January 23, 2005

This year is the halfway point in the new millennium’s first decade. It is also decider in the contest between the two big political parties over which will lead for

While New Zealand employers don’t appear to be as ageist as some of their offshore counterparts, at least one third of respondents to recent Robert Half Finance and Accounting survey

When company strategists scratch their heads over what new products would appeal to which target markets, the 1.2 billion people around the world who lack access to clean water are,

An Australian recruitment company reckons that work stress levels could be lowered with bit of pet therapy – cat purring on the desk or fish swimming lazily around tank can,

Guy Cowan After year-long global search, Fonterra has appointed new chief financial officer with truly international background. Guy Cowan (53) is British citizen who was born in Argentina and educated

Now here’s an interesting thought from US-based futurists The Herman Group. Instead of bringing your kids into your business, go work for them. For generations, young people entering the workforce

Companies might call their people their greatest asset but few take the time to effectively select and deploy them. The practice costs countries in the Asia Pacific around $29.5 billion

He was hired to head Yale’s newly established International Institute of Corporate Governance in 2001 and has since travelled the world advising governments and companies on best corporate practices –

American management guru Tom Peters and top US design expert Tim Brown are heading this way next month. Their practical “business bootcamp” will help CEOs of exporting companies get to

IT heretic Nicholas Carr will kick off this year’s NZIM telecast lectures by American management gurus when he’s beamed live to audiences around the country on the 15th of this

Prime Minister Muldoon, with the support of Social Credit’s Bruce Beetham, bulldozed through the completion of the Clyde dam. The 1982 Clyde Dam Bill, which fast-tracked development of the hydro

Last year’s pre-Christmas Deloitte/Management magazine Top 200 Awards were something of birthday bash. The Awards turned 15 years old and more than 700 corporate senior executives and partners turned out

Outstandingly successful Fletcher Building chief executive Ralph Waters delivered another stellar performance last year and he’s bullish about 2005. The self-effacing Australian would rather talk about the success and brand strength of the company he has headed for the past four years than about himself but he agreed to a pre-Christmas interview with Management magazine.

Think back to all those times you ended up parked on some side street poring over map for directions. Or those heated ‘discussions’ with your spouse/partner over the quickest route

Sustainable management might now be mainstream business theory but there is still widespread uncertainty in the New Zealand business community about what it means. For those in doubt it is time to wise up or risk being caught short by regulatory requirements or rapid market shifts.

No one salary structure fits all executives. This is the stark and simple finding of a year-long search by remuneration consultants Higbee-Schäffler and Management magazine to find the “ideal salary package”. But there is a lot more to it than that so, read on for a summary of our findings and five great suggestions about how to get the best return on the salary bill.

The second half of the 1990s and the world held its collective breath as the new millennium approached and consultants demanded dollars to avert IT devastation. But, as Ian F Grant recalls in his seventh article in a series on 50 years of Management in New Zealand, it turned out to be just another commercial heist.

Amongst the daily cut and thrust of starting and growing companies, doing deals and seeking investment, it is sometimes easy to lose sight of the fact that the venture capital

The New Zealand Institute of Management will this year focus on its central strategic objective of building outstanding managers and leaders. It has a heavy programme of activities ahead to underpin the process.

The battle for skilled staff has given new impetus to what health packages and fitness programmes organisations offer to hard-worked executives. But what are the best employers providing and how does health spending benefit the bottom line?

Ian Morrice, the relatively new chief executive of The Warehouse Group, admits that moving from the United Kingdom to New Zealand is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, his wife and their three school-aged children. But will this mild-mannered Scot prove as useful to the “Red Shed” business and its problematic “Yellow Shed” operation across the Tasman? And how, exactly, does he expect his quarter century of experience running UK-based retail operations to help him run an iconic but faltering Kiwi bargain chain?

Last year’s parliamentary year finished pretty much where the previous one had; with confident looking Labour-led Government firmly in the driving seat, and struggling National opposition languishing in the polls

We have just bought company that will increase our size from 15 to 25 staff. I’ve managed the company fine on my own but I don’t like my chances of

Forecaster Paul Saffo is director of the Silicon Valley-based Institute for the Future – nonprofit research group that helps companies and government agencies make better decisions about the future. A

With the coaching bandwagon on a roll, there is a risk that it will be applied in an ad-hoc way and so fail to deliver real value. How can coaching be tuned to both organisational and individual needs?

Welcome to 2005. And though month has come and gone already, it seemed right to kick off this particular year with considered look at our new leaders, those who are

Paekakariki Hill Road – where your columnist resides – had been closed by the ravages of heavy rain for the second time in week as these new-year words were written.

They are empowering rather than powerful, more team-centred than ego-driven, talk comfortably about the emotional quotient of leadership and even put ‘work’ and ‘fun’ in the same sentence. We talk to five exemplars of New Zealand’s changing management styles.

Norway’s government has decreed that this year private companies will be fined if they don’t boost the number of women directors on their boards to meet a 40 percent quota. Moves to force a gender balance in boardrooms are becoming more commonplace. But is compulsion on the cards for New Zealand? And what do some of the influential commentators think about it?

Pitting your company performance against world-class standards is not a journey for the faint-hearted. Here’s why five very different organisations undertook the New Zealand Business Excellence journey and what they learned en route.

Burdon: Man Of Our Time By: Edmund Bohan Publisher: Hazard Press Price: $34.99 Burdon: Man Of Our Time is the story of the victory of pragmatic politics over narrow ideological