This article aims to extend contemporary work on relational leadership theory by conceptualizing ... more This article aims to extend contemporary work on relational leadership theory by conceptualizing leadership as embedded in the everyday relationally-responsive dialogical practices of leaders. Relational leadership requires a way of engaging with the world in which the leader holds herself/himself as always in relation with, and therefore morally accountable to others; recognizes the inherently polyphonic and heteroglossic nature of life; and engages in relational dialogue. This way of theorizing leadership also has practical implications in helping sensitize leaders to the importance of their relationships and to features of conversations and everyday mundane occurrences that can reveal new possibilities for morally-responsible leadership. We develop and illustrate the notion of relational leadership by drawing on the work of Bakhtin and Ricoeur, and on an empirical study of Federal Security Directors.
The SAGE Course Companion on Organization Theory is an accessible introduction to a challenging s... more The SAGE Course Companion on Organization Theory is an accessible introduction to a challenging subject area. This book helps readers to extend their understanding of theories and make the connection between them and organizational practice. It will enhance their thinking skills in line with course requirements and provides support on how to revise for exams and prepare for and write assessed pieces. Readers are encouraged not only to think like a organizational theorist but also to think about the subject critically. Designed to compliment existing textbooks for the course, the companion provides: - Easy access to the key themes in Organizational Theory - Helpful summaries of the approaches taken by the main course textbooks - Sample questions and answers, with common themes that must always be addressed - Short vignettes and a case study that runs throughout the chapters - Guidance on the essential study skills required to pass the course - `Taking It Further' sections that suggest how readers can extend their thinking beyond the `received wisdom' The SAGE Course Companion in Organizational Theory is much more than a revision guide for undergraduates; it is an essential tool that will help readers take their course understanding to new levels and help them achieve success in their undergraduate course.
Our contribution lies in extending theorizing on relationship quality, by illustrating how the in... more Our contribution lies in extending theorizing on relationship quality, by illustrating how the interwoven relationships between a leader and ‘follower’ may support or disrupt relationship development over time. Based on a study of leaders and organizational members in high-tech start-up firms, we provide concurrently a broader, more in-depth understanding, and therefore a more detailed and nuanced view, of how relationship quality develops or is disrupted. In particular, we highlight the importance of trust, exploring the under-researched topic of how differing interpretations of trust by leaders and organizational members can impact leaps of faith, acceptance, short-term or longer-term relationship quality. The findings address critiques of Leader Member Exchange (LMX) theory as the dominant explanatory construct for relationship quality, and highlight the need for longitudinal qualitative studies to explore the meanings both leaders and individual members of their organization give to their relationship over time.
Technology's impact on conducting organizational research is axiomatic. Studies on the topic ... more Technology's impact on conducting organizational research is axiomatic. Studies on the topic focus on how digital technologies are used to collect data and how people use or interact with technology in online spaces. Although it is generally agreed that boundaries between online and offline realms are becoming increasingly blurred, few studies exist on the impact of digital technologies on the work and life of organizational ethnographers. Our contribution lies in alerting new and experienced ethnographers engaging in hybrid ethnography – a developing methodology encompassing both face‐to‐face and online interactions – to how boundaries may blur between space and time, professional and personal, participation and observation, and what is real and what isn't. We emphasize the importance of anticipating relational shifts – understanding how new forms of sociality emerge when digital and physical interactions are an integral part of the field; and we examine subsequent advantages and challenges. To illustrate, we offer examples from a hybrid ethnography conducted in an investigative police force, where smartphones and WhatsApp are embedded in work and consequently became an integral part of the research.
In this chapter we explore an aspect of action research that is rarely addressed – the role of em... more In this chapter we explore an aspect of action research that is rarely addressed – the role of emotion. Much of the action research (AR) literature is based around the premise of engagement in a reflective process, often characterized as a cyclical, iterative process, which is problem-based (Lewin, 1946; Reason and Bradbury, 2015). In reflexively-oriented action research, tension-filled encounters can emerge as “multiple voices and sources of knowledge are incorporated into the inquiry process and different logics of action, and different professional or organizational cultures and visions meet each other” (Ripamonti, Galuppo, Gorli, Scaratti, and Cunliffe, 2016, p. 57) and previously co- constructed meanings are challenged (Vinther and Willert, 2017). This can cause challenges for facilitators (Mughal, Gattrell, and Stead, 2018) in terms of dealing with the tensions arising from this process. This is the issue we address.
Let us assume that meaning-making is not just a conceptual activity but a dialogical one, taking ... more Let us assume that meaning-making is not just a conceptual activity but a dialogical one, taking place in unmediated speech communication. Meaning-making becomes an intersubjective process occurring between us as we talk and listen to the voice of others and of self; as we try to figure out who we are, what we should do or have done, and how we relate with others. I expand on the perspective outlined above and explore its impact on the theorist role. I suggest the theorist is no longer a single expert voice but many participant-expert voices. The role shifts from one of conceptualizing experience to a reflexive study of how we create meaning intersubjectively in our language communities.
There are growing concerns about making our work matter in society and organizations, narrowing t... more There are growing concerns about making our work matter in society and organizations, narrowing the theory-practice gap by doing research that has impact. In this paper, we suggest that there is mo...
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 2015
Purpose– This short paper celebrates the tenth year Anniversary ofQROMby highlighting the importa... more Purpose– This short paper celebrates the tenth year Anniversary ofQROMby highlighting the importance of continuing to build community and support for qualitative researchers across the world. It also elaborates the relationship between the journal and the biennial international Qualitative Research in Management conference. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– Review article.Findings– The importance of a supportive community of qualitative scholars.Originality/value– The need for collaboration.
We argue that lived spaces play a crucial role in influencing how people can or cannot enact thei... more We argue that lived spaces play a crucial role in influencing how people can or cannot enact their agency. Based on an interpretive ethnographic study of work in a large Sri Lankan tea plantation and drawing on the conceptual lenses of relational agency and social ecology, we explore how workers experience their ability to act agentically in relation to their social circumstances and examine the personal and social consequences. In doing so, we extend conceptualizations of relational agency as a dialectic of belonging and not belonging within a social ecology – an ongoing flow of intertwined activities and ways of being and relating to each other that create and reproduce social orders and forms of accountability.
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 2009
This special issue emerged from the 2008 Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conf... more This special issue emerged from the 2008 Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conference held at the University of New Mexico. The conference was organized to recognize and celebrate the 20th Anniversary of John Van Maanen's seminal Tales of the Field–a book that had, and continues to have, a profound impact on qualitative organizational scholarship. The theme of the conference was appropriately “Telling Tales,” because Van Maanen brought to our attention the idea that our research accounts are as ...
This Special Issue emerged from a 2006 Academy of Management Symposium, 'Mak... more This Special Issue emerged from a 2006 Academy of Management Symposium, 'Making CMS Relevant to Practice: Teaching From A Critical Perspective'. The symposium received The Academy of Management and McGraw-Hill/Irwin 2006 Outstanding Symposium Award and the Management Education and Development Division's Best Symposium Award. Since then, we have added an additional article by Karen Lee Ashcraft and Brenda Allen. The Special Issue brings together seven scholars working in the UK, USA and New Zealand, across the disciplines of ...
We began our year with an editorial in which we stated our aim as 'Continuing to be different'con... more We began our year with an editorial in which we stated our aim as 'Continuing to be different'continuing to publish imaginative, distinctive, and thought-provoking work (Cunliffe and Sadler-Smith, 2010). Indeed, in a climate of quantification and metrification in all its various forms, we are proud to be upholders of a philosophy which actively encourages scholars to challenge the mainstream. We are proud that Management Learning is one of very few journals that provides space for bringing to bear different, and sometimes radical, philosophical perspectives and theoretical lenses in questioning the taken-for-granted practices and pedagogies in organizations and in management learning and education.
In our 2010 and 2011 editorials, we emphasized the distinct contribution that we believe Manageme... more In our 2010 and 2011 editorials, we emphasized the distinct contribution that we believe Management Learning offers, not just to the management learning community but also to the broader field of organization and management studies. This is evidenced in the range of topics, perspectives and methodologies embraced by our authors. For example, in 2012, we published articles on topics ranging from Daoism and reflexivity (Xing and Sims, 2012) to the 'state of unawareness' (Faran and Wijnhoven, 2012), on issues of relevance to pedagogy, research and management practice (e.g.
Organization studies uses “theater” as a metaphor for organization life in two ways: first as org... more Organization studies uses “theater” as a metaphor for organization life in two ways: first as organizing-is-like-theatre, a perspective adopted by those who subscribe to a Goffman approach to organization dramaturgy; and second as the more literal organizing-is-theatre, a perspective adopted by those who subscribe to a Burkean approach. Our contribution is to explore a third, more dialectic view: theatre is both life and metaphor. We develop this dialectic view by contrasting the theatrical opposition between Debord's ...
This article aims to extend contemporary work on relational leadership theory by conceptualizing ... more This article aims to extend contemporary work on relational leadership theory by conceptualizing leadership as embedded in the everyday relationally-responsive dialogical practices of leaders. Relational leadership requires a way of engaging with the world in which the leader holds herself/himself as always in relation with, and therefore morally accountable to others; recognizes the inherently polyphonic and heteroglossic nature of life; and engages in relational dialogue. This way of theorizing leadership also has practical implications in helping sensitize leaders to the importance of their relationships and to features of conversations and everyday mundane occurrences that can reveal new possibilities for morally-responsible leadership. We develop and illustrate the notion of relational leadership by drawing on the work of Bakhtin and Ricoeur, and on an empirical study of Federal Security Directors.
The SAGE Course Companion on Organization Theory is an accessible introduction to a challenging s... more The SAGE Course Companion on Organization Theory is an accessible introduction to a challenging subject area. This book helps readers to extend their understanding of theories and make the connection between them and organizational practice. It will enhance their thinking skills in line with course requirements and provides support on how to revise for exams and prepare for and write assessed pieces. Readers are encouraged not only to think like a organizational theorist but also to think about the subject critically. Designed to compliment existing textbooks for the course, the companion provides: - Easy access to the key themes in Organizational Theory - Helpful summaries of the approaches taken by the main course textbooks - Sample questions and answers, with common themes that must always be addressed - Short vignettes and a case study that runs throughout the chapters - Guidance on the essential study skills required to pass the course - `Taking It Further' sections that suggest how readers can extend their thinking beyond the `received wisdom' The SAGE Course Companion in Organizational Theory is much more than a revision guide for undergraduates; it is an essential tool that will help readers take their course understanding to new levels and help them achieve success in their undergraduate course.
Our contribution lies in extending theorizing on relationship quality, by illustrating how the in... more Our contribution lies in extending theorizing on relationship quality, by illustrating how the interwoven relationships between a leader and ‘follower’ may support or disrupt relationship development over time. Based on a study of leaders and organizational members in high-tech start-up firms, we provide concurrently a broader, more in-depth understanding, and therefore a more detailed and nuanced view, of how relationship quality develops or is disrupted. In particular, we highlight the importance of trust, exploring the under-researched topic of how differing interpretations of trust by leaders and organizational members can impact leaps of faith, acceptance, short-term or longer-term relationship quality. The findings address critiques of Leader Member Exchange (LMX) theory as the dominant explanatory construct for relationship quality, and highlight the need for longitudinal qualitative studies to explore the meanings both leaders and individual members of their organization give to their relationship over time.
Technology's impact on conducting organizational research is axiomatic. Studies on the topic ... more Technology's impact on conducting organizational research is axiomatic. Studies on the topic focus on how digital technologies are used to collect data and how people use or interact with technology in online spaces. Although it is generally agreed that boundaries between online and offline realms are becoming increasingly blurred, few studies exist on the impact of digital technologies on the work and life of organizational ethnographers. Our contribution lies in alerting new and experienced ethnographers engaging in hybrid ethnography – a developing methodology encompassing both face‐to‐face and online interactions – to how boundaries may blur between space and time, professional and personal, participation and observation, and what is real and what isn't. We emphasize the importance of anticipating relational shifts – understanding how new forms of sociality emerge when digital and physical interactions are an integral part of the field; and we examine subsequent advantages and challenges. To illustrate, we offer examples from a hybrid ethnography conducted in an investigative police force, where smartphones and WhatsApp are embedded in work and consequently became an integral part of the research.
In this chapter we explore an aspect of action research that is rarely addressed – the role of em... more In this chapter we explore an aspect of action research that is rarely addressed – the role of emotion. Much of the action research (AR) literature is based around the premise of engagement in a reflective process, often characterized as a cyclical, iterative process, which is problem-based (Lewin, 1946; Reason and Bradbury, 2015). In reflexively-oriented action research, tension-filled encounters can emerge as “multiple voices and sources of knowledge are incorporated into the inquiry process and different logics of action, and different professional or organizational cultures and visions meet each other” (Ripamonti, Galuppo, Gorli, Scaratti, and Cunliffe, 2016, p. 57) and previously co- constructed meanings are challenged (Vinther and Willert, 2017). This can cause challenges for facilitators (Mughal, Gattrell, and Stead, 2018) in terms of dealing with the tensions arising from this process. This is the issue we address.
Let us assume that meaning-making is not just a conceptual activity but a dialogical one, taking ... more Let us assume that meaning-making is not just a conceptual activity but a dialogical one, taking place in unmediated speech communication. Meaning-making becomes an intersubjective process occurring between us as we talk and listen to the voice of others and of self; as we try to figure out who we are, what we should do or have done, and how we relate with others. I expand on the perspective outlined above and explore its impact on the theorist role. I suggest the theorist is no longer a single expert voice but many participant-expert voices. The role shifts from one of conceptualizing experience to a reflexive study of how we create meaning intersubjectively in our language communities.
There are growing concerns about making our work matter in society and organizations, narrowing t... more There are growing concerns about making our work matter in society and organizations, narrowing the theory-practice gap by doing research that has impact. In this paper, we suggest that there is mo...
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 2015
Purpose– This short paper celebrates the tenth year Anniversary ofQROMby highlighting the importa... more Purpose– This short paper celebrates the tenth year Anniversary ofQROMby highlighting the importance of continuing to build community and support for qualitative researchers across the world. It also elaborates the relationship between the journal and the biennial international Qualitative Research in Management conference. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach– Review article.Findings– The importance of a supportive community of qualitative scholars.Originality/value– The need for collaboration.
We argue that lived spaces play a crucial role in influencing how people can or cannot enact thei... more We argue that lived spaces play a crucial role in influencing how people can or cannot enact their agency. Based on an interpretive ethnographic study of work in a large Sri Lankan tea plantation and drawing on the conceptual lenses of relational agency and social ecology, we explore how workers experience their ability to act agentically in relation to their social circumstances and examine the personal and social consequences. In doing so, we extend conceptualizations of relational agency as a dialectic of belonging and not belonging within a social ecology – an ongoing flow of intertwined activities and ways of being and relating to each other that create and reproduce social orders and forms of accountability.
Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, 2009
This special issue emerged from the 2008 Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conf... more This special issue emerged from the 2008 Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conference held at the University of New Mexico. The conference was organized to recognize and celebrate the 20th Anniversary of John Van Maanen's seminal Tales of the Field–a book that had, and continues to have, a profound impact on qualitative organizational scholarship. The theme of the conference was appropriately “Telling Tales,” because Van Maanen brought to our attention the idea that our research accounts are as ...
This Special Issue emerged from a 2006 Academy of Management Symposium, 'Mak... more This Special Issue emerged from a 2006 Academy of Management Symposium, 'Making CMS Relevant to Practice: Teaching From A Critical Perspective'. The symposium received The Academy of Management and McGraw-Hill/Irwin 2006 Outstanding Symposium Award and the Management Education and Development Division's Best Symposium Award. Since then, we have added an additional article by Karen Lee Ashcraft and Brenda Allen. The Special Issue brings together seven scholars working in the UK, USA and New Zealand, across the disciplines of ...
We began our year with an editorial in which we stated our aim as 'Continuing to be different'con... more We began our year with an editorial in which we stated our aim as 'Continuing to be different'continuing to publish imaginative, distinctive, and thought-provoking work (Cunliffe and Sadler-Smith, 2010). Indeed, in a climate of quantification and metrification in all its various forms, we are proud to be upholders of a philosophy which actively encourages scholars to challenge the mainstream. We are proud that Management Learning is one of very few journals that provides space for bringing to bear different, and sometimes radical, philosophical perspectives and theoretical lenses in questioning the taken-for-granted practices and pedagogies in organizations and in management learning and education.
In our 2010 and 2011 editorials, we emphasized the distinct contribution that we believe Manageme... more In our 2010 and 2011 editorials, we emphasized the distinct contribution that we believe Management Learning offers, not just to the management learning community but also to the broader field of organization and management studies. This is evidenced in the range of topics, perspectives and methodologies embraced by our authors. For example, in 2012, we published articles on topics ranging from Daoism and reflexivity (Xing and Sims, 2012) to the 'state of unawareness' (Faran and Wijnhoven, 2012), on issues of relevance to pedagogy, research and management practice (e.g.
Organization studies uses “theater” as a metaphor for organization life in two ways: first as org... more Organization studies uses “theater” as a metaphor for organization life in two ways: first as organizing-is-like-theatre, a perspective adopted by those who subscribe to a Goffman approach to organization dramaturgy; and second as the more literal organizing-is-theatre, a perspective adopted by those who subscribe to a Burkean approach. Our contribution is to explore a third, more dialectic view: theatre is both life and metaphor. We develop this dialectic view by contrasting the theatrical opposition between Debord's ...
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Papers by Ann Cunliffe