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Some members of the list may be interested
in the final call for papers below.
Call for Papers
Special Issue of Leadership
The Materiality of Leadership
Editors: Alison
Pullen and Sheena Vachhani
Leadership is most often presented as a disembodied
phenomenon. This is so despite the sea of literature on embodied organization (see
for example, Dale, 2001; Lennie, 2000). Whether it is transformational
leadership, charismatic leadership, or situational leadership the common assumption
is that good leadership emanates from the mind or the soul. If the body is considered
it is done so superficially, for example by associating leadership
effectiveness with physical characteristics such as height, weight, and body
type, and/or assuming that the leader is able bodied and ostensibly Western. In
a few other cases where the body is acknowledged, it is the gut that focuses
our attention, for example through the ‘gut feel’ that might guide
instinctual leadership practice (Harung, 1993). But even when ‘gut
feeling’ is valorised as part of good leadership it is still understood through
the imperative of achieving effective decision-making, and exercising rationality
in the pursuit of organizational goals – in such cases the body is subordinated
to an overarching regime of instrumentality and commodified in the pursuit of organizational
effectiveness. Concepts such as emotional intelligence, while bearing a loose
acknowledgement of the body, are also deeply entwined and understood as being
deferent to organizational effectiveness (Goleman, 2006). Again the body is
enrolled in the process of organizing, often in impoverished ways that do not
consider the inter-connections and inseparability of mind/body and
subject/object – a relation that Merleau-Ponty (1968; see also Crossley,
1995) refers to as “chiasm”. As a result of these separations and
subordinations the potential for corporeal imagination in leadership studies
remains under explored. This suggests that by considering the “ontology
of the flesh” (Merleau-Ponty, 1968) we can explore more substantially dimensions
of materiality in relation to leadership subjectivity.
In this special issue we are concerned with the
surface and exterior of the leader, that which has been called leadership
aesthetics (see Hansen et al, 2007), and how this relates to, disavows or
enrols the interiority of the body understood as flow and fluidity. We suggest
that explorations which consider the corpus of the body contributes to a more
sensory leadership theory that emerges from an ethics of the body (Diprose, 1994)
that accounts for the relationship between materiality and immateriality and which
attends not only to productive capabilities of the body for organizational gain
but also the fragility of bodies in organizations. The direction we seek to
advance with this special issue is encouraged by recent advances in the field.
Ropo and Sauer (2008; see also Ropo and Parviainen, 2001), for example,
acknowledge the bodily presence of the leader, especially recognising the
aesthetic effect of leadership. This form of corporeal leadership realises the
image and identity of the leader and its impact and effect on leadership
practice. This is still limited, however, in that it is only the surface
– the exterior – of the leader that is in full view and privileged.
Concentrating analytically on corporeality extends this by enabling the
interiority of the material leadership subject to be attended –
especially as it relates to the flows and fluids of the body (such as blood and
hormones). Addressing corporeality and leadership studies holds the potential
for different bodies to be read as present, absent or abject in the processes,
practices and theories of leadership. Concepts such as virility (see Höpfl and
Matilal 2007), abjection, race and gendered bodies are vital for what may then
be understood in relation to the process of leadership. One such theme which
may be developed is the way in which gendered leadership stereotypes such as
feminised, embodied leadership in parallel to masculinised, disembodied,
rational and highly disciplined leadership are debated and contested. This
special issue calls for papers that focus on the embodied relationship between
leaders and followers from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.
We invite conceptual and empirical papers on the
matter of leadership that may include but are not limited to:
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Difference, bodies and leaders. Working bodies and worked on bodies. Subjectivity and intercorporeality. Gendered bodies and sexual difference. Abject bodies. Performing and performed bodies. Ethics, responsibility and leadership. Types of leadership, such as servant leadership. The effects of leadership on individual bodies. Bullying, bodily violence and leadership. Affect, bodies and leadership. Psychoanalytic perspectives on the leader. Corporeality, resistance and leadership. |
Leadership and the disciplining of bodies. Dress, image and leaders’ bodies. Embodiment and virtual leadership. Technology, bodies and disembodiment. Human and non-human bodies and leadership. Post-human Leadership. Health, leadership and the body: leadership in
health and subjective bodies. Power, corporeality and leadership. Language, speech, discourse and materiality Post-colonial perspectives on leadership
subjectivity. |
Submission details: papers should be sent to both editors - Alison Pullen [log in to unmask] and Sheena
Vachhani [log in to unmask]
by 1st October 2011. The special issue is scheduled for publication in
early 2013.
References
Crossley, N. (1995) “Merleau-Ponty, the Elusive Body and Carnal
Sociology”, Body & Society,
Vol 1(1):43-63.
Dale, K. (2001) Anatomising
Embodiment and Organization Theory.
Diprose, R. (1994) The Bodies of women: ethics, embodiment, and sexual difference.
Goleman, D. (2006) Emotional
Intelligence – Why it can matter more than IQ.
Hansen, H., Ropo, A. and Sauer, E. (2007) “Aesthetic
Leadership”, The Leadership Quarterly,
Vol 18: 544-560.
Harung, H.S. (1993) “More effective
decisions through synergy of objective and subjective approaches”,
Management Decision, Vol 31(7): 8-45.
Höpfl, H. and Matilal, S. (2007) “The Lady Vanishes’: some thoughts
on women and leadership”, Journal of
Organizational Change Management, Vol 20(2):198-208.
Lennie,
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968) The Visible and the Invisible, trans. Alphonso Lingis,
Ropo, A. and Parviainen, J. (2001) “Leadership
and bodily knowledge in expert organizations: epistemological
rethinking”, Scandinavian Journal of
Management, Vol 17:1-18.
Ropo, A. and Sauer, E. (2008) “Corporeal Leaders”, in Hansen,
H. and Barry, D. (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of New Approaches
in Management and Organization.
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Dr
Sheena J Vachhani Darlithydd Yr Ysgol Busnes ac
Economeg Prifysgol Abertawe Parc Singleton Abertawe SA2 8PP Cymru, DU Ffôn +44 (0)1792 295834 Ffacs +44 (0)1792
295626 |
Dr
Sheena J Vachhani Lecturer Tel +44 (0)1792 295834 Fax +44 (0)1792 295626 Email: [log in to unmask] |
http://www.swan.ac.uk/staff/academic/BusinessEconomics/vachanis/#d.en.18704
http://www.swan.ac.uk/sbe/research/HRGroup.php