Do Saudi Arabian Leaders Exhibit Ambidextrous Leadership: A Qualitative Examination

The study identifies how subordinates of a multinational organization in Saudi Arabia perceive ambidextrous leadership’s explorative and exploitative factors. A qualitative design was adopted for the study. Data was collected from the employees’ comments about the leaders in a large multinational conglomorate’s organizational Electronic Social Networking (ESN) platform. The comments so collected were analyzed using Thematic Analysis (TA) to address the research objectives. The study results indicate that the leaders exhibited exploration, exploitation, and temporal flexibility styles signifying ambidextrous leadership. Ambidexterity is an aspect that is receiving increased research attention. Despite its widespread use in management science, ambidextrous leadership (AL), and individual level ambidexterity got initiated only in the current decade. The current study extends the literature about AL.

Fading away at work: “I could have left without saying anything” – performing talent management in a multinational organization

PurposeThis study was undertaken in order to show how talent management (TM) was performed in practice in a multinational organization as well as how the TM practices affected both different groups of workers and the perception of talent within the organization.Design/methodology/approachPerforming talent management was reassessed in the relationship between TM practices, view and identification of talent, attributed positioning and self-positioning of older and younger workers; retrieved from an exploratory single case study in a multinational organization, based on interviews.FindingsThe findings illustrate that despite the struggling to fill key positions with skilled workers, the studied organization adopted approaches to TM that excluded older workers' talent. First, central to performing TM was how talent was viewed and identified, and second, two types of positioning acts were important: the organizations (re)producing of talent management through attributive positioning acts on older/younger workers and older workers' self-positioning of their own talent. The two sides of performing talent management were complex and intertwined resulting in an age-based devaluation of talent at work.Practical implicationsThe study points to important issues in designing and performing TM that may be useful to HR and managers as a point of departure in the development of more inclusive approaches to TM.Originality/valueThe concept “performing talent management” was developed as an intertwined relationship between on-going positioning acts and (re)production of status, talent and age at work; recognizing preferences of what was viewed and identified as valued talent as main drivers made it possible to develop an understanding of exclusion and inclusion mechanisms in performing TM.

Investigating the Situated Culture of Multi-Channel Customer Management

This paper investigates the influence of national culture on customers' behavior and customers' choice of channel through the customer life cycle stages. An exploratory in-depth single case study in a multinational organization in Egypt was conducted. Specifically, 31 in-depth interviews were conducted with members of staff in marketing, IT, retail and customer services departments, and external prospects/customers. Based on an interpretive approach, the authors have articulated a situated cultural approach based on structuration theory to identify the cultural dimensions that have provided an understanding of the cultural influence on customers' channel choice. The results highlighted that verbal, human interaction, traditional shopping, and cash based were the themes for customers' channel choice through the four stages of customer life cycle. The results also show that the customers' channel choices were linked to the following Egyptian cultural dimensions: collectivism, market price relationship, emotional, power distance, low trust, uncertainty avoidance, and universalism.

Employees Perspective on Internal Branding Mechanisms. Case Study of a Multinational Organization in Ghana

This study examines how employees are supported to acquire requisite knowledge and skills and build brand supportive behaviors for corporate success. The study was conducted in a manufacturing setup of a multinational organization in Ghana. Being an exploratory study, a qualitative approach was adopted, and primary data was collected from twenty respondents via face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Purposive sampling was employed as it enabled diversity to be explored and targeted personnel to be contacted and interviewed. Manual coding was used in analyzing data collected. The study findings identified various mechanisms that an organization can employ to help employees build brand supportive behaviors, and to get employees empowered to deliver on the brand promise. The findings revealed that internal branding initiatives such as employees perceived knowledge and capability building activities, internal communication, leadership support, and the work environment, acted as critical mechanisms that contributed to employees’ empowerment and display of brand supportive behaviors. The study further notes that effective management and implementation of internal branding activities contributes greatly to employees’ empowerment, employees’ internalization of corporate values, and consequently employees’ delivery on the brand promise. The study results confirm the significance of internal branding initiatives to employees’ development and organizational growth and recommends that internal branding initiatives be promoted for sustained success. The research approach adopted however limits generalizability of the findings to other organizations. This study contributes to the scanty empirical literature on internal branding in Africa, and more importantly to the limited literature on internal branding in Ghana.

Organizational secrecy as viewed by the agents of a multinational corporation: A Case Study

abstract: Only a limited number of theoretical studies have been conducted with regards to the issue of organizational secrecy. This study examines similar and different views about secrecy within three executive levels of an industrial multinational organization named Motores. This is achieved through a case study for which the data has been collected by using a survey-like questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The different maturity levels and process structures in the enterprise account not only for different stages, concerns, and types of knowledge involved in addressing secrecy, but also for the role boundaries among the agents surveyed. Furthermore, while these agents are well acquainted with suppliers and customers, whereby confidentiality is ensured through confidentiality agreements (NDAs) and patent protection, their relationships with institutions and organizations appear to be areas of little or no knowledge, especially when it concerns competitors, class entities, and government relations. Leaks of classified information occur, and the places and situations where they may take place are identified. No potential mitigation situations were identified in our case study, and no systemic protocol exists for dealing with classified topics in the different areas where secrecy is involved, including business strategies. Transparency is recognized and desired; however, its risks and consequences require evaluation.

Empirical Research in Colombian Services Sector: Relation between Transformational Leadership, Climate and Commitment

The objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between the variables of transformational leadership, climate and commitment in a sample of 319 workers of a multinational organization in the Colombian Services Sector. For data collection, we used the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), the climate/culture questionnaire FOCUS-93 and the Intellectual, Social and Affective Commitment Scale (ISA). Data were processed with SPSS 23 and AMOS 22 for modeling with structural equations. In the path diagram, calculated according to the indicators of structural adjustments, variances were obtained for the dimensions of organizational commitment. The resulting model presented favorable adjustment indicators as evidenced in the results, and the relationship between commitment and climate was significant (β = 4.61; p = 0.001), as well as between climate and commitment (β = 0.018; p = 0.001). However, the relationship between transformational leadership and commitment was not direct but mediated through organizational climate.

Research methodology for ethnostatistics in organization studies: towards a historical ethnostatistics

PurposeWhile quantification and performance measurement have proliferated widely in academia and the business world, management and organization scholars increasingly agree on the need for a more in-depth focus on the complex dynamics embedded in the construction, use and effects of quantitative measures (pertaining to the thread of research called ethnostatistics). This paper develops a pluralistic method for conducting ethnostatistical research in organizational settings. Whilst presenting practical techniques for conducting research in live settings, it also discusses how historical approaches which focus on source criticism and contextual reconstruction could overcome the limitations of ethnostatistics.Design/methodology/approachThe methodological approach of this paper encompasses an in-depth discussion of the ethnostatistical method, its underlying assumptions and its methodological limitations. Based on this analysis, the authors propose a pluralistic method (model) for conducting ethnostatistical research in organizational settings based on the integration of 1) research practices employed by one of the authors conducting ethnostatistical research in a large multinational organization and 2) best practices from ethnographic and historical research.FindingsThis paper suggests how historical approaches can successfully join ethnostatistical enquiries in an attempt to overcome some limitations in existing conventional methods. The developed framework explores four levels of analysis (ethnography, statistics at work, rhetoric of statistics and history of statistics) and suggests practical approaches for each level that can contribute to strengthening the research output and overcoming limitations when using ethnostatistics.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the ethnostatistical field by discussing the intersection between history and ethnography and the ways for their complementary use in organizational and management research on quantification processes. As such it offers unique insights and hands-on experience from conducting ethnostatistical enquiries in live organizational settings.