Identity Construction in the Transitional Context of an In-House Leadership Development Programme: An inter-subjective perspective

Seminar abstract

Based on an in-depth case study, this paper explores the inter-subjective nature of leadership development (LD) practices and associated processes of identity contruction on the fringes of an in-house Leadership Development Programme (LDP).

Previous research has tended to narrowly focus on individuals as LDP participants and their struggles with the content and methodologies of LDPs situated outside of their daily working relationships. In light of a scarcity of research that offers contextually grounded analyses of LD, we put the organisational context centre stage.

Through a contextual analyse, we illustrate that leader identity construction associated with a LD initiative occurs not only in relation to the content, process and particular disciplinary mechanisms adopted within the confines of a given LDPs training environment, but it takes place in relation to and in negotiation with other organisation members in a particular work setting as participants go about their working lives.

More specifically, we demonstrate how collective LD can lead to interrelated and multilayered struggles with leader identity construction processes not only among its participants but also among and between other organisational group members, in our case the executives championing the LD initiative.

We argue that the adoption of an inter-subjective identity construction perspective is a particularly useful lens for the exploration of leader identity development.

Booking

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Speaker bio

Dr Sylwia Ciuk is Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies at Oxford Brookes Business School, Oxford Brookes University.

Sylwia's background is in sociology and applied linguistics. Her research interest include

• Leadership (in particular leader-followers dynamics and expatriate leadership)
• culture change
• organisational identity (change)
• qualitative research methods
• organisational ethnography

with evolving ideas around the issues of power, control and resistance in organisational change as well as a critical perspective on leadership development.

Dr Ciuk recent research activities have been exploring different aspects of language diversity in subsidiaries of multinational enterprises, particularly in relation to their micro-political dimension.

Her work has been published in;

• British Journal of Management
• Human Relations
• Management and Learning
• Journal of Global Mobility
• Personnel Review