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Following Instructions or Taking Initiative: Reflections on Inferior Managers’ Values and Attitudes in the Garment Business

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Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Challenging Global Times

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Management and Industrial Engineering ((LNMIE))

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Abstract

The study tries to highlight some aspects of the manager’s work as an executor of decisions made by the superior. The purpose of this paper is to study the values and attitudes of inferior managers and in particular their predisposition to follow instructions or take initiative. 125 inferior managers from 14 Bulgarian garment companies were surveyed. Depending on their individual attitudes and preferences, two types of managers have been identified: Strict Followers and Creative Initiators. Their main traits are described. The advantages and disadvantages of each of the two types are analyzed and discussed separately. It is concluded that the orientation of the Strict Followers makes them more suitable for activities and areas requiring higher technical knowledge and skills, such as manufacturing, finance, and accounting. Accordingly, the Creative Initiators are more common in organizations operating in a highly dynamic environment and are usually responsible for human resources, marketing, or sales. In the garment business, Creative Initiators occur significantly less frequently than Strict Followers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Indicative in this case is that the inferior manager means the owner of the company, and not his immediate superior, holding the position of sales director. This indirectly reveals certain gravity to superiors, which I met in other Creative Initiators.

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Ethical Statement

The authors of this paper confirm that they have gained all the necessary permissions from the human subjects involved in this study to use their information. Furthermore, all individual information presented in this study has been anonymized.

This study has been approved by the Ethics Board of the University of Ruse (registration number 31000-4/20.06.2021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Ruse, Ruse, Bulgaria

    Emil Kotsev

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  1. Emil Kotsev
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Correspondence to Emil Kotsev .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania

    Gabriela I. Prostean

  2. Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, Spain

    Juan J. Lavios

  3. Department of Management, West University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania

    Laura Brancu

  4. Department of International Trade and Logistics, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Fethiye, Türkiye

    Faruk Şahin

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Kotsev, E. (2024). Following Instructions or Taking Initiative: Reflections on Inferior Managers’ Values and Attitudes in the Garment Business. In: Prostean, G.I., Lavios, J.J., Brancu, L., Şahin, F. (eds) Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Challenging Global Times. Lecture Notes in Management and Industrial Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47164-3_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47164-3_14

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