Ingalill Holmberg

My research interest is located at the interface between leadership, organizing and managerial work and includes the interplay between conceptions of leadership and leadership and management as an everyday practice.

My point of departure is that leadership and managerial work are social phenomena i.e. there are no universal laws that make up leadership activities or leadership processes. Or for that matter outstanding leaders. Leaders, leadership and managerial work are what we collectively and continuously make them. Hence my research is focused on the way we as social beings produce and reproduce ideas of leadership in different settings. Examples of questions that I am currently exploring are: What are the cultural boundaries that define “leadership” today? And what forces shape those boundaries and sustain certain definitions, beliefs and images over time? I also have an interest in the practical consequences of the socially constructed conceptions of leadership and leaders i.e. the enactment of leadership in organizational settings. For instance, what does it mean to define oneself / the organization as an actor of the network society/the knowledge society etc? And how is leadership re-conceptualized when focus is put on the management of intangibles?

As part of my agenda I put a considerable effort into creating and encouraging knowledge-exchange networks between business people and academics involved in the creation of a comprehensive and more elaborate view of leadership.