The main purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the language of leadership and leadership enactments in Lao workplace settings. As such it seeks to respond to the growing calls for studies of leadership in non-Western contexts (Turnbull et al., 2011) and the adoption of anthropological in order to enhance understanding of the subtleties of leadership relations in situated social contexts (Jones, 2005, 2006; Warner & Grint, 2006). Some scholars have pointed out that the field of leadership studies has long been in thrall to highly ethnocentric, primarily Anglophone, constructions of leadership (Jepson, 2009, 2010; Guthey & Jackson, 2010; Turnbull et al., 2011). Jepson (2009, 2010), for instance, provides ground breaking insights into the social effects of leadership language in differing national contexts, contrasting the Indo-European languages of German and English. The present paper builds on this important foundation by initiating an investigation of leadership as it is conceived and enacted within Lao culture through its official language of Lao Tai. This is a direct response to the EGOS 'language and leadership' subtheme's concern with linguistically informed analysis of cross-cultural leadership phenomena.
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EGOS 2014: 30th European Group for Organization Studies Colloquium
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25
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
European Group for Organization Studies
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The Netherlands
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