Leadership in Extreme Contexts: An Emerging Typology

<p>This study investigates the relationship between leadership and extreme contexts through the lens of rural hospitals facing environmental jolts. Rural hospitals offer a unique setting for this research, given their inherent geographic isolation, lack of resources, and the critical role these facilities play in their communities. Through a qualitative analysis of interviews with Chief Executive Officers of rural hospitals, this research takes a grounded approach to build theory surrounding how leadership not only shapes but is shaped by extreme contexts and environmental jolts. The research results in four primary contributions. Namely, this study extends existing typologies on leadership in extreme contexts, proposing an updated model based on real-world experiences of leaders operating in extreme contexts. The research also supports the existence of a recursive relationship between leader and context in extreme environments. Next, it successfully integrates the previously distinct bodies of literature on extreme contexts and environmental jolts. Lastly, it builds out the relationship between adaptive leadership and jolts within extreme contexts, highlighting leaders’ short and long-term responses. Collectively, these results extend leadership theory and emphasize the critical impact context has in influencing leader behavior while also considering how leadership, in turn, changes the context, particularly in extreme cases facing environmental jolts.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Year

2024

Author dc:creator

• Williams, Ashley

Contributors dc:contributor

• Aimee Hamilton

• Business
• Leadership
• Hospital leadership
• Rural
• Business Administration, Management, and Operations
• Health and Medical Administration
• Other Business

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

English (eng)

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2399

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-3386