A study of human resource development strategies for how to effectively develop middle managers at global conglomerates to create cross-business collaboration

Many corporations enter into multiple lines of business and become a conglomerate while companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon are emerging conglomerates which expand their business towards fields outside of their existing business. Although certain conglomerates are believed to suffer from conglomerate discount in the stock market, the productivity and efficiency of conglomerates depends on the effective management of an individual company. For those conglomerates, it is critical to realize synergies through cross-business collaboration. In general, middle managers play a significant role of strategy realization; however little research has been done regarding to conglomerates. The overall purpose of this study was to identify the required competencies for middle managers at conglomerates to create synergies, thematically categorize the related development programs and related corporate initiatives including incentives and organization designs to develop those competencies or skills for middle managers and encourage them to actually use them to create cross-business synergies, and demonstrate the framework for the HR managers and corporate executives at conglomerates to judge if their HRD strategy are properly established. This was a case-study research by selecting five global conglomerates. The result confirmed social capitals were the required competencies for middle managers at a conglomerate to create cross-business collaboration. Furthermore, it thematically outlined, by demonstrating eleven different themes, the related development programs and corporate initiatives to develop the competencies for middle managers to create cross-business collaboration. In addition, the result identified the two categories of managerial strategy/stance for middle managers’ development: Category 1 is a collaborative management strategy/stance; and Category 2 is an open/flexible management strategy/stance.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Negishi, Yusuke

Contributors dc:contributor

• Li, Jessica
• Kuchinke, Peter
• Huang, David
• Davila, Liv

• Conglomerate
• Multi-industry Firm
• Human Resource Development
• Middle Manager
• Cross-business Collaboration
• Social Capital

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Yusuke Negishi

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/117745

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F117745