Editorial: Special collection on responsible leadership in emerging economies

Résumé

We look back on 25 years of research on responsible leadership.South Africa has played an important role in driving the topic, with the first international conference on responsible leadership being held in 2010 at the University of Pretoria in Johannesburg (Pless et al., 2011).Nine years later, the Academy of Management held a specialised conference on responsible leadership in Bled, Slovenia.Furthermore, in 2022, the Business School of Stellenbosch University hosted the Responsible Leadership Reimagined conference (De Klerk & Swart, 2023;Gosling, 2023;Pless, 2023).This special issue showcases some of the academic outcomes of this hybrid conference.Responsible leadership research has soared over the past 10 years and entered corporate boardrooms (Pless & Wuffli, 2021), reflecting an 'ongoing quest for responsible leadership in business' (Maak & Pless, 2022).This is not only because of recurring corporate scandals and irresponsible behaviour (Coldwell et al., 2012;Maak et al., 2021), accelerating global warming (DeKlerk, 2024), and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (Osland et al., 2020), but it also reflects business leaders' growing awareness and recognition that businesses have shared responsibility for resolving societal issues (Maak et al., 2020; Pless & Maak, 2022), a realisation that is closely linked to the discussion on 'leading with purpose' (Kempster et al., 2019).Responsible leadership and its development (e.g.Maak et al., 2020) are topics that are relevant across industries, sectors, and countries and are thus of global relevance (Stahl et al., 2025;Voegtlin & Pless, 2023).They have been studied around the globe, including in countries such as China (e.g.Qu et al., 2024), Colombia (e.g.Castillo et al., 2022), India (e.g.Sengupta & Pless, 2024), Congo and Nicaragua (e.g.Mària & Lozano, 2010), Pakistan (e.g.Akhtar et al., 2023), Paraguay (e.g.Maak & Stoetter, 2012), and the United States (e.g.Varma, 2020), and across countries (e.g.Maak et al., 2021; Witt & Stahl, 2016) and industries ranging from accounting (e.g.Pless, 2011), apparel (e.g.Eisenbeiss et al., 2014), aviation (e.g.Özkan et al., 2024), cosmetics (e.g.Pless, 2011), extractive (e.g.Sengupta & Pless, 2024), health (e.g.Marques et al., 2023), tourism and hospitality (e.g.Luu, 2023; Yildiz et al., 2023) to social entrepreneurship (e.g.Pless & Appel, 2023).The first study in responsible leadership development was conducted on a leadership development programme that used an experiential learning design sending teams of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) partners on service assignments with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), internal agencies and social enterprises taking place in numerous countries in Africa (e.g.Pless & Schneider, 2006, 2022).Pless and Borecká (2014) conducted a comparative analysis of international service-learning programmes across industries (accounting, pharma, and technology), suggesting that the purpose of a programme (leadership development, organisational development, or community development) can influence the learning outcomes of participants.

Citer ce document

Accès au document

Texte intégral en lecture en ligne, réservé aux abonnés SPHAERO et aux membres de l'institution. Se connecter

Auteur(s)

Statistiques

Consultations : 1

Téléchargements : 0