Professor Serves Mission in Boston

Former marketing professor Gary McKinnon and his wife, Linda, received a mission call to the Massachusetts Boston Mission. They work with President Paul Thompson, former Marriott School dean.

"We wish them every success and appreciate all they did for the Marriott School during so many years of devoted service," says Dean Ned C. Hill.

Before retiring, McKinnon taught marketing courses at the Marriott School and directed the Executive MBA program. He was a two-time Fulbright Scholar who taught in Moldova and Portugal.

Back to top

Study Describes How to Improve Public Hearings

Anybody who's been to a public hearing knows how quickly it can either devolve into a snoozefest or explode into rancorous rigmarole.

But William Baker, a professor of organizational leadership and strategy, says it doesn't have to be that way—his new nationwide survey of city administrators reveals the factors essential to successful public hearings.

"These meetings are complex communication events," Baker says. "If they are treated as such, they can really allow for meaningful participation by citizens."

Baker got the idea for the research after juxtaposing his own successful challenge of a controversial proposition in his home town with attendance at "significantly less exciting" meetings. These experiences caused him to wonder what makes one hearing brilliant and another a bust.

As part of the study, Baker and professors H. Lon Addams and Brian Davis at Weber State University sent a survey to five hundred city managers in U.S. cities with populations of 25,000 to 99,999.

The city managers were asked to consider the public hearings in which they have participated and to indicate what contributed most to their success or failure. Responses came from forty-six states and were classified and categorized into a list of critical factors.

Published in the July–August issue of Public Administration Review, a top public administration journal, the study recommends that managers: carefully prepare for hearings, effectively publicize the hearing, launch the meeting well, keep things moving, pay attention, and follow up effectively after the meeting.

The most important factor is that government get citizens involved early and often in the decision making process, Baker says.

"This is the key ‘take away' from the research. We are a government by the people, for the people, and we like to have our say," Baker explains. "Government is obligated, by law, to ask for public input. If it will do this at the beginning and throughout the process instead of just at the end, it will get the buy-in it is looking for."

In that spirit, public administrators should consider public hearings as only one part of an overall public-communication strategy.

"Because of the inherent limitations of public hearings, city officials should use multiple participation methods," Baker says. "One thing that could happen is the creation of virtual neighborhood councils. Email is pervasive enough now that this could be done rather easily." Another key factor in the success of public hearings is the amount of public interest in the topics being discussed, Baker says.

Although participants in this research included only city administrators, Baker believes many of the conclusions and recommendations can be adapted to other government entities.

Back to top

Liddle Heads eBusiness Center

Stephen W. Liddle has been appointed director of the Rollins eBusiness Center at the Marriott School. Liddle, who is an associate professor of information systems, had been leading the center on an interim basis. He replaces J. Owen Cherrington, who passed away 2 April 2005.

"We are pleased that Steve is willing to assume these responsibilities along with his heavy research and teaching load," says Dean Ned C. Hill. "He has already done much to provide direction and energy to the center.

Back to top

Keeping Employees from Being Nabbed by Competition

Everybody knows a few employee superstars who are so good at their jobs they get poached, or lured away—often with a pay increase—to a different company or industry. But less familiar is a practice called "talent raiding," a human resources technique that most managers don't want to admit they actually use.

Talent raiding occurs when one company treats another like major league baseball does a farm team, regularly skimming away many of the other company's skilled employees to boost competitive advantage, says Organizational Leadership and Strategy Professor Timothy Gardner.

"It's a way of hiring people with the skills you need, while at the same time dealing a blow to your competition," says Gardner, whose study on the subject appeared in the 1 April issue of the Academy of Management Journal.

"First, the threat to the victim company must be clear," Gardner says. "Second, if a raiding company hires three chefs from a popular restaurant or four programmers from a successful software company, that's going to be seen as a direct attack on a company's ability to create value and will result in retaliation."

Gardner's study examined 661 parent software companies in the United States with fifty to five thousand employees. To participate, companies had to have lost two or more employees to the same company in a twelve-month period as a result of external recruiting.

Common reactions to talent raids include lawsuits, severed business relationships, or tit-for-tat raids of a competitor's employees. In contrast, a victim company may choose to focus more on what it can do internally to decrease the effectiveness of future talent raids. Some examples include raising employee pay, improving internal communications, or requiring employees to sign non-compete agreements.

But is talent raiding unethical? Gardner says no.

"It would be illegal and unethical to hire people solely to acquire trade secrets," says Gardner, who earned his PhD at Cornell University. "But in a capitalistic society, competition is good. We agree that it's OK for companies to compete for customers, raw materials, or for access to natural resources. Likewise, it's good to compete over employees. It's good for customers; they get a better product or service. And it's good for employees—they get paid better and get better benefits."

Gardner's study also provides suggestions for managers who are considering raiding employees from a rival to help them avoid corporate ire.

"Identify those factors that increase the probability of a retaliatory response," Gardner says. "Hiring employees with valuable, transferable skills dramatically increases the likelihood of just such a reaction. Since general skills are available in the open labor market without the risk of retaliation, seek those skills through regular hiring channels."

Companies need to come to grips with the fact that good HR departments are scanning competitors for good people and hiring them rather than waiting for them to apply, Gardner says.

"The better companies are tracking where their employees are going. Instead of saying, ‘Gosh—Sally, Joe, and Bill just got better jobs; let's throw them a farewell party,' managers are looking for trends and taking action against companies that may be talent raiding to better manage their workforce."

Back to top

Professor Treks Across England

From left: Jane Saunders and Professor Gloria Wheeler

In winter 2004, Professor Gloria Wheeler sat in her office, visiting with an old friend. Years before, the two had talked about walking across England. "So are we going to do it?" her friend asked.

That question got Wheeler thinking. She decided to begin walking the Provo River Trail and hiking the "Y" trail—sometimes twice a day—in preparation for the 192-mile trek through northern England.

Wheeler, a professor of public management, along with five other women flew to England and began their trek this summer with a trail tradition, dipping the tip of their boots in the Irish Sea. They then traversed through the mountains of the Lake District, across the Pennines, and down Swaledale to the North York Moors.

Along the way, the women stopped in Grasmere, home of famous English poet William Wordsworth. Wheeler thought of Wordsworth's poem "The Daffodils" as she saw thousands growing wildly along the Ullswater.

When the group reached the east coast, they again stepped in the water, signifying the end of their eighteen-day journey. Wheeler concedes that trekking across the isle once was enough. The trail was a bit confusing—even for a statistician. "We got lost every day," she says. Now that she's back in familiar territory, Wheeler admits that while the trek was a good experience, she's content with hiking the Tanner Building stairs.

Back to top