The Vocational Preferences of Chief Executives
Chief executives have a considerable role in shaping policy and practices of organisations. However, the factors which influence them in their careers have received relatively little attention. The work of Mintzberg, and more recently that of Kotter and Lee, have illustrated different facets of the top job and the people who occupy such posts.
Management-Development Programs
A survey of what Canadian hospitality managers look for in external management-development programs, including those subject areas that need more education and training programs, reveals that the highest-rated subject areas include service quality, motivation and training, and communication skills. At the bottom of the range are advertising, personal selling, and research methods. Marketing topics, in particular, are rated more important by lodging managers than by food-service and health-services managers. There are no significant differences among lodging, food-service, and health-services managers in their ratings of leadership and motivation and training. Each of the three groups consistently rated managerial accounting, financial management, and business ethics in the midrange. The results show a strong desire across all industry sectors for two-to three-day management-development programs and minimal fees, and a general desire and expectation to continue attending programs.
The Effective Negotiator — Part I: The Behaviour of Successful Negotiators
Very few studies have investigated what actually goes on face‐to‐face during a negotiation. Two reasons account for this lack of published research. Firstly, real negotiators are understandably reluctant to let a researcher watch them at work. Such research requires the consent of both negotiating parties and constitutes a constraint on a delicate situation. The second reason for the poverty of research in this area is lack of methodology. Until recently there were few techniques available which allowed an observer to collect data on the behaviour of negotiators without the use of cumbersome and unacceptable methods such as questionnaires.