Abraham Maslow was a visionary who saw psychology as having great potential importance for management and organizational achievement. This article presents an overview of Maslow's life, together with a synopsis of his major concepts related to management theory. Maslow's unfinished projects are also highlighted, particularly his interest in methods of assessing self-actualization in the workplace. The author presents a new psychometric instrument for assessing self-actualization at work and offers empirical results with this instrument in Brazil. Finally, future avenues for research based on Maslow's unfinished legacy are discussed.

View full abstract

This paper analyzes the performance of mergers and alliances in the airline industry by using 8 cases of mergers, 12 cases of alliances and 7 cases of non-alliances. By a comparison of 9 financial ratios such as 3 profitability-related ratios and 4 liquidity-related ratios and two sales-related ratios, only the turnover period for sales credit shows improvement after mergers and alliances but the ROA, ROE and net equity ratios deteriorate after alliance. The classification accuracies between before and after merger and alliance are 82% and between alliance and non-alliance are 86% by discriminant analysis.

View full abstract

Workers have not been very satisfied with their positions in local governments in Japan because they are mostly regarded as “public servants.” Job satisfaction, however, seems to be important for performance of both employee and employer. According to the questionnaire survey of workers employed at Q city hall, clarity of the worker's own objectives and whether or not the worker is able to make use of his/her speciality in his/her career, whether there is a chance for advancement, and motivation of promotion are very much related to satisfaction with the job. As for measures in human resource management, management by objectives and self-control and career development plan, which consists of specialized subject and personnel arrangement plan and required skill and knowledge for each staff member, are important for workers' satisfaction and will promote better performance in local government.

View full abstract

We examined the educational effects of the Agent Based Approach (ABA), which is attracting attention recently, as one of several teaching methods in business administration education for practitioners. We found that the ABA not only offers effective learning and enlightment effects that traditional approaches, such as the lecture and the case methods, provide, but enables students to experience the overall decision making processes vicariously.
In addition, the ABA is effective in understanding existing theories in business administration fields: The ABA enables students to understand theories both conceptually and concretely through detailed analyses of relationships between theories and real situations in making simulation models.
We concluded, therefore, that the ABA is a promising new teaching method in business administration education for practitioners where the primary interest lies in acquiring good decision making skills.

View full abstract

This paper focuses on “the phenomenon of Market Revitalization”, which transforms from maturity or decline in the process of market evolution into a stage of regrowth. We review some previous research about market revitalization and look for clues about constructing perspectives on market revitalization.
There are some revitalizing factors, which account for market revitalization. Revitalizing factors consist of external factors which firms can't control directly, and working factors which firms can work on entering market independently.
Previous research discusses the secrets of vertical interaction between the firm's entry and its customers in market. Before this interaction, the firm's view about the market environment contributes to market revitalization.
But the previous research doesn't concretely discuss the mechanism of horizontal interaction between firms entering the market. This interaction centers oncompetition and cooperation among firms. Assuming that a certain firm's action is a trigger factor for market revitalization, there are great ripple effects from new directions of innovation and innovation's intensification through interlocking of actions as entering firms compete or cooperate in the market.

View full abstract

When conducting research into the process of leadership, it is necessary to view it from the standpoint of both the leader and the follower. This is because most studies focus on the characteristic behaviors of the leader as opposed to the team member. While knowledge of these leadership characteristics are tantamount to the success of any project, the implication should not be that guidance and direction only flows “top-down” from leader to subordinate. The relationship between one who leads and one who follows is intrinsically linked, so the perceptions of both should be taken into account when studying the leadership process. With this in mind, the collaborative approach taken by an R & D team in their development of a drug used to treat Alzheimer's, Aricept, is the focus of this paper. The field research I conducted was motivated by this collaboration. I approached this study from a narrative style in obtaining data, as I believe this style best represents the thought processes of the narrator as well as the actions of the participants. The key element of this case study is that the team leader diffused responsibility equally, and cultivated feedback from all members, in the successful development of the drug. This collaboration allowed the team's creative juices to flow continuously, enhanced project efficiency, and contributed to the realization of this innovative drug.

View full abstract