This article investigates the issue of diversification around the core business, namely concentric diversification. There have been many diversification failures reported over the last few decades. Little guidance has been available to firms who plan to diversify in order to grow. The literature relating to competitive advantage, sustainable competitive advantage, and concentric diversification is reviewed. A process is then presented to help managers make sound strategic diversification decisions, thus reducing the risk of failure.

The study describes four approaches for configuring corporate HR strategy by firms from an emerging market when dealing with the integration-differentiation dilemma.Most research on strategic international HRM is on the perspective of the affiliate or discusses the degree of isomorphism between the HRM practices of the parent and affiliate. The authors apply a cross-case analysis of the cases of Nando's International, MTN International, Sasol and SABMiller, focus on the implementation of corporate HR strategies from the parent's perspective and show that MNEs differ in the scope and level of abstraction of their corporate HR strategies. It is further suggested that this is primarily due to differences in business model, the need to accommodate national culture, the type and role of organizational culture in the MNE, which impact on the level of convergence of HR management practices. In all of the cases, there is a large degree of variance in these factors.

In order to ensure profitability for shareholders, optimal contracting recommends the alignment between executive compensation and company performance. Large organizations have therefore adopted executives remuneration systems in order to induce positive market reaction and motivate executives. Complex compensation schemes are designed by Boards of Directors using strong pay-performance incentives that explain high levels of executive pay along with company size, demand for management skills and executive influence. However, the literature remains inconclusive on the pay-performance relationship owing to the various empirical methods used by researchers. Additionally, there has been little effort in the literature to compare methodologies on the pay-performance relationship. Using the dominant agency theory framework, the purpose of this study is to establish and examine the relationship between firm performance and executive pay. In addition, it intends to assess the characteristic of model specifications commonly adopted. To this aim, a quantitative analysis consisting of three complementary methods was performed on panel data from South African listed companies. The results of the main unrestricted first difference model indicate a strong non-linear relationship where the impact of current and previous firm performance on executive pay can be observed over 2 to 4-year period providing support to the optimal contracting theoretical perspective in the South African business context. In addition, CEO pay is more sensitive to firm performance as compared to Director pay. Lastly, although it affects executive pay levels, company size is not found to improve the pay-performance relationship.

Although much has been said in academia on the importance of multiculturalism, cultural clashes in business and the workplace continue to be an issue of growing concern as the world moves toward an interlinked, global economy. Now more than ever, learning to draw on the richness of a kaleidoscopic workforce and to assist all team members in delivering their best efforts is a critical managerial task. This article provides a synopsis of the background to the problem of managing culturally diverse organisations, discusses the influences of cultural diversity on management, and proposes a conceptual framework for managing multicultural organisations through the ‘sharing principle’. The challenge for a multicultural learning organisation is to increase the potential benefits of cultural diversity by creating a willingness-to-share attitude – sharing success, sharing mental models, sharing vision, and sharing competence. A real commitment to the sharing principle is essential to effective management in culturally diverse organisations.

Interest in leadership effectiveness and failure has led scholars to investigate the underlying factors. Courage has been evoked as an essential component of character in effective leaders. Kidder and Bracy (2001) posit that courage lays the foundation for other virtues and values to emerge and develop in leaders. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to explore the drivers of courage in leaders at various decision making moments in their career and life. To this aim, a qualitative narrative analysis of sixty stories extracted from structured interviews of fourteen Mauritian leaders was carried out. The principal results indicate leadership skills are not sufficient for a leader to act courageously, and that both internal and external drivers of courage are required for courageous leadership. In addition, some of the internal drivers of courage such as Values & Beliefs and Self-Consciousness are closely linked to dimensions of authentic leadership. Therefore, organizations or leadership programs that are interested in developing and maintaining qualities of effective leadership should develop support systems that further the internal and external drivers of courage. However, because it is found to be the result of a continuous lifetime process, courage should be encouraged and integrated early in educational curriculum.