Title: Relational dysfunctionality: leadership interactions in a Sarbanes-Oxley Act implementation project

Authors: Monica Lindgren, Johann Packendorff, Henrik Tham

Addresses: KTH – Royal Institute of Technology, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Lindstedtsvagen 30, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. ' KTH – Royal Institute of Technology, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Lindstedtsvagen 30, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. ' KTH – Royal Institute of Technology, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Lindstedtsvagen 30, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: Extant leadership literatures tend to favour the positive and the normative over the negative and descriptive, and context-free individuals over situated organisational interaction. Dysfunctional leadership thus usually becomes a matter of evil individuals deviating from established norms, rather than how leadership interaction processes unfold. In this paper, we view leadership interaction processes in terms of construction of direction, coorientation and action space. We apply this perspective to an empirical study of an organisational change project in a sub-unit of a multinational corporation. Conceptual consequences of the proposed perspective are discussed in terms of confused direction, deteriorating coorientation and delimited action space.

Keywords: relational leadership; social construction; dysfunctional leadership; leadership interaction; practices; direction; coorientation; action space; Sarbanes-Oxley Act; organisational change.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2011.037780

European Journal of International Management, 2011 Vol.5 No.1, pp.13 - 29

Published online: 11 Jan 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article