A serendipitous sojourn through the global leadership literature

Abstract

In a search for the meaning of global leadership, we use the metaphor of a sojourn. We travel into six areas of the literature: strategy, cross-cultural research, expatriation, competencies, leadership and adult learning. We draw from our visit to each literature its perspective on global leadership and then step back to reflect on the lessons of our sojourn — what we learned about the literature of global leadership and what we learned about global leadership itself. We learned that the literature is vast and ever expanding and too often uses a single methodology. However, common themes emerge. With a few exceptions, the literature is engaging, and tempts one to take side trips and explore back roads. We found many answers to the riddle of global leadership, both in definitions and in competencies, and we gained an appreciation for the complexity and ambiguity of international work. We answer the “favorite place” question and conclude, after all, that the mystery of global leadership remains unsolved.

Citation

Hollenbeck, G.P. (2001), "A serendipitous sojourn through the global leadership literature", Advances in Global Leadership (Advances in Global Leadership, Vol. 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 15-47. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1535-1203(01)02113-X