Leadership cultures and discursive hybridisation

In a new article in International Journal of Public Leadership, Lucia Crevani, Marianne Ekman, Monica Lindgren and Johann Packendorff explore the concept of leadership culture and analyse how leadership cultures are produced in higher education reforms, in a hybridised discursive context of traditional academic values and emerging managerialism and leaderism. Building on a perspective on leadership as a cultural phenomenon emerging in processes in which societal, sectorial and professional discursive resources are invoked, the study adds to earlier studies on how notions of leadership are involved in the transformation of higher education organisations. To this end, the method combines a traditional qualitative study of change initiatives over a long period of time with participative observation. Focusing on two vignettes, the analysis centres on how several discursive resources are drawn upon in daily interaction. The paper emphasises how hybrid cultures develop through confirmation, re-formulation and rejection of discursive influences. Read more