A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action: Participatory Insider Action Research in an Executive Team

In this paper, we describe a Participatory Insider Action Research (PIAR) intervention within the Executive Committee (EC) of a large publicly funded service for people with intellectual disabilities. I was a member of this EC and had been for 20 years. The intervention ran over a two-year period and comprised three cycles of PIAR. We addressed two specific organisational issues but our work did not deliver change in these areas in a substantial sense. We identify power dynamics and role duality challenges as the core factors that contributed to this outcome and describe their effects in this under-researched domain. We finish by offering some advice for future researchers undertaking initiatives of this nature.

The Influence of Equity Incentive on Overinvestment in enterprises: The moderating effect based on the heterogeneity of executive team

This paper empirically examines the moderating effect of executive team heterogeneity on the influence of equity incentive on overinvestment behavior by using the data of Chinese A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2014 to 2018. The results show that equity incentive can restrain the overinvestment behavior of enterprises; The greater the age heterogeneity of the senior management team, the weaker the influence of equity incentive on overinvestment will be; The greater the gender heterogeneity of the senior management team, the greater the influence of equity incentive on the overinvestment of enterprises will be. The heterogeneity of executive team education and tenure has no effect on the relationship between equity incentive and overinvestment. The conclusion of this study has some enlightenment on how to construct and optimize the senior management team of listed companies, so that the senior management team can play its role fully and make reasonable and effective investment decisions.

Board of Directors as a Strategic Sparring Partner

What role can board of directors play in the strategy process of an SME? The case of “Light-Tech” (a luxury lamp producer) shows how. The chairman and several of the other directors had bad feelings about the issue of technology replacement. Contrary to the top management team, they were not convinced that the breakthrough of the new LED technology in the market was still far away. To address this issue, the board of directors—together with the executive team—performed a scenario analysis for about 3 hours. Then, the board requested the top management team to formulate a precautionary strategy which much better prepares the SME for the pessimistic scenario. Result: 2 years later, the pessimistic scenario reveals itself as reality. By performing a scenario analysis together with the top management team, the board of directors were able to play an important role as constructive sparring partners.

Newsletter Fall 2020: Clinician Investigator Trainee Association of Canada (CITAC)

Message from the CITAC president To say that 2020 has been an unprecedented year is an understatement. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic and the major societal awakening on racial equity and justice have led us to reflect on our direction, goals and mission. Thanks to our talented and dedicated executive team, we were able to pivot our efforts and adapt to the changing landscape of research and advocacy. In April, we provided our members with a list of resources to help facilitate a smooth transition to working from home. In June, we published Clinician Investigator Trainee Association of Canada’s (CITAC) press release on our role in combating anti-Black discrimination and racial injustice and have outlined specific advocacy efforts that we will be committing to over the next years (the full statement can be found on our website, https://www.citac-accfc.org).