Researching Leadership-As-Practice: The Reappearing Act of Leadership (Routledge Studies in Leadership Research)

"One current challenge of conducting research from the leadership-as-practice perspective is a practical one: how to capture and analyse the elusive practice of leadership within the web of mundane organising processes? Although a number of researchers have attempted to address the issue, there is not yet a definitive 'how to' guide to making sense of the empirical manifestations of leadership practices. The book responds directly to this challenge and offers a theoretical framework and practical guidance to capturing, identifying and analysing evidence of leadership practice emergence; and provides implications of this approach for leadership academics and practitioners. The developed framework enables a method for understanding these leadership instances as they are enacted by individuals within and against the evolving activities of their day-to-day work. The framework is underpinned by cultural-historical activity theory and critical realism and it conceptualises leadership practice by placing agents' actions and interactions within the context of their relationships, objectives, experiences, material and non-material artefacts and wider organising processes and organisational structures; work that has not yet been undertaken in the field. It offers a strong theoretical foundation for further development of our understanding of leadership-as-practice, providing a methodological guidance for undertaking leadership-as-practice research, and enables a discussion on the variety of underlying processes and elements as they emerge from empirical observations. It will be of value to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of business and management with a particular interest in management theory, organisational studies, and leadership research"-- Provided by publisher One current challenge of conducting research from the leadership-aspractice perspective is a practical one: how to capture and analyse the elusive practice of leadership within the web of mundane organising processes. Although a number of researchers have attempted to address the issue, there is not yet a definitive ‘how to’ guide to making sense of the empirical manifestations of leadership practices. The book responds directly to this challenge and offers a theoretical framework and practical guidance to capturing, identifying and analysing evidence of leadership practice emergence and provides implications of this approach for leadership academics and practitioners. The developed framework enables a method for understanding these leadership instances as they are enacted by individuals within and against the evolving activities of their day-to-day work. The framework is underpinned by culturalhistorical activity theory and critical realism, and it conceptualises leadership practice by placing agents’ actions and interactions within the context of their relationships, objectives, experiences, material and non-material artefacts and wider organising processes and organisational structures, work that has not yet been undertaken in the field. It offers a strong theoretical foundation for further development of our understanding of leadership-as-practice, providing a methodological guidance for undertaking leadership-as-practice research, and enables a discussion on the variety of underlying processes and elements as they emerge from empirical observations. It will be of value to researchers, academics, professionals and students in the fields of business and management with a particular interest in management theory, organisational studies and leadership research. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of Tables 9 List of Figures 10 Foreword 11 Preface 14 Acknowledgements 16 1 What Is Leadership-as-Practice? An Introduction 18 2 Why Is There a Need for a Practice View on Leadership? A History of Leadership Representations 28 3 Where Is Leadership Practice? An Adaptation of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory for Studying Organisations 59 4 How to Uncover Leadership Practice? An Example of Applied Methodology 89 5 What Are the Practices of Leadership? Findings From the Fieldwork 128 6 So What? Implications for Leadership Research and Practice Development 196 7 What Next? Conclusion and Ideas for the Future 234 Index 247