Copyright (c) 2009 Bond University All rights reserved. http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson Recent documents in David Robinson en-us Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:32:31 PST 3600 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/business_pubs/65 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/business_pubs/65 Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:23:05 PDT Global business is changing at pace in both form and complexity, demanding innovative solutions. Change is no longer an option; it is crucial to the ongoing success of global businesses. Leadership that encourage innovation and entrepreneurial orientation involves the creation and maintenance of congruence and consistency in workplace practices. Today's global leaders are the embodiment of change, but too often, they are sent to manage cultures they know little about. In attempting to forge a work culture that supports high productivity, they may be inclined to fall back on tried and tested approaches from their country of origin, which often prove to be inappropriate in the adoptive country. Curiosity, as a motivator of exploratory behaviour, serves to overcome the lack of knowledge. The management of diversity in the workplace is essential as global organisations expand into transition economies. Managers need to be skilful in modifying workplace practices and procedures to create shared perceptions that support innovation and entrepreneurship. This paper argues for congruency, as well as consistency, across ten key areas of leadership practices to meet the ongoing challenges associated with transporting entrepreneurship into transition economies. David A. Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/14 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/14 Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:29:26 PDT Extract: In finally packaging a bunch of short stories together - stories spanning over forty-five years and written over a period of at least ten years, one has to ask the question, Why? I guess the answer to that is simpler than most of the other questions that appear in this book. I wrote the stories because they each mean something to me. I have chosen to share them because I believe they might have meaning to others. David Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/13 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/13 Thu, 23 Aug 2007 17:19:17 PDT Introduction: Have you ever wondered why things don't go your way, why you sometimes seem to be working so hard for such little reward, or why people react to you in ways that don't seem to make sense to you? If so then you are entirely normal, because the key to these and other anomalies doesn't lie in human understanding but in something far greater. This book will reveal to you the universal laws that drive and guide everything that happens in the world, including all the things we cannot see, feel, hear, smell or taste. If you are one of the people that intuitively knows that a world exists beyond the limitations of our physical senses, this book is for you. If you've never quite fathomed the rhyme or reason behind life and death, or if you've experienced any confusion or religious preconditioning, this book represents an opportunity for youto see life from another perspective. While it is a perspective that only the universe, in its greatness, actually experiences in totality, it is one in which we are full-blown participants, perhaps willingly or perhaps not, and probably unwittingly. David Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/business_pubs/43 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/business_pubs/43 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 22:44:31 PDT This article is to address an important aspect of family businesses that has a direct impact on their future success, namely the effects of social exchange between the leader of a family business and prospective future leaders. A model has been formulated that examines the probable effects of destructive leadership on the respective welfares of each generation and examines the resultant willingness of the next generation to contribute to the firm.How the actions of the family business leader are perceived by the family members as being of a negative or conflict-inducing nature, i.e. his/her interactions with the successor, are seen to be of utmost importance. Consequently, the use of a 'communication compass' is proposed as a way of ensuring that communication patterns between generations is perceived as appropriate, to enable both leader and follower to benefit in the long run. David A. Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/12 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/12 Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:01:15 PDT Entrepreneurs typically live with the ever-present threat of business failure arising from limited financial resources and aggressive competition in the marketplace. Under these circumstances, conflicting priorities arise and the entrepreneur is thus faced with certain dilemmas. In seeking to resolve these, entrepreneurs must often rely on their own judgment to determine "what is right". There is thus a need for a technique to assist them decide on a course of action when no precedent or obvious solution exists. This research paper examines how entrepreneurs experience and deal with these dilemmas. The research is based on interviews with seven entrepreneurs in established service-oriented ventures, which gave rise to 26 dilemmas. These dilemmas were analyzed by making use of the Synergy Star technique, which is introduced here as a tool that is useful in defining any dilemma, isolating the ethical component, and resolving the dilemma in a way that is congruent with the entrepreneur's personal world-view. David A. Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/11 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/11 Sun, 13 May 2007 22:28:22 PDT There once lived a soul, who journeyed on this planet. He was a learned man, through his own sweat and toil over the many years he had been a student of life. Yet he was reluctant to leave the world of his youth, a world of dreams, of sunshine and surf. His was a world where thoughts filled every moment, where the occasional respites of physical inactivity served to usher in waves of choices, as endless debates, internal dialogues, were fuelled by indecision combined, paradoxically, with an innate sense of urgency. This goal-oriented achiever seemed compelled to pause every now and then as if needing to explore whatever options appeared before him, like a marathon-running, hundred metre sprinter, pausing to smell the roses. And he questioned life itself, and its meaning. And as he questioned, he formed opinions that were different from others', for his opinions were original, not regurgitated. Through continuous discussions between the protagonist-optimist and the antagonist-pessimist of his dual-self, he engaged in synergy-seeking intellectual turmoil. And with the passage of time and the wisdom of his own reflections, he became a master of the complex web of dichotomies that defined his very existence. Thus, he evolved, not as one man, but as many.And he lived many lives, in one. David Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/10 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/10 Wed, 09 May 2007 23:05:06 PDT Entrepreneurs choose a particular way of life with the dual aim of maximising profit and gaining a sense of self-satisfaction. In these endeavours, entrepreneurs typically live with the threat of competition and the risk of business failure, while attempting to do their best within the limitations of their resources. This qualitative study first examines existing theories of ethics and ways of applying business ethics and thereafter investigates entrepreneurs'actual experiences by means of in-depth interviews and the use of phenomenology. It finds that entrepreneurs are not guided by any specific code of conduct, and must decide for themselves what is right. It describes the entrepreneurial business ethic, some of the types of dilemmas that they experience and the methods that they have developed to deal with the dilemmas. David Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/9 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/9 Mon, 07 May 2007 23:45:50 PDT The closely held organisation is defined in its simplest form as one where the owner-manager role is vested in the same person or persons. This means that it is often difficult to discern where business ends and family starts, and vice versa. Owners-managers of closely held organisations are frequently faced with dilemmas under circumstances where they are compelled to make choices between alternatives, when none appear appropriate, or when more than one appears equally desirable. When a business imperative demands one course of action and their personal ethic, principles or values, demand another, owner-managers may find themselves 'between a rock and a hard place', so to speak. This article explores some of the dilemmas they face and offers a way of articulating a dilemma and resolving it, by using what is known as The Business Ethics Synergy Star (BESS). David Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/8 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/david_robinson/8 Mon, 07 May 2007 21:45:16 PDT Paradigms are ontological orientations that influence the way we construct our realities. Leadership paradigms therefore affect the way leaders go about defining their roles as leaders and applying themselves to the responsibilities of leadership. Entrepreneurship may be seen as one type of leadership orientation, namely that of leading a business venture. As such, the entrepreneurial process relates to a particular leadership paradigm. In addition, modern day business is underpinned by a particular set of values, which in their turn are associated with ways of thinking, world views, or paradigms. The intersection of the two paradigms - values and leadership - creates a psychological 'space' or 'new paradigm' in which entrepreneurship may be situated. This paper aims to position entrepreneurship within a leadership and values paradigm, thereby providing a view of the emergent discipline that may be seen as complementary to traditional economic models. It is envisaged that an increased understanding of the psychological tensions that exist in entrepreneurial firms will equip emergent and nascent entrepreneurs, corporate managers wishing to evoke a more entrepreneurial culture, and academics who teach and research in the fields of entrepreneurship, with the ability to nurture entrepreneurial talent. David Robinson http://epublications.bond.edu.au/business_pubs/11 http://epublications.bond.edu.au/business_pubs/11 Thu, 03 May 2007 23:52:13 PDT In dealing with ethical issues, non-profit managers are often faced with dilemmas that defy a simple choice between right and wrong. When there is no obvious way of prioritizing responsibility, and no precedent to emulate, resolution of such dilemmas demands careful consideration of stakeholder expectations when looking at the ethical options, so that decisions satisfy not only the immediate problem but also align with the organization's mission, values and ethical code. This paper follows research that examined the types of ethical dilemmas experienced across thirty-seven non-profit organizations, where it was found that a reliable method for depicting and resolving dilemmas was needed. The paper uses three cases, drawn from non-profit organizations in Australia and Taiwan, to introduce the Business Ethics Synergy Star (BESS) - a technique that allows non-profit organizations to concisely depict a dilemma and then resolve it, and a step-by-step process associated with BESS, known as the Seven Cs. David A. Robinson