Andre L. Delbecq

Santa Clara University | SCU · Department of Management

Executive teams within six large US health care organizations have participated in a pilot program assessing how Senior Leadership Forums (SLFs) inclusive of both spiritual and managerial perspectives enhance leadership behaviour. This report summarizes impacts from six groups after five meetings and contrasts results to a mature group in place for...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief response to Mark Kriger, Yuriy Zhovtobryukh, (2013) “Rethinking strategic leadership: stars, clans, teams and networks”, Journal of Strategy and Management, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 411-432. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a response to a previously published paper “Rethinking st...

This chapter provides a retrospective view of the field of management from the perspective of a management scholar who has worked with MBA students and with executives on the integration of faith and spirituality in the workplace. Andre Delbecq has also been active in the Academy of Management and reflects on the evolution of the academy’s acceptan...

The “Reflections on Experience” section of the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Management Inquiry contained six articles examining the challenges associated with contemporary university governance and called for new theory and approaches. In this article, we respond by reporting one university’s innovative governance design that provides an imagi...

We examined implicit or subconscious antecedents of CEO behavior and the effects on their direct subordinates. Specifically, we explored the relationships between (a) power, achievement, and affiliation motives and (b) charismatic, instrumental, and participative leadership behaviors. We then examined the influence of leadership types on three outc...

Explores the Relationship Between Executive Development and Leadership Formation

Compassion, a central concept in religious traditions, is often treated as an individual virtue. In this exploratory essay the enactment of compassion as an organizational norm is studied in the context of a university. How might compassion toward faculty colleagues in times of personal crisis be imbedded as an attribute of organizational spiritual...

This paper presents a case study of organizational‐level spirituality. Using quotations from executives in a large, multi‐state, faith‐based healthcare organization, it portrays how one organization understands corporate‐level spirituality and what structures, processes, norms and behaviors they see as necessary to embed and support its culture. In...

Ask any group of organizational leaders from any business sector what keeps them awake at night and arguably 'managing the pace of change' will appear at the top of the list. The concern does not focus on one or two strategic changes. Rather the concern is whether every program, unit, department, and functional area, as well as the organization as...

In this essay a senior scholar reflects on the evolution of spirituality as a subject within management studies. The author traces the development of scholarly interest in the Academy of Management. He suggests areas of increasing understanding and aspects in need of further development. He offers encouragement but also admonishes caution for schol...

An overview of spirituality as a dimension of leadership

This article describes a step-process approach to scholarship that links a scholar's personal interests with societal needs. It allows professional insight (knowledge from experience) to be juxtaposed with theoretical insight (knowledge from science). It also facilitates a publication flow protective of academic career advancement.

This chapter examines the failure of success, the corruption of triumph, and the danger of celebrity. It explains why the contemporary business press and academic studies are replete with examples of previously acclaimed leaders who slipped into situational narcissism leading to distorted decisions and subsequent public embarrassment. Every person...

Steingard’s essay is refulgent with theoretical insight. It is, however, easy to slip by important nuances unless one is steeped in the literature and language he references. So perhaps briefly sharing a more descriptive perspective from a dialog with more than 350 managerial participants in the seminar, Spirituality of Organizational Leadership of...

During the past five years I have facilitated a seminar attended by more than 350 senior and middle management executives, “Spirituality of Organizational Leadership” at Santa Clara University. (Delbecq, 2000) I also direct the Institute for Leadership Spirituality that conducts discourse between Theologians, CEOs, and Management (Delbecq, 2001) Fi...

During the Academy of Management meeting in Denver, Colorado (August 2002), a team of members of the Academy's Management, Spirituality and Religion Interest Group (MSR) interviewed Ken Wilber at his down-town Denver apartment. Known as a leading voice in spirituality and the founding father of the Integral Institute, Ken Wilber presents in this in...

In the past six months Jerry has been practicing a form of meditation called Centering Prayer. His original decision to attend a workshop on meditation was to deal with his increased sense of work overload, stress and burnout associated with the demands of his position as CEO of Healthcare. However, he learned that meditation can also be prayer, an...

This article reflects on the self-reported experiences of senior executives who encounter "dark and destructive" personalities among professionals who "suck the life juices"from their organizational group, crippling the group in such a way that all positive spirit is lost. Shying from clinical terms outside their domain, these executives label this...

Academy President's Executive Overview My decision about whom to select as the Academy of Management's Executive of the Year revolved around the concept of values. I wanted to showcase a leading CEO who has been successful in creating an innovative and highly profitable company, and who has done so based on a strongly held system of personal values...

In what way does Christian spirituality impact contemporary business leadership? This short article provides examples of some executives whose personal spiritual tradition deeply informs and shapes their leadership. Themes reported include a sense of leadership as a calling, the desire to integrate deeply held personal values with the leadership ro...

Management education within business schools has been slower than other educational sectors in adapting television as a delivery system for nonresidential students. This article reviews diverse literatures and reports interviews with business school leaders to uncover the advantages and challenges of television instruction. Special attention is giv...

This article extends the concept of corporate culture to the level of industry culture and examines regional influences on management practices in Silicon Valley and Route 128. In-depth interviews with CEOs and executives in mature electronics firms were conducted. Results from the data indicate that these high-technology cultures and related manag...

Leadership protocols may be used to develop commitment to organizational goals and norms, and to maintain disciplinary policies and procedures in health care organizations. Recent legal decisions and research from management and social psychology support these protocols.

In high-innovation organizations, special funds earmarked for research and development are used to support experimental activities. A special committee accepts or rejects an innovators proposal and undertakes a feasibility study. The feasibility-study team uses a marketing orientation to determine if a real customer need exists and how it may best...

Concern with teamwork in medical centers has often focused on cohesion and affiliation. Based on data concerning personality propensities and values of physician leaders, it appears that due process is a more realistic leadership aspiration than cohesion.

A conceptual model is presented to summarize the delicate task of providing formative feedback to subordinates. Based on an eclectic review of social science literature, the paper suggests specific processes, sequencing, content, and contexts for Administrative Feedback which increases the potential for learning and decreases defensiveness. Summary...

Structural, attitudinal, and affective response correlates of four stages in the innovation process were examined in 30 multispecialty medical groups. In these professional organizations, formal hierarchical decision-making and affective responses were significantly related to various stages in the innovation process. Participation by all physician...

A contingent approach to strategic and tactical choices in project planning is presented. Choices regarding planning phases and tactics are seen as dependent on planning goals and contextual variables. A simulation was designed to pool the judgments of experienced planners on how planning strategy and tactics should change as a situation changes so...

This publication contains reprint articles for which IEEE does not hold copyright. Full text is not available on IEEE Xplore for these articles.

A theoretical framework is developed for analyzing determinants and functions of activity at the boundaries of organizations. The process of boundary spanning, based on internal and external organizational factors, is conceptualized. A model of the organizational/environmental information interchange process suggests relationships between organizat...

Innovation (the initiation, adoption and implementation of new ideas or activity in an organizational setting) is reviewed in terms of organization context, structure, and member attitudes. A series of propositions and three predictive models are derived and presented as directions for future research and theory construction.

The decision to adopt innovative proposals is typically made by the organizational elite. A review of the literature suggests three categories of independent variables related to the adoption behavior of elites: innovation proneness, adoption potential, and problem severity. Innovation proneness refers to the degree to which various characteristics...

This paper classifies alternative mechanisms for coordinating work activities within organizations into impersonal, personal and group modes. It investigates how variations and interactions in the use of these coordination mechanisms and modes are explained by task uncertainty, interdependence and unit size. Nine hypotheses that relate these three...

The research presented focuses upon those factors associated with the decision to adopt innovative proposals. This decision-making function is typically performed by the organizational elite or, as labeled by the authors, the "decision set." A review of the literature suggests three categories of independent variables are related to the adoption be...

A model for explaining structural variations between work units within the complex organization is presented. Based upon an analysis of the impact of task difficulty and task variability on intraorganizational structure, a taxonomy of alternative work-unit structures is derived. The taxonomy suggests that work units within a complex organization ca...

Two studies concerned with the valuation of computer-supplemented medical decision-aiding systems were used to derive and illustrate guidelines for designing, conducting, and analyzing field tests of medical systems. The guidelines are not exhaustive and are intended to supplement those commonly found in books dealing with research and evaluation.

This research evaluated four methods of eliciting subjective likelihood ratio estimates. The methods differed in terms of amount and structure of interaction permitted between estimators. These processes were individual estimates, and three group processes: a Talk-Estimate process approximating an interacting group, an Estimate-Feedback-Estimate pr...

This article sets forth a group process approach useful for practicing administrators charged with a program development task. More specifically, meeting formats are suggested for involving the following critical reference groups in successive phases of program development: (1) clients (consumers or users) and first-line staff, in problem explorati...

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Thesis (D.B.A.)--Indiana University, 1963. Vita.

The size of the management group has been considered in management theory primarily from the standpoint of the “span-of-control” concept and the implications of that concept for structuring the formal organization. However, the specific effects of group size on the distribution, content, and emotional tone of communications between managers has not...