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The world is in a pandemic situation. Shifting to remote working has become a priority for many companies and remote work has become new normal. In doing so, industrial organizations are experiencing new challenges. Moving to the online way of working, new working conditions and different practical challenges they bring have created empirical context highly relevant for studying leadership which is currently a hot topic among scholars. Almost all studies, in the context of remote working, emphasize the importance of leadership.  Nevertheless, it is argued that the most recent literature and work on leadership have remained the leader-centered approach highly employed within traditional leadership literature. The leader-centered approach focuses on individual leaders and their traits, abilities, and actions, and thus contributes to placing the abstract phenomenon of leadership into distinct individuals, thereby supporting the taken-for-granted assumption that leadership is a single-person, heroic, task. Instead, scholars call for more studies that investigate leadership as ongoing social production of direction through constructions of space of action by actors in certain practice/practices. This emergent movement in leadership research is known as leadership as practice.  Accordingly, the aim of this thesis is to investigate leadership within the remote working environment, from leadership as practice perspective and through the construction of actors’ space of action. This includes an analysis of current leadership practices in relation to the construction of space of action as well as the analysis of practices that might potentially contribute to improving the current ones in doing so.  An interview study has been carried out at the three companies in Serbia, Germany, and the UK with a qualitative approach. The thesis builds on a theoretical framework and empirical data that have been collected through an extensive literature review and semi-structured interviews using an open-ended interview guide.  The result suggests that the current leadership practices are narrowing down the space of action. Also, the analysis of empirical data revealed that certain leadership practices have the potential to contribute to the construction of space of action within a remote working environment. The thesis’s insights might help companies to improve their own practices.

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Syfte: Det finns en växande trend med ökad kulturell mångfald i samhället, organisationer och inom individer. Bikulturalism innebär specifik kompetens som underlättar ett relationsbyggande inom kulturell mångfald. Arbete organiseras dock ofta virtuellt, vilket försvårar relationsbyggandet. Syftet är att skapa ökad förståelse om bikulturella ledare och deras ledarskap i globala virtuella grupper (GVG). Hur visar sig bikulturella ledares kulturella kompetens i GVG?    Metod: En kvalitativ fallstudie som görs i en global organisation, marknadsledare inom sin sektor. Organisationen värdesätter mångfald och erbjuder en intressant kontext för studien. Studien antar ett abduktivt angreppssätt och semistrukturerade intervjuer gjordes med bikulturella ledare inom GVG. Teman identifierades från resultaten och presenteras under kategorier som kan härledas till teori om kulturell intelligens, CQ.  Resultat & slutsats: Studien bekräftar tidigare forskning (Hong, 2010) om att bikulturella ledare, tack vare sin kulturella kompetens, är bra på att bygga relationer inom kulturell mångfald. Studiens resultat visar att detta även gäller inom en virtuell kontext.  Examensarbetets bidrag: Resultaten visar att relationer byggs virtuellt genom strategier för informell interaktion. Vår studie bidrar med två nya insikter. För det första, hur mer spontana virtuella informella möten kan skapas i praktiken, vilket är relevant för organisationer som arbetar i virtuella kontexter. För det andra, en ny insikt som inte har uppmärksammats i tidigare forskning om att virtuella informella möten också har fördelar som bidrar positivt till gruppens sammanhållning.  Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Studiens resultat kan förstärkas genom studier inom andra typer av organisationer. Vidare kan kvantitativa metoder resultera i större generaliseringar av resultaten. / Aim: There is a growing trend of cultural diversity in the society, organizations and within individuals. Biculturalism means competence that facilitates relationship building in cultural diversity. Work is often organized virtually, which complicates the building of relations. The aim is to create more understanding about bicultural leaders and their leadership in global virtual teams (GVT). How does bicultural leaders’ cultural competence manifest in GVT?  Method: Qualitative case study in a global organization, a market leader in its sector. The organization values diversity and provides an interesting context. An abductive approach is used and semi-structured interviews were conducted with bicultural leaders in GVT. Recurrent themes were identified from the results and are presented under categories, derived from theory about cultural intelligence, CQ.  Result & Conclusions: This study confirms earlier research (Hong, 2010) that bicultural leaders, due to their cultural competence, are skillful in building relations within cultural diversity. The results show moreover, that this is also true in a virtual context.   Contribution of the thesis: The results reveal that relations are built virtually by using strategies for informal interaction. Our study contributes with two new insights. Firstly, how more spontaneous virtual informal meetings can be created in practice, which is relevant for organizations working in virtual contexts. Secondly, a new insight that has not been given attention in earlier research, that virtual informal meetings also have advantages that positively contributes to group cohesion.  Suggestions for future research: The results can be confirmed with studies in other types of organizations. Quantitative methods can result in larger generalizations.

This research into Baptist leadership examines the processes of Christian leadership in terms of human relationships in churches under the microscope of a leadership theory known as leader member exchange theory (LMX), and discovers the correlation between a high level of LMX in a local church and the positive outcomes of leader legitimation in a society where pastoral tenure and pastoral termination project disheartening statistics. LMX theory is particularly suited for the study of the Baptist congregational leadership paradigm with emphasis on heightened follower participation in dyadic relationships between the pastor and church members. In the light of current convoluted leadership praxis, provides an appropriate theoretical tool for relational analysis. The background to this thesis is the perceived growing inclination among Baptist pastors to adopt a leadership paradigm, which exalts the person and role of the pastor to the exclusion of the church members. This “great man theory” is being modeled from sources that focus on church growth rather than church health, and represents a departure from servant leadership, which has long been the model for Baptists in general. This “new” trend of charismatic leadership may be one of the reasons for the inclination toward shorter tenures and pastoral termination, among Baptists, particularly in the USA. Understanding the peculiarities of congregational government is of particular importance to the research, with emphasis on the perceptions and expectations of church members regarding current leadership in their local church, and how the perception of personal value correlation translates into member satisfaction. The Literature on leadership offers a multiplicity of innovative ideas, mostly focused on the leader, and after literature research into the subjects of transactional transformational, complexity theory, and servant leadership no single theory of leadership offers completeness, hence the term quantum or complexity will assist in moving Baptist pastors from average leadership. <p.Critical elements of LMX were identified in the literature and processed into the questionnaire, which was distributed to among Baptist churches in South Africa and the United States. The results of the research are then analysed in the light of LMX theory, and the conclusion that in the congregational structure of Baptists, LMX theory offers valuable insights into member satisfaction. The characteristic of practical theology is the critical correlation of theological insight and empirical observation that will result in a new theory of praxis, and the final purpose is to focus attention on the positive outcome of healthy leader member exchange in local churches and the extended zone of influence through enhanced legitimation of pastoral leadership. / Thesis (PhD (Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Practical Theology / PhD / unrestricted

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