Colleagueship in the Making: Exploring Tensions of Social Ordering in Collegial Relations (Presentation at The Annual Meeting of Academy of Management 2020)

Abstract

<p>Leadership is traditionally predominantly defined as a leader-centered and individual activity, which precedes organizational development, change or success. Role of colleagueship, the phenomenon of leadership among colleagues, who might hold relatively equal positions in an organizational hierarchy, remains underexplored in organization research. This paper redirects an attention from prevailing leader-driven approaches to the role of each colleague at the workplace as an active change agent. The research question guiding our paper is: how do tensions of social ordering are constructed in collegial relations. Our paper offers the findings from the empirical fieldwork in one case organization from banking industry. By drawing on interviews and ethnographic observations, we identify that colleagueship is constructed and maintained in and through three overarching tensions of identifying, coopeting and legitimizing. The paper concludes by discussing the importance of noticing the phenomenon of colleagueship which may substitute and supplement leadership in contemporary organizations to share power and responsibility in organizing joint achievements.<br></p>