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This three-part case-study illustrates key concepts and lessons about leading adaptive change in organizations in the context of turning around Deutsche Telekom, one of the world's largest telecommunication companies. The case portrays some of the efforts undertaken by Deutsche Telekom under the leadership of René Obermann after his ascent to the CEO position in that organization. The case illustrates the challenges associated with resistance to adaptive change, management of expectations of organizational members from their leaders, and the psychological challenges of leading necessary, but unpopular, change efforts under the conditions of pressure from organizational stakeholders, who consciously or unconsciously attempt to divert the change-oriented leader from pushing the organization forward. The case serves as fruitful ground for exploration of the theory of adaptive change as put forward by Heifetz & Linsky (2002), Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky (2009a, 2009b), discussion of the dangers of leading (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002), and psychological challenges of leading (Kets de Vries, Korotov, & Florent-Treacy, 2007).

This three-part case-study illustrates key concepts and lessons about leading adaptive change in organizations in the context of turning around Deutsche Telekom, one of the world's largest telecommunication companies. The case portrays some of the efforts undertaken by Deutsche Telekom under the leadership of René Obermann after his ascent to the CEO position in that organization. The case illustrates the challenges associated with resistance to adaptive change, management of expectations of organizational members from their leaders, and the psychological challenges of leading necessary, but unpopular, change efforts under the conditions of pressure from organizational stakeholders, who consciously or unconsciously attempt to divert the change-oriented leader from pushing the organization forward. The case serves as fruitful ground for exploration of the theory of adaptive change as put forward by Heifetz & Linsky (2002), Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky (2009a, 2009b), discussion of the dangers of leading (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002), and psychological challenges of leading (Kets de Vries, Korotov, & Florent-Treacy, 2007).

This three-part case-study illustrates key concepts and lessons about leading adaptive change in organizations in the context of turning around Deutsche Telekom, one of the world's largest telecommunication companies. The case portrays some of the efforts undertaken by Deutsche Telekom under the leadership of René Obermann after his ascent to the CEO position in that organization. The case illustrates the challenges associated with resistance to adaptive change, management of expectations of organizational members from their leaders, and the psychological challenges of leading necessary, but unpopular, change efforts under the conditions of pressure from organizational stakeholders, who consciously or unconsciously attempt to divert the change-oriented leader from pushing the organization forward. The case serves as fruitful ground for exploration of the theory of adaptive change as put forward by Heifetz & Linsky (2002), Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky (2009a, 2009b), discussion of the dangers of leading (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002), and psychological challenges of leading (Kets de Vries, Korotov, & Florent-Treacy, 2007).

Voith Paper, one of the two big international suppliers of premium, technically complex machines for paper production, has to improve its profitability. This also affects Mr. Kohl, senior sales executive of the product division with the highest turnover. He, however, does not want to save the additional millions through cost or personnel reduction. Instead, he plans to sell the consulting services of his sales engineers and thus meet the financial target.

We explore the determinants of the willingness to rely on trust in a business partnership where both partners are at risk. By focusing on the willingness to rely on trust (WTRT) we reduce the methodological challenge of perception-based approaches where trust is measured as an expectation on the partner's behavior. Executives in several countries were presented with a proposal for a business partnership and were asked about the level of safeguards they would require in the agreement, their main concerns as to future conditions, and to what extent their views would be affected by several behaviors and/or events. Twelve hypotheses are tested using path analysis and multiple/hierarchical regressions. Whereas our findings confirm prior results on differences in the propensity to trust between nationalities, they suggest that several organizational, functional and contextual variables mediate their impact in determining WTRT in inter-organizational ventures. Among these are the partners' cultural proximity, their concerns about business risk, and two organizational demographics regarding the size of the organization. In addition, we found that sensitivity to external information on partner's benevolence and the respondent's education and industry affected WTRT significantly.

 

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