Worldly Leadership through Local Knowledge: Discovering Voices of Emirati Women Business Leaders

Abstract

While there is a growing body of research on global studies of management and leadership, more recently scholars have expressed concern about the underlying cultural bias of social science models and the resulting leadership research. Most of the management and leadership knowledge to date is a product of North American and Western European scholars (Tsui, 2004; Thomas 2008). Universal definitions of leadership have been called into question as differences across national and cultural boundaries emerge. Given the Western orientation of dominant management and leadership research paradigms contextual knowledge is essential to generate global knowledge, especially in contexts that differ greatly from North American and Western European contexts in their economic, political and sociocultural systems (Tsui, 2004). Thus the uncovering of worldly leadership requires a local sensitivity best explained by ‘think global, research local’.