Join us for discussions on leadership research

10th April 2025, at 10:00-12:00, Porcelænshaven 24a, open area 2nd floor, EGB Department, Frederiksberg, DK

Refreshments: Coffee and pastries

Haunted Leadership and Geopolitics: The Invisible Forces Shaping Influence and Risk

PAPER 1

Foreign policy connections and foreign investment amid geopolitical risk

By Flladina Zilja, Assistant Professor, Department of International Economics, Government and Business

The current rise in geopolitical risk- tensions in the bilateral political relations between countries- is affecting multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) international investments. This study investigates whether home-country political connections facilitate MNEs’ international investments amidst geopolitical risk. We differentiate between foreign policy political connections – ambassadors, other diplomats and foreign policy professionals- and other political connections. We argue that foreign policy political connections increase international investments because they provide firms with access to information on the host country and home-host country anticipated geopolitical dynamics, in addition to the ability to influence home country policies and leverage home country intervention to protect foreign investment. Utilizing data on US firms and their foreign subsidiaries for the 2000-2020 period, we find that while foreign policy connections have an overall positive effect on foreign investment, they reduce investment in geopolitically risky. We argue this can be attributed to foreign policy connections direct involvement in foreign policymaking, and their concer

PAPER 2

Ghostly Talk: How Leadership Communication is Haunted by Disembodied Others

By Lars Thøger Christensen, Professor, Department of Management, Society & Communication & Frank Meier, Associate Professor, Department of Organization

This book chapter, aimed for an edited book on Ghost Leadership, sets out to analyze leadership as a particular type of communication haunted by ghostly figures. Since organizations have no voice of their own, they are bound to communicate through something else, including leaders, staff and other-than-human figures. To unfold the dynamics of such communication, we draw on the metaphor of ventriloquism, referring to the entertainment gig in which a ventriloquist (a vent) makes some variant of a dummy (or figure, as ventriloquists call it) say or do things by ventriloquizing it. While the talk of leaders makes organizations and other phenomena speak, they are simultaneously animated themselves to speak in particular ways. Leaders, in other words, are at once vents and dummies. We illustrate this dual nature of leadership talk by analysing two excerpts from a recent environmental and pollical crisis in Denmark, in which a landslide of toxic soil threatened a village and nearby river. Throughout our analysis, we identify and discuss the ghostly figures that animate the involved leaders to communicate in certain ways. As it happens, these tend – like real ghosts – to haunt us from the past. Yet, some of these appear–disturbingly–to haunt us from the future.

ABOUT THE SERIES

The CBS Leadership Centre wants to bring together researchers across CBS to inspire and nurture cross-disciplinary thinking on leadership. The Leadership Paper Series are a forum for doing exactly this. We invite junior and senior colleagues, as well as visiting and guest scholars, to present and discuss leadership research in progress from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and theoretical traditions. Presenters will receive constructive feedback from discussants and attendees with the aim of developing their papers and arguments for eventual publication.

Papers will be sent out to registered attendees before the event.

Let's stay connected! Interested in speaking at one of our future sessions? Send an email to Dan Kärreman dk.msc@cbs.dk or to Natalie Shefer nas.egb@cbs.dk.