Gayle C. Avery

• BA (Hons), MTCP, PhD
• Professor (Full) at Macquarie Graduate School of Management

Countries are ranked on many criteria, the results of which can have far-reaching ethical and practical implications, particularly for emerging nations seeking role models. One highly influential ranking, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report (GCR), has been criticized for containing multiple methodological, conceptual, and logic...

Purpose This interview demonstrates how CEOs can focus on CSR to engage the workforce and change the culture and performance of an organization. Design/methodology/approach This article reports on an interview with Dr David Cooke, Managing Director of Konica Minolta Australia. Findings By introducing CSR to the firm, and in particular pursuing th...

Following the urgent need to rethink the way we construct our lives, this book profiles a more humane form of capitalism to replace the current form based on greed and short-term thinking. The Thai model of sufficiency thinking aims to transform the mindset of a whole population while enriching everyone’s lives in a sustainable way. Innovative mana...

This chapter introduces the book by highlighting the need for sustainable development. It discusses some of the current issues affecting people and the planet that demand immediate action and notes the current level of action/inaction globally. This chapter places sufficiency thinking in the context of several other approaches to sustainable develo...

This chapter addresses the question: If people want to adopt more sustainable practices, what should they do? Clearly, a mindset with an intention to adopt sufficiency thinking is needed. Under the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy model presented in Chapter 3, we see that enduring virtues together with appropriate knowledge create a sufficiency minds...

Purpose This interview discusses a “Blue Ocean” strategy initiative: how to introduce effective change in diabetes care into Thailand given a strong reluctance in patients, and in Thai society, to see that diabetes is not a condition to be treated by doctors alone. Design/methodology/approach An interview with Dr Thep Himathongkam, the pioneer of...

Both researchers and practitioners have devoted considerable attention to the potential effects of leadership on organizational performance. Despite increased research into the leadership-performance relationship, major gaps still remain in our understanding. This paper reviews the published literature and identifies these gaps, highlighting implic...

Many managers and researchers alike are asking: What does an enterprise need to do to generate a proper balance between economic, social, and ecological objectives while gaining superior corporate financial performance, resilience, and sustainability? Several leadership concepts for enhancing organizational sustainability have emerged in recent yea...

Purpose – This article reports on a whitepaper showing the key success factors involved in driving corporate sustainability, and illustrates them using mini-case studies. Design/methodology/approach – Results from a 2015 whitepaper published by Boston Consulting Group and MIT Sloan Management Review in association with the United Nations Global Co...

Purpose – This study aims to, given that most research focusses on leaders and ignores the influence of follower characteristics on either leadership or engagement, investigate whether employee characteristics moderate the relationship between perceived leadership styles and employee engagement. Recent research has shown that visionary and organic...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the leadership and management practices that positively affect stakeholder satisfaction, an under-studied area important for both academic researchers and leaders. Relationships between 23 leadership and management practices and overall stakeholder satisfaction (OSS) were examined. Design/method...

Despite evidence of a positive relationship, vision’s effects on performance are not fully understood, particularly in small professional service settings. This study advances prior research using a multi-stakeholder, multi-measure approach. It reports a positive relationship between vision-communication and -sharing on performance in Australian re...

This paper evaluates Bergsteiner and Avery’s (2012) claim that the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) is significantly biased towards the Anglo/US business model and results in Anglo countries achieving unrealistically high competitiveness rankings, thereby reinforcing an essentially discredited business model. These authors predicted that removin...

The paper questions the prevalence of ‘green students’ and their impact on decision-making in sustainability programmes in Australian universities. While the universities studied provide numerous opportunities for student involvement in sustainability programmes, comparatively few students actually become involved, making student impact on decision...

Purpose – This study investigated whether the direct supervisor's leadership style affects employee engagement using Avery's classical, transactional, visionary, and organic leadership paradigms as the theoretical framework. The study also investigated how many and which components of employee engagement (“say”, “stay” and “strive”) contribute to t...

Purpose – Given previous findings that employee satisfaction contributes to firm performance and sustainability, this study examined the relationships between 23 leadership/management practices on employee satisfaction. It identified specific practices with significant effects on employee satisfaction. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Desig...

Experiential learning styles remain popular despite criticisms about their validity, usefulness, fragmentation and poor definitions and categorisation. After examining four prominent models and building on Bergsteiner, Avery, and Neumann’s suggestion of a dual cycle, this paper proposes a twin-cycle experiential learning model to overcome identifie...

This study reports a range of positive effects of trusting relationships between leaders and followers on multiple measures of performance in small professional service firms. Six performance measures were used: financial outcomes, staff and customer satisfaction, productivity, and staff and manager tenure. Predictions that firms with high levels o...

Education for Sustainability (EfS) is variously recognised by universities as part of becoming a sustaining organisation; central to institutions’ moral obligations in terms of graduate capabilities; and essential to curriculum innovation, reinvention and renewal. However, its implementation into curricula on a global basis is variable, with some c...

Research consistently confirms that engaged employees significantly raise team and organisational performance, and yet in the majority of organisations engagement levels hover around 25 percent, with the remainder being either non-engaged or disengaged. Theoreticians, practitioners and consultants are aware of this problem and are attempting to add...

Purpose Avery and Bergsteiner's updated set of 23 sustainable leadership practices derived from sustainable enterprises and five performance outcomes provides a framework to examine the business practices of Thailand's largest conglomerate, Siam Cement Group (SCG). The aim of this paper is to build on and expand Kantabutra and Avery's study based o...

Sustainability in organisations is not just about addressing social responsibility or meeting triple bottom line criteria to maximise shareholders' short-term interests. This paper proposes that sustainability can only be created when business leaders transform the way they currently think, challenge economic myths, and adopt a systematic and holis...

The Global Competitiveness Report raises ethical issues on multiple levels. The traditional high ranking accorded the US is largely attributable to fallacies, poor science and ideology. The ideological bias finds expression in two ways: the inclusion of indices that do not provide competitive advantage, but that fit the Anglo/US ideology; and the e...

Purpose This BMW case aims to show how many of the company's practices that accord with principles espoused in the authors' sustainable leadership model contributed to its recovery after the global financial crisis (GFC). Design/methodology/approach This case illustrates how BMW institutes the 23 honeybee leadership principles and practices descri...

The aim of this study was to identify the extent to which Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has penetrated practices in the Australian consumer goods industry. Results from a questionnaire survey reveal wide variation in understanding of CSR. Results include that definitions adopted describe what is actually happening as opposed to what should...

Purpose – This study examines the question of whether sustainable leadership principles, also known as Rhineland leadership, can apply to a listed business in an emerging economy. Design/methodology/approach – Avery's sustainable leadership grid provided the framework for analysis of a major publicly-listed Thai enterprise, the Siam Cement Group (S...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative leadership model to the prevailing shareholder‐first approach that research, management experts and practice indicate can lead to higher performance and resilience of a firm. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper is based on published literature, empirical research, and obs...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address an important gap in the literature by investigating the relationship between organizational climate and performance in small businesses. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 100 retail pharmacies in Sydney, Australia where a manager and up to three staff members and three buying custo...

In management, graphic models are an undervalued and poorly used form of theory-building and communication that should be treated with the same rigor that is commonly demanded of text. Graphic models are highly effective for depicting and explaining organizational complexity when designed appropriately. Using two mutual influence models in accounta...

Accountability is increasingly critical for individual managers, company directors and board members, as well as for organizational operations. Despite growing attention in the literature, ac-countability processes are generally poorly understood and under-researched. This paper seeks to clarify the concepts of responsibility and accountability, an...

Both researchers and practitioners have devoted considerable attention to the potential effects of leadership on organizational performance. Despite increased research into the leadership-performance relationship, major gaps still remain in our understanding. This paper reviews the published literature and identifies these gaps, highlighting implic...

p class="MsoBodyText2" style="text-indent: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"> T his study examined relationships between followers’ use of their leader’s vision and their own emotional commitment to the vision, and associated organizational performance in retail stores, exploring the rarely investigated follower role in a visionary leadership process. F...

The literature suggests that variables such as using a vision, organizational climate, and trust between leader and followers may mediate the relationship between leadership and organizational performance. Yet, existing research tends to ignore these potentially important variables. This paper addresses this gap, discusses the overlooked variables,...

Purpose Responsibility and accountability are central to much of what managers do, but in the literature these complex social science concepts are confused. The paper aims to bring theoretical rigour, structure, consistency and parsimony to this field, using as an example the subcategories of responsibility referred to as corporate social responsib...

Kolb's experiential learning theory has been widely influential in adult learning. The theory and associated instruments continue to be criticized, but rarely is the graphical model itself examined. This is significant because models can aid scientific understanding and progress, as well as theory development and research. Applying accepted modelli...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to identify characteristics of visions that are associated with desirable performance outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines findings from various vision studies in American, Australian and Thai businesses to derive characteristics of effective vision statements. Findings – Effective visio...

Although it is widely recognized that individuals learn in different ways, there is some disagreement on the paths learners take. Responding to Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Model, Jarvis proposed an Existential Learning Model to identify multiple routes that learners use. Examining Jarvis’ model critically reveals some problems: the model do...

Public and private sector organizations and their constituents are subject to numerous, often competing, accountability pressures. Guidelines are lacking on how to identify and depict the extent and nature of multiple constituency (MC) relationships. This article identifies limitations of five existing MC schemas. A proposed new MC matrix integrate...

Little research has been conducted into the relationship between customer and staff satisfaction, and the attributes and content of visions that leaders and followers share. This study examined relationships between shared visions characterized by brevity, clarity, challenge, stability, abstractness, future orientation, and ability to inspire, and...

This paper focuses on the change process involved in adopting more sustainable practices within business organisations, adapting John Kotter's (1995) eight steps in transforming organisations. The process begins with sharing the crisis of urgency regarding damage to the environment, ecology, ethics, and society. The politics involved in change are...

Study tours can help internationalize curricula and prepare students for global workplaces. We examine benefits of tours providing deep-level learning experiences rather than industrial tourism using five main theoretical frameworks to highlight the diverse learning benefits associated with intensive study tours in particular. Relevant theoretical...

Reflection is hypothesized to underpin building a capacity for sustainability and longevity within organizations by allowing members to maintain congruence between what is espoused and what is done, and to question underlying values. Behavioural change may follow reflection. This paper investigates the role of reflection in four enterprises regarde...

This chapter examines the role of technology in home-based telecommuting (HBT), and the implications of this role for organizational IT departments and for managers of telecommuting employees. Specifically, it addresses the question: Does technology both facilitate and hinder home-based telecommuting? Although technology enables HBT, it has also be...

While technology enables home-based telecommuting (HBT), it also has been blamed for its slow growth. Thus, technology may both facilitate and hinder HBT. In order to clarify the role that technology currently plays when employees telecommute, this study investigated the relationship between different forms of organizational support (classified as...

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to examine the relationships between vision attributes (of brevity, clarity, challenge, stability, abstractness, future orientation, and desirability or ability to inspire) and content (relating to customer and staff satisfaction imageries), and customer and staff satisfaction in Australian retail stores, ta...

This paper attempts to reconcile differences in the literature on how accountabilitysystems are conceptualised and implemented, by examining context. The accountability and leadership literature reflects various bipolar streams of thought - control versus self-control, sanctions versus rewards, and micro- versus macro-accountability. These differen...

While technology enables home-based telecommuting HBT, it also has been blamed for its slow growth. Thus, technology may both facilitate and hinder HBT. In order to clarify the role that technology currently plays when employees telecommute, this study investigated the relationship between different forms of organizational support classified as tec...

'At a time when business leaders are coming under severe pressure to adopt the Anglo/US ideal of shareholder value, Leadership for Sustainable Futures convincingly demonstrates the corporate and social superiority of the approach which adds simultaneous value to shareholders and stakeholders. Although its roots lie in Europe, this leadership approa...

Are current concepts of leadership appropriate for today's organizations? What will tomorrow's leadership need to be like? Is there a best approach to leadership? With a huge range of definitions and theories of leadership available, the field has become confusing for both students and practitioners alike. This text provides a framework for making...

Situational leadership (SL) remains highly popular among practitioners, despite considerable academic criticism, lack of theoretical debate, and relatively little published research into SL. We interviewed practicing managers trained in SL about their experiences in applying the model. SL appealed to the managers because of its intuitive simplicity...

‘Reframing’, a managerial tool for understanding organizational complexity (Bolman & Deal, 1997), is applied to Australian households that possess a large amount of information and communication technology (ICT). Applying reframing to interviews conducted in households indicates that major changes, including some contradictory changes, are occurrin...

Leaders are widely exhorted to employ visions, yet surprisingly little research has been conducted on what constitutes an "effective" vision. A research model is proposed for investigating relationships between vision components, and business unit performance as measured by employee and customer satisfaction. The model, expressed both graphically a...

Leaders are widely exhorted to employ visions, yet surprisingly little research has been conducted on what constitutes an “effective” vision. A research model is proposed for investigating relationships between vision components, and business unit performance as measured by employee and customer satisfaction. The model, expressed both graphically a...

Australian managers’ preferences for situational leadership styles and perceived effectiveness were compared, using both “self” and “other” ratings on Blanchard’s latest model. Overall, supervisors and senior/middle managers preferred supportive styles, and avoided delegating and directing. However, they rated themselves as significantly more suppo...

This paper argues that quality improvement approaches can be applied in the environmental context. Although environmental issues can occasionally negatively impact an organization's core business, most environmental programs, if properly channeled, can lead to both improved profitability and increased social responsibility. It is argued that time-p...

Having shaken off the formal mantles of their British forebears, Australians and New Zealanders are eagerly embracing the latest management development (MD) approaches, adopting and adapting North American and European methods. Recent government reports highlight the need for both basic and advanced MD, increasing the receptivity of the business co...

Close inspection reveals subtle differences in managerial style and culture within Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Foreign management development (MD) practitioners are more likely to be impressed by the management and cultural similarities within the German-speaking nations, especially when contrasted with the North American model. While many of...

Sources of noise annoyance derived from spontaneous telephone complaints have been compared with responses to a household survey. Analysis of 31 months of telephone complaints for one Sydney municipality shows that noise from industrial and building sites are the two main sources of complaint. In the household survey, traffic and aircraft emerge as...

Two surveys were conducted of volunteers working for recreation organizations in four New South Wales regions. The results highlight the dependence of these organizations on volunteers. Volunteers were found to be heavily engaged in instructing and organizing recreation activities. Few have any specific training for the role although further traini...

The contribution of vision to traffic accident involvement is examined in this paper. The evidence suggests that the vision test scores so far investigated are of little practical value in predicting accident risk. As finances available for road safety improvement are limited by the community, measures aimed at reducing the number and severity of t...

Studied the horizontal-vertical (HV) velocity illusion in which an object moving vertically seems to move faster than one moving horizontally at the same physical speed. 6 experiments were conducted with a total of 65 male and 47 female paid volunteers using a stimulus display consisting of a lighted L figure and 2 points of light moving in paths p...

Discusses an earlier experiment which showed that the so-called horizontal-vertical (HV) illusion with an + is a function of the retinal meridians with which the 2 lines correspond. This finding indicates that the illusion is specifically visual and would not be expected to occur haptically. The present experiment, using 8 male and 6 female undergr...

Three experiments were conducted to test the claim that the magnitude of the horizontal-vertical illusion in an L figure varies as a function of which component is used as standard. No difference was found in Experiment 1, in which a staircase procedure was used to establish the PSE. However, by the use of a method of adjustment, the magnitude of i...

Surprisingly little research has been conducted on what characterizes "effective" visions, and yet leaders, particularly in the entrepreneurship literature, are widely exhorted to employ visions. A research model was tested in retail SMEs to investigate relationships between seven literature-derived vision attributes (of brevity, clarity, future or...

Given the criticality of vision to modern organizational l eadership, the paucity of research into what makes an effective vision is surprising. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on vision, particularly vision definitions, components, and realization factors before identifying directions for future research. These directio...

Designed 3 experiments to determine the basis of the horizontal-vertical (HV) illusion using an L figure. Exp. I, using 14 undergraduates, showed that there were no differences in the size of the effect in darkness, semidarkness, and in the light, a result contrary to the visual field explanation. In Exp. II the figure was viewed in the dark with 2...