Transformative Leadership and Contextual Change

John Grin, Jan Hassink, Vanja Karadzic and Ellen H.M. Moors
Additional contact information
John Grin: Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jan Hassink: Business Unit Agrosystems Research, Wageningen University & Research, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands
Vanja Karadzic: Foundation for Science and Technology, 1249-074 Lisbon, Portugal
Ellen H.M. Moors: Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-14

Abstract: Transitions to deal with the grand challenges of contemporary societies require novel kinds of leadership, which can both stimulate novel organizational practices and changes in practices and structures in the organization’s context. This article seeks to understand how (changes in) the external structural context may influence organizational-internal transformative leadership and vice versa, and what kind of work is implied in leadership to transform current business models. It uses notions from literature on relational leadership and transformative leadership as sensitizing concepts. It then explores the leadership work in two case studies, on fishing in Portugal and care farming in the Netherlands. We find a dialectic interplay of the interactions between leaders and others on the one hand, and contextual changes on the other. Using a system-building perspective from innovation system literature, that interaction is driven by the quest to establish legitimacy and market formation and acceptance, knowledge and other resources for innovations.

Keywords: leadership; transitions; relational leadership; transformative leadership; innovation systems; value co-creation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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