This study uses repertory grid interviews and a follow-up questionnaire study to develop a 'lay' theory of managerial effectiveness in a large New Zealand public sector organization. The lay theory is presented as a model with seventeen scales and two factors descriptive of effective and ineffective managers in the organization. The two factors indicate that effective and ineffective managers in the department are differentiated in terms of their conceptual, and interpersonal abilities. The effectiveness model shows strong similarity to models of effective management which have emerged in research outside New Zealand. This similarity is of particular interest given the context-specific nature of the study. The paper outlines the method used in the study, describes the key findings and discusses their implications for our understanding of managerial effectiveness.

PurposeTo explore the relationship between managers' cognitive maps and their performance as managers at the same level in the same organisation.Design/methodology/approach – Field study involving 30 branch managers in a financial services organisation operating in New Zealand. A nomthetic approach was used to develop their cognitive maps. Features of these maps were then related to business‐unit performance.Findings – The managers who were higher performing have maps that were considerably simpler, using fewer concepts and fewer linkages.Research limitations/implications/future research – While limited to one organisation and to one level of management, there is evidence that cognition is related to managers' performance. Future research should explore how cognitive structures differ between managerial levels, and how these are related to appropriate measures of performance.Originality/value – One of few studies that have sought to map managers' cognition and organisation performance.

Purpose -Past research has found meaningful differences between job and organisational engagement. However, research to date has mainly focused on job engagement, whereas the construct of organisational engagement has been largely neglected. The purpose of this study was to investigate the antecedents of organisational engagement and its influence on withdrawal attitudes. Design/methodology/approach -Using an on-line survey, the authors investigated employees' perceptions of fairness and trust in senior management, 12 months prior to the measurement of organisational engagement and withdrawal attitudes. The study was conducted in a professional services public organisation, characterised by frequent change and uncertainty. Findings -The authors showed that perceptions of procedural justice and trust in senior management predicted organisational engagement 12 months later. In addition, organisational engagement partially mediated the relationship between procedural justice perceptions, trust in senior management, and withdrawal attitudes. Practical implications -The authors' research suggests that monitoring and influencing employees' levels of engagement can benefit organisations, and that leaders in particular can influence employees' level of engagement. Indeed, the present research showed that employees who had trust in senior management and felt that they had a voice in the organisation showed higher levels of engagement and lower intentions to exit the organisation. Originality/value -This research contributes to our understanding of the drivers of engagement, and demonstrates the importance of organisational-level, in addition to job-level engagement. role of trust in decision makers as a moderator in the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and affective commitment to change",

The article seeks to make sense of the choices facing the public leadership development facilitator, in design and in-the-moment programme decisions. The challenge is posited as one of situating knowledge of facilitation practices in a critical relationship with the public sector leadership literature and the critical leadership development literature. The article positions public leadership development facilitation as sitting within three pressing dilemmas, or crossroads, concerning public leadership theory, critical leadership development scholarship and facilitation scholarship. A narrative ethnographic methodology is adopted to explore the constructions of a specific public sector leadership development facilitator as a means of analysing facilitator choices in action. An interpretation of how the facilitator frames and constructs public leadership in relation to the constructions of participants is offered. The article situates facilitator choices as highly political, sitting contextually between the idealism of the public sector literature and the social identifications of participants. The authors offer two dominant forms of facilitation choices (framing and adaptive) as a heuristic for facilitators, practitioners and scholars who wish to reflect further on the role of leadership development in the public realm.

This paper applies a labour process perspective to the "chain system" in the New Zealand meat freezing industry. It traces the introduction of the chain system, contrasting it with traditional work methods and uses this historical perspective to provide a critique of Braverman 's theory of changes in the labour process.