Today's Corporate Research Articles

Translating user needs into high-quality real estate solutions aligned with today's business drivers: Prominent CRE executives responsible for global portfolios provide insights and best practices

As today's corporate real estate (CRE) executives face mounting pressure to deliver inspiring workplaces that enhance recruitment and retention, they also encounter a myriad of complicated business challenges. These factors, coupled with a new definition of workplace quality, necessitate creating new approaches for planning and execution that engage user groups and service providers in dynamic partnerships. This paper shares the perspectives of a select group of seasoned CRE executives responsible for developing and implementing real estate strategies for global companies occupying millions of square feet. It provides specific examples of how each has evolved planning at the macro level to enhance portfolio optimisation and at the micro level to deliver specific workplace solutions. The research approach employed in the preparation of this paper was the qualitative interview method. It was used to gain insight into the experiences of CRE executives and to provide clear understanding of the current business drivers presenting challenges to planning and how each individual is responding to them. Questions were tailored to obtain a detailed account from each interviewee including specific examples that illustrate key points. Companies featured include Viacom, WPP, Interpublic Group, Wells Fargo and Gensler.

Teach an I-O To Fish: Integrating Data Science Into I-O Graduate Education

Big data is becoming a buzzword in today's corporate language and lay discussions. From individually targeting advertising based on previous consumer behavior or Internet searches to debates by Congress concerning National Security Agency (NSA) access to phone metadata, the era of big data has arrived. Thus, the Guzzo, Fink, King, Tonidandel, and Landis (2015) discussion of the challenges (e.g., confidentiality, informed consent) that big data projects present to industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists is timely. If the hype associated with these techniques is warranted, then our field has a clear imperative to debate the ethics and best practices surrounding use of these techniques. We believe that Guzzo et al. have done our field a service by starting this discussion.

"Job Hopping Trend in Academics"-With Reference to Bareilly City Western Uttar Pradesh, India

The most serious issue for employers today is hiring and retaining the capable workforce. Job hopping has turned out to be a more common phenomenon in today's corporate world. Job hopping refers to the pattern of changing jobs very frequently for quick financial gain or career advancement. It is most prevalent in India, due to rapid growth. Until recently job hopping was well thought-out as suicidal to the career and such employees were not taken seriously, but now the mindset has changed. Employees and employers both consider it beneficial if it is done to gain new insights in different environments and cultures. Job hoping is also common among teaching faculty of MBA Institutes. This paper investigates two relationships such as between (1) pay satisfaction and turnover intention and (2) job satisfaction and turnover intention amongst the teaching professionals of MBA colleges in Bareilly. The questionnaire was administered to 100 academic professionals, 74 replied making the response rate to be 74%. Findings suggest that there is negative relationship between turnover intention with job satisfaction and pay satisfaction. It was observed that employees within the age group (20-30) have greater intention to quit the job.

Professional socialization and institutional change: German corporate leaders in transition

Recent institutional approaches have granted actors more strategic space in coping with their structural environment, but they largely neglect to conceive actors as social entities, thereby reducing the relation between actors and institutions mostly to interaction effects. This article underscores the dialectical and mutually constitutive relation between actors and institutions by taking a more actor-centred perspective. Empirically, the article analyses the professional socialization of corporate leaders in Germany in the context of the changing face of German capitalism. Drawing on insights from the literature on social agency and the sociology of management, it is argued that the professional socialization of corporate leaders, which facilitated a more consensus orientation, persisted over a long period, but eroded after the 1980s. The more conflictual interpretation of institutions and economic relations by today's corporate leaders is not only linked to (internal and external) political and economic structural changes but also to the managers' new professional experience.

The Book of GNS3

Today's corporate networks are complex beasts. Adding and configuring new routers, firewalls and other devices can be a nerve-wracking experience. A faulty rule, for example, can have disastrous effects.

Convergence, Legal Origins, and Transplants in Comparative Corporate Law: A Case-Based and Quantitative Analysis

In this Article, the authors intend to fill a gap in the comparative law literature by adopting a case-based approach to comparative corporate law that highlights the important dimension of specific cases in corporate law matters and how identifiable, but limited issues arising from such case disputes are resolved in different jurisdictions. Our study is based on ten cases used in a wider research project and their solutions in ten countries: eight European countries, the United States, and Japan. We assess the solutions to these cases using quantitative methods of network and cluster analysis. We also seek to enquire whether conceptual differences exist between the countries in terms of the source, form, style, and substance of the legal rules which comprise their corporate laws. The findings of this assessment are used to evaluate arguments developed in the academic comparative company literature which posit that the existence of fundamental differences in the protection of shareholders across countries reduces the scope for convergence in corporate law systems. The case-based evaluation is also applied to make a contribution towards other influential theories in comparative law, particularly the “legal origins” theorem and the “legal transplants” debate. For example, while we find some evidence of legal transplants, we show that the notion of legal origins has only limited value in today's corporate law. Furthermore, the research has a public policy dimension since the existence or absence of differences matters for the question of whether formal harmonization of corporate law in the EU, or further afield, is necessary, desirable, or at all possible.

Ford first? Corporate security and the US Department of War's Plant Protection Service's interior organization unit 1917–1918

The Ford Motor Company's corporate security unit is widely considered to be the prototype of in-house corporate security. Drawing on archival research, we demonstrate that beginning in 1917 and continuing through the early 1920s the US Department of War's Plant Protection Service and their interior organization units represent an early example of corporate security emanating from the public sector. The existence and character of this unit challenges the notion that Ford pioneered corporate security and the surveillance, secrecy, employee control, and pre-emptive techniques it typifies. The work of interior organization unit personnel exhibits strategies and features associated with today's professional corporate security managers. We then reflect on the implications of these findings for understanding the history of labor suppression and the origins of corporate security in the United States.

Internal Enterprise Development Strategy

The subject of this study is organizational and economic process that provides an improved mechanism for managing today's corporations. The practical significance of this study is that it allows us to develop the program and to prepare measures to optimize corporate performance through improvement of the management and business processes that will strengthen the position of corporations in a competitive environment, improve the quality of management, reduce administrative costs and improve bottom-line results of financial and economic activity. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n1s3p444

Optimizing Emotional Intelligence in Management Education: A Role for Vedic Sciences

Background: Emotional Intelligence is an important core competency of contemporary management science, enhancing and refining which is much needed in today's competitive corporate environment. Traditional knowledge provides a new perspective on how to achieve this. Here, we present a deeper understanding of conscious experience as a basis for emotional intelligence, derived from Vedic sciences, together with means for its application. Methods: We analyse emotional intelligence by elucidating both eastern and western conceptions of self and their neuroscientific basis, in order to show that traditional methods have a vitally important, scientific role to play in modern management education. Results: the neuroscientific perspective on autobiographical self provides key inputs for understanding individual emotional and cognitive states. Vedanta regards the Self as the ground for all experience and action, while Yoga provides means to free a person from the limitations of the autobiographical self. It provides scientifically validated techniques such as deep relaxation and focussed attention training to refine a manager's emotional intelligence. Discussion&Conclusions: Focused Attention Meditation, and other similar systematic meditation techniques described in Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad-Gita, should now be integrated into management education, thus bringing much needed balance of mind, equanimity and goodwill to create institutional excellence.

Executing into the Future

In the past three decades, I've had a chance to work with some amazing companies struggling to define, or redefine, their innovation strategies. Far too often, sustainable change has proven difficult, if not impossible, to achieve, even for companies with committed leadership teams and a real sense of urgency. How can such a collection of smart people, across multiple sectors, fall short? This question has been bothering me for a while now. I may have found one answer in the pages of Inc. Magazine's 35th anniversary issue, which came out this summer. In a retrospective column, editor-at-large Leigh Buchanan summarized the "familiar rules for entrepreneurship" the magazine has captured: "Become connoisseurs of risk. Recognize opportunity. Change things up. Above all, do it your way." These are precisely the things I've seen large companies fail at; otherwise stellar leaders back away from the innovation cliff. Sometimes caution makes sense, but at other times, their reluctance to invest in a great idea has been foolhardy. In fact, I've seen many of the ideas abandoned by cautious leaders launched by other, often smaller, companies--and often to success. So how does an established company, particularly a large, successful, established company, execute innovation ideas in a way that strengthens their competitive advantage into the future? Perhaps it's as simple as a return to the basics, as defined by the entrepreneurs who have appeared in the pages of Inc. Become connoisseurs of risk This is a major hurdle in today's corporate world, particularly for established companies. This is due to at least three factors in corporate culture. First, risk, by its very nature, implies a chance of failure. And failure, in and of itself, is understood to be a bad thing, especially within the systems that structure and motivate many large companies. The stock market takes a very dim view of failure. As a stockholder, I might concur in some instances, but this mindset has reduced the appetite for risk taking as a general operational philosophy. I have only seen one company that celebrated failure--well, celebrated the lessons learned from failure--with an award. Each year, this company identified an employee or team that attempted a difficult challenge, failed initially, and then learned from that failure to produce an even better idea. This approach changed failure from an end state to a stepping-stone. Another serious challenge to embracing risk is the way that we value learning and failure. Intelligent, fast failure can be a good thing, particularly when the lessons learned from it strengthen the ultimate market offering. Unfortunately, many of the management tools used to shepherd innovation from germinal idea through to market-ready product or service don't really promote learning. Few companies actually do retrospectives on past initiatives to make sure lessons learned are incorporated into future offerings or even into business processes. Instead, failures are swept under the proverbial rug. Finally, the time frame frequently used to determine success or failure is short, in part because of the demands of the same financial markets that punish failure. Such a short-term view limits the ability of an innovation to grow to its full potential. Despite the recent focus on the fast pace of change and the need to innovate continuously, many innovations don't actually achieve their full impact in a year or less. In an information-intense world, a year to achieve impact may be meaningful, but this expectation is unrealistic for companies serving more traditional markets and working in more traditional distribution channels. Recognize opportunity Innovation blindness often results when experts attempt to tackle a new problem they believe to be within their field. The reason? The experts already believe they understand the nature of the problem and, thus, the best solution. This explains why the more successful the company, the less able its employees are to identify opportunities, particularly opportunities in adjacent markets. …

Why implementing corporate innovation is so difficult

While corporate innovation is commonly touted as a viable strategy for sustaining superior performance in today's corporations, the successful implementation of corporate innovation remains quite elusive for most companies. A recent Accenture survey of more than 500 executives revealed that over 50% report a poor innovation process, while fewer than 18% believe their own innovation strategy provides a competitive advantage for the firm. While many causal reasons can be offered, our research on corporate entrepreneurship and innovation demonstrates there are four key implementation issues that most corporations are not recognizing or responding to effectively. Effective recognition of and response to these four implementation issues may represent the difference between those companies that create a successful corporate innovation strategy and those that do not. The four issues are: (1) understanding what type of innovation is being sought, (2) coordinating managerial roles, (3) effectively using operating controls, and (4) properly training and preparing individuals. Together, these four issues—if understood and appropriately addressed—help create an effective innovative ecosystem within the organization.

Theories on Dividend Policy Empirical Research in Joint Stock Companies in Kosovo

Global experience makes clear the importance of dividend policy as a promoter in large corporations. Corporations are the backbone of the economy as a whole, they are a key source of jobs and certainly the largest taxpayer of an economy. In recent years it appears that most common way of distributuion in global corporations is cash dividend. In the market we can also face the companies that do not pay cash dividend, and companies that do not pay dividend at all.Nowadays in the market economy, corporates consider the decision to pay dividends as a quite relevant, because in this way is known the remaining cash flow for investment back into the corporation and cash flow distributed to shareholders. A stable dividend policy gives positive signal to shareholders and can be seen as positive corporate performance. Therefore, this paper tends to face the policies which can be applied from companies on dividend distribution and the factors which indicates in following a certain policy.The purpose of this paper is to provide information to stakeholders about the factors which determines dividend policy and its role in today's corporations.

The fracturing of the American corporate elite

In the aftermath of a financial crisis marked by bank-friendly bailouts and loosening campaign finance restrictions, a chorus of critics warns that business leaders have too much influence over American politics. Mark Mizruchi worries about the ways they exert too little. The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite advances the surprising argument that American CEOs, seemingly more powerful today than ever, have abrogated the key leadership role they once played in addressing national challenges, with grave consequences for American society. Following World War II, American business leaders observed an ethic of civic responsibility and enlightened self-interest. Steering a course of moderation and pragmatism, they accepted the legitimacy of organized labor and federal regulation of the economy and offered support, sometimes actively, as Congress passed legislation to build the interstate highway system, reduce discrimination in hiring, and provide a safety net for the elderly and needy. In the 1970s, however, faced with inflation, foreign competition, and growing public criticism, corporate leaders became increasingly confrontational with labor and government. As they succeeded in taming their opponents, business leaders paradoxically undermined their ability to act collectively. The acquisition wave of the 1980s created further pressures to focus on shareholder value and short-term gain rather than long-term problems facing their country. Today's corporate elite is a fragmented, ineffectual group that is unwilling to tackle the big issues, despite unprecedented wealth and political clout. Mizruchi's sobering assessment of the dissolution of America's business class helps explain the polarization and gridlock that stifle U.S. politics.

Class Hybrids: From Medieval Europe to Silicon Valley

Within the medieval guild workshop, small masters operated as class hybrids that personified a distinct economic form. Marx's Capital shows how these masters served as a thread stitching together the historical break that transformed Europe into an industrialized capitalist society. Despite their role in this transition, the proliferation of such hybrids has been undertheorized, even though the coexistence of different kinds of class structures is quite possible in today's corporations. Capitalist class structures may combine in the same enterprise with slave, feudal, ancient, or even communist class structures. To further understand such sites, this paper offers a basic class theory of hybrids. An immediate political importance arises from the possibility that collective-based employment may often develop only in a hybrid. As a result, a new theory and politics of transition beyond capitalism emerges.

Corporate Disclosure of Material Information: The Evolution—and the Need to Evolve Again

This article by the former chairman of the FASB and the founder and executive director of the new Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) presents the rationale for and mission of the SASB. As the authors point out, both the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was created in 1934, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board, set up in 1973, emerged during times of low investor confidence to restore trust in the capital markets. And the institutional changes brought about by the creation of both the SEC and the FASB succeeded in eliciting new information for investors and in raising the standards by which such information was reported.But as the authors go on to argue, we now live in a different world, one in which the management of environmental, social, and governance issues is increasingly viewed as critical to the long‐run value creation of companies. And because today's corporate reporting fails to account in a systematic way for material non‐financial issues, it's time once again for the capital markets to evolve. The SASB aims to meet this need by creating sustainability accounting standards for use by public companies in disclosing a minimum set of material sustainability impacts for companies in over 80 different industries. As part of a natural evolution in disclosure, the SASB aims to achieve the same goal the SEC and FASB started with: to protect investors and the public.

Human Resource Management: An Optimistic Approach at the time of Recession

Human resource management is responsible for how people are treated in organizations. It is responsible for bringing people into the organization, helping them perform their work, compensating them for their labors, and solving problems that arise. Recession presents a very difficult time for any existing organisation in today's corporate world and no company is exempted from this truth. The biggest challenge for companies and especially Human Resource in this economy downturn is to survive and to remain competitive, companies reorganized and reengineered to reduce waste. Recession poses unique challenges to the HR department. Human resources professionals often struggle to obtain the resources they need to effectively manage people in the workplace, and the difficulties that they face are augmented when economic conditions worsen. It is essential for every company to know how to implement the right metric set for this very trying period.

Person-Environment Fit: Individual and Contextual Perspectives in Theory and Research

This symposium brings together diverse perspectives on person-environment fit (PEF). PEF has always been of interest, but the dynamic changes in today's corporate and social settings challenge traditional employees' ability to achieve fit. Greater diversity, increasingly rapid change, shorter career and worklife cycles--all of these and other factors demand that we update our understanding of PEF. Our collective papers present a new theory on value expression and how the individual finds fit with their personal values, explore how the individual can find fit in competitive environments, examine engagement's relationships with job satisfaction and affective commitment, and present a novel theory incorporating global cultures into our understanding of PEF. Finally, a renowned scholar, Amy Kristof-Brown serves as a discussant to integrate these contributions. The Effects of Competitive Work Environment and Employee Goal Orientation on Engagement Presenter: Logan Jones; U. of Mississippi Presenter: Walter Davis; U. of Mississippi Presenter: Christopher H. Thomas; U. of Mississippi Unpacking the Psychological Processes of Person-environment Fit: A Cultural Values Perspective Presenter: Aarti Ramaswami; ESSEC Business School Presenter: Yih-teen Lee; IESE Business School The Expression and Suppression of Personal Values in Organizational Contexts Presenter: Jon P. Briscoe; Northern Illinois U. Affective Commitment and Job Satisfaction as Mediators of Links between 'Fit' and Work Engagement Presenter: Bruce A. Rayton; U. of Bath Presenter: Zeynep Yesim Yalabik; U. of Bath

To “Catch the Sparkling Glow”: A Canvas for Creativity in the Management Classroom

Today's corporate challenges require creativity from business leaders, but current classroom practice within business schools does not necessarily encourage students to think creatively so that innovation is possible. We authors, one a professor of management and the other a professor of art history, argue that borrowing broad pedagogical strategies more typically used to nurture creativity among visual artists, most notably a focus on process, liberal arts study, and careful observation, will go a long way toward liberating our business students to develop and express their creativity.

Evolution of project teams for Generation Y workforce

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a knowledge base for project managers to understand and deal with issues that arise out of Generation Y working with other generations. The research study is expected to generate interest among the research community for undertaking similar studies to advance understanding on this interesting and important topic.Design/methodology/approachThis research method consists of analyzing literature review findings and survey results of an exploratory study of Generation Y working professionals. Both the literature review findings and the study results were analyzed to develop findings and recommendations.FindingsResearch results confirmed that the generation gap is an issue. Generation Y is viewed unfavorably and they face struggles in dealing with other generations. These generation gap issues might vary depending on the type of industry and composition of the workforce. People from each generation – raised in different social and technological contexts – bring different attitudes, values, and work ethics to the workplace and a project manager is required to manage these to improve project team effectiveness.Research limitations/implicationsThe research study has a participant selection bias; only Gen Y working professionals from the USA participated in the study and people from other generations and Generation Y people from other countries were not included in the study. Therefore, study results do not reflect issues from the perspectives of other generations. A similar study that considers participation of people from real project teams consisting of different generations is recommended to validate the research results of this study.Practical implicationsThe paper explored issues concerning project teams consisting of members from different generations. Results are expected to help project managers develop team management strategies. This study is also aimed to develop a foundation for future studies to examine how project management can deal with project teams consisting of people of different generations working together. The study findings and implications for practical use are limited due to participation bias.Originality/valueThe study is an original effort in examining some of the issues related to different generations working together in a project environment. Results are of relevance in today's corporate world. Project teams span many generations and present challenges in developing them into a high performing team. This paper addresses some of the challenges from the perspective of Generation Y.

Corporate Governance, Control and Individualism as a Definition of Business Success. The Idea of a “Post - Heroic” Leadership

Corporate governance is a multiple term which means control, leadership, individualism and business management in the area of corporations and economic systems (MacKenzie, 1992). It represents a whole community of stakeholders, employees and customers. In this paper, we will examine the relations inside the corporations, we will also define the term: corporate governance and we will give the synthesis of Board directors and CEO councils around the world. A logical question that arise is, if the leader of a corporation has to cooperate or it makes more sense if he takes all the decisions by himself. Is today's corporate leaders a kind of heroes and in which cases? The idea of control and individualism is not a new idea but under certain factors it means responsibility, business ability and capacity to any change. Organizational change and ability to control or to guide people and corporations is a unique strategic advantage and make the difference to all kinds of leadership.