Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Masters of the universe
T2 - demystifying leadership in the context of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis
AU - Knights, David
AU - McCabe, Darren
PY - 2015/4
Y1 - 2015/4
N2 - There have been numerous explanations of the 2008 global financial crisis, ranging from the greed of the bankers to excessive deregulation due to neoliberalism and the financialization of everything. This paper argues that a discussion of parallels between the crisis and leadership discourses can generate new insights into both. Through an empirical study of the subjectivity of leaders in a UK building society, discourses around both leadership and the crisis are argued to reflect and reproduce similar taken-for-granted assumptions about subjectivity and representations of organizational and economic life. These are grounded in the belief that leaders are ‘Masters of the Universe’, who are able to predict and secure the future. The authors believe that these assumptions and representations contributed to the crisis and are now in danger of producing yet another bubble.
AB - There have been numerous explanations of the 2008 global financial crisis, ranging from the greed of the bankers to excessive deregulation due to neoliberalism and the financialization of everything. This paper argues that a discussion of parallels between the crisis and leadership discourses can generate new insights into both. Through an empirical study of the subjectivity of leaders in a UK building society, discourses around both leadership and the crisis are argued to reflect and reproduce similar taken-for-granted assumptions about subjectivity and representations of organizational and economic life. These are grounded in the belief that leaders are ‘Masters of the Universe’, who are able to predict and secure the future. The authors believe that these assumptions and representations contributed to the crisis and are now in danger of producing yet another bubble.
U2 - 10.1111/1467-8551.12088
DO - 10.1111/1467-8551.12088
M3 - Journal article
VL - 26
SP - 197
EP - 210
JO - British Journal of Management
JF - British Journal of Management
SN - 1045-3172
IS - 2
ER -