's risk management strategies, policies and processes. However, empirical evidence on the factors associated with the existence and the type of RMCs remains scant.

Design/methodology/approach – Using an agency theory perspective, this study investigates the association between board factors such as proportion of non-executive directors, Chief Executive Officer duality, and board size; as well as, other firm-related factors (e.g. auditor type, industry, leverage, and complexity), and the existence of a RMC, and the type of RMC (namely, a separate RMC versus one that is combined with the audit committee). Data was collected from the annual reports of the top 300 Australian Stock Exchange (ASX)-listed companies.

Findings – The results, based on logistic regression analyses, indicate that RMCs tend to exist in companies with an independent board chairman and larger boards. Further, the results also indicate that in comparison to companies with a combined RMC and audit committee, those with a separate RMC are more likely to have larger boards, higher financial reporting risk and lower organisational complexity.

Research limitations/implications – Data limited to top 200 top ASX-listed companies, thus restricting generalisability of the results.

Originality/value – The findings of this study provide additional information on the use and design of RMCs in a voluntary setting.

Recruitment and selection of Vice-Chancellors for Australian universities

This study addresses the gap in our understanding of the processes used to recruit and select Vice-Chancellors for Australian Universities. There are presently 39 recognised Universities in Australia and between them they provide the nation with the academically qualified leaders of the future. As such one would expect that not only would they be the vessels of our knowledge, but also that they would be managed and led in ways that were similar to those in use in the private sector. The changes that have taken place in the higher education system have meant that additional pressures have been placed upon the senior executive of each University. The transition from a binary system to the current unified system, the advent of the global community, increased technology and new management practices have created the need for University management to adopt recognised management and leadership practices. The Federal government has moved to reduce the dependence of the system upon recurrent funding and there has been an increase in managerialism within Universities. One outcome has been the need for the Chief Executive Officer (Vice-Chancellor) to develop additional management and leadership skills in order to cope with the changes occurring and the rate of change. In the United States, the selection criteria used to recruit Vice-Chancellors (or University Presidents) have changed to reflect the desire for candidates to have backgrounds in management and leadership. The role of the Vice-Chancellor is critical to the success of educational institutions that are now being managed as autonomous business units responsible for budget, growth, mergers as well as maintaining academic credibility. A literature review revealed that the work undertaken by David Sloper formed virtually our entire knowledge base of Vice-Chancellors in Australia. Sloper identified democratic and incumbency patterns, social characteristics, the legal basis for the role and what incumbents actually do. Thus we know quite a deal about the role and incumbents. However the same literature review showed that while this data existed, it did not extend to the processes that were used within the Higher Education system, to target, identify and select suitable candidates. Clearly there was also no examination as to the effectiveness of such processes or how they could be improved if necessary. Given the importance of Universities in Australia and their role in Higher Education, this lack of knowledge provided the basis for this study and the systematic review of all available data. The study also identified a paradox in addition to the lack of research on recruitment and selection practices in this unique microcosm. The paradox concerns the fact that many of the successful candidates do not come from a ‘business’ discipline as may be expected for a role considered to be the Chief Executive Officer of the institution. Yet in Australia, previous research indicated that the ‘rules’ for recruiting Vice-Chancellors have changed little and that traditionally candidates have come from the science disciplines (Sloper, 1994). While this in itself does not indicate that incumbents are lacking in fundamental management and leadership knowledge and expertise, an obvious question arises. Why are Australian Vice-Chancellors not drawn from faculties where this expertise resides or why are they not drawn from the business community? In order to further examine the processes in place and to a lesser extent the paradox, all available data was collected regarding the roles of Vice-Chancellors, the paths they have taken to the position as well as selection criteria, position outlines, job adverts and related material. This was thoroughly examined and then a brief questionnaire was forwarded to current incumbents and other involved stakeholders. Interviews were conducted to clarify specific issues and case studies prepared accordingly. Thus this qualitative study thoroughly researches the recruitment and selection practices in use, attempts to determine their effectiveness and addresses the paradox in order to provide a detailed framework that allows these elements to be explained.

A critical analysis of the independence of the internal audit function : evidence from Australia

Purpose – This study aims to critically analyse the independence of the internal audit function through its relationship with management and the audit committee.

Design/methodology/approach – Results are based on a critical comparison of responses from questionnaires sent out to Australian chief audit executives (CAEs) versus existing literature and best practice guidelines.

Findings – With respect to the internal audit function's relationship with management, threats identified include: using the internal audit function as a stepping stone to other positions; having the chief executive officer (CEO) or chief finance officer (CFO) approve the internal audit function's budget and provide input for the internal audit plan; and considering the internal auditor to be a “partner”, especially when combined with other indirect threats. With respect to the relationship with the audit committee, significant threats identified include CAEs not reporting functionally to the audit committee; the audit committee not having sole responsibility for appointing, dismissing and evaluating the CAE; and not having all audit committee members or at least one member qualified in accounting.

Originality/value – This study introduces independence threat scores, thereby generating analysis of the internal audit function's independence taking into account a combination of threats.