Career orientations in different countries and companies: an empirical investigation of West German, British and U.S. industrial R & D professionals

Article Abstract:

This study examined dimensions and levels of career orientations and their correlation with work-related outcome criteria among industrial R & D professionals. Questionnaire data were obtained in 11 West German, 4 British, and 2 US R & D units of large industrial companies. Respondents were 729 West German, 217 British, and 124 US scientists and engineers. managerial career orientation and professional-scientific career orientation emerged from factor and scale analyses as two independent orientation dimensions with similar meaning across the three countries and the 17 R & D organizations. Results indicated significant cross-country differences in levels of professional-scientific career orientation, but not in levels of managerial career orientation. Significant differences in levels of both orientation dimensions were detected between R & D units within countries. Distinctive characteristics of West German firms employing R & D staff with particularly strong professional-scientific or managerial career orientations are suggested. Managerial and professional-scientific career orientations were found to be differentially related to objective indicators and self-ratings of research performance. Directions for future research and managerial implications for selecting and rewarding R & D employees with different patterns of career orientations are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

International aspects, Industrial research, Career development, Corporations, West German

---

Success in decision making: different organizations, differing reasons for success

Article Abstract:

In an attempt to elucidate some possible conditions for success in managerial decision making, data were analyzed from 53 cases of decisions in eight British organizations, five business firms and three non-business organizations (two universities and a District of the National Health Service). No clear relationships between features of the processes of making the decisions, and their successfulness were found until the business firms and the non-business organizations were separated. Clear differences then showed, relatively speaking, in the conditions conductive to success. In the business firms, a successful decision was more likely to result from a decision-making process in which resources were available. In other words, in business a successful decision is most likely when sufficient information and sufficient means of implementation are to hand. By contrast, in the universities and the Health District, a successful decision was associated more with the social qualities of the decision-making process itself. In other words, in non-business organizations a successful decision is most likely when the right people participate and the people at the very top do not interfere too much. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Decision-making, Decision making

---

Culture and competitiveness: evidence from two mature UK industries

Article Abstract:

This article is derived from a research project examining the capability of firms in mature industries to carry out strategic and operational change and its connection to competitive performance. There are four main parts. The first explores the concept of competitiveness and how it links to strategic change, while the second suggests how corporate culture can be a critical aspect of that linkage. Examples are drawn from the automobile and merchant banking sectors in the third section. The article compares our approach with parallel work in the UK, Europe and North America. The findings have direct relevance to the widespread interest in corporate change and turnaround in mature industries. At the conceptual level our argument points to a timely combination. The aim is to use historical, organizational and sociological conceptions of change, in order to illuminate the process of competition. In practical terms the objective is to demonstrate how corporate culture may be altered, how the capacity to do so is linked to strategic change and the way both are connected to competitive performance. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Analysis, Competition (Economics), Automobile industry, Corporate culture, Organizational change, Merchant banks, Great Britain

Similar abstracts:

• Abstracts: The implications of individual differences in reference price utilization for designing effective price communications
• Abstracts: Audit pricing and independence. The effects of accounting knowledge and context on the omission of opportunity costs in resource allocation decisions
• Abstracts: How forest product companies analyze capital budgets. How support services can use process control
• Abstracts: Performance measures and JIT: U.S. companies are revamping traditional cost systems. Product costing at Caterpillar
• Abstracts: How does your accounting department measure up? ABC in France: French companies give a Gallic shrug to popular cost method

This website is not affiliated with document authors or copyright owners. This page is provided for informational purposes only. Unintentional errors are possible.