October 27, 2004

It’s not just the skills but the way you apply them. Why is it important to measure management capability and how are New Zealand managers doing?

Women heading for top jobs fare better in the telecommunications, finance, banking or insurance industries but find the going tough in real estate, the energy sector, auto industry or hotel/restaurant

With skills shortages still putting curb on growth, some New Zealand employers are hunting offshore. More than 60 would-be recruiters last month travelled to London to set up stalls at

Offering new employees special bonus payments to sign on is trend that’s re-emerging in the United States as employers step up efforts to attract top talent. That’s according to futurist

Australia’s re-election of John Howard’s Liberal coalition has prompted government officials on this side of the Tasman to put renewed effort into the push for single economic market (SEM). But

Katrina Troughton IBM New Zealand has appointed Katrina Troughton as managing director. She returned to New Zealand from her previous Sydney-based role as general manager for IBM’s business software across

When Christchurch-based City Care realised its workforce was steadily aging, it introduced an innovative apprenticeship scheme to promote the career opportunities available in its broad and largely trades-based operations. The

With the information onslaught increasing both in intensity and complexity, business decision-making is in crisis, according to survey of top corporate leaders in the United States. The third annual Teradata

When Telecom decided its CEO Theresa Gattung was worth 60 percent more this year than last, board chair Roderick Deane was at pains to point out that at least half

With a myriad of educational options to choose from, how do organisations ensure they get the best return on their executive training investment? Vicki Jayne checks out current training trends and executive programme rankings.

In the two years since Wayne Norrie and Roger Cockayne bought a controlling interest in data warehousing and hosting company HDS, revenue has doubled and profits are up 100 percent. The secret? It’s all in the culture, says Norrie.

e-Management is, for some companies, still more about hype than happening. For others, however, end-to-end e-management – the bringing together of several business processes over a common IP platform – is providing solutions to long-held aspirations. So who’s doing it and how is it working for them?

I attended videoconferencing session recently and was disappointed by the poor picture standard. I thought we’d moved on from the jerky, freeze-frame, heavily pixelated images so common in the early

“The real challenge for directors isn’t regulatory compliance, its high performance,” wrote David Nadler in the May 2004 edition of the Harvard Business Review. But despite these refreshing utterances, there

Go back 15 years. The Labour party was within year of its second election in power. Five years later it was running third, sometimes even lagging behind party led by

Each week I write an article on some aspect of management for the Christchurch Press. Recently I received an email from great lady called Ann. I haven’t met Ann yet

In his fifth article in a series on 50 years of Management, Ian F Grant recounts the market-shattering events, business philosophies and leadership pre-occupations of the second half of the 1980s.

The recent decision of the Takeovers Panel in the controversial Dorchester Pacific/Bridgecorp saga is likely to trigger a review of critical mechanisms used in takeover bids that are covered under the Takeovers Code.

The employment market is as tight as it has been in more than a decade. Key people are hard to find, tough to attract and difficult to retain, particularly if they feel under-valued. In difficult employment conditions smart human resource management strategies can deliver real competitive advantages.

Q My management role often involves running small projects. Since I started in this job it has been assumed that I know how to manage projects effectively. But really, what

Most of what makes for a good relationship between a chair and a chief executive is prescriptive. The remainder, according to the Waste Management’s leadership duo Jim Syme and Kim Ellis, is mutual respect and old-fashioned common sense.

Manfred Kets de Vries is an internationally recognised expert on leadership and organisational behaviour. He is best known for his work exploring the darker side of organisational life, in particular,

Whether you view sustainability in risk management terms or as an overarching philosophy that organisations should subscribe to, it is fast-growing fact of boardroom life. The pressure on directors and

Spring is the season for growth so it seemed good time to check the Kiwi corporate garden and get few tips from those who have managed to cultivate their own

Finance Minister Michael Cullen has, in recent months, twice tripped on his tongue in manner which exposed him to charges that he is having more say in the fixing of

Growth is the order of the day. The economy is still moving at a steady clip and managers increasingly recognise that in fast moving markets they must either drive change to deliver growth or end up as corporate “road-kill”. But some businesses – especially retailers – are confronted by rapidly maturing markets and growth targets, which might make sense on paper, but aren’t so easy to deliver. So how do you manage growth within a slowing economy while ensuring it doesn’t sink you?

There is some pressure for boards to diversify membership. But does it have any impact on board performance? Massey University has been researching the composition and the performance of New Zealand’s listed companies.

In the 30 years since the Corbans were forced out of the original New Zealand family business, two latter generation Corbans, Alwyn and Brian, have built Ngatarawa into one of the country’s foremost wineries – and this time the family isn’t letting go.

Going public is a major life transition for any company – a stack of new stakeholders climbs aboard and media scrutiny intensifies. But does company life after a float really change that much? Mark Story spoke with four recently listed companies to find out.

So you want to take on a directorship but are not sure how to go about it – or what you need to know. Ian Taylor, the driver behind Sheffield’s Academy of Corporate Governance, provides some useful guidelines for boardtable aspirants.

Better than Sex By: Helen Trinca & Catherine Fox Publisher: Random House Price: $34.95 The cover blurb explains it. Better than Sex: how whole generation got hooked on work is

In April 1988 Labour deregulated the price of petrol in New Zealand, ending 55 years of government control over both purchase and selling prices. Although petrol selling margins could now