Business & Economics Collected Works - Research Publications
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ItemCreating a high performance leadership culture: The case of a leading Australian financial services firm(Centre for Workplace Leadership, The University of Melbourne, 2016)The Centre for Workplace Leadership was invited by a leading Australian financial services firm to conduct research on the firm’s capacity to adapt and innovate in a rapidly changing economic environment. The research took place between 2014 and 2016. It involved analysis of proprietary documents, surveys, and interviews with employees and managers from frontline business to senior managers, the executive team and board members. Key Findings: The analysis of the firm’s systems for innovation and decision-making found the following factors were affecting the firm’s ability to innovate. These were: • Employees’ shared commitment to a strong, values-based culture created a stable and rewarding informal culture; • However, the firm’s culture was a ‘double-edged sword’: although it was a major strength in building cohesion, it also tended to block innovation and change; • In particular, ‘bureaucratic brakes’ impeded the spread of internal innovation and development; • Strong risk aversion tended to be used defensively against the possibility of change; • Positive examples of innovation highlighted the need to develop better mechanisms for knowledge diffusion and organisational learning. Each of these findings is described in more detail in the report, along with quotes from the interviews.
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ItemMiddle Managers - Leading for Performance The case of a major Australian retail business(Centre for Workplace Leadership, The University of Melbourne, 2016)The Centre for Workplace Leadership was invited by a major Australian retail business to conduct research on the company. The CEO wished to have a solid basis of evidence on which to improve communication, innovation and decisionmaking in the company. The research took place over a year between mid-2014 and mid-2015. It involved interviews with staff at all levels, from CEO to frontline business staff. Key Findings: The analysis of communication, innovation and decision-making processes found three main issues that were impacting organisational effectiveness. These were: • shifting to hierarchical leadership had reduced employee engagement; • increased bureaucracy had reinforced organisational silos; • top-down decision-making had crowded out collaboration and innovation. Each of these findings is described in more detail below, along with quotes from the interviews.
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ItemA global call for action to include gender in research impact assessment(BMC, 2016-07-19)Global investment in biomedical research has grown significantly over the last decades, reaching approximately a quarter of a trillion US dollars in 2010. However, not all of this investment is distributed evenly by gender. It follows, arguably, that scarce research resources may not be optimally invested (by either not supporting the best science or by failing to investigate topics that benefit women and men equitably). Women across the world tend to be significantly underrepresented in research both as researchers and research participants, receive less research funding, and appear less frequently than men as authors on research publications. There is also some evidence that women are relatively disadvantaged as the beneficiaries of research, in terms of its health, societal and economic impacts. Historical gender biases may have created a path dependency that means that the research system and the impacts of research are biased towards male researchers and male beneficiaries, making it inherently difficult (though not impossible) to eliminate gender bias. In this commentary, we - a group of scholars and practitioners from Africa, America, Asia and Europe - argue that gender-sensitive research impact assessment could become a force for good in moving science policy and practice towards gender equity. Research impact assessment is the multidisciplinary field of scientific inquiry that examines the research process to maximise scientific, societal and economic returns on investment in research. It encompasses many theoretical and methodological approaches that can be used to investigate gender bias and recommend actions for change to maximise research impact. We offer a set of recommendations to research funders, research institutions and research evaluators who conduct impact assessment on how to include and strengthen analysis of gender equity in research impact assessment and issue a global call for action.
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ItemThe impact of leadership and leadership development in higher education: A review of the literature and evidence(Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, 2016)
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ItemKnowledge leadership: Mobilising management research by becoming the knowledge object(SAGE Publications, 2016-07-01)This article explores contrasting forms of ‘knowledge leadership’ in mobilising management research into organizational practice. Drawing on a Foucauldian perspective on power-knowledge, we introduce three axes of power-knowledge relations, through which we analyse knowledge leadership practices. We present empirical case study data focused on ‘polar cases’ of managers engaged in mobilising management research in six research-intensive organizations in the UK healthcare sector. We find that knowledge leadership involves agentic practices through which managers strive to actively become the knowledge object – personally transposing, appropriating or contending management research. This article contributes to the literature by advancing the concept of knowledge leadership in the work of mobilising management research into organizational practice.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableTHE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MANAGEMENT KNOWLEDGE: MANAGEMENT TEXTS IN ENGLISH HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS(WILEY, 2016-03)Have generic management texts and associated knowledges now extensively diffused into public services organizations? If so, why? Our empirical study of English healthcare organizations detects an extensive presence of such texts. We argue that their ready diffusion relates to two macro‐level forces: (i) the influence of the underlying political economy of public services reform and (ii) a strongly developed business school/management consulting knowledge nexus. This macro perspective theoretically complements existing explanations from the meso or middle level of analysis which examine diffusion processes within the public services field, and also more micro literature which focuses on agency from individual knowledge leaders.
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ItemExploring and explaining the dynamics of osteopathic regulation, professionalism and compliance with standards in practice: Report to the General Osteopathic Council(Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, 2015)