Publications

Abstract:
Reputation and identity conflict in management consulting.

Based on a case study of a large consulting firm, this paper makes two contributions to the literature on reputation and identity by examining how an organization responds when its identity is substantially misaligned with the experience and perceptions of external stakeholders that form the basis of reputational judgments. First, rather than triggering some form of identity adaptation, it outlines how other forms of identity can come into play to remediate this gap, buffering the organization’s identity from change. This shift to other individual identities is facilitated by a low organizational identity context even when the identity of the firm is coherent and strong. The second contribution concerns the conceptualization of consulting and other professional service firms. We explain how reputation and identity interact in the context of the distinctive organizational features of these firms. Notably, their loosely coupled structure and the central importance of expert knowledge claims enable individual consultants both to reinforce and supplement corporate reputation via individual identity work. 

Abstract:
Winning the global talent war: a policy perspective.

Purpose – the purpose of this article was to discuss the phenomenon of international talent mobility and competition in relation to China’s engagement in the “talent war” for attracting, retaining and managing global talents, from a policy perspective.
Design/methodology/approach – the author adopts an approach combining literature review and international comparative analysis.
Findings – Factors explaining global talent mobility have been predominantly economic. This paper argues that China should also focus on other critical non-economic aspects for attracting and retaining talents in the long-term. The Chinese Government may learn from the experience of other competing countries in developing a national strategy for attracting and retaining global talents. While China has an advantage in attracting overseas Chinese who are attached to its cultural roots and are other competing countries’ residents or citizens, its existing talent policy may not be able to create effective local and institutional environment in attracting and retaining needed talents. Practical implications – an attractive policy is key to winning the global talent war and determining the future development path of a nation. The talent policy at a national level should address not only economic factors but also personal, professional and institutional factors. Originality/value – Winning the global talent war is a policy competition among countries. The Chinese Government may succeed in the war for talent by adopting a multi-pronged, multi-level and long-term talent strategy. This paper calls for China to reconsider its recent reform on permanent residence (green card) policy reform from a global talent competition perspective. 

Abstract:
Creativity is collective.

Psychologists and other commentators have always treated creativity as the ultimate expression of human individuality. However, to fully understand creativity we need to look beyond the individual:. Groups and social context give creativity both form and force. 

Abstract:
Exploring a One Planet Mindset and its Relevance in a Transition to a Sustainable Economy.

Exeter’s One Planet MBA (OP MBA), co-founded and delivered with WWF International, is helping develop a new generation of business leaders, integrating sustainability thinking across its business education curriculum, and fostering a “One Planet Mindset”. But what is a One Planet Mindset? and what is its significance in a transition to a sustainable economy? This paper draws on the sustainability and management literature, and explorations with students to offer some preliminary reflections on these questions. It makes the case that a One Planet Mindset aggregates knowledge, values and skills which help deliver positive outcomes for people, planet and prosperity. It engages a new metaphor of nature as a living planet – one that recognizes that the health of the economy is rooted in, and not independent of, living planetary systems. Such a mindset provides a powerful lever for transforming, self, business and society in the contested transition to a sustainable economy. 

Abstract:
Managing exploration and exploitation paradoxes in creative organisations.

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose – the purpose of this paper is to address the paradox that individuals face in seeking to both generate new ideas and be committed to delivering standardised processes in a creative industry. The authors explore this tension in order to better understand how synergistic benefits are reaped at the intersection of these competing demands. Design/methodology/approach – the paper adopts a longitudinal case study approach inside a global media organisation in the creative industries sector. Data derived from participant observations, manager interviews, administered survey instruments, and archival documentation. Findings – the authors find that creative organisations experience explore/exploit paradoxes which are nested at three levels: knowledge, learning and motivation. Further, the authors find that managers are able to respond to competing tensions through organisational processes that allow differentiation/ integration simultaneously. These management responses are supported and sustained by both structural and contextual organisational forms. Originality/value – First, the authors provide a clearer theoretical explanation of paradox in creative organisations by accounting for competing demands to explore and exploit through nested tensions. Second, the authors extend the understanding of management responses to these paradox by showing how managers balance both demands simultaneously rather than cumulatively over time, thereby offering insight into how managers behave over time. Third, the authors outline the supporting role of organisational form in sustaining management responses within creative organisations at the same time in order to reap synergistic benefits. 

Abstract:
Predicting transactive memory system in multidisciplinary teams: the interplay between team and professional identities.

© 2014 Published by Elsevier Inc. In explaining how communication quality predicts TMS in multidisciplinary teams, we drew on the social identity approach to investigate the mediating role of team identification and the moderating role of professional identification. Recognizing that professional identification could trigger intergroup biases among professional subgroups, or alternatively, could bring resources to the team, we explored the potential moderating role of professional identification in the relationship between team identification and TMS. Using data collected from 882 healthcare personnel working in 126 multidisciplinary hospital teams, results supported our hypothesis that perceived communication quality predicted TMS through team identification. Furthermore, findings provided support for a resource view of professional subgroup identities with results indicating that high levels of professional identification compensated for low levels of team identification in predicting TMS. We provide recommendations on how social identities may be used to promote TMS in multidisciplinary teams. 

Abstract:
Reputation and talent mobility in the Asia Pacific.

© 2014 Australian Human Resources Institute. This paper argues that different forms of reputation are important for the attraction and retention of talent. Drawing upon the skilled migration literature as well as examples from national governments, supranational organisations and the mass media, we provide a typology that highlights the intersections between reputation and talent mobility. We provide three important contributions. First, we illustrate that reputation plays a central role in the global competition for talent. Second, we highlight that the reputations of countries affect the attraction and retention of top workers. Third, we show that global talent is not only influenced by country reputation but also produces reputations which manifest at the individual level through the inflow and outflow of talent. These contributions shed new theoretical and practical insights on the importance and impact of reputation for talent mobility. 

Abstract:
Ship-Shape: Materializing Leadership in the British Royal Navy.

In this article I contribute to posthumanist, actor-network influenced theories of leadership, drawing empirically on qualitative data collected at a Royal Navy shore establishment in Great Britain. I demonstrate how a fluid network of hybridized relationships between people and things affords shifting and multiple possibilities for making leadership matter. As configurations of actants evolve these affordances are altered, and the blackboxing processes hiding the material actants co-generating leadership effects are uncovered. A detailed explication of the politicised affordances within actor networks contributes to knowledge about how hybridized relationships co-enable possibilities for action that bring to life, reinforce, and call into question the human-centred, gendered, colonialist web of assumptions and practices through which Royal Naval personnel understand and enact leadership. 

Abstract:
Transformations in Network Governance: the Case of Migration Intermediaries.

Market liberalisation has fundamentally changed state interventions in the supply of services and supportive infrastructure across a range of public services. While this trend has been relatively well documented, there has been a dearth of research into the changing nature of state interventions in migration and mobility. Indeed the increasing presence of migration intermediaries to service the many and varied needs of migrant workers, particularly skilled migrants, remains significantly under-researched both theoretically and empirically. In providing an analysis of the location, role and changing nature of migration intermediaries, we highlight the implications of commercially-driven governance structures. In particular we suggest that the shift from government to network governance has important implications for skilled migration including: inequities in access to information regarding the process of migration and labour market integration; and, greater dependence on (largely unregulated) private intermediaries. Accordingly, we present empirical examples of migration intermediaries to illustrate their role and the relationship with and implications of their exchange with migrants. 

Abstract:
Citizens of the academic community? a societal perspective on leadership in UK Higher Education.

This paper presents findings from a research project on academic leadership in UK higher education (HE). Rather than taking a leader-centric perspective, however, people were asked to respond from their role as ‘citizens’ of HE. A ‘listening post’ methodology was employed, in which participants engaged in associative dialogue about their hopes, anxieties and aspirations in regards to their membership of an academic community. Thematic analysis revealed six key themes: bipolarity; vulnerability and exclusion; lack of transparency; growth of managerialism; changing nature of HE; and citizenship and community. Whilst findings indicated a fair degree of disengagement from institutional governance, they also pointed towards a genuine sense of passion and commitment to the aims and purpose of HE. The implications of these findings for leadership within these contexts are discussed, as well as consideration of the linkages between leadership, identity and citizenship in HE. 

Abstract:
Leadership and branding in business schools: a Bourdieusian analysis.

This paper explores the growth of corporate branding in higher education (HE) and its use by academic and professional managers as a mechanism for not only enhancing institutional reputation but also for facilitating internal culture change. It uses Bourdieu's framework of field, capital and habitus to analyse case studies of branding in two English business schools from the perspectives of academics, management and professional staff and students. The findings reveal a number of tensions and inconsistencies between the experiences of these groups that highlight the contested nature of branding in HE. In an era of rankings, metrics and student fees, it is suggested that branding has become an important means through which HE leaders and managers (re)negotiate the perceived value of different forms of capital and their relative positions within the field. Whilst branding operates at a largely ideological level it has a material effect on the allocation of power and resources within institutions. This is an important development in a sector that has typically privileged scientific capital and contributes towards an understanding of the ways in which leadership is 'distributed' within universities. © 2014 © 2014 HERDSA. 

Abstract:
Managing Leadership and Cultural Change at Beak and Johnston: a Work in Progress.

As it strives to attain its goal of becoming an AUD$1 billion company by 2020, Beak and Johnston (B&J), a family-owned food processing business based in Sydney, Australia, has embarked on a transformative leadership and cultural enhancement process. The company’s founder and CEO, David Beak, is trying to improve the capabilities of his senior strategy team while stepping back from the business. To that end, the company has adopted a leadership development approach with an eye on succession planning in which workers at all levels are encouraged to speak openly. It also is fostering cultural change with a less hierarchical organizational structure in which factory managers are empowered with greater levels of responsibility and accountability. The insights revealed in this candid snapshot of an organization in transition offer valuable lessons on the essential elements of an effective change effort. 

Abstract:
Managing the Monsters of Doubt: Liminality, Threshold Concepts and Leadership Learning.

In this article we argue that management and business undergraduate students who are engaged in learning about leadership occupy a liminal space or state of between-ness. Drawing on anthropological conceptualizations of liminality in which those undergoing liminal rituals must grapple with symbolic monsters, we point to the experience of doubt and uncertainty as ‘monsters’ with which students must come to terms. We link this to scholarship that characterises dealing with uncertainty as a central element of leadership practice. Drawing on notions of ‘threshold concepts’, we suggest that students experience the monster of doubt as they progress in their learning experience and that there are a number of potential ways students might ‘think like a leadership scholar’. We set out some opportunities for leadership educators to engage students with threshold concepts as they seek to become familiar with ‘doubt’ as central to the study and practice of leadership. Applying a liminality framework to the understanding of threshold concepts helps to identify threshold concepts as crucial to learning, infused with cultural assumptions, and situated within an understanding of the student experience. 

Abstract:
Diverging experiences of work and social networks abroad: Highly-skilled British migrants in Singapore, Vancouver and Boston.

 

Abstract:
Inspired and appreciated by the group: the social identity approach to creativity.

 

Abstract:
Leadership and the paradoxes of authenticity.

 

Abstract:
Corporate reputation in professional service firms.

 

Abstract:
Marketing and reputation within professional service firms.

 

Abstract:
Reputation in the international context.