The DOI matches its Crossref record; 38 of the 38 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Good Visions, Bad Micro-management and Ugly Ambiguity: Contradictions of (Non-)Leadership in a Knowledge-Intensive Organization
Abstract
This article investigates how managers position themselves and their work in terms of leadership in a large knowledge-intensive company. The significance of contemporary discourse on leadership, practical aspects of managerial work, and ambiguity as a central dimension of organization and leadership (particularly in knowledge-intensive settings) are highlighted. We examine the presumed leadership in a company with respect to the three `moral' and `aesthetic' positions or aspects of leadership: good, bad and ugly leadership. The article shows how managers incoherently move between different positions on leadership. The study undermines some of the dominant notions of leadership, for example, the leader as a consistent essence, a centred subject with a particular orientation to work. We suggest a less comfortable view of managers aspiring to adopt, but partly failing to secure leadership identities and a coherent view of their work. Value commitments appear as disintegrated and contradictory. The study indicates a need to radically rethink dominant ideas about leadership.
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Cites
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Self-citation
Cited by
Identity Matters: Reflections on the Construction of Identity Scholarship in Organization Studies
Alvesson, M., Lee Ashcraft, K., & Thomas, R. (2008) · Organization · doi:10.1177/1350508407084426 · Cited by 1,077
Self-citationA Stupidity‐Based Theory of Organizations
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2012) · Journal of Management Studies · doi:10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01072.x · Cited by 534
Self-citationInstitutional Logics as Identity Projects
Lok, J. (2010) · Academy of Management Journal · doi:10.5465/amj.2010.57317866 · Cited by 499
Managers Doing Leadership: The Extra-Ordinarization of the Mundane
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2003) · Human Relations · doi:10.1177/00187267035612001 · Cited by 468
Self-citationLeadership as Practice: Challenging the Competency Paradigm
Carroll, B., Levy, L., & Richmond, D. (2008) · Leadership · doi:10.1177/1742715008095186 · Cited by 466
Metadata
- Authors
- Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S.
- Venue
- Organization Studies
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2003-07
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 961-988
- ISSN
- 0170-8406 (ISSN-L)
- 1741-3044
- OpenAlex
- W2131776152
- Cited by
- 339
- References
- 38
- FWCI
- 14.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
