Cambridge Judge Business School Discussions on Organisational Behaviour

The 'software of the mind' - Professor Hofstede explains why cultures with long term perspectives succeed

Next time you are at a social gathering, instead of chatting just to friends and colleagues, why not strike up a conversation with a complete stranger? For the effects of making contacts outside your usual circle may, according to new research by Judge Business School's Professor Martin Kilduff, be much further-reaching than you think. A diverse range of social contacts can affect not just your enjoyment of a particular social occasion but also your work performance and promotion prospects.

In the past pay was simply a necessary cost to do business. Today pay has viewed as an inducement model, it is the carrot, not the stick. However Dr Jonathan Trevor explains that this practice of using pay as a strategic management tool has been over embellished by HR departments. The resulting imbalance between top executives pay and that of all employees is in fact counterproductive, fostering an unintended climate of negative employee relations. Dr Trevor explains why the "art" of management science needs to be re-dressed and why pay wont motivate people to work harder.

More and more companies are being forced to make redundancies as the downturn deepens. Whilst the outcome of downsizing is rarely seen as good, it can still be a success if the process is fair. Dr Philip Stiles gives some advise on 'soft landings' and how to make the process less traumatic for both those being made redundant and for their managers.

Is it shaped by social imperatives or should it be held as an economic negotiation? Dr Jonathan Trevor discusses this contentious issue, calling for an increase in transparency and more direct dialogue and consensus between shareholders and executives on what constitutes good governance as opposed to a reliance on using intermediary bodies: "We need to bridge the gap between the interests of shareholders and the interests of the executives. One size does not fit all and it is where we have seen prescriptive 'best practice' applied without contextual sensitivity, that we've seen the systems fail, with executives being incentivised for what amounts to bad behaviour with negative outcomes for the companies involved."

Let's have less pride, and more shame, in the workplace: In the current climate, where business has almost become an ethics-free zone, Dr Stiles talks about his new research which looks at the negative emotion of shame and how he discovered that used properly, it can actually play a positive role in the workplace in helping both to motivate people and to encourage them to regulate their behaviour. He says, "Shame is always seen as a negative emotion. But in fact there are some positives for companies in using the mechanism of shame to help ensure that people do try and live up to the expectations we have of them."

In these credit crunch times, organisations need to be able to act smarter and effectively do more with the less. Highly motivated and talented people will therefore be at a premium. However, what makes these individuals creative and innovative can also make them tricky to manage. So, how should organisations best maximise these volatile and strong willed premium resources? Dr Mark de Rond, drawing on his unique research into the team dynamics of the Cambridge boat team, offers advice on how to resolve the tensions that naturally arise in high performance teams.

Professor Martin Kilduff considers how our effectiveness in our jobs is influenced by our social networks. His paper "Job Design: A Social Network Perspective" is an Aladdin's cave of good tips for managers and employees alike. Professor Kilduff explains how our colleagues around us and our informal groupings in the workplace play a significant role in how effectively we carry out our jobs.

We think of effective human resource management (HRM) as the means to value creation, organisational performance and competitive advantage, however, we understand much less well how ineffective HRM can inhibit organizational performance, destroy value and competitiveness. Dr Jonathan Trevor takes the current financial crisis and explains how it is an example of a human capital crisis. He argues that it had its genesis in the failure to manage human resources effectively, be they executives of financial institutions, bankers and traders, regulators acting on behalf of government, employees in the automotive sector… not since the winter of discontent in 1979 has our economic and social well-being, societally and personally, been so dependent on how effectively people, as human capital, are managed.

As we enter a more remote, more atomised working future Dr Jonathan Trevor says it offers new opportunities.

Jochen Menges, Lecturer in Human Resources and Organisations, says the new epidemic affecting us is speed. He explains that simply working harder isn't always good for profitability. It can lead to what he calls "the acceleration trap" and organisational burn out. Breaking free of that "speed" trap is the challenge facing managers. Now is the time to ask: "what can I stop doing?"