Exploring Narratives of Leadership in International Organizational Contexts: A Qualitative Study of Cross-Cultural Understandings of Leadership

Sammanfattning

As organizations increasingly operate in global environments, navigating differing expectations regarding leadership practices becomes more challenging. While previous cross-cultural leadership research has largely focused on predefined cultural differences and national leadership characteristics, less attention has been given to how individuals actively understand and construct leadership through everyday organizational experiences. This study explores how leadership is narrated and made meaningful in international organizational contexts through processes of sensemaking. Based on 17 semi-structured interviews with respondents from diverse international and organizational backgrounds, the study applies narrative theory, relational leadership and sensemaking perspectives to analyze how individuals interpret and negotiate leadership in multicultural settings. The findings show how respondents frequently draw upon cultural stereotypes and generalized assumptions when describing leadership, while simultaneously questioning and reshaping these understandings through experiences from working across organizational and cultural contexts. Leadership is further understood as relationally constructed through trust, communication and participation rather than solely through formal authority. During crisis and organizational change, leadership emerges less as decision-making alone and more as enabling collective sensemaking under uncertainty. This study contributes to cross-cultural leadership research by providing a more dynamic understanding of leadership as a relational and interpretive process continuously shaped through narratives, social interaction and sensemaking across international organizational contexts.