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    ICMLG'15: Crucial attributes of successful entrepreneurs

    Conferences Performance Research
    Bob Perkins of Mercer University, Atlanta, has been studying leadership and entrepreneurship for many years. His recent focus has been on leadership theory and the discovery of essential tasks that entrepreneurs need to accomplish during the start-up phase of the business lifecycle. This work is necessary because many of the classical leadership models do not fit the start-up situation that well.
    In his work to date, Perkins has identified three essential start-up task behaviours:
    • Article a clear and compelling vision
    • Build brand identity and image
    • Assemble a capable team
    Perkins' delivery was polished and his material interesting. However, I came away wondering whether these tasks are actually any different from that the leaders of larger enterprises need to perform. Then the penny dropped. The CEO of Coca-cola does not need to develop a brand identity, that work is already done. Perkins was quick to qualify his work as being at a preliminary stage, and that further analysis may see some adjustments and refinements. I look forward to following Perkins' work. If he can confirm the essential tasks, and form them into an entrepreneur-specific leadership model, the implications for commerce could be quite significant.
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    ICMLG'15: Opening Keynote

    Conferences Governance Language
    The 3rd International Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance got underway in Auckland New Zealand this morning, with a keynote presentation by Phil O'Reilly, CEO of BusinessNZ. BusinessNZ is the apex organisation that speaks for businesses and those in the private sector in particular. O'Reilly is also the Chair of Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD and of International Labour Organisation a United Nations agency, so he has a strong global perspective.
    O'Reilly's topic was The Research Agenda in Business. He spoke passionately about the need for high quality research to inform the business community to bring rigour to the 'educated guesses' of many business owners and leaders. O'Reilly suggested that if researchers are to deliver 'value', research needs to be relevant. More specifically, he argued that business needs research that is:
    • Applied
    • Dynamic
    • Affecting growth
    • Strategic
    • Tactical
    • Pro-business
    O'Reilly had some interesting ideas including that profit, business and capitalism are not ends in themselves. Rather, they are means: the actual end being successful communities. This was a refreshing comment, because it demonstrated that business has a vital place in the wider social fabric (the community). However, the value of the contribution of business is dependent on high quality research, to help leaders move from educated guesses to robust applicable knowledge.
    The keynote set a strong tone for the conference ahead: that the academic–practice divide must be bridged, through relevant research that can be used by business leaders to grow strong, high-performance businesses.
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    ICMLG'15: Voluntary disclosure

    Conferences Governance Performance
    Syelia Md Zaini, a researcher from Waikato University, presented an interesting paper on voluntary disclosure in developing Asian nations. Voluntary disclosure has been associated with increased market capitalisation and with the expectations of investors, yet the understanding of how voluntary disclosure works and why it might be important is fairly limited.
    Zaini's paper is a work-in-progress, part of her doctoral research. So far, she has analysed prior research to identify why companies have adopted voluntary disclosure practices. These include corporate governance requirements; peer pressure; and, accounting and auditing regulations. All of these drivers are compliance orientations: which suggests that voluntary disclosure may not be that voluntary! Zaini hopes to build on her current work, to answer the important 'so what' question. If she can achieve that, the answers could have quite meaningful implications for businesses motivated by growth. I look forward to reading her findings.
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    ICMLG'15: the state of corporate governance research

    Accountability Conferences Governance Performance Research
    James Lockhart, of Massey University, presented the results of an investigation he undertook, to understand what the research community has added in terms of knowledge about corporate governance in the last two decades. He did this by re-reading every issue of the top corporate governance journal (entitled Corporate Governance: An International Review). Over the 22 years since the first issue, 782 papers have been published (totalling 11,063 pages!). Lockhart has reviewed all of them, categorised them and done some analysis.
    Sadly, his findings provide little comfort for the research community. They also challenge many of the commonly-held 'maxims' that have defined the commentary of belief system about the phenomenon:
    • There is no unifying theory—simply put, we don't have a common understanding of what corporate governance is or does
    • There is no coherent research agenda.
    • The rate of progress (of research) is perhaps best described as 'plodding'.
    • There seems to be a fundamental failure amongst researchers to understand the motivation of business.
    • While most researchers claim 'agency theory' is the dominant theory, the reality is quite different: Approximately 42% of the research is based on agency theory. The rest is fragmented across five or six other theoretical frameworks.
    • Only 21 of the 782 papers even attempted to attribute causality or approach the subject of prediction (that if boards do X, then the likelihood of performance outcomes is Y).
    Gosh, this is a real indictment. It's little wonder that boards are reluctant to admit researchers to boardrooms to undertake research. Researchers are producing outputs for sure, but the queue of companies and directors waiting to consume the findings because they are relevant is remarkably short.
    Lockhart's verbal summary was consistent with my own findings: that much of what business schools produce is of questionable value. If the research agenda is to be advanced in any meaningful way, then a whole new approach is not only warranted, it is crucial.
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    ICMLG'15: Breaking to mould—new perspectives on executive development

    Conferences Language Leadership Performance Research
    Dorothy McKee, University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, presented a fascinating paper that explored the extent to which executive development (read professional development for executives) that focusses on leadership, governance and business ethics has a positive impact on business performance.
    The research was insightful, for it bridges the oft-discussed chasm that exists between academia and practice. Courses bathed in research rigour and practical application are far less common than you'd expect. I have been critical of the way many academics happily resist any activities that might see them becoming tainted by 'the real world'. Yet McKee walked right into the centre of the issue, and intentionally so, to try to gain some understanding as to what is really going on and what needs to go on to ensure executives are appropriate equipped to to lead and direct well. She surveyed and interviewed a group of business executives who are also graduate business students (Masters level). The findings were very revealing:
    • Leadership is a key feature that differentiates effective from ineffective boards, and collaborative leadership was particularly important
    • Many executives believe that gender balance has a positive impact on leadership decision-making, event though the research does not categorically support this perception
    • Effective interpersonal relationships are crucial to optimise the workings of the board (read: board processes and practices)
    While none of these insights were particularly revolutionary, they reinforce the "I think this is correct but can't put my finger on it" perceptions held by many working directors and business executives. The insights provide great guidance for professional bodies (including the Irish Institute of Directors) to inform the development of their professional development programme. They also speak volumes to academics, to get busy and to produce some meaningful theory-based models and frameworks to support the emerging perceptions of skilled and insightful executives.
    Given the overlap between our research interests and professional backgrounds, McKee and I plan to get together in a few months time, and advance these ideas, with a view to developing some new professional programmes for working directors. If you are interested in learning more, including the possibility of becoming an early adopter, please contact me.
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    ICMLG'15: Does ethics have any place in effective corporate governance?

    Accountability Ethics Governance Performance Research
    Patricia Grant of AUT, New Zealand, posed a very interesting question this afternoon. For some time now, she has been wondering whether ethics might be an important element in the oft-discussed but poorly understood relationship between what boards do and business performance.
    The seemingly standard response to corporate or systemic failures in recent decades has been to introduce a new layer or new type of structure or compliance framework. For example: Following the failures of the early 2000s (Enron, MCI Worldcom et al), Messrs Sarbanes and Oxley sponsored a new statute in the USA. While the intent was good, the implementation was terrible. In effect, the statute imposed a new set of compliance demands and overheads. A new generation of consulting businesses (to either implement or avoid Sarbox) followed not long after. Further, and worse, Sarbox did nothing in terms of preventing the GFC because, human nature being what it is, directors and executives eventually found ways to circumvent the provisions.
    Grant suggested that regulators and boards need to move beyond structural responses to failure because such responses can't be relied on to work consistently and effectively. She added that researchers, regulators and boards need to look at behavioural responses and, more specifically, at the ethics and moral motivations of directors. It turns out these dimensions have not received much attention. Grant has decided to dig into this. However, two rather demanding challenges need to be resolved before much more progress can be made:
    • While all directors (individually) have a moral or ethical compass to guide their decision-making, how does one go about making a group decision when there might be as many different moral compasses guiding the process as people in the room?
    • What exactly is 'ethics'? (yes, it does mean different things to different people, so a common understanding needs to be discovered and agreed.)
    The audience seemed to agree that Grant might be on to something quite significant. If you'd like to help Grant, or offer your board as a participant, please contact me and I'll put you in touch with Grant. If her idea gets some traction, it could spawn a whole new field of research, and move the expectations of and on directors to quite a different place. And that could be exciting or scary, depending on your frame of reference.