Vol. 1- No 1(98) > From the Editor

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From the Editor-in-Chief

Welcome to the first issue of the Management Development Forum (MDF). The mission of MDF is to report on new insights and approaches in the fields of management learning and organizational development relevant to managers. It is our aim to stimulate innovative thinking, share new developments and ideas, and report on new techniques and intervention programs. We serve as a pool for new theory and practical knowledge that will support human resource professionals seeking to enhance management training, education, and development in their organizations.

The Management Development Forum is an initiative of the FORUM program at Empire State College. The mission of the journal is much in keeping with the FORUM program, a management degree program for managers pursuing both a career and an education, for people confronting the realities of leadership and management in rapidly changing environment. FORUM concentrates on the theory and practice of management and management development, as well as stressing the need for a wide range of inquiry and competence, and for practical application to the real challenges of the workplace.

The Management Development Forum echoes this desire to meld theory and practice in today’s workplace. We welcome papers especially on the subjects of management and executive education; change and development; self-directed learning; evaluation of human performance for recruiting, staffing, and training; measuring and improving the human resources function; team-based design and compensation; training and leadership development; performance management and feedback systems; designing and implementing effective succession planning and management development.

In this issue you will find articles in four areas:

A. New Perspectives on Management

With this section we present new ways of examining the discipline of management in order to assist managers and human resource professionals better understand the complexities and diverse impact of management and change.

James Hunt and Joseph Wallace of the Univ. of Newcastle, Australia, in their article, Organizational Change and the Atomization of Management, present a framework for understanding managerial activity involving six competency domains, based on a review of the literature, and present the results of testing the validity of the domains with a group of managers.

Robert Schemel, of the Middle East Technical Univ., Turkey, in Rethinking Popular Management Theories presents a model of management behavior based on employee willingness and employee ability as an alternative to traditional two-dimensional and three-dimensional models of management.

Hiroaki Izumi and Devon M. Taylor, with the University of Regina and Wascana Energy Inc. respectively, in Planned Organizational Change as Corporate Revolution report that management tends to use change approaches that are consistent with the organizational culture of the “as-is” organization rather than the “to-be” organization. This article argues that change methodologies should reflect those of the future, or desired, culture. The article creates a grid integrating nine approaches to organizational effectiveness with eight ideal methods of planned organizational change.

B. New Strategies and Practical Approaches

With this section we introduce innovative practices in management and human resource practices, illustrating the ideas with real workplace experiences.

Alan Tidwell, at Macquarie Grad. School of Management, Australia, in Problem Solving for One examines a new approach to alternative dispute resolution that enables a single party to a dispute to devise potential solutions.

Michael Bochenek, with Elmhurst College, IL, in the article, Performance Appraisals and Employee Disillusionment, analyzes current performance appraisal processes and offers suggestions for improvement, based on experiences from a telecommunications firm and feedback from workshop participants.

Darcelle White, from Eastern Michigan Univ., in the article, Employment Interviews, offers a new approach to interviewing based on the use of scenario-based questions.

C. Profiles of Success

This section offers personal stories as instructive to managers and human resource professionals as they move through their careers.

Lisa Pelled, of the School of Business Administration., Univ. of Southern California and Jean Louise Kahwajy, at Stanford, in their article, Career Challenges in HRM: One Woman’s Approach, profile how Jennifer Miller, HR director at Cadence Design Systems, successfully approached Cadence’s takeover of her former employer, Unisys.

Drew Harris, of Fairleigh Dickinson, in HR and Executive Competence: Jan Tomlinson’s rise to the top, reports on the career path of Chubb Insurance Company of Canada’s President, in which a position as Worldwide HR manager was key.

D. Short Takes

Short Takes provides a forum for brief opinion pieces or book reviews.

In this issue, Raymond Doring, a management consultant from Troy, NY, presents arguments in favor of outsourcing as a competitive organizational strategy.

The theme of our next issue is: Developing and measuring managerial leadership competencies. We welcome papers on the subjects of assessing managerial competence, competency development, skill building, competency profiles for leadership, measuring leadership effectiveness, linking business strategy with leadership development, and using competencies in HR systems to identify and develop effective leaders. Instructions for submission appear at the beginning of this issue.

Finally, I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of our managing editor, Marilyn McCabe, whose never ending energy and devotion to the goals of MDF helped bring this premiere issue to fruition.

Alan T. Belasen, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
SUNY Empire State College
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SUNY Empire State College