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More than Job Demands or Personality, Lack of Organizational Respect Fuels Employee Burnout
One of the biggest complaints employees have, according to Wharton management professor Sigal Barsade, is that "they are not sufficiently recognized by their organizations for the work they do .... When employees don't feel that the organization respects and values them, they tend to experience higher levels of burnout." Barsade and doctoral student Lakshmi Ramarajan look at the role of respect in a paper titled, "What Makes the Job Tough? The Influence of Organizational Respect on Burnout in Human Services." Visit the Knowledge@Wharton website to read the entire story.

Is Your Workforce Strange Enough to Guarantee Competitive Advantage?
According to Daniel M. Cable, what characterizes successful companies these days is "a strikingly different, obsessively focused" workforce, one that -- compared to competitors' workforces -- is "downright strange." Cable, a management professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, makes his case in a new book titled, Change to Strange: Create a Great Organization by Building a Strange Workforce (Wharton School Publishing). To get the best results, Cable says, companies have to build a workforce "that is extraordinary in a way that customers care about."  Visit the Knowledge@Wharton website to read the entire story.

Bill George's 'Authentic Leadership': Passion Comes from People's Life Stories
Bill George, probably best known in the business community for his former position as chairman and CEO of Medtronic, is also an author. In 2003 he published a book called, Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value. This month he published his second book titled, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, described by George and his co-author Peter Sims as a way to "locate the internal compass that guides you successfully through life." George is also a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. He and Michael Useem, director of Wharton's Center for Leadership and Change Management, recently talked with Knowledge@Wharton about authentic leadership, both the book and the concept. Visit the Knowledge@Wharton website to read the entire story.

Chief Receptionist Officer? Title Inflation Hits the C-Suite
We're all familiar with titles like chief executive officer, chief financial officer and chief operating officer. We have even grown used to chief technology officer, chief marketing officer and chief diversity officer. But what about chief talent officer, chief cultural officer, chief innovation officer, chief privacy officer, chief apology officer and chief geek, to name just some of the more contemporary titles in today's companies? On the surface, this looks like title inflation -- an overabundance of C-level jobs that cheapen the prestige that used to go along with promotions. Yet according to several Wharton faculty members, there is more to this story than inflated egos.  Visit the Knowledge@Wharton website to read the entire story.

Short-Circuited: Cutting Jobs as Corporate Strategy
When Circuit City announced last week that it was laying off 3,400 workers so it could rehire new ones at lower salaries, it raised the question of just what strategic benefits the company -- or any company -- expects to achieve through employee downsizing. Clearly these benefits depend on the underlying strength of the organization and the specific reasons behind the cost-cutting, but most experts agree that unless layoffs are part of a well-planned strategy, the move could cause as many problems as it was intended to cure.  Visit the Knowledge@Wharton website to read the entire story.

Workplace Loyalties Change, but the Value of Mentoring Doesn't
In Homer's poem "The Odyssey," Odysseus had a tough time finding his way home after the Trojan War, what with all those monsters threatening to derail his journey. But Odysseus at least had left a wise and trusted fellow named Mentor to be the guardian and teacher of his son, Telemachus. Modern employees need mentors as much as Telemachus, especially in these times of upheaval. In fact, mentoring is just as important as ever for younger workers -- and for organizations themselves -- according to experts at Wharton and elsewhere.  Visit the Knowledge@Wharton website to read the entire story.

'One for All' or 'One for One'? The Trade-off between Talent and Disruptive Behavior
The talk of the National Football League in recent weeks has been Terrell Owens, the talented wide receiver who was let go by the Philadelphia Eagles because of repeated disruptive behavior that alienated teammates, coaches and fans alike. Although the saga of T.O. -- as he is familiarly known -- dominated the sports pages for days on end, coverage of his relationship with the Eagles' organization could just as easily have found a home between the covers of an academic management journal. Faculty members at Wharton and other experts say Owens is a classic case of a star employee who, because of his immense talent, was given wide latitude even though he engaged in eccentric (at best) and abusive (at worst) behavior. How employers view the trade-off between talent and disruptive behavior sends a powerful message about teamwork in an organization's culture, they say.  Visit the Knowledge@Wharton website to read the entire story.

Giving Employees What They Want: The Returns Are Huge
David Sirota, co-author of The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want (Wharton School Publishing), believes far too many managers stifle employee enthusiasm across the board by using bureaucratic or punitive techniques that should be reserved for a troublesome few. Yet his book, written with Louis A. Mischkind and Michael Irwin Meltzer, finds that firms where employee morale is high -- such as Intuit and Barron's -- tend to outperform competitors. In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Sirota talks about employees' three basic goals, how to deal with employees who are "allergic" to work, and how managers can inspire greater loyalty and productivity from their workforce.  Visit the Knowledge@Wharton website to read the entire story.