A stakeholder model of organizational leadership

Organizations are evolving from the bureaucratic form based upon hierarchy to the new-form or radix organization that has the value chain as its relatively fluid foundation. This article explores the relationship between the radix organization and leadership, viewed through an organization–environment coevolution framework. It explicates the changes in the leader's role-sets and relationships brought about with the evolution from bureaucracy to the radix organization, developing a model of leadership that is referred to as the stakeholder model of organizational leadership. Stakeholder theory provides the appropriate theoretical basis for this model, as it offers the flexibility to accommodate various leader relationships. The stakeholder model of organizational leadership helps to predict leader effectiveness in organizations characterized by fuzzy organizational boundaries, flattened hierarchies, and work relationships sometimes brought about through contracts instead of employment.