Sonia Ospina Bozzi - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Books and book chapters by Sonia Ospina Bozzi

Combining theories of social innovation and collective leadership, this book analyses the ways in... more Combining theories of social innovation and collective leadership, this book analyses the ways in which communities are addressing the effects of economic recession in two global cities: Barcelona and New York. Drawing upon several socially innovative initiatives, the book explores new forms of democracy in practice, from below, by and for the ‘have-nots’. The book advances both our theoretical and empirical understanding of social change. However, as it also provides ideas and tools to help foster social change, it will also appeal to practitioners, policy-makers and social organizations.

Papers by Sonia Ospina Bozzi

International Journal of Management Reviews

The relationship between power and collective leadership (CL) has been theoretically understood a... more The relationship between power and collective leadership (CL) has been theoretically understood and empirically addressed in many different ways. To make sense of this diversity, we investigate and diagram the role of power in CL. First, we identify six representations of power—six ways in which scholars have found that power shapes the emergence and enactment of CL. These representations include: Even in CL, individual power matters; Leaders can devolve power to their subordinates by empowering them; Contextual characteristics related to power can influence the possibility and enactment of CL; CL can create the collective power necessary for people in marginalized positions to challenge embedded power dynamics; Power is intrinsic to the co‐construction process; Attributions affect who can enact CL, how they are viewed, and whether they have power. Second, we offer a conceptual framework that provides a comprehensive way to understand the relationship between power and CL. The frame...

The Emerald Handbook of Public Administration in Latin America

This chapter describes an institutional choice that most Latin American countries have taken in t... more This chapter describes an institutional choice that most Latin American countries have taken in the past 25 years: the creation of national Public Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (PPME) systems. We summarize research assessing their institutionalization, identify their shortcomings, and discuss trends demonstrating a potential – not yet realized – to fulfill their vocation as instruments of political and democratic accountability. Despite remarkable progress in their institutionalization, the evidence suggests that the systems fall short in producing strong results-oriented democratic accountability. Key factors hindering this aspiration include the systems' low credibility, problems associated to their diversification, low institutional coherence, and lack of effective coordination mechanisms to improve information legibility, its quality, its usefulness, and thus its use by both public managers and citizens. We suggest that PPME systems depend on environmental conditions beyond government structures and processes and argue that citizen-oriented mechanisms and entry points for social participation around the systems are required to fulfill their accountability function.

The SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry, 2021

Leadership, 2020

While relational leadership constructionist scholarship has gained a powerful voice in the leader... more While relational leadership constructionist scholarship has gained a powerful voice in the leadership conversation, mainstream leadership studies continue to ignore its contributions. Paradigm interplay represents an approach to knowledge construction that may help constructionists contribute to the cumulative relational leadership conversation, while reasserting their interpretive commitments. The article first explains why paradigm interplay is a promising strategy for overcoming two existing complications in relational leadership research and in its constructionist stream. It then offers an application of paradigm interplay in the leadership–trust research domain, to demonstrate how this approach works in practice, showing its promise for building a robust constructionist empirical research agenda to explore the role of trust in relational leadership. The article closes with a discussion of selected challenges associated with conducting paradigm interplay, and with a call to brid...

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, 2015

New Directions for Evaluation, 2012

Results‐based performance measurement and evaluation (PME) systems are part of a global current i... more Results‐based performance measurement and evaluation (PME) systems are part of a global current in public administration. In the Latin American context, this trend is also a reflection of the broader processes of reform of the latter half of the 20th century, including the modernization of public administration, as well as broad processes of decentralization and democratization, both of which are dimensions of development in Latin America, regardless of the political and ideological orientation of specific governments. This chapter documents the development of such evaluative approaches to organizational quality and raises some issues for further discussion. ©Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association.

Human Relations, 2018

Objectives and scope The special issue aims to deepen scholarly understandings of the social and ... more Objectives and scope The special issue aims to deepen scholarly understandings of the social and relational dimensions of leadership in contemporary institutions through an in-depth exploration of ensuring the theorymethods connection when engaging in empirical research with a collective leadership lens.

Research Center for Leadership in Action, 2004

Our cooperative inquiry focused on the question: How can we create the space/opportunities for in... more Our cooperative inquiry focused on the question: How can we create the space/opportunities for individuals to recognize themselves as leaders and develop leadership? It was borne out of the work of the Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) program. (For a description of this effort, please see the inside back cover.

The SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry, 2021

The Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) program is a joint endeavor between the Ford Foundation... more The Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) program is a joint endeavor between the Ford Foundation, the Advocacy Institute, and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. This paper focuses on the experiences of the Research and Documentation component of LCW – lead by a research team from the Wagner School – during the initial implementation phases of the research. This component formed an inquiry group consisting of both academic researchers and social change practi-tioners to collaboratively explore and discover the ways in which communities doing social change engage in the work of leader-ship. We used group relations theory to understand a series of critical dilemmas and contradictions experienced by the co-researchers. This paper identifies four such paradoxes that center around issues of democracy and authority.

Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 2019

With the growing amount and increasing heterogeneity of research on purpose-oriented networks (PO... more With the growing amount and increasing heterogeneity of research on purpose-oriented networks (PONs) in the public sector, it is imperative to find a way to synthesize this research. Drawing on the varied research perspectives on PONs, we advance the idea of paradigm interplay and meta-synthesis as aspirations for the field and argue this is especially key if we want the study of PONs to inform practice. However, we recognize several challenges in the current state of the PON research that prevent the field from making strides in paradigm interplay and meta-synthesis. We discuss six challenges which we consider the most critical: different labels, differences across research foci, variation in measurement, the nestedness of networks, the dynamism of networks, and variation in the network context. We suggest six good research practices that could contribute to overcoming the challenges now so as to make integration of the research field more of a possibility in the future.

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2016

Conservation of large landscapes requires three interconnected types of leadership: collaborative... more Conservation of large landscapes requires three interconnected types of leadership: collaborative leadership, in which network members share leadership functions at different points in time; distributive leadership, in which network processes provide local opportunities for members to act proactively for the benefit of the network; and architectural leadership, in which the structure of the network is intentionally designed to allow network processes to occur. In network governance, each leadership approach is necessary to achieve sustained, successful outcomes. We discuss each of these approaches to leadership and offer specific practices for leaders of networks, including: shaping the network's identity and vision, attracting members, instilling leadership skills in members, and advancing common interests. These practices are then illustrated in case studies.

Leadership, 2009

For social change organizations working to address intractable social problems throughou the US t... more For social change organizations working to address intractable social problems throughou the US tackling race may not only be unavoidable, it may also represent away to fully engage stakeholders in social change work. We argue that illuminating the relationship between race and leaders hip can advance our understanding of how social change leadership happens in practice. We build upon scholarship that emphasizes the ways in which seemingly essentialist, intractable racial categories are actually mutable, and the simultaneous emergence of academic research calling attention to the constructed and collective dimensions of leadership. Using a constructionist lens to analyze narratives from 22 social change organizations and building six of these as in-depth cases, we document three distinct means of understanding race, explore how they help to do the work of leadership, and suggest ways in which they seem to move their work forward.

The SAGE Handbook of Action Research

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2002

This article explores the emerging conceptualization of accountability in nonprofit organizations... more This article explores the emerging conceptualization of accountability in nonprofit organizations. This definition broadens traditional concerns with finances, internal controls, and regulatory compliance. The authors explore how the top-level managers of 4 identitybased nonprofit organizations (IBNPs) faced accountability and responsiveness challenges to accomplish their mission. The organization-community link was the core relationship in their accountability environment, helping the IBNP managers achieve what the literature calls “negotiated accountability.” The managers favored organizational mechanisms to sustain this relationship in the midst of the accountability demands they experienced daily. Communication with the primary constituency tended to drive the organization’s priorities and programs, helped managers find legitimate negotiation tools with other stakeholders, and helped develop a broader notion of accountability. The authors discuss the implications of these findin...

The Leadership Quarterly, 2010

Attention to the relational dimensions of leadership represents a new frontier of leadership rese... more Attention to the relational dimensions of leadership represents a new frontier of leadership research and is an expression of the growing scholarly interest in the conditions that foster collective action within and across boundaries. This article explores the antecedents of collaboration from the perspective of social change organizations engaged in processes of collaborative governance. Using a constructionist lens, the study illuminates the question how do social change leaders secure the connectedness needed for collaborative work to advance their organization's mission? The article draws on data from a national, multi-year, multi-modal qualitative study of social change organizations and their leaders. These organizations represent disenfranchised communities which aspire to influence policy makers and other social actors to change the conditions that affect their members' lives. Narrative analysis of transcripts from in-depth interviews in 38 organizations yielded five leadership practices that foster strong relational bonds either within organizations or across boundaries with others. The article describes how these practices nurture interdependence either by forging new connections, strengthening existing ones, or capitalizing on strong ones.

International Journal of Management Reviews

The Emerald Handbook of Public Administration in Latin America

The SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry, 2021

Leadership, 2020

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, 2015

New Directions for Evaluation, 2012

Human Relations, 2018

Research Center for Leadership in Action, 2004

The SAGE Handbook of Participatory Research and Inquiry, 2021

Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 2019

Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2016

Leadership, 2009

The SAGE Handbook of Action Research

Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2002

The Leadership Quarterly, 2010

The Leadership Quarterly, 2008

Sensegiving-shaping how people understand themselves, their work, and others engaged in that work... more Sensegiving-shaping how people understand themselves, their work, and others engaged in that work-is critical to the work of organizational leadership. We propose the "cognitive shift," a change in how an organizational audience understands an important element of the organization's work, as a desired outcome of the sensegiving process. Organizations try to spur these shifts in two categories: about their issue and about their primary constituency, the population it is designed to serve or mobilize. This approach makes two contributions: It redirects attention from individual leaders' behaviors and characteristics to the work of leadership, as opposed to the agents through which it is carried out. Second, it operationalizes the intangible process of meaning-making by breaking it down into discrete units that are relatively equivalent and, therefore, comparable, providing a systematic way to analyze and map cognitive leadership processes.