Debates whether male and female managers adopt different leadership styles. If so, asks do the differences reflect how the two sexes interpret the idea of empowerment?

Making people redundant has become a way of life for many multinationals over the past decade. In a quest for efficiency, firms have been laying off thousands of employees ‐ and most observers expect the trend to continue. But many of the multinationals that have cut their payroll have not...

Increasing numbers of companies are introducing formal mentoring programmes. Examines how five firms ‐ Hallmark Cards, Texaco Trading and Transportation, Imperial Oil Ltd, Shell Oil Company and an anonymous Fortune 500 computer company ‐ resolved some of the issues which arise.

Executives have for years used management consultants to help with day‐to‐day business decisions, but frequently lack people to turn to who could help with the daily challenges of just being an executive. Now that is changing. More and more top US managers are hiring coaches, who act as...

Most managers and professionals learn most of the time through their real work experiences. Seeks to identify what can and should happen when a mentor and learner look together at work situations, problems and opportunities.

The idea that companies should provide their employees with less training, not more, is about as fashionable as the beehive hairstyle. Explores the link between training and a quality culture.

The flawed hero is a staple of literature, and a fact of life for companies across the world. Yet companies and management systems rarely cater for anything other than a perfect employee. Instead of seeing employees as highly diverse and imperfect human beings who can achieve great things by...

Office “hotelling”, which involves itinerant members of staff sharing workstations, can help companies to save on office space. But extensive planning and finely tuned booking procedures are needed if disastrous effects on efficiency are to be averted.

Bureaucracy has reached its limits. The simplicity and power of top‐down, rule‐based administration created competitive advantage in the past, but blocks the responsiveness and continuous innovation that are the keys today. That is why “teamwork” and “empowerment” are seen almost...

Customer service representatives are no longer perceived as secretaries or telephone operators, nor considered as mere support staff for personnel working in the field. Rather, they are increasingly viewed as carriers and guardians of the company’s image, and key players in the...