Abstract
Please submit papers before September 30 2015.
The English language has for some time dominated academia worldwide (Steyaert and Janssens, 2013) and become accepted and institutionally embedded as the international language of academia. This is illustrated within the field of leadership studies where, since its beginnings in the early part of the Twentieth Century, research into leadership has largely been pursued by scholars in the USA and the UK working in the English language. Consequently, the sub-discipline of ‘leadership studies’ has been developed and theorised within Western traditions of research, which have produced predominantly Anglo-centric linguistic interpretations of the concept (Jepson, 2010). This dominance of a culturally and linguistically ‘naturalised’ Anglo-centric view of leadership has heavily informed the development of leadership and management knowledge and practice. Such ethnocentricity, furthermore, has resulted in tacit assumptions regarding the general applicability and transferability of knowledge beyond English language speaking contexts. As a consequence, other culturally situated notions of leadership, leading and managing have been comparatively marginalised.
There is, however, a growing literature that is critical of the limitations of this Anglo-centric view (Jepson, 2009; Guthey and Jackson, 2011); critique based largely on empirical research into leadership in non-Western countries (Turnbull et al., 2011) and within different language settings (Jepson, 2009, 2010). The latter focus taken by Jepson’s (2010) research approaches language as the basis for understanding a linguistically constituted nature of leadership and looks particularly into the importance of national language as expressing a cultural voice (Jepson, 2010; Tayeb, 2001). Others have also problematised the seemingly individualistic, masculine and heroic focus of the dominant Anglo-centric paradigm of leadership studies (Ford, 2010; Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Knights and McCabe, 2015) and asked for a stronger focus on multiplicity, diversity, simultaneity and difference (Collinson, 2011).
In this Special Issue we intend to further the critique of Anglo-centricity within the field of leadership studies and examine the effects of non-English languages on leadership practices. This may help to ‘de-naturalise’ the individualistic, masculine and heroic focus of the dominant Anglo-centric paradigm of leadership. We seek to challenge the idea that this linguistically loaded conceptualisation is universally applicable in analytical and practical organisational terms. This Special Issue thus encourages contributions that explore conceptions, expressions and enactments of authority in non-Anglophone contexts: ways of leading, guiding, governing, conducting and directing organisations as these are understood and enacted through languages, discourses and ‘forms of life’ other than English. This will involve examining the political, historical and cultural roots of ‘leadership’ within other languages as well as critically examining the English language as a business and scholarly lingua franca. We acknowledge that by publishing this Special Issue in English, we are perhaps in danger of ‘becoming parodies of ourselves’ in reproducing the very practices of which we are critical. In the current climate of academia, this is unavoidable and all we can do is encourage contributions that are sensitive to linguistic nuances and tensions in the theory and practice of leadership.
This Special Issue also aims to rethink the future of leadership discipline and particularly the way that practices of leadership are represented and understood. It will help to further contextualise the meaning and importance of leadership and leadership development as well as give voice to community-based and historically and culturally informed understandings of leadership in organisations and societies.
Indicative themes that might be explored in conceptual or empirical papers include, but are not limited to:
– The role of leadership in different linguistic contexts – Language as a cultural voice: lessons for leadership? – The expression and enactment of authority in non-Anglophone contexts – Reflections on the English language as the business and/or scholarly lingua franca: implications for leadership practice and development – Exploring ways of leading, directing, guiding, governing, conducting and organising through language – Challenging the leadership/management divide and giving voice to other culturally meaningful ways of organising – Examining the role of power, gender and diversity within languages of ‘leadership’ – Exploring issues of translation and the complexity of leading across different languages – Multilingualism and leadership – implications for theory and practice? – The language of ontology and epistemology and its effect on leadership studies – Methodological implications of studying leadership through the English language
The guest editors are open to a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, including cross-disciplinary work and working at different levels of analysis. Theoretical and empirical papers will demonstrate critical considerations and extensions of current theory or seek to develop novel ideas relating to leadership in non-Anglophone contexts. We are happy to discuss initial ideas for papers submitted to this Special Issue. Please contact