Visionary leadership in business schools: an institutional framework

Abstract

PurposeRecent decades have seen a change in the environment of business schools. These changes place great responsibility on deans as the leaders of schools to act. To date, there has been a dearth of literature dealing specifically with visionary responses on the part of the deans of business schools to those changes in the institutional environment. The purpose of this paper is to address the most recent institutional pressures in the business education field and present a framework linking it to the visionary leadership deans may demonstrate.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is conceptual in nature and bases its analysis on institutional theory. The use of an institutional lens offers a new perspective on possible visions deans may lead and on the nature of their leadership.FindingsThe article proposes an institutional framework of visionary leadership in business schools and suggests that vigorous visionary leadership among deans is required in order to generate a unique school identity and reputation. The paper concludes by outlining steps leaders can take while shaping their vision in order to create a unique organizational identity.Originality/valueThe institutional framework has a central place in organizational and educational literature. So far, the literature has not dealt with the links between institutional theory and visionary leadership as a whole, or in business schools in particular. The present paper addresses this gap and offers new insights for researchers and practitioners alike.

The “Dean’s Squeeze” revisited: a contextual approach

“…Although the extant literature on business schools discusses a number of issues and challenges related to business school management (Bedeian, 2002;Davies and Thomas, 2009;Almog-Bareket, 2012;Thomas et al, 2014), few of them acknowledge the significant variation among the world's 14,000 business schools. In fact, research on the corporatization of business schools tends to focus on the 1,000 best-known, typically Western-based institutions while ignoring the diversity of the remaining majority (Alajoutsijärvi et al, 2013;Alajoutsijärvi et al, 2014).…”

Visionary Leadership Role: Building a Ghost Town Civilization

“…Furthermore Barbara Brown (1998) said the visionary leader should have ten competencies to have, namely: (1) visualizing, the visionary leader should have a clear picture of what to accomplish and have a target that Obviously when it will be achieved, (2) futuristic thinking, the visionary leader thinks where the business position is at the moment and thinks the desired position in the future dating, (3) showing foresight, the visionary leader is a planner that can Estimate the future by considering what it wants to do and consider the technologies, procedures, organizations and other factors that affect the plan, (4) proactive planning, setting goals and strategies that are specific to achieving Such targets, visionary leaders can anticipate or consider potential obstacles and develop alternative plans to overcome obstacles, (5) Creative thinking, face the challenges of visionary leaders trying to find alternatives A new exit concerning issues, opportunities and problems, (6) Taking risks, dare to take risks and consider failures as an opportunity not a failure, (7) Process alignment. Aligning the process by knowing how to connect its own goals to the organization's goals, and aligning the tasks and work of each department across the organization, (8) The coalition building, building in order to achieve the self-target, he must create a harmonious relationship both inside and outside the organization and actively seeking opportunities to cooperate with a wide range of individuals, departments and specific classes, (9) Continuous learning, can Regularly be taking part in training and other types of development, both inside and outside the organization, it can test any interaction, negative or positive, to study the situation and be able to pursue opportunities to cooperate and take part in projects that can expand knowledge, giving challenges of thinking and developing imagination.…”

“…Tony Manning and Bob Robertson (2002) revealed that it takes leadership more than just visionary leadership to face various situations in the face of change (Manning & Robertson, 2002). Granit Almog- Bareket (2012) found that strong visionary leadership in between is necessary to produce a unique identity and reputation of the organization (Almog- Bareket, 2012). Sonny N and Bill Richardson (1996) found that the main visionary transformer as the type of leadership needed to achieve success through strategic change (Nwankwo & Richardson, 1996).…”

The Strategic Process of Developing Social Aspects of Sustainability Through the Vision Reflection in Business Education

“…Positive affects in terms of readiness for change and progress require vision to be effectively transferred (Kantabutra, 2010;Haque, TitiAmayah, & Liu, 2016), meanwhile collective vision also advances service job satisfaction and efforts (Testa, 1999). Due to the fact that leaders are responsible for creating and communicating organizational vision (Nanus 1992, in Almog-Bareket, 2012, personal vision is a source for developing organizational vision (Crossan et al, 2008, in Yoeli & Berkovich, 2010). An individual's enthusiasm, commitment and vision creating skills are required to implement change (Atkinson, 1999), consequently business students need to have vision crafting knowledge and skills required.…”

“…Term vision derives from Latin and stands for »to see« (Almog-Bareket, 2012). Vision shows direction, articulates a sense of purpose, clarifies a set of ideals, as well as defines uniqueness (Berson, Shamir, Avolio, & Popper, 2001).…”