At the IEDC Business School in Bled, Marko Majer, founder and director of the agency MayerMcCann Ljubljana, at the end of March was one of the first students of doctoral studies at that school who successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic of managing generation Y in the European advertising industry. This is the first school of its kind in the European region, with which Majer explored how leadership, motivation within the agency team and leader-coworkers relations are seen by agency leaders (business and creative directors, directors of strategic planning, etc.), and on the other hand by young associates, members of the generation Y who are only gaining their work and leadership experiences.
In a series of personal interviews with nearly 40 people, with whom he met in their working environment in ten European markets, from Sweden to Romania (agencies of the region that were involved in the research were Luna TBWA from Ljubljana and Bruketa&Žinić from Zagreb), he reached some interesting conclusions with interviewees from both groups, leaders and young associates, which will be useful in practice both to the current and future managerial staff of advertising agencies.
Here are several key results of this qualitative study:
- Internal (organizational) culture of an agency is its most important, and actually the only lasting competitive advantage.
- Young interviewees have far higher regard for the proven expertise and personal integrity than for the authority of the position; a leader must earn their trust.
- Employees in advertising industry, through development of their own identity, summarize the values of an “advertising tribe”, a sociological term that reaches beyond the framework of a single agency group.
- Stereotypes about the behavior of generation Y are greatly exaggerated, simplified and are often a result of uncritical citing of US sources.
- The spirit of the times (‘The Zeitgeist’, a modern version of Kant’s notion of concurrent influences) explains the specificity of the generation Y in the context of contemporary development of information technologies, social media, and emergence of a developed modern society.
Dr. Marko Majer will present the conclusions of his study and their application in everyday agency life at a seminar in the second half of the year, for when he will prepare a special publication on the topic.
