TY - JOUR

T1 - Methodological Crises and Contextual Solutions

T2 - an ethnomethodologically-informed approach to understanding leadership

AU - Iszatt-White, Marian

N1 - “The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Leadership, 7 (2), 2011, © SAGE Publications Ltd, 2011 by SAGE Publications Ltd at the Leadership page: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journals/Journal201698 on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/

PY - 2011/5

Y1 - 2011/5

N2 - The view of context as something which restricts the range of research but is not an integral part of that which is being researched is implicit in many traditional approaches to leadership theory development. Some recent approaches have sought to address this by taking a more directly situated approach to the understanding of leadership, and by paying close attention to the practical accomplishment of leadership work within a given context. It is the premise of this paper, however, that there is still much work to be done in this important aspect of leadership research, and that considering this from a specifically methodological perspective may have a contribution to make. In support of this argument, the paper adopts the ethnomethodological notion of ‘mutual elaboration’ to explore leadership practices as irreducibly events in a social order. By placing context centre stage, and explicating the practice of leadership as an inherently contextual performance, it offers a relatively untapped approach to the understanding of leadership work and suggests the value of this approach in providing a rich resource of data for the development of innovative theory.

AB - The view of context as something which restricts the range of research but is not an integral part of that which is being researched is implicit in many traditional approaches to leadership theory development. Some recent approaches have sought to address this by taking a more directly situated approach to the understanding of leadership, and by paying close attention to the practical accomplishment of leadership work within a given context. It is the premise of this paper, however, that there is still much work to be done in this important aspect of leadership research, and that considering this from a specifically methodological perspective may have a contribution to make. In support of this argument, the paper adopts the ethnomethodological notion of ‘mutual elaboration’ to explore leadership practices as irreducibly events in a social order. By placing context centre stage, and explicating the practice of leadership as an inherently contextual performance, it offers a relatively untapped approach to the understanding of leadership work and suggests the value of this approach in providing a rich resource of data for the development of innovative theory.

KW - leadership

KW - ethnomethodology

U2 - 10.1177/1742715010394734

DO - 10.1177/1742715010394734

M3 - Journal article

VL - 7

SP - 121

EP - 137

JO - Leadership

JF - Leadership

SN - 1742-7150

IS - 2

ER -