Browsing: leadership

Introduction. In 1979, Sony launched a portable Walkman range. For nearly a quarter of century, the Sony Walkman was the undisputed market leader and Sony was considered a top innovative company. Then, in 2001, Apple decided to launch the iPod, a new portable player. About 80% of the iPod technical components (e.g. memory, storage media) were produced by various companies within the Sony group. In 2004, iPod sales overtake Sony Walkman globally and become the new market leader in portable players. How was this possible? Theoretically, Sony held all conditions for launching the new generation of portable players, but instead, a new company – Apple – completely changed the market.

Aim of the study. This paper underline that innovation could appear in any company, not necessary the one that has all the prerequisites to provide a new innovation. Two very different firms, Sony and Apple Computer, are used as case study illustrations.
Keywords: Apple, Sony, technology, leadership, innovation

Introduction. An effective leadership, an evolutionary organizational culture and permanent connection to change may ensure a company’s success within an ever more dynamic competitive environment. The scientific approach of this paper is in line with theoretical and applied research in the field by the presentation of the connections existing among leadership, organizational culture and organizational change.

Aim of the study. The paper highlights the triad “vision – motivation – momentum”, the mission and the defining coordinates of leadership, the complementarity “new – tradition” in organizational culture, the stages of the change management process and the role of managers and leaders in the preparation and implementation of change projects. Leadership is essential in building and developing an appropriate cultural model, which, in its turn, is an important vector of organizational change processes in modern companies.
Keywords: leadership, organizational culture, organizational change, managers, leaders.
JEL Classification: M10, M12, M14.

Introduction. Most of the ones that lead private economic agents permanently look at competition with concern. They know that it is everywhere and there is no way to avoid it. They also know that if they want to survive they have to cope with it, and if they want to perform they need to dominate it. Also, they understand that the advantages mix that make an economic agent competitive is hard or impossible to replicate. The solution seems to be the identification of their own available competitive advantages, as well as a song made up of musical notes and the correct interpretation of this “song”.

Aim of the study. This paper brings into attention a less studies topic: the analysis and intelligence production specificity – as competitive intelligence process stage – given that the beneficiary is practicing classic management or leadership. The contextualization of the issue imposed us to separate the two concepts from the current debates perspective regarding the relationship between management and leadership. We did this in respect of the competition and competitiveness. Although that report is not clearly and definitively established, we tried to identify the main characteristics and essential differences in the approach of the actionable information needs. The obtained results were correlated with the competitive intelligence cycle stages, in order to identify the approach similarities and differences for each stage. Subsequently, we suggested models of possible approaches in the information analysis and intelligence production activity in order for the resulted informational product to fulfil their role as decision support in competitiveness augmenting.
Keywords: competitive intelligence, competitiveness, management, leadership, intelligence analysis
JEL Classification: L25

Introduction. From the perspective of leadership change symbolizes the existence of the organization. Most assuredly, this is not a matter of change at all costs, but rather of increasing organizational performance and training people. As leadership is a creative activity, in this paper, we aim to show that the unconventional is closely connected to creativity.

Aim of the study. From the perspective of interpersonal relationships the leader has to continually create contexts in which people can express themselves. On the one hand, the success of leaders is contingent on the moment the development of their personal career starts. On the other hand, the team is thus given the opportunity to develop. In order for people in an organization to acknowledge a leader’s point of view, it is essential that the latter be compelling. From our point of view, most unconventional leaders possess an informal educational component which allows them to reveal their true potential without any constraints. When we talk about potential we have the native constituent in mind, whence we can adduce a few terms that define realities such as: multiple intelligence, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, adaptive intelligence, spiritual intelligence. The examples that we share in this paper, regarding the development of projects and organizational systems, state the ways in which unconventional leadership can occur. The unconventional leader will be ingenious, innovative, creative, charismatic, a finalizer and an example in the eyes of the team.
Keywords: unconventional, creativity, leadership, innovation, network.
JEL classification: M100

Introduction. Currently, management and leadership are considered processes of influencing activities at a managerial and organizational level. Management implies the existence of individuals or groups of individuals who develop managerial activities. Leadership is a managerial process that aims to influence interpersonal relationships between team members due to the application of management functions.

Aim of the study. This paper aims to highlight some relevant features that define the concepts of management and leadership in a contemporary context. The main objectives of the study are: 1). presenting the main concepts of management and leadership; 2). analysing the role of leaders and managers in an organization; 3). highlighting main forms of manifestations of management performance; 4).presenting main influences of public management and leadership in the management of public organization. Leadership is not only a specific part of management, but also a state of mind, which creates an adequate framework for the manifestation of creativity and performance of a team led by a good leader in order for its members to succeed professionally and to achieve performance at an organizational level.
Keywords: management, leadership, managerial performance, motivation, competitiveness
JEL Classification: M31

Introduction. In time, management proved to be determinant for progress, including for the higher education institutions from Romania. The management in higher education institutions is grounded by the principles that govern education, among which the academic autonomy, a principle newly introduced in post-1989 Romanian legislation that gives to the academic institutions the right to manage their own human and material resources, to establish their mission and their own institutional strategy.
The manager of the academic institution is the chancellor, his responsibilities being specified both in the Law of National Education no. 1/2011 and the internal juridical documents of the higher education institutions, such as the Academic Charta.

Aim of the study. This paper aims to highlight that thechancellor carries out the management of the institution, apart from the didactic and scientific research activity, in accordance with the prerogatives conferred by the law, using his abilities of a leader in the process of academic managing.
Keywords: management, higher education institutions, academic autonomy, Romania, leadership, legislation.

Introduction. All over the European Union companies face the same problem: a dramatic gender gap in leadership. Men far outnumber women in senior business positions in developed and less developed countries, including Romania. What makes leadership positions so inaccessible to Romanian women? Senior women leaders in Western Europe mentioned stereotyping as an important barrier to consider.

Aim of the study. To demonstrate that stereotyping is indeed a factor in the leadership gender gap, it was first necessary to substantiate that stereotype-based perceptions of women’s leadership do in fact exist in Romania. In the second part of this research, perceived existing differences between men and women leaders were scrutinized and compared to their standardized profiles as indicated by the Hogan Assessment Systems, both at the organizational and individual levels. Whether women stereotyping was found to be relatively low in Romania, differences in personality traits between men and women seem to impede women from advancing to the top management positions. It also explains the emergence of a diversity of leadership styles.
Keywords: gender gap, leadership, gender roles, personality assessment
JEL Classification: M10, M20, L290.

Introduction. Leadership has become a major topic in various domains such as sociology, political science, psychology, history, management or business for several decades and has spawned a huge number of empirical and conceptual researches. Today’s challenging and turbulent times require more than ever authentic and strong leaders both at the micro and macro level.

Aim of the study. The aims of the paper are to briefly define the concepts of leadership and leader, and to present the case of Carlos Ghosn, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. Since the beginning of his professional career, Ghosn has proved to be a leader par excellence. Our research is based on a literature review.
Keywords: leader, leadership, Carlos Ghosn, Renault-Nissan Alliance
JEL Classification: M10

Introduction. Leadership is often considered a desired way of managing things. It reveals specific personal characteristics through which leaders involve people into processes. Coaching has to do with a specific way of interaction between a coaching manager and the people receiving the benefit of it. In fact, a coach behaves like a proper leader and a coached individual like a follower. At the same time, leadership is different from coaching.

Aim of the study. Main objectives of this paper are the following: to explain the leadership process in relationship with coaching, to provide a set of measures to develop life coaching from leadership way of thinking and to identify the young generation’s perception on coaching. The study reveals similarities between leadership and coaching, as well as differences and contributes to a better understanding of these concepts, based on a literature review. The research based on a questionnaire explains the effects of leadership on coaching process based on the students’ perceptions. Therefore, the paper includes a case study for higher education sector.
Keywords: leadership, life coaching, personal development, life model, student-professor relationship

Introduction. The place and role of SOEs in a national economy was debated many years ago from the collapse of socialist economies when it came to the former communist countries to make a transition from the planned economy to an economy of free market, and even back in time to the early 80s, an example being the Teacher government in the UK. The subject remains as important nowadays for Romania, given that there are still many problems in connection with the responsibility of the state towards various fields of economic activity, the leadership and the involvement of public authorities and, not least, the economic performances brought by this type of enterprise.

Aim of the study. This paper try to make a review of the scientific literature in order to reveal significant researches in the domain, a short presentation of Romanians SOEs and their economic environment in 2014 and an analysis of the economic efficiency of public enterprises in Romania that focuses on the evolution of the 2012-2014 period of the number of public companies, of the major financial indicators, of the number of insolvencies, of the outstanding payments and of the state subsidies, as well as correlation between these results and the type of management and leadership applied in public enterprises, and that reflects the importance of this study for actual research in Romania.
Keywords: state owned enterprises, corporate governance, leadership, economic efficiency, financial indicators
JEL Classification: H54, H83, I32, I33