Identifying the Images of Desirable Middle Managers: Persona Design Method for Evaluating Business Competencies

Abstract

We propose an improved method for employees to identify and rank images of desirable middle managers at an organization. In many companies, despite many discussions of leader images, it is difficult to find differences between the images of each individual. So far, the literature on leaders has not answered these questions. Here we apply the persona technique to clarify these recognition differences. The persona technique came from the computer software user-interface design field and then spread to the product-development field. The proposed method works by (1) setting persona characters with various attributes, (2) assigning the attribute values with the orthogonal design technique, (3) designing questionnaires, (4) obtaining questionnaire results about personas from the subjects, and (5) evaluating the data recorded on respondent questionnaires. Using a large-scale Web survey, we found that the persona technique is superior to conventional questionnaires. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.