The Prayer Factory: spirituality at work, and the paradoxes of performativity, monoculturalism and dissent.

Recent years have witnessed a significant growth of academic and practitioner interest in spirituality within the workplace, and in particular in spirituality management and leadership development. This paper argues that the literature in the area is replete with unresolved paradoxes. These revolve around how spirituality is defined, with advocates variously stressing its religious dimensions, usually from a Christian perspective, and others articulating a more secular approach focusing on nondenominational humanistic values. Additionally, much of the literature stresses the value of spirituality as an aid to increasing productivity and profits. Thus, spiritual means are attached to performative ends, even as its advocates stress its emancipatory intent. In exploring these contradictions, this paper argues that, despite asserting the opposite intention, spirituality management approaches seek to abolish the distinction between peoples work based lives on the one hand, and their personal lives and value systems on the other. Influence is conceived in uni-directional terms: it flows from spiritual managers to more or less compliant staff, deemed to be in need of enlightenment, rather than vice versa. It is therefore argued that, despite the emancipatory rhetoric in which much spirituality discourse is couched, it promotes constricting cultural and behavioural norms, and thereby seeks to reinforce managerial power at the expense of individual autonomy. The implications for the management of culture, and such issues as conformity and dissent, are considered

Making a difference: doing leadership research that matters

Leadership research largely ignores the really big issues facing our species, such as climate change, the now rapid growth of new technologies that are already transforming the world of work, and the possibility that an insufficiently reformed banking system will inflict a worse crisis on us than it did in 2008. We also have a proliferation of leadership constructs that often look remarkably like those they are trying to replace. There is much heat but little illumination. The dominant methodologies that the field employs are part of a wider crisis in management studies where many of our claimed results are invalid and/or unreliable, unreproducible and offer little guidance for practice. I conclude that radical changes are needed if we are to play a serious role in improving the world in which we live. Let's take Ken Parry's lead, and make a difference

Towards an organizational theory of hubris: symptoms, behaviours and social fields within finance and banking

Hubris has become a popular explanation for all kinds of business failure. It is often reduced to the one-dimensional notion of ‘over-confidence’, particularly on the part of CEOs. There is a need to clarify the extent to which other attitudes and behaviours constitute hubris, and how they are affected by such organisational dynamics as the struggle for power, status and material rewards between actors. This article explores these issues within the finance and banking sectors. It uses the Critical Incident Technique to identify behaviours associated with hubris and probes the interaction between them and the organisational contexts in which they occur. Five categories of behaviour based on an analysis of 101 incidents are described, as are a series of ‘inflection dynamics’ that reinforce the behaviours in question and constitute a social field conducive to hubris. I challenge the reductionist views that hubris is primarily a psychological state consisting mainly of ‘over-confidence’. This article seeks to complexify the term hubris and to develop an organisational rather than purely psychology theory of its emergence and institutionalisation within finance and banking

Introduction to the special issue: why the coronavirus crisis is also a crisis of leadership

This editorial introduction argues that the coronavirus crisis is also a crisis of leadership theory and practice. Decision making is particularly hazardous when we have poor evidence to guide us and face unpredictable outcomes. Mainstream leadership theories are of little help, since an environment of radical uncertainty means that leaders have less information, expertise and resources to guide them than is often assumed. Undaunted, populist leaders exploit uncertainty to suggest that simple solutions will work. I suggest that the responses of such leaders have been characterised by incompetent leadership, denialist leadership, panic leadership, othering leadership and authoritarian leadership. I also consider the implications of the crisis for business leadership, suggesting that already strained relationships within organisations are likely to deteriorate still further. Critical leadership studies has an important contribution to make in challenging self-serving theories of business that have come to guide much leadership decision-making. We have an opportunity to do research that really matters, and participate in vital conversations about how the theory and practice of leadership can contribute to better outcomes from the coronavirus crisis, and others still to come

The critical incident technique reappraised: using critical incidents to illuminate organizational practices and build theory

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to offer a reconceptualization of the critical incident technique (CIT) and affirm its utility in management and organization studies. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing a case study from a leadership context, the paper applies the CIT to explore various leadership behaviours in the context of nonprofit boards in Canada. Semi-structured critical incident interviews were used to collect behavioural data from 53 participants – board chairs, board directors, and executive directors – from 18 diverse nonprofit organizations in Alberta, Canada. Findings: While exploiting the benefits of a typicality of events, in some instances the authors were able to validate aspects of transformational leadership theory, in other instances the authors found that theory falls short in explaining the relationships between organizational actors. The authors argue that the CIT potentially offers the kind of “thick description” that is particularly useful in theory building in the field. Research limitations/implications: Drawing on interview material, the authors suggest that incidents can be classified based on frequency of occurrence and their salience to organizational actors, and explore the utility of this distinction for broader theory building purposes. Practical implications: Principally, the paper proposes that this method of investigation is under-utilized by organization and management researchers. Given the need for thick description in the field, the authors suggest that the approach outlined generates exceptionally rich data that can illuminate multiple organizational phenomena. Social implications: The role of nonprofit boards is of major importance for those organizations and the clients that they serve. This paper shed new light on the leadership dynamics at the top of these organizations and therefore can help to guide improved practice by those in board and senior management positions. Originality/value: The CIT is a well-established technique. However, it is timely to revisit it as a core technique in qualitative research and promote its greater use by researchers. In addition, the authors offer a novel view of incidents as typical, atypical, prototypical or archetypal of organizational phenomena that extends the analytical value of the approach in new directions

Editorial transitions – hail and farewell

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The triumph of nonsense in management studies

More management scholars than ever are expressing concern about the state of our field. Complaints include the suggestion that many publications are written purely to further our careers rather than to advance knowledge. Our discipline is in crisis. We neglect really important issues in favor of bite-sized chunks of research that are more likely to find quick publication in leading journals. Given that such journals insist on the primacy of theory development, we also increasingly resort to pretentious and long-winded prose to at least create the illusion of “theory development.” The result is writing that can only be understood by those already on the inside of the debates it references. As opposed to “imposter syndrome,” in which qualified people doubt their suitability for a given job, I suggest that many of us have become “genuine imposters” in that we pretend to be doing more important work, and more competently, than we really are. Finally, I propose changes in our mind-sets and journal practices to restore some sense of deeper purpose to what we do

Communication skills for effective management.

It is now widely recognized that communication is at the very heart of effective management. There is therefore an ever-expanding demand for valid and generalizable information on how best to relate to people in organizational contexts. Communication Skills for Effective Management meets this demand. It demonstrates how, for managers to be successful, they need to employ a range of key communication skills, styles and strategies. The contents are based upon the authors' considerable experiences of researching, teaching and consulting in a range of private and public sector organisations. From their academic and real-world involvement they have identified the core skills of effective management, presented in an academically rigorous yet student-friendly way, the reader is encouraged to interact with the material covered. Each chapter contains a series of boxed text, diagrams, tables and illustrations which summarise core points. Exercises are also provided to enable managers to put the material reviewed into practice. All of this is underpinned and supported by a firm foundation of research findings. This will be an excellent text for undergraduate business and management students studying business communication and MBA students. Practising managers will also find this book to be an invaluable resource