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Title Constructing a leadership model: derived from a South African business leader's life-story
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/10210/3036
Date 2008
Author(s) Beyleveld, Arnold
Contributor(s) Prof. Willem J. Schurink
Abstract D.Phil. - The aim of the study was to explore and understand the emerging leadership challenges in order to further enhance the development of leadership and management in the information technology industry in South Africa. A combined casing and life-story approach in this modernist qualitative research study was employed. Selective sampling, as described by Plummer (1983; 2001) as part of his critical humanistic approach, was employed to select the CEO, Mr X, from a particular South African information technology company. Data were obtained mainly from solicited sources, but also some that were unsolicited. This resulted in a life story containing rich descriptive data obtained at first hand from Mr X's professional career and associated areas of his life. The life -story of this storyteller was organised manually as well as with the aid of ATLAS-Ti 5.0, a computer-based software package suitable for this type of study. The leadership landscape model of Veldsman (2004), a local expert in the area of leadership, together with key theoretical concepts found in the literature, were used to construct an enhanced leadership model. Appropriate qualitative guidelines were used to ensure a study that attends to both academic rigour and aesthetics. The resultant constructed leadership model offers important, if not unique, insights and findings regarding the leadership environment, individual psychosocial dynamics, competencies and capabilities, as well as leadership roles, modes, styles and processes that contribute to personal leadership effectiveness. The thesis illuminates and offers recommendations for a number of methodological and theoretical implications regarding local and global leadership studies, as well as for practice and policy regarding leadership and managerial development.
Subject(s) Leadership; Information technology; Information technology management; Organizational change management
Language en
Type of publication Thesis
Repository Johannesburg - University of Johannesburg
Added to C-A: 2010-04-22;10:41:48