Andrew Kakabadse and Nada Kakabadse’s Blog

Many recent articles, such as these from the Guardian and the BBC have been reporting that the gender gap, instead of getting closer, is widening in terms of male and female pay.
The gap is narrowing between younger age groups, but overall the gap is widening. The issue here is why, after such attention to gender for all these years and with the Davies report pending on having more women on boards, is the pay gap widening?
The articles indicate that this is still a gender-based problem, but I suspect that if this is the case then gender is not the principal reason. The principle reason is very simply one of cost.
If one looks at apprenticeships as another example, a current apprenticeship is currently positioned at half of the national wage. The underlying problem is that in the current [...]

In our research of over 12,500 organisations, we found that it is often difficult to deal with sensitive issues arising in the workplace, largely because often the very people in the room are part of the problem as well. This means that more often than not you have a sensitive issue as well as a sensitive relationship, leading to an “elephant in the room” type of situation, as typified in this blog post on the Harvard Business Review website .
Where there is a diversity of opinion, or the issue is complex, or one director does not completely trust the judgement of another, then finding the strength to have that difficult conversation is identified as not easily forthcoming. Pleasing people is the easy way out, and is a common phenomenon.  Sensitive problems, such as affairs in the workplace, or bullying, can see managers and [...]

The recent article in the Financial Times by Liz Bolshaw notes that many graduates – especially women – are unhappy in their professional roles.  It strikes me as probably being quite accurate.
What we have today is a situation where capital is not being traded, so the debt and equity markets are fairly static. If there is no trading taking place, less money is being loaned about, corporations cannot get the capital they need to function, costs are scrutinised more often, and life becomes more ‘demotivating’. If you have been exposed to easy consumption, easily accessed education and travel, as many graduates have been, then your sophistication is going to resist this demotivating aspect of constantly being scrutinised and ‘pigeon holed’ in a particular role. Younger generations are not going to like what is happening. Because they are young, they may be able to move [...]

Stakeholders (e.g. activist groups, unions, competitors, corporations, environment groups, political lobbies) are increasingly creating a “stakeholder media”, where content is created for the purpose of influencing public opinion and/or the opinions of particular actors in favour of pre-determined issues. Social media is a tool that stakeholders are able to use to set out their agenda, often in competition with dominant media corporations, and as such have the potential to provide a powerful alternative to the dominant and current public agendas as well as to promote the interests of powerful stakeholders. Stakeholders with expert power and substantial means can be very influential through the use of social media channels (i.e. through user-created content).
Whilst the mainstream media is focussed on current issues of interest to the general public, presented with (supposed) neutrality, stakeholder run social media tends to focus on solutions to problems which are of interest to target communities, and even though subjective, [...]

The focus of the recent phone hacking scandal on Murdoch and the News of the World is not misplaced. The reality behind tapping into people’s privacy has been long on-going. But is it right that Murdoch receives such negative press? In my opinion, no.  So many others should also be under scrutiny.  The scandal of London’s press intrusion into the lives of the rich but also the ordinary has been on-going for 30 years or so, or at least that is the word on the streets.
Murdoch was one of the few press barons who actually reorganised the newspapers to become more functionally viable business entities. He repositioned the press on a new technological basis to become businesses concerned with the capture, packaging and distribution of information. All of the newspapers benefited from his revolutionary action.  Rather, all of the press should also [...]

Europe’s debt crisis is worsening, as noted in this recent Time article by Michael Schuman . We can see this reflected in the markets from the lack of mobility. We have countries that have not managed their affairs particularly well, such as Portugal or Greece, where they have created a high level of debt without nurturing their wealth creation sector. But equally, certain investment entities have made it their business to deal with bad debt situations and hence make considerable amounts of money out of the present circumstances.
The question is, as the debt crisis gets worse, what is the way forward? One option would be the break up of the Euro, which would see Europe becoming a series of separate states with separate borders and passports and currencies. Or Europe could go the other way and become one singular country. This unified Europe would have [...]

Technological innovation and new apps are undeniably changing our relationship with one another and the physical world, as discussed in the recent Slate article titled, “ The future of mobile gadgets ” by Farhad Manjoo. While these advances bring with them lots of new and exciting possibilities, I worry that the e-revolution and the increasing dependence on information and communications technologies (ICTs) is leading to lower levels of emotional intelligence amongst today’s generation of young people.
While new technology creates new spaces where individuals can express themselves and their thoughts under different names and so on – which can serve as wonderful sources of self-expression – it can also create a sense of false reality. Indeed the ICT revolution has exponentially amplified our ability to make social connections, but as individuals grow increasingly dependent and addicted to ICT, they can develop a distorted sense of time and [...]

We send women to war, to Afghanistan and now to Libya, as soldiers and as reporters, but we do not put them on boards. Why not? Are boards more dangerous than Libya or Afghanistan? I really doubt it. Do women need to be physically fitter for the board? I doubt that too. There is no need for endurance tests on the board, and it is no more dangerous than any combat zone where we send women. Women are just as capable of being on boards as men, but the argument needs to be exactly this—one of capabilities, not one of gender.
While many studies suggest that having women on a board can increase share value, as discussed in the recent Financial Times article, “ Women at top lift shares, study shows ” by Masa Serdarevic, there are just as many studies that show that shares drop when [...]

Whether organisations are at the point of finding a new role at the senior level, namely the Chief Sustainability Officer, depends on how CSR and sustainability are being interpreted. In other words, ‘sustainability of what?’ Unfortunately, for too many Anglo-American corporations, CSR and sustainability is a marketing ploy. So in the Anglo-American model, I do not see any movement that will make real space for the CSO officer. However, not all societies approach CSR and sustainability from this same philanthropic platform, and I expect the role of this officer to be stronger in other countries that hold a different view of CSR.
The office of a CSO is unlikely to have the same meaning for an Anglo-American corporation against a major Danish firm, to a German firm, like BMW. The sustainability concern of Anglo-Americans is to identify the charities that basically add to commercial advantage or at [...]

Markets today are even more focused on the short term than before. To get an organisation to think more for the long term, the current incentive structure for businesses, which is based on short-term equity gains and market-based lending, needs to be re-evaluated to accommodate longer-term opportunities and responsibilities.
A recent article by Dominic Barton in the Harvard Business Review , titled “Capitalism for the Long Term” , raises a relevant and fundamental question: do we have a leadership challenge or do we have a fundamental shift of philosophy concerning the nation-state in terms of how markets are being guided today?
At this point in time the jury is out as to which of the two options really is going to gain favour. On the one hand, taking a long-term view of capital, and having a powerful top team and a supportive board that [...]