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Business schools in the devastated Gulf area

  • 1.  Business schools in the devastated Gulf area

    Posted 09-30-2005 08:54
    Angelo DeNisi angelo.denisi@tulane.edu was quoted this summer saying his new
    job as dean of the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University in New
    Orleans would be an amazing job:
    http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050425/ai_n14600879
    I'm sure that if he or other of our New Orleans colleagues suggests ways
    that we and our students can help Tulane and other business schools in that
    region we try to do so, maybe through service learning endeavors.

    One member of the IMD-L and AMINT-L virtual communities whom I spoke with on
    the phone yesterday is at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Though
    they are 10 miles from the end of the devastated area, she was shell-shocked
    by the ordeal of helping her New Orleans relatives and friends, the many
    refugees, and the many students from the affected area. The president of
    Tulane was quoted at hotel in Houston where he met with his deans as saying
    that other universities offering permanent appointments to Tulane faculty
    members was a form of looting.

    Collegially,
    Charles
    Mg-Ed-Dv list director

    -----Original Message-----
    From: M.P.Fenton-OCreevy [mailto:M.P.Fenton-Ocreevy@open.ac.uk]
    Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 5:26 AM
    To: Management Education and Development Discussion
    Subject: RE: "Socking it to 'em" via performance appraisals

    I would recommend Angelo de Nisi's work on performance appraisals

    See for example:-

    Feedback effectiveness: Can 360-degree appraisals be improved. AS
    DeNisi, AN Kluger - Academy of Management Executive, 2000, for a good
    summary of what we know on 360 feedback

    Angelo poses an interesting question. Why is it that most firms have
    performance review practices which ignore most of what we know about how
    to make them effective?

    For example, we know that it is counterproductive to combine personal
    development uses and performance evaluation for pay/career uses of 360
    feedback, but this is what many firms do. Consequently the games people
    play around optimising their feedback and their defensiveness about it
    prevents real learning.

    Another issue, which is perhaps worth raising is that performance
    management approaches are highly culture bound and tied to the
    institutional structure of the societies in which they are embedded. The
    USA is highly individualistic and has a form of social and economic
    organisation which is highly market based. Other countries are more
    group oriented and/or practice forms of economic coordination which rely
    less strongly on the operation of markets including labour markets.

    There is a good deal of research which suggests that US approaches to
    performance management do not transplant well into other social
    contexts. A good case study of such a failure is Lincoln Electric's
    disastrous attempt to transplant its highly successful performance
    management approaches to Europe.

    (Lincoln Electric's harsh lessons from international expansion
    DF Hastings - Harvard Business Review, 1999)



    Prof. Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
    Director, Programmes and Curriculum
    & Professor of Organisational Behaviour
    Open University Business School
    Walton Hall
    Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
    United Kingdom

    Curriculum and Programmes e-mail: oubs-dir-pc@open.ac.uk
    personal e-mail: m.p.fenton-ocreevy@open.ac.uk
    (DL) +44 (0)1908-655804
    Fax: +44 (0)1908-655898
    Web : oubs.open.ac.uk