Assessing how managers discount and evaluate risks is crucial in designing effective managerial policies. In this work, we examine whether risk preferences (RP; both in the domains of gain and loss) and time preferences (TP) are related to managers’ cognitive reflection (CR). To achieve this, the current study focuses on the responses of 601 corporate decision-makers, such as CEO and CFO, of 200 non-financial firms listed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange. Using the three-item of Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005) as a measure of CR, we observe that males perform better on this test than females. Correlation analysis reveals that individuals’ RP in the gain domain are positively associated with their TP, implying that risk-taking individuals are more patient. Our evidence further shows that higher CR is associated with a higher likelihood of increased patience and a lower likelihood of willingness to take risks in the domain of loss. Greater CR is also linked to a higher likelihood of risk-taking in the domain of gain. These findings have important implications regarding the ability of managers to make financial decisions that involve uncertainty and delayed rewards but maximize firm value.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic forced large sections of the workforce to work from home, the uptake of working from home in the public sector had been limited and subject to the discretion or ‘allowance decisions’ of individual managers. Allowance decisions are influenced by factors at the organisational, group and individual levels. This research examines managers’ allowance decisions on working from home at each of these levels. It compares two qualitative datasets: one exploring managerial attitudes to working from home in 2018 and another dataset collected in mid-2020, as Australia transitioned out of the initial pandemic lockdown. The findings suggest a change in the factors influencing managers’ allowance decisions. We have identified a new factor at the organisational level, in the form of local organisational criteria. At the group level, previous concerns about employee productivity largely vanished, and managers experienced an epiphany that working from home could be productive. At the individual level, a new form of managerial discretion emerged as managers attempted to reassert authority over employees working remotely. These levels intersect, and we conclude that allowance decisions are fluid and not made solely by managers but are the result of the interactions between the organisational, group and individual levels.

Through the use of a narrative-interview approach and contingency theory as research methods, this study explores the teleworking behaviors of N = 41 public managers when remotely managing and leading their organizations as virtual bureaucracies during the Covid-19 lockdown. Its findings suggest that their role set was underscored by communal and supervisory tasks. Managers were confronted with environmental challenges of emotional nature (e.g., anxieties). But they also associated teleworking with improving their work-life balance and staffing work process. Simply put, teleworking was perceived with having both positive and negative organizational outcomes. Drawing from the implications of these findings, this study proposes recommendations for future research.

The relationship between firms’ owners and managers is a quintessential example of costly principal–agent interaction. Optimal design of monetary incentives and supervision mechanisms are the two traditional ways of reducing agency costs in this relationship. In this paper, we show evidence which is consistent with a third mechanism: firms have managers whose economic preferences are aligned with owners' interests. We uncover differences in economic preferences between managers employed in firms controlled by two distinct classes of ‘patrons’: employee-owned firms (worker cooperatives) and conventional investor-owned firms. In a high-stakes lab-in-the-field experiment, we find that co-op managers are less risk-loving and more altruistic than their conventional counterparts. We do not observe differences between the two groups in terms of time preferences, reciprocity, and trust. Our findings are consistent with existing evidence on worker cooperatives, such as their tendency to self-select into less risky industries and their compressed compensation structures.

Conservation research is less often applied in practice than is desirable for the optimization of conservation outcomes. We evaluated this conservation research–practice gap for a threatened passerine, Dupont's lark Chersophilus duponti. We reviewed the literature and classified the conservation interventions proposed by scientists as regulation and legislation, monitoring and research, or management. We sent a questionnaire to managers responsible for species conservation, to gather information about the reasons for implementing, or not, each conservation intervention. We found 16 conservation interventions proposed in the literature, of which 13 (81.2%) had been applied by managers at least once. We found a disparity between the frequency of scientific recommendations and the actions implemented by managers: some measures with high scientific consensus were rarely adopted, whereas approaches less frequently proposed by scientists were more often implemented by managers. Regulatory and monitoring/research interventions were applied more often than management interventions, probably because of legal obligations. Management interventions were less frequently implemented, mainly because of time and budget limitations. There was a negative correlation between the number of interventions implemented and the population trend of the species in each region, which suggests that conservation interventions were more commonly implemented when the species was facing local extinction. Our results indicate a mismatch between science and practice for the conservation of Dupont's lark, the reasons for which seem to be diverse and include factors such as financial and time limitations, legal obstacles and managers' perception of extinction risk. An iterative dialogue needs to be initiated between scientists and managers to evaluate the efficacy of interventions implemented, and facilitate evidence-based conservation.

As part of comprehensive research on the ethical climate in the Serbian tourism industry, this study examines the effects of selected predictors (job department, individual values and employees’ perspective) on the perception of ethical climate types as well as the relationship between the type of ethical climate, and job satisfaction. Additionally, this study tests these goals for both managers and their subordinates. Research was conducted in 2013, on a sample of 258 employees in different small and medium tourism organizations in Serbia. The findings revealed new information on both ethical climate and job satisfaction-related factors in small and medium tourism enterprises in a non-Western, transitional economy, where ethical behavior is influenced by constant social and economic changes. Several theoretical and managerial implications and future research opportunities were derived from the findings.

High levels of women in politics and paid work, together with the availability of paid parental leave and public child care, make the gender imbalance in business leadership in Iceland all the more confounding. This study analyzes business leaders’ attitudes toward gender and leadership positions after a gender quota law for company boards was implemented in 2013. We explore support for gender quotas and whether it is related to how respondents explain women's underrepresentation in leadership positions. A questionnaire was sent to 1,349 managers in the 250 largest companies in Iceland. Our findings indicate that women are more supportive of gender quotas than men. The way in which the respondents explain the underrepresentation of women as top managers is strongly related to their support for gender quotas. Those who believe that women are structurally disadvantaged are more likely to support gender quotas than those who adhere to individual explanations. Furthermore, male dominance at higher company levels is related to negative views on gender quotas, whereas this does not apply at lower levels. The research emphasizes the impact of business leaders on the recruitment of women to business leadership positions and, at the same time, has implications for policy interventions.

Discussions about deunionisation usually focus on lower levels of the workforce with managers seen as the initiators of deunionisation strategies. Managers, however, occupy contradictory positions as agents of capital, employees and possibly trade unionists. This can place them in the position of being both recipients and conduits in deunionisation strategies. The focus of the study is on Telstra, the major telecommunications carrier in Australia. Using a range of sources such as interviews and company and union materials, this qualitative research shows how between 1992 and 2000 Telstra's senior management's concerns over middle management agency prompted them to reframe the concept of a manager by using a set of managerial practices from the mining company CRA and the provisions of the Workplace Relations Act (1996) to individualise and deunionise their managerial ranks as a precursor to the deunionisation of the wider workforce.

This qualitative study was undertaken with a diverse sample of Australian health managers to examine their perceptions regarding the health system and to understand how they learned to become health managers. The findings showed that they viewed the health system as one of constant change, mostly non-adaptive, and a system of parts controlled by bureaucrats and political interests. While the respondents enjoyed their managerial role, they see it as contested between the professions. This study concluded that greater emphasis on the education and training of health managers and their continuing professional development is required if they are to manage increasingly complex, dynamic and changing health systems. In Australia, the health debate continues with the recently announced national health reform agenda. The perceptions of health managers in health reform and change management are important given that they are said to be central to the implementation of health reform and the management of change.

Call centres have been described as ‘electronic sweatshops’ and ‘slave galleons of the twenty first century’ and, contrarily as progressive, team based and career fulfilling work environments. Drawing on data from a survey of call centre managers in Australia, it is shown that there are elements of call centre management with practices from both extremes of the descriptive continuum and in some instances these elements coexist in the one centre. Whilst call centres are managed with a high level of control and the work of call centre agents is subject to intense scrutiny and monitoring, the simplistic notion that they are electronic sweatshops, or that the metaphor of the Panopticon applies, is rejected.

Critical Management Studies (CMS) is interested in examining and challenging the legitimacy of traditional management theories, values and assumptions. CMS believes by reflecting and questioning existing management practices, it is possible to generate better norms, policies, ideas and management values. The essence of CMS is to deconstruct the various management techniques and functions, to expose any forms of discrimination and exploitation taking place in contemporary organisations and emancipate employees from their pain, suffering and frustration.

This paper seeks to make a contribution in the area of CMS, by examining the overall effectiveness of CMS in fulfilling its objectives. It seeks to address the effectiveness of CMS in achieving its goals in organisations, with the support of an empirical study conducted at a professional accounting firm.

The initiation of market liberalization resulted in a sharp decline in economic output and market disorganization across the former Soviet Union. Inadequate physical, financial, and human capital are among the explanations for the slow pace of enterprise restructuring and market development. The role of social networks, however, is less understood. Using survey data from a management-training programme in Russia, we examine the effects of entrepreneurial networks on both individual's professional advancement and firm's business development. We find that their participation in work-and association-based social networks varied and differentially affected outcomes at the individual and firm levels. We conclude that active participation in social capital networks catalyses returns on investments in human capital. Implications of this study for research on Chinese social networks are discussed.

Background: A strong evidence base for cognitive behavioural therapy has led to CBT models becoming available within mainstream mental health services. As the concept of stepped care develops, new less intensive mental health interventions such as guided self-help are emerging, delivered by staff not trained to the level of accredited Cognitive Behavioural Therapists. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine how mental health staff evaluated the usefulness of a short training programme in CBT concepts, models and techniques for routine clinical practice. Method: A cohort of mental health staff (n = 102) completed pre- and posttraining self-report questionnaires measuring trainee perceptions of the impact of a short training programme on knowledge and skills. Mentors and managers were also asked to comment on perceived impact of the training. Results: Trainees and mentors reported perceived gains in knowledge and skills posttraining and at 1-year follow-up. Managers and trainees reported perceived improvements in skills and practice. Conclusion: A short Cognitive Behavioural skills programme can enable mental health staff to integrate basic CB knowledge and skills into routine clinical practice.

This article presents the results of a study into stereotyping by managers of their older workers and the influence of these stereotypes on the inclination of managers to keep their older workers in employment. The data for the study were gathered among 796 managers. Through principal components analysis, 15 opinions about older workers were reduced to three dimensions of stereotypes. The first dimension deals with the productivity of older staff; the other two dimensions have to do with their reliability and their adaptability. These stereotypical ideas about older workers influence managers' attitudes toward the retirement of their employees. The analyses show that, besides organizational factors, psychological mechanisms also explain why people view older workers through stereotypes. Managers who are older and in more frequent contact with older employees tend to hold more positive views.