Title of Dissertation:
Implementing Globally Responsible Leadership in Business: A Relationally-Responsive Way of Thinking and Acting
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Josef Wieland
University: Zeppelin Universität Friedrichshafen
Scholarship: KSG Scholarship
Cohort: 1. Cohort, 2014-2017
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Short Abstract
Organizations are cooperative arrangements where partners/staffs with varying personal motive collaborate and work together to attain a common organizational goal. There are many different ways to collaborate among all of which involves relational extent. Hence, encouraging a relationally-responsive way of thinking and acting seems to be an important responsibility of leadership in business. The research at hand explores the phenomenon of exchange among cooperating partners in multi-national enterprises (MNEs) in India.
Moreover, in the context of leader-member exchange relationships, this research has a well-built focus to analyse and develop the elements that can enable a culture of being relationally-responsive. Leadership here is defined as a cooperative behaviour which involves moral consensus of exchange partners on its governance, rules or procedures. An increased degree of cooperation implies an increased moral complexity, demanding leader’s to enable themselves and their teams (cooperating partners) to practice moral cooperation to compete in the globalized world and organizations. Since cooperation tends to exhibit moral complexities, the interplay of the elements Relational Leadership Competency framework (Wieland, 2017): (a) willingness to cooperate (b) ability to cooperate and (c) the creation of a cooperation rent; and elements of moral capability formation (Wieland, 2014) i.e. moral aware-ness, moral perception, moral acceptance and moral commitment seems to be an important aspect to facilitate relationally-responsive culture. A mixed research design is used to explore leader-member exchange relationships within globally expanding organizations operating in India. The research follows a normative approach to establish how an exchange partner can have a long term successful relationship. The sample size includes only MNEs with a highly professional management teams. This research contributes to the field of organizational leadership by developing a pro-cess framework that illustrates the main and support processes that enable cooperation in a leader-member exchange relationship. Furthermore, the study also attempts to (1) analyse the interplay between the moral disposition of a leader and the components of relational leadership competency framework (2) ascertain leader-member relational values that exhibit the capabilities to promote relationship building.
Apparently, for practitioners (specific to India), it is critical not only to focus on organizational formal mechanisms but also on relationship building. In this context, diverse motives and priorities of organizational human resources require appropriate responses from the leadership position. From the research findings, some best practices emerged of how to sustain a long-term relationship. This paper also provides theoretical and practical implications of these ideas for organizational behaviour, organizational leadership and leadership theory.
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PhD Related Publications
Fischer, D., & Singh, P. (2020). Relational Leadership Within Business Partnerships In India: A Process Framework. Journal of Applied Business Research (JABR), 36(5), 205-228. https://clutejournals.com/index.php/JABR/article/view/10359