Lecture 1
- When does a manager perform well? -> what should he or she do?
o How a manager is seen is dependent on your perspective, are you a subordinate, peer, boss & what
is your culture.
o Personality and managerial performance (OH & Berry,2009)
▪ Regard managers you can make a distinction between task performance (getting things
done/structuring work) and contextual performance (relationship building)
▪ Performance can be measured from various perspectives -> Supervisors ratings and
Subordinate peer ratings
▪ The different personality traits from the big 5 theory are related to the different types of
performance
▪ Findings of the study
• Validity of the findings increased because performance was measured from the 3
different perspectives (Supervisor, peer and subordinate)
• Predictive value of the big 5 became apparent
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, • Most important message -> we should not take one source when looking at
performance -> the prediction is stronger when we look at different sources
• The 5 different predictors from the big 5
o Emotional stability and conscientiousness are the best predictor of task
performance
o Agreeableness is negatively related to task performance
o Emotional stability and extraversion are best predictor of contextual
performance
• So, personality is useful in the prediction of performance managers
• Studies have been done before but findings have been mixed
• Not all paths are significantly but later in the research it said that -> “however, if
corrected, the paths between personality and MP were statistically significant
o Concepts of managerial skills, Research from Hoffman et al., 2012A
▪ Research question -> Does managing depend on culture?
• They looked at how managerial skills are related to managerial performance (they
both influence managerial performance directly and through the attitudes of the
employees) and how this relationship differs across culture (operationalize culture =
dimensions of culture: power Distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism,
masculinity)
• Managerial skills depend on 3 different skills
o Interactive skills = ability/behaviour for meaningful collaboration between
individuals -> participation, facilitating & recognition
o Initiating skills =behaviours required to organize and define what employees
should be doing to maximize outcome-> planning & controlling details
o Pressuring skills = behaviours more found in authoring leaders, ability skills
to apply insistence for the accomplishment
• Mediating variable is the employees’ attitude (e.g. their commitment)
• Culture is the moderating variable
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, ▪ Expected -> some skills are more related to performance than in other countries
▪ Five samples: > Ireland, Israel, Malaysia, the Philippines, the US
▪ Major findings:
• Managerial skills predict attitudes, but no direct relation from managerial skills to
performance
• Attitudes predict performance
• Pressuring skills were negatively related to attitudes
• Model was culturally universal; “a consistent pattern of skills that seem to reinforce
the need for the same “basic” management skills in each culture” -> no difference
between the countries
o Managerial Skills and Performance, Research from Hoffman et al., 2012B
▪ Research question -> Looked at management skills at a global level, in general there are 2
opposing views
• Due to cultural differences managers may be limited that are needed in a specific
culture (so different culture requires different management skills)
• Managerial skills are cross cultural
▪ Model
• Managerial skills / behaviours / attributes / styles
o Distinction between interactive skills (planning, problem solving, providing
feedback & complimenting) and controlling behaviour (keeping schedule,
keeping pressure, appropriate pressure)
• We look at the black arrows -> how do managerial practices affect the outcome
(outcome consist of attitude of employees and the effectiveness of the work groups)
AND how does culture affect this relationship (moderator)
▪ Samples: 16,795 managers from 39 different culture
• Indicators of cultural differences:
o PD = Power Distance
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, o MV = Masculinity Values
▪ Major findings:
• Higher interactive skills lead to higher commitment
• Higher controlling skills leads to higher commitment
• However, it is not a thick line for the levels of cultural differences
o High power distance countries -> quality of interactive skills is stronger
related to commitment than in countries with low on power distance. This is
the same for Masculinity values.
• Moderation depends on the level of the skill of the manager -> high controlling skills,
there is no difference in commitment between cultures. However, if the
interactive/controlling skills of the manager are low, we do see that it impacts
commitment differently.
• So, culture becomes important depending on the scale of the manager, so if the
scales are high, there is no differences in culture, if the scales are low, we see a
different impact on the commitment.
• So, if you are leader with low skills, you don't must think about the cultural
differences, only when you have high skills it can help.
- Coaching of managerial skills
o What we learned from the previous research is that good managerial skills are important
everywhere, so there are less differences between cultures when you just do your job good. BUT
now there is the important question ‘can this be coached?’
o The study from Ratiu et al, tried to provide insight into this -> whether there are skills to be coached,
they focused on a cognitive behavioural coaching program designed for 20 mid-level managers, and
the evaluated the outcome of the training with a transformational leadership model.
▪ The transformational leadership model consists of
• IA idealized attributes; IB idealized behaviours; IM inspirational motivation; IS
intellectual stimulation; IC individualized consideration; CR contingent reward;
MBEA management by exception active; MBEP management by exception passive;
LF laissez-faire; EE extra effort; EEF effectiveness; SAT satisfaction with the
leadership
▪ They had pre-intervention model and a post-intervention model
o Results
▪ The study reports significant findings
▪ Individual consideration and Contingent reward had a significant increase after training
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