ABSTRACT

This study highlights deficits in current leadership concepts; and offers new perspectives through the application of a critical realist analysis. Whilst today’s business world is changing and needs effective leadership to survive, nevertheless, leadership is poorly understood, and current leadership research lacks a unified theory or framework. Such a unified framework is suggested here, based on a layered ontology of leadership. It argues that the causal configuration of leadership – the multiple interacting causes that result in its emergence – is best understood as the interplay between the key mechanism of power, along with human agency and collaborative agency, within specific structural and contextual conditions. This explanation requires a critical realist design of a layered ontology; it would not be possible from the perspectives of either positivism or constructivism.

摘要

这项研究突出了当前领导观念的不足；并通过应用批判性现实主义分析提供新的观点。尽管当今的商业环境正在发生变化，并且需要有效的领导才能生存，但是，人们对领导的了解却很少，并且当前的领导力研究缺乏统一的理论或框架。在此基于分层领导本体提出了这样一个统一的框架。它认为，领导力的因果结构（导致领导层出现的多种相互作用的原因）最好理解为权力关键机制之间的相互作用。，以及在特定结构和背景条件下的人员代理和协作代理。这种解释需要对分层本体进行批判的现实主义设计。从实证主义或建构主义的角度来看都是不可能的。