Managerial Ability (managerial + ability)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Managerial ability , a review of its basis and potential improvement using psychological concepts

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2001
P.L. Nuthall
Abstract Achieving an appropriate resource allocation structure usually revolves around the farm manager. His or her ability is crucial to success. Yet, most farmers learn by experience and/or through various courses that concentrate on technical, production economic and related aspects. Putting more effort into understanding the components of managerial ability and how a managers' ability to perform well in each component might be improved is well overdue. As psychology is the study of people and their actions it is the obvious discipline to turn to for assistance. This paper contains a review of the psychology of decision making from a farm management perspective, outlines what psychology offers for changing a person's attributes, and considers the structure of a research programme aimed at developing methods for improving individual's managerial ability. [source]


The glass ceiling in human resources: Exploring the link between women's representation in management and the practices of strategic human resource management and employee involvement

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2008
Shaun Pichler
Research on sex stereotypes suggests that gender bias is an invisible barrier,the so-called glass ceiling,preventing women from breaking into the highest levels of management in business organizations. Using data from a state-based professional HR organization, we investigated this phenomenon in the field of HR management. Building on the lack of fit model of gender discrimination and previous research, we tested two hypotheses: that women in HR are more likely to be concentrated in lower-level managerial positions in organizations that emphasize employee involvement (because of a related emphasis on stereotypically feminine managerial abilities) and that women in HR also are more likely to be concentrated in lower-level managerial positions in organizations that emphasize strategic human resource management (because of a related emphasis on stereotypically masculine characteristics). Our results support the first but not the second hypothesis. Theoretical and practical implications related to the glass ceiling are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]


Opportunism in Capital Budget Recommendations: The Effects of Past Performance and Its Attributions,

DECISION SCIENCES, Issue 3 2001
Joanna L. Ho
Abstract This study uses an experiment to examine the separate and combined effects of managers' loss aversion and their causal attributions about their divisions' performance on tendencies to make goal-incongruent capital budget recommendations. We find that managers' recommendations are biased by their loss aversion. In particular, managers of high-performing divisions are more likely than managers of low-performing divisions to propose investments that maximize their division's short-term profits at the expense of the firm's long-term value. We also find that managers' recommendations are biased by their causal attributions. In particular, managers are more likely to propose investments that maximize their division's short-term profits at the expense of the firm's long-term value when they attribute their division's performance to external causes (e.g., task difficulty or luck) rather than to internal causes (e.g., managerial ability or effort). Further, the effects of causal attributions are greater for managers of high-performing divisions than for managers of low-performing divisions. The study's findings are important because loss aversion and causal attributions are often manifested in firms. Thus, they may bias managers' decisions, which in turn may be detrimental to the firms' long-term value. [source]


Managerial ability , a review of its basis and potential improvement using psychological concepts

AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2001
P.L. Nuthall
Abstract Achieving an appropriate resource allocation structure usually revolves around the farm manager. His or her ability is crucial to success. Yet, most farmers learn by experience and/or through various courses that concentrate on technical, production economic and related aspects. Putting more effort into understanding the components of managerial ability and how a managers' ability to perform well in each component might be improved is well overdue. As psychology is the study of people and their actions it is the obvious discipline to turn to for assistance. This paper contains a review of the psychology of decision making from a farm management perspective, outlines what psychology offers for changing a person's attributes, and considers the structure of a research programme aimed at developing methods for improving individual's managerial ability. [source]


Modelling the origins of managerial ability in agricultural production,

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL & RESOURCE ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2009
Peter Nuthall
The efficiency of production from a farm's land, labour and capital is critically dependent on the ability of the farm manager. Yet, while there are studies correlating a wide range of manager-related variables with returns, and, therefore, probably ability, little understanding of the basic determinants of managerial ability exists. Questions such as ,what is the importance of a farmer's family experiences and training in determining the farmer's managerial ability?' need answering. The solution to this, and other, questions will enable determining ways of improving farmers' inherent ability developed both in early, and later, life. In that most decisions on a farm are made intuitively, in contrast to the use of a formal analysis, improving farmers' inherent ability will have a significant payoff. The research reported here uses data from a large stratified random survey of 740 developed farmers (29 per cent had tertiary education, 30 per cent had 4 or more years secondary education) to create a structural equation model of the determinants of managerial ability. The results suggest that a farmer's exposure to experiences is a significant factor in ability, as is the farmer's management style and the family influence on early life experience. [source]