Can universal leadership exist across borders?

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings This research paper concentrates on the similarities and differences between effective and ineffective managerial traits in companies operating in the USA and Mexico, and with cross-border employees. The results reveal that there are far more similarities than differences in employees’ assessment of effective and ineffective management behavior in the two countries. However, when a manager from one country manages an employee from the other country certain behaviors should be actively adopted to optimize the effectiveness of the working relationship. Consequently the wider societal culture is not the definitive factor that determines what a good manager looks like. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Role of managerial traits in firm-level corruption: evidence from Vietnam

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine the link between behavioural and personality traits of firm representatives and bribery in the case study of Vietnam; second, to study whether corruption is associated to firm performance through managers’ personality traits. Design/methodology/approach This study uses novel data from micro, small and medium firms in Vietnam for investigating the relationship between behavioural and personality traits of representatives of firms and bribery. Stratified sampling method is employed to ensure an adequate number of firms in each province with different ownership types. Ordinary least squares and logistic estimation techniques are used in this analysis. Findings This paper finds that traits of risk loving and innovativeness are positively associated to the likelihood of paying bribe whereas managers’ internal locus of control is negatively related to the probability of paying bribe. This paper reveals that managers, who have risk loving characteristics and get engaged to bribe payments, are related to lower firm performances. Research limitations/implications Despite the fact that this paper provides robust and statistically significant empirical analysis, results from this paper are constrained with use of cross-sectional survey data, which has been conducted in 2015. Although this paper can provide strong correlations, it does not establish causal linkages and one should therefore be careful in interpreting the observed patterns as causal impacts. Originality/value The role of managerial personality traits in corruption interactions has not yet been explicitly proposed and empirically investigated. This paper attempts to fill this void by examining the relationship between managerial traits and corruption tendencies among SMEs in Vietnam.

CEO's Traits, Dynamic Compensation and Capital Structure

This paper studies a model of dynamic compensation and capital structure with managerial traits. We show that Optimistic manager perceives equity as more undervalued than debt, while, confident manager perceives debt as more undervalued than equity. Managerial risk aversion mitigates manager’s bias. The risk aversion of the optimistic manager has a convex effect on the optimal coupon. There exists the level of risk aversion eliminating the bias on the leverage. The managerial optimist has an ambiguous effect on the owner’s bankruptcy level. The risk aversion has a convex effect on the owner’s bankruptcy level. The optimistic/confident manager underestimates the credit spread. The risk aversion has convex effect on the credit spread. In contrast to rational manager, the optimistic/confident manger has higher level of effort. The risk aversion has a negative effect on the effort.

Emotional Intelligence Skills, Leadership, and Conflict in Effective Decision Making Process

There are plenty of researches about EI which have focused on EI and strategic decision making, management capabilities, transformational leadership, managerial traits, personality dimensions. This chapter is putting forth the relationship between EI and managing conflict by theoretical research. In the chapter the authors firstly reiterated the theoretical studies, state the necessity of having high level of EI for accomplishing the decision making process and discuss the relationship between EI, managers and managing conflict. To conclude, the authors state that managers having high EI can understand and evaluate the conflicts among employees and encourage their followers in struggling; with comparison to the ones having low EI.