Title: Conceptualising socially contributive leadership among Indian organisational leaders: a qualitative study

Authors: Bhumika

Addresses: Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, Prabandh Nagar, IIM Road, Lucknow 226013, India

Abstract: The study attempts to explore how the proposed concept of socially contributive leadership (SCL) initiates and sustains the process of 'social contribution' as a call of the personal-conscience of an organisational leader. Constructionist grounded theory (CGT) methodology was applied to identify the process of contribution through SCL. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 48 Indian organisational leaders, and secondary data were collected about four organisational leaders. The CGT analysis of data resulted in four categories depicting the nature of socially contributive leadership, namely 'inducing socially conscientious values', 'empowering the disadvantaged', 'deconstructing irrelevant social categorisation', and 'creating and seizing upon the opportunities to sensitise people'. This study illustrates the nature of SCL and the process of initiating and sustaining social change by engaging with and giving primacy to the issues of the external stakeholders while motivating the internal stakeholders to synergise their action as a mechanism to achieve social contribution.

Keywords: leadership; social contributions; constructionist grounded theory.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICBM.2021.116136

International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 2021 Vol.23 No.3, pp.343 - 363

Received: 05 Jun 2020
Accepted: 12 Jul 2020
Published online: 12 Jul 2021 *

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