Search

Bureaucracies, especially state bureaucracies, are typified as rational-legal organizations. We study how one such bureaucracy acted as neither rational nor legal but proved to be a space of exclusion. Ihor Homenuyk, a Ukrainian citizen, was ‘retained’ and then killed by the Portuguese foreigners and borders service. Police abuse has been much in the news in recent times, as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement. The issues are wider than those of racial injustice, however; they go to the nub of what it means to protect both the citizen and the honour of these organizations that engage with them in a way that is required to be legally rational. We use the case to open the black box of abuse and advance an explanation of how vicious dynamics happen.

We offer a set of conceptual distinctions between servant and paternalistic leadership, which we support with a new model that further extends the notion of paradoxical dynamic equilibrium. We used an in-depth case study of narratives on servant and paternalistic leadership from the Kingdom of Bhutan’s transition to democratic leadership. These narratives are rich in paradoxical tensions from which we extrapolate our findings. From our inductive documentary analysis, we establish that servant and benevolent paternalistic leadership perform genuine concern for the wellbeing of followers. However, while servant leaders seemingly promote centrifugal forces of change, humility and broader inclusion of others as followers, paternalistic leaders (both benevolent and exploitative), focus on the centripetal forces of stability, unquestioned authority and exclusion of those that do not follow and thus are outside their direct protection. As outlined in our circular model of paradoxical intent, distinguishing servant leadership and paternalistic leadership can be understood through distinct splitting and integration processes between the poles of main and utilitarian intent. MAD statement The concept of servant leadership seems to be increasingly adopted by organizations. This is a welcoming development given its potential contribution to address today's social and environmental challenges, as expressed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, there is a risk that leaders carelessly appropriate the term without sufficiently understanding its unique characteristics and implications. Servant leadership can, for instance, be easily confused with paternalistic leadership. This article aims to clarify the distinctions between these two models and contribute to a more conscious adoption and development of servant leadership in organizations.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how a number of processes joined to create the microlevel strategies and procedures that resulted in the most lethal and tragic forest fire in Portugal's history, recalled as the EN236-1 road tragedy in the fire of Pedrógão Grande. Design/methodology/approach: Using an inductive theory development approach, the authors consider how the urgency and scale of perceived danger coupled with failures of system-wide communication led fire teams to improvise repeatedly. Findings: The paper shows how structure collapse led teams to use only local information prompting acts of improvisational myopia, in the particular shape of corrosive myopia, and how a form of incidental improvisation led to catastrophic results. Practical implications: The research offers insights into the dangers of improvisation arising from corrosive myopia, identifying ways to minimize them with the development of improvisation practices that allow for the creation of new patterns of action. The implications for managing surprise through improvisation extend to risk contexts beyond wildfires. Originality/value: The paper stands out for showing the impact of improvisational myopia, especially in its corrosive form, which stands in stark contrast to the central role of attention to the local context highlighted in previous research on improvisation. At the same time, by exploring the effects of incidental improvisation, it also departs from the agentic conception of improvisation widely discussed in the improvisation literature.