Ethical leadership: African lessons for international management

Story, Joana S P; Guimarães-Costa, Nuno; Pina E Cunha, Miguel; Kamoche, Ken; Rego, Arménio

Abstract

Scholarship on ethical leadership is vast. However, scholarship at the interface of ethics, leadership and organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is still scarce. We draw from literature about leadership in Africa to (a) identify three research streams (functional, cultural, and critical) and (b) use these streams to make sense of research on ethics, organizations and leadership in SSA, as well as to analyze opportunities for future research. We do so by proposing four interpretative modes or approaches that allow the advancement of research in the field of ethical leadership in SSA. We argue that more paradigmatically diverse research on SSA is extremely important as it can allow for the development of textured theories on the context as well as open possibilities for revitalizing organization theory. The study of leadership and ethics in SSA may be an interesting arena to explore a number of tensions and paradoxes that are pervasive in organization theory. If paradox theory is crystallizing prematurely around a number of tensions, the SSA context may contribute to the release of the study of paradox from the straightjacket of convergence and reveal a number of tensions permeating the practice of international management.

Citation

Story, J. S. P., Guimarães-Costa, N., Pina E Cunha, M., Kamoche, K., & Rego, A. (2022). Ethical leadership: African lessons for international management. Management International, 26(3), 140-158. https://doi.org/10.7202/1090299ar

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 21, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Jul 6, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022
• Deposit Date: Jun 29, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 7, 2023
• Journal: Management International
• Print ISSN: 1206-1697
• Electronic ISSN: 1918-9222
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 26
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 140-158
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1090299ar
• Keywords: Ethics, leadership, Sub-Saharan Africa, Cultural values, Post-colonial theory
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/8766664
• Publisher URL: https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/mi/2022-v26-n3-mi07094/1090299ar/
• Related Public URLs: https://www.managementinternational.ca/en/