PROFESSOR DYLAN JONES-EVANS

  Do we get the bosses we deserve?   Certainly, many of those leading organisations have views of their achievements that are poles apart to that of their employees. For example, a recent report from Deloitte showed a massive difference between those executives who felt they had done a good job supporting their staff during the last two years and those workers who felt otherwise.  Whilst nine out of ten of those in executive management said that they had understood what their employees had gone through the pandemic and they have made the best leadership decisions for the company, only half of their workers agreed with that sentiment. Perhaps the biggest problem, as this column as discussed previously, is that the style of leadership we see in an increasing number of organisations relies on individuals only being powerful because of their job or position, with this power acquired and maintained by a combination of patronage and fear rather than trust and respect. By h...

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been using my annual leave to catch up with some long overdue reading.  One of the books that I revisited was the autobiography of Jack Welch, the former CEO of global conglomerate General Electric and someone who is widely acknowledged to be one of the most astute and successful businessmen of the last 100 years. Obviously, there are many quotable sayings from the great man but one that I think that is pertinent to the challenges facing today’s economy is one he made at a symposium in Boston back in 2006 where he said that although people often think innovation is limited to practical scientific advances, it’s about much more than that. In fact, Welch always believed that to innovate something is as important as inventing it. In fact, a study from Jack Welch’s old employer GE showed that innovation is a key tool in developing a competitive advantage in a global economy but that businesses do not do that on their own. In fact, increasing collab...

As we all know, developing better skills amongst the workforce is critical to ensuring a more competitive economy. This is especially the case amongst those small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that are responsible for the majority of employment in the UK.  Whilst research from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) show that nine out of ten SMEs recognise this issue and the value of staff training, less than half are actually putting their hands in their pockets to invest in learning and development.   Why is the case?  Various studies have suggested that much of the training on offer does not consider the requirements of those entrepreneurs running SMEs especially as, unlike large firms where there are various layers of management cushioning chief executives from what is happening on the ground, entrepreneurs play a far more pivotal role in the day-to-day running of small businesses.  As a result, the founders of small businesses tend to be directly invo...

How important is management to the success of organisations? This is the question that was asked in a ground-breaking article published in the Harvard Business Review. “ Why Do We Undervalue Competent Management?” by Raffaella Sadun, Nicholas Bloom and John Van Reenen challenges the current orthodoxy that a firm’s internal managerial competencies are not the basis for competitiveness and that it must, instead, stake out a distinctive strategic position i.e. doing something different than its rivals. In fact, through interviewing over 12,000 managers, the paper demonstrates that simple managerial competence which many organisations take for granted is more important than previously thought. So what are the main results from this study and what are their relevance to businesses? First of all, it is clear that achieving operational excellence is still a major challenge for many businesses across all countries and industries. Of course, there were variations across the spec...

One of the real mysteries regarding the current state of UK’s economy is the so-called productivity puzzle. which refers to the fact that labour productivity has stagnated since the economic downturn of 2008. This is very different to what has happened after previous recessions where productivity initially fell but then recovered and returned to previous levels. Whilst there has been considerable economic debate surrounding the causes of lower productivity and some attempts by politicians to address this issue, there has been little progress to date to explain what has been going on. That is why a recent paper which examines the link between management practices and productivity within UK manufacturing businesses makes fascinating reading. Those of us who have been working for many years within the academic discipline of business and management appreciate the growing evidence between the adoption of management practices and increased performance in terms of growth, profitab...

I am sure that many can only dream of having a workplace where not only are you allowed the flexibility to set your own schedules but are offered unlimited paid time off by your employer. Yet that is what the technology firm Dropbox has recently implemented for its employees. In addition, staff get a ‘no-meeting’ Wednesdays that enables them to have uninterrupted time for real work. As a result, employee satisfaction has increased by 10% and the business is more efficient than ever. But Dropbox is not alone in pursuing such practices. Indeed flexible working arrangements are becoming more popular in the UK. It could be argued that this is driven by employees needs for greater work-life balance and partly because of legislation that now allows employees to have the statutory right to request work away from the office. But are employers themselves becoming increasingly supportive of this change in work behaviour? According to a recent survey from the CBI, 97% of employers ...

Last month, the turmoil that had engulfed Swansea University’s School of Management, to the detriment of the institution and its reputation, finally came to a head when its controversial dean resigned from his position . Only time will tell whether it can recover from this unfortunate and wholly avoidable episode. Ironically perhaps, this came a few days after my good friend Professor Tom Cannon wrote a powerful piece in the Financial Times on whether business schools had become irrelevant, arguing that industry no longer regarded them as important in solving economic challenges. As someone who has spent the majority of his professional career within senior academic positions within a range of business schools here and abroad, I don’t wholly agree with the case that Tom makes but I would readily concede that are real challenges ahead to ensure they remain relevant to the needs of the business community. First of all, it is critical that all business school programmes offer ‘re...

Coping with uncertainty is something that most leaders not only deal with effectively but will thrive on it in competitive situations. Yet as we have seen during the last few years, economic, political and social shocks can occur when even the best prepared individuals least expect it. So how are the chief executive officers (CEOs) within our top companies preparing for the future when it is increasingly uncertain? Part of the answer to that question can be found in  the  latest Annual Global CEO survey from accountants PWC.  Through interviews with 1,322 chief executives in 77 countries, it gives us an idea of how those responsible for some of the world’s largest firms  are approaching the corporate and economic challenges of 2015 and, more importantly, how their companies will cope with an ever-changing business environment. From the point of view of the global economy, the economic outlook looks promising in the short term with nearly two thirds of chief e...