Exploring Leadership Issues in Papua New Guinea
Abstract
The practice of leadership in less developed countries, and Papua
New Guinea (PNG) in particular, has not attracted the attention of
leadership researchers with the same level of enthusiasm as
leadership issues in developed countries. This paper is an
exploratory study of the unique leadership issues in the Papua New
Guinean (PNG) context. PNG is a diverse Nation of tribal societies
largely organised on the basis of kinship and traditional cultural
practices. The unique context and challenges of leadership in PNG
are not adequately explained by the extant literature. However, the
bulk of leadership literature is based on a self-limiting set of
assumptions, mostly reflecting Western industrialised culture. Almost
all the prevailing theories of leadership and almost all of the
empirical evidence are rather distinctly American in character
(Littrell, 2002 p:10). Leadership theories based on Western culture
are not directly transferable to PNG, whilst significant contextual
barriers act to inhibit leadership processes. Leadership issues
(Prideaux, 2006) were tested. Respondents reported that the
heterogeneous nature of the country, colonial history, diversity,
multiple governing systems, vast vicissitude of mutually unintelligible
languages, and societies based on patrilineal or matrilineal systems
are significant leadership barriers. Results uncover the necessity
for an integrative leadership approach contextualised to PNGs
unique diversity and complexity, if the country is to fully participate
in an increasingly globalised world. Limitations and further research
are considered.
Copyright (c) 2008 Murray Prideaux, A.B.M Rabiul Alam Beg
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
