The Development of General Managers: Some New Zealand Evidence
The transition of functional specialists into general managers is recognised as a priority area for management education. This article is concerned with those factors and events which general managers themselves regard as having been the main influences on their careers. It addresses the following questions: what skills do general managers acquire as they develop, how are these acquired and how important is management education in this process? The findings should be of interest to aspiring general managers and those charged with identifying and grooming these managers.
How “General” are your General Managers?
In 1984 the authors conducted a survey of general managers in Christchurch, New Zealand, to learn how they approached their work. The managers were asked to respond to a questionnaire listing ten different facets of managerial work. The methodology and findings are presented in this article in the hope that they may be useful to other groups of general managers. The questionnaire will enable managers to identify areas of their work which they may under‐or over‐emphasise. This in turn may reflect potential development needs, or suggest different ways in which the work can be handled.
Ceramic microwave antennas for mobile applications
Due to their medium to high permittivity values, ceramic microwave materials are attractive as building blocks for miniaturised antenna solutions. Further advantages are low dielectric losses and an excellent temperature stability of standard ceramic materials. Yet, the permittivity of the ceramic material also has a strong influence on the radiation efficiency and bandwidth of the antenna. This implies that in the design process a suitable compromise has to be found between the degree of miniaturisation on the one hand and the antenna efficiency and bandwidth on the other. We describe two approaches towards efficient miniaturised ceramic microwave antennas: the dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with partial metallisation and the shorting post patch antenna. We focus on design steps taken to ensure both a high degree of miniaturisation and high values of the radiation efficiency, the choice of the ceramic material and the experimental performance of the antennas.