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Leading and Following (Un)ethically in Limen

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Abstract

We propose a liminality-based analysis of the process of ethical leadership/followership in organizations. A liminal view presents ethical leadership as a process taking place in organizational contexts that are often characterized by high levels of ambiguity, which render the usual rules and preferences dubious or inadequate. In these relational spaces, involving leaders, followers, and their context, old frames may be questioned and new ones introduced in an emergent way, through subtle processes whose evolution and implications may not be easy to grasp even by those participating in them.

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Acknowledgments

Miguel Cunha gratefully acknowledges support from Nova Forum. A preliminary version was presented at the EBEN Research Conference 2009, Beer-Sheva, Israel. We thank the participants in our session, and acknowledge the feedback obtained from the Journal during the review process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Rua Marquês de Fronteira, 20, 1099-038, Lisboa, Portugal

    Miguel Pina e Cunha

  2. Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus de Campolide, 1099-032, Lisboa, Portugal

    Nuno Guimarães-Costa

  3. Departamento de Economia, Gestão e Engenharia Industrial, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 , Aveiro, Portugal

    Arménio Rego

  4. Centre for Management and Organization Studies, Faculty of Business, University of Technology Sydney, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, NSW, 2007, Australia

    Stewart R. Clegg

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  1. Miguel Pina e Cunha
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  4. Stewart R. Clegg
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Correspondence to Miguel Pina e Cunha.

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e Cunha, M.P., Guimarães-Costa, N., Rego, A. et al. Leading and Following (Un)ethically in Limen . J Bus Ethics 97, 189–206 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-010-0504-3

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