Frontiers in Management Research

9

Authors: Dimitra Skoumpopoulou

Workplace coaching is growing rapidly and many organisations use it as a way to motivate and support their employees in their careers. This paper is a theoretical paper that draws upon the authors' experiences of workplace coaching. The author discusses the main aspects of successful workplace coaching while it summarises the most important behaviours and attitudes of an effective workplace coach.

19

Authors: David Edgar, Estrella Bernal, García Campayo

The global economic crisis has caused governments and charities to be squeezed in term of resources to meet social and environmental needs. In parallel, social enterprises, volunteering and the “big society” have stepped in to help fill the void. However, this is a smoke screen that covers a bigger problem – the lack of true social responsibility by large corporations. Too often, mention is made of the economic crisis recovery but the crisis is greater than this, it includes social and environmental crisis which quite simply is not recovering nor is it receiving the attention it deserves. This paper explores this contention and through a literature review proposes a holistic approach to better inform business as to its responsibility and how to meet a more responsible management agenda. We propose this through a model based on responsible management and mindful leadership and provide a brief description of a case study as to how mindfulness is starting being used by an Iberian Multi-national to recast the social responsibility agenda and move towards a more responsible management approach to business. Different coaching techniques combined with Nominal Group Technique were used to identify underlying deep values of participants (CEOs). The resultant values can be used by the multinational to construct a theoretical model of responsible management and mindful leadership. One outcome of this model applied to this multinational is the current strategy being developed by the company. This strategy embeds our thinking and considering the high influence of the case multinational in its sector, we believe the use of the Responsible Management and Mindful Leadership Model will be a tool which increases the multinational´s capacity to influence crisis recovery in the true sense, considering social and environmental aspects.

6

Authors: Mahadi Hasan Miraz, Mohammad Ismail Majumder, Md. Mamun Habib

Information Technology (IT) is seen as an important tool in knowledge management processes. However, the existence of IT neither assurances knowledge creation, knowledge supply nor knowledge usage. In addition to IT, a job environment and a culture that inspire sharing and incessant learning should also be created and maintained by management. This paper delivers empirical evidence of the relationship between IT and learning in small businesses as well as their impact on organizational performance. Additionally, the level of sector knowledge-intensity is taken into consideration. Outcomes shows that specific learning along with separate and collaborative information technologies have a positive and significant effect on organizational learning. On the other hand, unlike individual and collaborative information technologies, specific and organizational learning have exposed important and positive effects on organizational performance. Therefore, IT has an important impact on outcomes only when in a proper context of learning is in place. Small businesses in sectors with high knowledge intensity levels are more likely to use of IT.

9

Authors: Michael Featherstone, Mary Angela Duffy, Michael Marker

This is a case study that explores the difficult transition that the IBM e-Business Innovation Center in Atlanta experienced when it was finally fully integrated into IBM’s Global Services Division. Although there has been much conjecture as to why this fusion failed, this paper explores lack of cultural fit between IBM and its fledgling Innovation Centers as the primary factor in their demise. Though the article examines an event which happened nearly twenty years ago, it offers a unique insight into a thoroughly current phenomenon, corporate sponsored entrepreneurship. Much of the information for this case was gleaned through interviews with participants in the event.