What Is “This” a Case of? Generative Theorizing for Disruptive Times

Langley, Ann

doi:10.1177/10564926211016545

Cited by 26 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…In doing so, we seek to capture the richness of ‘human plurality … within specific relational contexts at different moments in time’ ( Gardiner, 2016 : 633). We treat the pandemic as an opportunity for generative theorising ( Langley, 2021 ) – an occasion for sensemaking but also an occasion for sensegiving to the responses people gave following societal concerns, such as the PPE shortage. The analysis of practices of unleading, which were spontaneous and improvised by their actants, shows a complex discursive structure, far removed from an aleatory succession of disintegrated narratives without connection.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unleading, in this sense, is a case for generative organisational theorising with its focus on process and practices ( Langley, 2021 ). As Langley (2021 : 252) defines in relation to the pandemic, ‘it is not the effects at a single point in time that are so interesting, but the temporally evolving processes they give rise to’. In this respect, unleading has become a sensitising concept in our intellectual inquiry ( Blumer, 1954 ).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unleading during a pandemic: Scrutinising leadership and its impact in a state of exception

2022

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Characterising COVID-19 pandemic as a ‘state of exception’, we might expect great hero models of leadership to come to the fore. Instead, drawing on a thematic analysis of 246 news articles, this paper illustrates something different: communities, companies, individuals picked-up the leadership mantle but were reluctant to frame their practices under a leadership rhetoric. The paper explores spontaneous initiatives and leaderly actions that were made visible during the pandemic and proposes practice-based implications for redrawing leadership conceptualisations. These practices, coined as unleading, are characterised under four dimensions: unconditionality and social intention; purposeful action in the absence of an achievement motivation; sensing and attending to local conditions; and confident connecting and collaborating. The analysis and discussion of the four dimensions affirm that while leading and unleading are always present when organising, they are more or less visible and practiced depending on organisational, social and individual circumstances. The paper concludes by surfacing questions and reflections for the future of unleading and implications for leadership theorising and practice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unleading during a pandemic: Scrutinising leadership and its impact in a state of exception

2022

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“…- --------------------------------------------INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE ---------------------------------------------Since a strong process approach requires paying acute attention to subtle microevents (Fachin & Langley, 2018;Langley, Smallman, Tsoukas and Van de Ven, 2013), in the third stage of our analysis, we traced and compared these leadership moments through multiple microevents (Langley, 2021), noting the fluctuations in the intensity of activities and the changes in rhythm occurring during the service. In what follows, we use vignettes (Langley, 2021) to illustrate that the "work" of leadership in turbulent and fluctuating environments consists of reorienting the flows of collective action. Leadership moments shape the flow of activity and thereby constantly refocus collective action.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Leadership Moments are Enacted within a Strict Hierarchy: The case of kitchen brigades in haute cuisine restaurants

Lortie

Cabantous

Sardais

2022

Organization Studies

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This paper employs a strong process approach to leadership – one that focuses on leadership moments in action – to explore how collaborative leadership emerges within a hierarchical context. Drawing on observation in three Haute Cuisine restaurant kitchen brigades – highly hierarchical teams that deal with intense time pressures – we document empirically in the ongoing flow of experience how leadership moments reorient collective action as a response to an unstable environment. Moreover, we show how collaborative leadership emerges from a hierarchical structure, counterintuitively, during the most critical period of the service. Our contribution is twofold. We offer a novel conceptualization of the emergence of plural leadership within a hierarchical context, one that highlights the capacity to reframe the way of working together during the most critical moments of an unfolding situation. In addition, our work contributes to the strong process approach to leadership through the methodology adopted: rather than exploring how turning points are discursively enacted, we focus on these as manifested in action and in the non-verbal aspects displayed at such moments.

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“…Nevertheless, they matter a great deal to developing a better understanding of the process through which grand challenges come to be and the actions they motivate. As Langley (2021) and other organizational scholars (see, e.g., Schoeneborn, Vásquez, & Cornelissen, this volume) argue, labels and metaphors matter, for they guide our collective associations with, and understandings of, phenomena and their processual nature. Metaphors "promote particular understandings that may then influence how people assign blame for distressing events, or behave in the face of them" (Langley, 2021, p. 254).…”

Section: Looking Left and Rightmentioning

confidence: 94%

Surfing the Grand Challenges Wave in Management Scholarship: How Did We Get Here, Where are We Now, and What's Next?

Howard‐Grenville¹,

Spengler²

2022

Research in the Sociology of Organizations

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Research on grand challenges in the management literature is vibrant and growing. Given that the term "grand challenges" was first invoked in our field 10 years ago, it is timely to reflect on how we came to this point -and where we might go from here. In this article, we first explore the origins of the concept of grand challenges in order to trace core assumptions and developments and understand how they shape the current conversation about grand challenges in management scholarship. We next convey findings from our review of 161 papers that cite the editorial for a grand challenges special issue (George, Howard-Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016), uncovering four ways in which papers are shaping the conversation on grand challenges. Finally, based on our perspective on how we got here and where we are now, we make several suggestions for what should come next in driving forward research on grand challenges. We urge scholars to go beyond the study of collaboration for tackling grand challenges and shift toward a more critical, yet generative, exploration of their construction, persistence, and unintended consequences. We also call for increased attention to theorizing grand challenges to guide practitioners' understanding of the nature of the thing they are trying to address.

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What Is “This” a Case of? Generative Theorizing for Disruptive Times

Cited by 26 publications

References 50 publications

Unleading during a pandemic: Scrutinising leadership and its impact in a state of exception

Unleading during a pandemic: Scrutinising leadership and its impact in a state of exception

How Leadership Moments are Enacted within a Strict Hierarchy: The case of kitchen brigades in haute cuisine restaurants

Surfing the Grand Challenges Wave in Management Scholarship: How Did We Get Here, Where are We Now, and What's Next?

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