IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v155y2019i4d10.1007_s10551-018-3900-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Shaping the Shift: Shamanic Leadership, Memes, and Transformation

Author

Listed:
  • Sandra Waddock

    (Boston College)

Abstract

The leader as shaman has three central roles: healer, connector, and sensemaker in the service of a better world. This paper argues that today’s leaders acting as shamans could become ‘shapeshifters,’ or more accurately ‘shape the shift,’ that is engage with organizational and systemic change needed to content with major problems like sustainability issues, climate change, and inequality, which business businesses are increasingly being asked to deal with as part of their societal roles. In the role of sensemaker, business leaders can shape shifts towards great sustainability and responsibility by developing new memes that speak to others and resonate across different people and groups. Memes’ roles in change, as core cultural artifacts, on which values, business strategies, and belief systems (among other things) are built, are generally overlooked but are an important element of shamanic leadership.

Suggested Citation

  • Sandra Waddock, 2019. "Shaping the Shift: Shamanic Leadership, Memes, and Transformation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(4), pages 931-939, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:155:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-018-3900-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3900-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-018-3900-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-018-3900-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Freeman, R. Edward, 1994. "The Politics of Stakeholder Theory: Some Future Directions1," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 409-421, October.
    2. Kelly Levin & Benjamin Cashore & Steven Bernstein & Graeme Auld, 2012. "Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 45(2), pages 123-152, June.
    3. Karl E. Weick & Kathleen M. Sutcliffe & David Obstfeld, 2005. "Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(4), pages 409-421, August.
    4. Karl E. Weick, 1988. "Enacted Sensemaking In Crisis Situations[1]," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 305-317, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Belinda Wade & Andrew Griffiths, 2022. "Exploring the Cognitive Foundations of Managerial (Climate) Change Decisions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(1), pages 15-40, November.
    2. Schlaile, Michael P. & Bogner, Kristina & Muelder, Laura, 2021. "It’s more than complicated! Using organizational memetics to capture the complexity of organizational culture," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 801-812.
    3. Henriksen, Thomas Duus & Nielsen, Rikke Kristine & Vikkelsø, Signe & Bévort, Frans & Mogensen, Mette, 2021. "A paradox rarely comes alone a quantitative approach to investigating knotted leadership paradoxes in SMEs," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 37(1).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kylie J. Gilbey & Sharon Purchase, 2023. "Segmented financial risk tolerances within the standardised initial public offering regulatory environment of the Australian Securities Exchange," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(S1), pages 1447-1475, April.
    2. Costa, Sandra & Coyle-Shapiro, Jacqueline, 2021. "What happens to others matters! An intraindividual processual approach to coworkers’ psychological contract violations," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 109872, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Drencheva, Andreana & Stephan, Ute & Patterson, Malcolm G. & Topakas, Anna, 2021. "Navigating interpersonal feedback seeking in social venturing: The roles of psychological distance and sensemaking," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 36(4).
    4. Cristofaro, Matteo, 2020. "“I feel and think, therefore I am”: An Affect-Cognitive Theory of management decisions," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 344-355.
    5. Tina Comes & Bartel Van de Walle & Luk Van Wassenhove, 2020. "The Coordination‐Information Bubble in Humanitarian Response: Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Investigations," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(11), pages 2484-2507, November.
    6. Sarkar, Soumodip & Osiyevskyy, Oleksiy, 2018. "Organizational change and rigidity during crisis: A review of the paradox," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 47-58.
    7. Timo Busch & Marcel Richert & Matthew Johnson & Sven Lundie, 2020. "Climate inaction and managerial sensemaking: The case of renewable energy," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(6), pages 2502-2514, November.
    8. Martina K. Linnenluecke & Andrew Griffiths & Monika Winn, 2012. "Extreme Weather Events and the Critical Importance of Anticipatory Adaptation and Organizational Resilience in Responding to Impacts," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 17-32, January.
    9. Stephen Harwood, 2023. "Complex Problems and Dealing with them on a Research Methods Course in a Business School," Systemic Practice and Action Research, Springer, vol. 36(4), pages 587-607, August.
    10. Greg Fisher & Emily Neubert, 2023. "Evaluating Ventures Fast and Slow: Sensemaking, Intuition, and Deliberation in Entrepreneurial Resource Provision Decisions," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(4), pages 1298-1326, July.
    11. Alvarenga, Murilo Zamboni & Oliveira, Marcos Paulo Valadares de & Oliveira, Tiago, 2023. "Let’s talk about bad experiences instead of forgetting them: An empirical study on the importance of memory for supply chain disruption management," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    12. Genevieve Musca & Linda Rouleau & Caroline Facq-Mellet & Frédérique Sitri & Sarah de Vogüé, 2018. "From boat to bags: The role of material chronotopes in adaptive sensemaking," Post-Print hal-01928127, HAL.
    13. Nora Meziani & Laure Cabantous, 2020. "Acting Intuition into Sense: How Film Crews Make Sense with Embodied Ways of Knowing," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(7), pages 1384-1419, November.
    14. Anouck Adrot & Jean-Luc Moriceau, 2013. "Introducing performativity to crisis management theory : an illustration from the 2003 French heat wave crisis response," Post-Print hal-01451075, HAL.
    15. Kirsten Martin & Bidhan Parmar, 2012. "Assumptions in Decision Making Scholarship: Implications for Business Ethics Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(3), pages 289-306, February.
    16. Susara E. Merwe & Reinette Biggs & Rika Preiser, 2020. "Sensemaking as an approach for resilience assessment in an Essential Service Organization," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 84-106, March.
    17. Scott Sonenshein, 2009. "Emergence of Ethical Issues During Strategic Change Implementation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 223-239, February.
    18. Ronit Yitshaki & Fredric Kropp & Benson Honig, 2022. "The Role of Compassion in Shaping Social Entrepreneurs’ Prosocial Opportunity Recognition," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(2), pages 617-647, August.
    19. Jacob Taarup‐Esbensen, 2019. "Making Sense of Risk—A Sociological Perspective on the Management of Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(4), pages 749-760, April.
    20. Svensson, Martin & Hällgren, Markus, 2018. "Sensemaking in sensory deprived settings: The role of non-verbal auditory cues for emergency assessment," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 306-318.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:155:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-018-3900-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.