Organizational Behavior Research in Transition Time of China

The article is to introduce author's research results in recent years in the field of leadership behavior. The main researches conducted in this field include competency model of senior executives in communication industry and family firms; transformational leadership and its relationship with leadership effectiveness, the impact of supervisor's feedback on employees' behavior and the cross-culture study of supervisor's feedback. Theoretical and practical contributions of these researches are explained. Directions for future research are discussed.     

The quality of leadership (QL): the EFQM leadership criterion in relation to the 360° feedback evaluation method

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) integral quality management model covers nine issues: five so-called enabler criteria and four so-called result-oriented criteria. The first enabler criterion concerns leadership and covers all kind of strategic management aspects. However, directly or indirectly, the leadership of the board of directors or its individual members is characterized and scored. An even more explicate technique, originated in a totally different way, is the 360° feedback evaluation method. In this paper both methods are compared and practiced on various individuals. A checklist was developed to facilitate scoring in the EFQM leadership submodel. Both methods, although from a different origin, could be linked easily, covered very similar aspects and gave results that were in excellent agreement with each other. The scoring showed almost identical results, supporting in large the use of the integral EFQM model. Received: 25 May 2002 Accepted: 17 July 2002 Presented at the European Conference on Quality in the Spotlight in Medical Laboratories, 7–9 October 2001, Antwerp, Belgium Correspondence to H. M. J. Goldschmidt     

Social paradoxes of majority rule voting and renormalization group

Real-space renormalization group ideas are used to study a voting problem in political science. A model to construct self-directed pyramidal structures from bottom up to the top is presented. Using majority rules, it is shown that a minority and even a majority can be systematically self-eliminated from top leadership, provided the hierarchy has a minimal number of levels. In some cases, 70% of the population is found to have zero representation after six hierarchical levels. Results are discussed with respect to the internal operation of political organizations.     

The application of a transformational zone method to the calculation of radiation heat transfer inside a piston-cylinder system

A radiation heat transfer analysis has been formulated for the space inside an internal combustion engine cylinder using the principles of the Hottel zone and transformational zone methods. The space analyzed has a variable length resulting from the piston movement. The analysis presented here is for radiation in piston-cylinder systems of known temperatures of radiation gas, and internal surfaces of cylinder, head, and piston. Radiative emissions of the radiation gas in the shape of rings were determined on the basis of Stasiek's principle of surface transformation. The results obtained demonstrate the present approach satisfactorily, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Moreover, the division of the analyzed volume into infinitely small elements along the axial direction has significantly simplified the calculations in comparison with the conventionally employed classical Hottel zone method.     

Mathematical Models for Studying the Value of Motivational Leadership in Teams

Mathematical models are presented for studying the value of leadership in a team where the members interact with each other. The models are based on a leader’s role of motivating each team member to perform closer to his/her maximum ability. These models include controllable parameters whose values reflect the amount of task interdependence among the workers as well as the motivational skill and variability in the skill of the leader. Confirming results—such as the fact that the skill level of the leader is a critical factor in the expected performance of the team—establish credibility in the models. Mathematical analysis and computer simulations are used to provide new managerial insights into the value of the leader—such as the fact that the skill of the leader can be more important than controlling the amount of interdependence among the team members and that having a choice of multiple leaders with no particular motivating skill is beneficial to the performance of small teams but not to large teams.Daniel Solow received a B.S. in Mathematics from Carnegie-Mellon, an M.S. in Operations Research from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph. D. in Operations Research from Stanford University. He has been a professor at Case Western Reserve University since 1978. His research interests include complex systems, discrete, linear, and nonlinear optimization. He has also developed systematic methods for teaching mathematical proofs, computer programming, and operations research.Sandy Kristin Piderit is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She studies the roles of relationships among coworkers on their performance and satisfaction with their work environments, and has published studies in the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of Management Studies, and Management Science.Apostolos Burnetas received a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from National Technical University in Athens, Greece, and an M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Operations Research from Rutgers University. He has been at the Department of Operations at Case Western Reserve University and is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Athens. His research interests include stochastic models and optimization, complex systems, and applications in queueing systems, supply chain and the interface of operations with finance.Chartchai Leenawong received a B.S. in Mathematics from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, an M.S. in Computer Science from the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok, and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Case Western Reserve University. His research interests include mathematical modeling of complex systems as applied to business organizations. He has been a professor at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Bangkok, Thailand since 2002.     

Spectral Analysis of Social Networks to Identify Periodicity

Two key problems in the study of longitudinal networks are determining when to chunk continuous time data into discrete time periods for network analysis and identifying periodicity in the data. In addition, statistical process control applied to longitudinal social network measures can be biased by the effects of relational dependence and periodicity in the data. Thus, the detection of change is often obscured by random noise. Fourier analysis is used to determine statistically significant periodic frequencies in longitudinal network data. Two approaches are then offered: using significant periods as a basis to chunk data for longitudinal network analysis or using the significant periods to filter the longitudinal data. E-mail communication collected at the United States Military Academy is examined.     

变革型领导与团队成员工作态度:基于多层线性模型的研究

本研究探讨团队层面变革型领导与成员团队满意度、团队认同之间的关系,考察团队学习的中介作用,以及影响变革型领导和团队学习关系的权变因素。采用问卷调查方式对某省通讯运营商的85个客服团队进行调查。采用多层线性模型(Hierarchical Linear Modeling)对团队变革型领导、团队学习、团队满意度、团队认同之间的关系进行分析。结果表明,团队学习对团队领导的变革型领导行为与员工工作态度的关系具有一定的中介作用。团队成员工作技能在变革型领导和团队学习间起调节作用。     

Price competition and store competition: Store brands vs. national brand

This paper studies pricing strategies in a market channel composed of one national brand manufacturer and two retailers who, each, carry their own store brand and a national brand products. The model accounts for product competition between store brands and the national brand products, as well as for store competition between retailers.     

领导职务公务员网络测评浅析

长期以来,我国领导职务公务员的考核评价都以内部考核为主,且存在走过场的现象,缺乏公正性和透明性。网络测评有其独特的优势,不仅具有互联网的快捷方便,而且可以保留传统表格的简洁明了。它不仅能保证整个考核过程公开透明,而且最大限度地扩大了考核评价的主体,使公众可以真正参与领导职务公务员的考核。本文在分析了现行领导职务公务员考核评价系统弊端的基础上,详细分析了网络测评的优点,针对在实践中出现的一些问题,提出了优化网络测评的建议。