emerald PUBLISHING Leadership and Cultural Webs in Organisations: Weavers' Tales

The call for a change of culture is commonplace in corporate and governmental settings. What this means and how to go about it have proved to be elusive challenges for the field of organisation and leadership studies. This work brings insights from the field of anthropology to illuminate these questions and proposes a fresh approach to working with them. Interweaving ideas from the fields of Social Construction, Anthropology and Complex Responsive Processes with examples of cultural change drawn from across the spectrum of organisational life, this book offers a compelling perspective on how to work with these powerful yet hidden forces. The author combines 35 years of experience as a consultant with the rigour of business academia. With a capacity to bring clarity to complex issues, the author identifies a range of practical and strategic options for those leaders, managers and consultants looking to promote cultural change. Building on the metaphor of cultures as 'webs of signification', McLean considers how cultural webs form, how they change, and shows how to reveal the unique forms that they take in different organisational settings.