Leadership, Identity and Institutions
We are a research micro-community of the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics consisting of Boston College doctoral students and faculty who study the intersection of Leadership, Identity and Insitutions. Collectively, our work examines a diverse array of leadership processes and practices through the primary lenses of identity and institutional theories. Across our different research projects, we examine leadership dynamics, as well as their antecedents and effects, particularly as they relate to organizational identity; organizational members' identification, the institutionalization of organizational values, meaning and purpose, and network ties and structures. We use qualitative and quantitative methods that analyze a variety of data, including organizational interviews and discourse, archival texts, symbols and artifacts, historical narratives, surveys of individuals' attitudes, behaviors, and structured networks of relationships. Studying how leadership affects both change and persistence in organizations and institutions is a core theme.
Current members include: Mamta Bhatt, Rick Cotton, Rich DeJordy, Mary Ann Glynn, Dan Halgin, and Ian Walsh (all from BC) and Jesper Schlaimowitz, a doctoral fellow visiting from the Copenhagen Business School. For more information, please contact Rich DeJordy, the 2007-08 Doctoral Fellow for the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics, at dejordy@bc.edu. A brief description of our members and their research interests follows.
Mamta Bhatt is a 4th year doctoral student in Organization Studies. Her primary research interests include identity and identification, non-traditional work arrangements, such as contingent work and mobile work, and cross-cultural issues. Currently, she is working on her dissertation, titled "Relational identity at the boundaries: Examining how consultants experience and manage their relational identity vis-a-vis their clients." It is a qualitative study in which Mamta focuses on the consultant-client relationship from the consultant's perspective. Specifically, she investigates how consultants understand and manage the boundary between them and the client's employees. The findings of this study will have implications for leadership in such settings, particularly in informing project leader's decisions regarding staffing and deployment, team orientation, and client servicing.
Rick Cotton is a 3rd year doctoral student whose research is primarily at the intersection of careers and postitive organizational scholarship, with a particular focus on developmental networks of persons to whom focal individuals ascribe career and psychosocial support in their quest for identity and extraordinary career achievement. His current research project focuses on analyzing the most important relationships of several groups of leaders inducted into halls of fame from different industries. Data collection and analyses are currently underway.
Rich DeJordy is a PhD Candidate in Boston College's Organization Studies Department. His research is in social conformity, focusing particularly on contextual, network, and identity based mechanisms. In particular, his recent research has focused on institutional theory and agency in institutional contexts. His dissertation focuses on why and how leaders act as guardians of the values embedded in institutional arrangements, especially when they are contested. He is also co-author, with Mary Ann Glynn, of "Leadership Through an Organizational Behavior Lens: A Look at the Last Half-Century of Research," to be presented at the HBS Colloquium Leadership: Advancing an Intellectual Discipline, June, 2008.
Mary Ann Glynn is Professor of Organization Studies and, by courtesy, Professor of Sociology at Boston College and Adjunct Professor at the Copenhagen Business School. She is the Inaugural Fellow and Research Director for the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics. Her current research projects focus on organizational identity, institutionalization processes, the positive dynamics of organizing and leadership.
Dan Halgin is a 5th year doctoral student who enjoys researching leaders' careers, social networks, and cultural influences on organizational leadership. His current research project is entitled "All in the Family: Network Ties as Determinants of the Reputation and Identity of Organizational Leaders." In this study, Dan investigates the role of network affiliation ties (defined as historical co-location employment overlaps) as determinants of career advancement and career resilience of organizational leaders. He focuses on clusters of affiliated leaders that make identity claims using family language amd imagery and are recognized as network groups by external audiences. Dan investigates the hypothesis that leaders affiliated with recognized network groups obtain more prestigious positions and exhibit greater career resilience due to external image benefits and internal identity benefits derived from group membership. Data collection and analyses are currently underway.
Ian Walsh is a 5th year doctoral candidate in Organizational Behavior. Ian's dissertation research investigates the persistence of organizational afterlife, or ongoing organizing that preserves valued organizational elements after an organization dies. He is examining the role of enduring "deep structure" identification as a means to explain individuals' propensity to participate in afterlife-related activities. He is currently conducting data collection with a survey of former employees of two defunct technology companies: Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Data General Corporation (DG). Ian's research interests center on the theme of redemptive organizing. He researches those instances of organizational life where individual and organizational change transform negatively-valenced conditions into constructive outcomes. In addition to his dissertation research, he is also studying the role of adult attachment in the creation and persistence of deep structure identification, mourning as a generative mechanism in organizational life, and the role of leaders in crafting legacy organizational identities.