The “permanent” acting leader

Abstract

Despite its frequent occurrence in educational institutions, the phenomenon of the "acting leader" has not received much attention in the academic literature. Moreover, the extant literature is situated largely in the context of organizations, such as universities, in which interim administrations are succeeded by duly appointed regular administrations. Organizational continuity is implicit in such a treatment of the topic. In contrast, in a dying organization, a leadership vacancy may remain unfilled, giving rise to the oxymoron of the "permanent" acting leader. Our inductive approach to the study of the acting director of one such Indian federal R&D organization reveals several theoretical insights, not the least of which is a turnabout in perspective from the `crisis-induced departures' of incumbents to the "departure-induced crises" faced by acting leaders. Studies of top executive turnover suggest that temporary administrations are widely prevalent (Farquhar, 1995b). Empirical evidence for the same is available, especially with respect to academic institutions and federal agencies. It has been projected that on January 1 of any given year, approximately 6% of all large academic institutions will be headed by interim administrations (Cohen & March, 1986, pp. 165–166). The increase in the number of those in temporary leadership roles in academic institutions has been attributed to the decreasing duration of those in senior administrative offices and to the increasing duration of the search for replacements (Chapman et al., 1988). For instance, in U.S. universities, the average presidential tenure decreased from about 10.9 years in 1899 to 7.7 years in 1939, and to around 4.5 years in the early 1970s (Hodgkinson, 1971, p. 270; Kerr, 1970, p. 139).1 Further, the standard search for a university president takes from six to 12 months, with searches of 15 to 18 months not uncommon (Everley, 1994). Likewise, over a set of eight U.S. federal agencies, mean vacancy periods ranged from six to 20 months (USGAO, 1994, p. 8), while the median length of service for top federal executive appointees was 2.1 years in 1994 (USGAO, 1994, p. 4). That the extant statistical information regarding the employment and tenure of interim university presidents has been obtained only indirectly from research on permanent presidents highlights the lack of empirical research on interim presidents (Everley, 1994). Only a few empirical studies in the academic literature address leadership transition in organizations; fewer still adopt the interim or acting leader as the unit of analysis. Not surprisingly, the empirical studies that focus on the interim leader predominantly employ the case study as a means of gaining theoretical insight into a phenomenon that is as yet incompletely documented (Bryman, 1989, p. 173). Using sub-identity theory, Hall (1995) presents a reflexive account of his tenure as the acting dean of a school of management, which was precipitated by the sudden resignation of the dean. Farquhar (1995b) presents a model of the dynamics of short-term leadership, whose elements include the precipitating circumstances for the temporary administration, the tasks of short-term leadership, and the moderating factors that are seen to affect the selection and success of the next chief executive. She then proceeds to illustrate the model with regard to the case of (the pseudonymous) Greenwood School. Theus (1995) uses the case of the sudden resignation (in 1990) of the president of American University as a vehicle to illustrate a model that she deducts from the literature. Her model purports to illustrate the problems of sense-making, enactment, communication, and organizational learning that are faced by interim leaders and their internal and external stakeholders. Our point of departure is the case for analytic induction made by Van Maanen 1979a, Van Maanen 1979b, which is succinctly captured by the Sherlockian prescription, "less theory, better facts; more facts, better theory" (Van Maanen, 1979b, p. 539). However, the application of this prescription to research on acting leadership would entail "minimizing the use of such artificial distancing mechanisms as analytic labels, abstract hypotheses, and preformulated research strategies" (Van Maanen, 1979a, p. 520). In contrast, the three case studies reported earlier would appear to implicitly employ theoretical and conceptual frameworks prior to the analysis and interpretation of case-data. Thus, for understanding his personal experience of acting deanship, Hall (1971) drew upon his prior theoretical model of role transitions as a process of identity change through psychological success. Farquhar's (1995b) account of the interregnum at Greenwood School suggests that her interpretation of the process drew at least partially upon her earlier work on interregna in corporate environments. In Theus' (1995) study, "data were coded relating to key dimensions suggested in the literature2: enactments, sense-making, uncertainty, power-relations, organizational structure, and communication during and subsequent to the crisis-induced departure of the organizational leader" (p. 33). As part of her multi-method investigation into interim administrations, Everley (1994) conducted phenomenological interviews with 23 interim presidents. She identified three types of interim leaders, which, by drawing an analogy to baseball players, she labeled as back-up players, utility players, and pinch-hitters. However, Everley's dominant use of borrowed concepts, in lieu of "in vivo" codes, suggests that her analytic process did not rigorously partake of induction (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, pp. 68–69). Moreover, she used representative sampling, and not theoretical sampling (Strauss & Corbin, 1990, chapter 11), for selecting the pool of interviewees. The present research is an offshoot of an investigation by the authors into the behavior of Indian research and development (R&D) project groups, and exemplifies the serendipitous nature of qualitative research. We had sought to analytically induce the barriers to the cohesiveness and effectiveness of such groups, and towards that end, had secured access to a federal R&D organization, which we refer to as Omega. Omega was being headed by an acting director, who had held that position for 14 years prior to our investigation. This phenomenon so intrigued us that we then sought to explore it in depth. Our disposition towards analytic induction had been buttressed by our experience in the study of an R&D project group in another federal Indian R&D organization that we had conducted prior to our investigation into Omega. (We refer to the group as Alpha and to the parent organization as Phi). Alpha comprised of an additional director, who was the group leader, and four technical officers, of whom one was of grade-IV while the rest were of grade-I. The four officers shared a room whose effective size was about 30′ × 10′. The desire for "privacy"3 was a category that had emerged from an analysis of the field data in Alpha. Some of its indicators were: "having one's own room;" "not having one's movements in and out of the section closely monitored;" "not having to procure gate-passes in order to leave the institute during office-hours;" and "being allowed to frequent the café outside of lunch-time." The grade-IV technical officer spoke the same language as the group leader, thus sharing a cultural bond that can be very strong in India's multi-lingual society. The other three subordinates saw his sharing a room with them as a means by which the group leader could exercise authority and discipline (for instance, in terms of imposing rigid time-schedules) through a surrogate. Their having proximate desks in a common room invaded their privacy in Phi. We were, therefore, rather surprised to learn subsequently that the literature on R&D project groups had deduced that physical propinquity (nearness of desk spaces) would enhance the ability of group members to communicate with one another while accomplishing tasks, and thus enhance their effectiveness Granovetter 1973, Allen 1977, Keller & Holland 1983, Keller 1986. To us, the above field experience underscored how a ground-up approach could reveal concepts and categories that were important (such as the desire for privacy) but that had nevertheless been excluded in the extant, predominantly deductive, literature.