Ideas Worth Merit
Can Business Leaders Learn From Leaders of Today’s Megachurches?
Volume 6 Issue 1 - Feb 12, 2008 - 4:13:36 PM
By Peter A. Maresco, Ph.D.
In 2005, Malcolm Gladwell, author of the best selling books, The Turning Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Little, Brown & Company, 2000) and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Little, Brown & Company, 2005), wrote an article titled The Cellular Church that appeared in The New Yorker Magazine (9/12/05). The article retells the story of the beginnings and the growth of Pastor Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church located in the Saddleback Valley of Orange County, California.

Ideas Worth Merit
Dodgeball, Disco, and Dreams: Reflections on Faculty Workload and Assessment at SCU’s
Volume 5 Issue 3 - Jan 24, 2008 - 12:43:55 PM
By Daniel Kulmala
Fellow faculty members, I have something urgent to say, something that will, no doubt, shock nearly every one of you who reads this article. But, again, I believe that it needs to be said, and we should no longer be polite about what we all know to be the truth. No doubt, due to the brutal nature of my message, some of you will want to turn your attention to another article. My friends in academia, we are all squirrels chasing too many nuts.

Ideas Worth Merit
Academic Leaders Use Innovative Doctoral Programs to Respond to Shortage of Business School Faculty
Volume 5 Issue 3 - Oct 17, 2007 - 10:37:08 AM
By Asila Safi and Darrell Norman Burrell

As more universities create weekend, evening, and on-line master’s programs in business (MBA) in the United States, the shortage for university faculty in college business schools continues to grow. According an Associated Press article, “the total annual compensation for those new business school faculty hires can range from $100,000 to $180,000 dollars a year.”

Traditional universities and traditional doctoral programs are not producing graduates quick enough the meet the faculty demand with the growth of new programs and increased faculty retirements.

Several accredited universities in the United States have developed executive or applied non-traditional doctoral programs in business areas that allow international students to finish in 3 to 4 years, while working full time. These programs do not require a GMAT or GRE exam for admission.

Ideas Worth Merit
Mystic Inspiration of Effective Habits?
Volume 5 Issue 3 - Oct 17, 2007 - 10:30:11 AM
By Dennis McDougall, Rhonda S. Black, James Skouge, & Garnett J. Smith

Although numerous and diverse publications address professors’ writing and research productivity, exceedingly few empirical studies report findings for interventions designed and implemented to increase professors’ research productivity. This study used an innovative mixed methods design with a concurrent triangulation strategy and methods from two research traditions that investigators rarely integrate - quantitative single-case interventions and qualitative inquiry. Processes and findings from this study illustrate how researchers can combine these methods to illuminate the how and why of changes in performance in participant-interventionist studies. In this study, university professors used goal setting and behavioral self-management techniques to increase their daily research productivity and the number of manuscripts they submitted to professional journals. Based on findings and existing literature, we identify practical habits that increase research productivity. This study extends the literature base that includes numerous descriptive articles and opinion pieces on many topics about scholarly productivity, but few intervention studies that report quantitative findings.

Key words: behavioral self-management, case study, goal setting, mixed methods, productivity, professors, qualitative, quantitative, research design, single-case, writing

 

Ideas Worth Merit
A Follower’s View of Leadership
Volume 5 Issue 3 - Oct 17, 2007 - 10:25:22 AM
By Albert DeSimone, Jr.

Title: A Follower’s View of Leadership

Abstract: It is incumbent upon everyone in a leadership position to understand that true leaders must create an emotional connection with those whom they lead that fosters a society of supported and sustainable change within the organization. Leaders often work in a change-adverse environment due a lack of clearly developed communication regarding the value of change. True leaders have learned to leverage the emotional connection they have with those whom they lead to develop and define paths of meaningful communication and understanding to effect positive change.

We also must understand that there are fundamental differences between leadership and management relative to this emotional connection. It seems, however, that we have difficulty articulating those differences. Simply stated, this most fundamental difference is: Management is a contract among people; leadership is a bond.