دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی توسعه رهبری: به سمت یک رویکرد سیستماتیک تر در مدیریت تکنولوژی - الزویر 2017

ABSTRACT

Technology leadership research pays little attention to leadership differences across organizational levels. Research at the upper echelons is particularly sparse despite the importance of strategy in technology management. The “leadership pipeline”, with its specification of six levels of organizational leadership, the leadership challenges at each, and the appropriate leadership preparation for each, can be adapted to technology management to provide an integrated, systematic, approach to technology leadership development and practice. A review of technology management research reveals shortcomings which could be remedied through the application of a pipeline approach. Future research should focus more on reliably differentiating the hierarchical levels of technology management, particularly at the middle management and executive levels. From there, the differing demands at each and the requisite capabilities for meeting them can be determined. This would facilitate the development of more effective leadership preparation for technology mangers as they transition from level to level, to their career benefit and for the competitiveness of their organizations.

6. Conclusions

This paper has reviewed the research on technology leadership at all levels of management with the intention of assessing the degree to which the pipeline approach has been applied to technology leadership development. It has found a significant body of research on technology management which has furthered our theoretical and practical understanding but has found little evidence of comprehensive, systematic differentiation of technology management at different levels and consequent implications for leadership development. This prognosis suggests that, if the issues around technology leadership and management referenced at the beginning of this paper are to be resolved through more comprehensive and systematic leadership development programs, future research should include some guidance from the pipeline approach. Most importantly, studies of technology management and leadership should be careful to clarify the level of management being addressed from both a theoretical and methodological point of view. This will contribute to the development of a systematic understanding of the challenges at the different levels of management and the similarities and differences among them. This is a prerequisite to the development of an organization-wide system that prepares managers for those levels as they anticipate moving into them and once they have taken them up. A challenge in this approach will be to develop reliable methodologies for differentiating the levels of management. Some of the considerations that will be involved in this effort have been noted. The difficulties will be overcome only through continued research and conceptualization around level-based differentiation. The development of a level-by-level description of management roles and challenges will also facilitate the application of more theory to this area of study. Theoretical models have been developed to explain management at different levels (e.g. Jacobs & Jaques, 1987; Mumford et al., 2007). Level differentiating research, guided by these theories as well as the practical solutions evolving in management development; promise a rich advancement of our understanding of technology management.