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Leading and Following (Un)ethically

in Limen

Miguel Pina e Cunha Nuno Guimarães-Costa

Arménio Rego Stewart R. Clegg

ABSTRACT. We propose a liminality-based analysis of

the process of ethical leadership/followership in organi-

zations. A liminal view presents ethical leadership as a

process taking place in organizational contexts that are

often characterized by high levels of ambiguity, which

render the usual rules and preferences dubious or inade-

quate. In these relational spaces, involving leaders,

followers, and their context, old frames may be questioned

and new ones introduced in an emergent way, through

subtle processes whose evolution and implications may not

be easy to grasp even by those participating in them.

KEY WORDS: liminality, ethical leadership, ethical

followership, ethical processes, gray areas

Introduction

Ethical leaders and, especially, the process of ethical

leadership, constitute, according to Brown and

Treviño (2006), largely unexplored areas in the

field of organization and management. Research on

ethical leadership has mainly considered how

leaders ought to behave, rather than how they behave

in practice (Brown et al., 2005; Clegg et al. 2007a,

b). The ethical leadership research agenda has also

focused on the characteristics of ethical and

unethical leaders, emphasizing the personal dispo-

sitions of (un)ethical leaders and the contextual

factors, such as organizational culture, which foster

ethical or unethical behaviors. The result of these

orientations is a dual view of (un)ethical leadership:

(1) a positive view, focusing on ethical leaders and

organizations, which is overtly normative (i.e., fo-

cused on what leaders should do); and (2) a pessi-

mistic view, considering the cases in which ethics is

ignored by business leaders and their followers,

which is mostly descriptive, and based on reported

cases of organizational misbehavior (Ackroyd and

Thompson, 1999). Both these approaches corre-

spond to the well-known bad apples/bad barrels

type of explanations, and are often based on the

retrospective analysis of mainly anecdotal evidence

and case studies, especially those reaching the

public eye.

We adopt a process-based view and explore the

role of liminality in the process of ethical leader-

ship/followership. The concept of liminality is

borrowed from the anthropological literature to

analyze how leaders may find themselves in many

occurrences of organizational life, ‘‘betwixt and

between,’’ i.e., in interstitial spaces in which it is

not entirely clear which things are right or wrong,

black or white, ethical or unethical. In these ‘‘gray

areas’’ (Bruhn, 2008), or ‘‘twilight zones’’ (Nel

et al., 1989), leaders have an opportunity to suspend

‘‘normal rules’’ and to analyze the situation in a

new light. In fact, they must make a decision rather

than simply apply a rule; it is only when a decision

must be made that is not determined by the

application of a rule that we can properly identify

an ethical issue (Clegg et al., 2007a). An emergent

process possibly leading to unintended as well as

intended consequences can result, which can ignite

downward ethical spirals.

The occasions for downward spirals are several:

sometimes leaders are led by contingencies rather

than leading them; despite the call for focus and

clarity, life in organizations is often marked by gray

areas, where issues are not necessarily black or white;

when confronted with the dilemmas associated with

liminality, leaders may feel trapped without knowing

what to do; the lack of awareness of liminality and

Journal of Business Ethics (2010) 97:189–206 � Springer 2010 DOI 10.1007/s10551-010-0504-3

liminal states diminishes their capacity for leading

ethically in these paradoxical conditions; important

observers of corporate action in the press or gov-

ernment or regulatory agencies may assume that

matters are black and white because they are pre-

sented as being so when in fact there is considerable

liminality at play that is being exploited by the

corporate actors in question to making matters

appear to be clear-cut.

With these thoughts in mind, we analyze how

leaders can find themselves in organizational spaces

in which normal structures are suspended. We then

build on the notion of ‘‘liminality,’’ retooling

(Kofoed, 2008) the notion in exploring the

importance of this concept to leaders, their fol-

lowers, and their organizations. We have organized

the article as follows: we start by reviewing the

concepts of ethical leadership and followership as

we introduce the concept of liminality; we then

explain the meaning of this construct, and how it

evolves within organizations; we continue by

exploring the occasions when there is greater po-

tential for liminality to occur, and why organization

scholars and business ethicists should address it. We

finish the article by expressing the challenges that

the idea of liminality raises both for researchers and

practitioners. We, therefore, contribute to the lit-

erature on ethical leadership/followership by mak-

ing explicit the what, when, how, and why of

liminality as related to the ethical leadership process,

as well as by elaborating a number of propositions

that may be further tested.

Ethical leadership and followership as a field

of research

Ethical leadership has been defined as ‘‘the demon-

stration of normatively appropriate conduct through

personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and

the promotion of such conduct to followers through

two-way communication, reinforcement, and deci-

sion-making’’ (Brown et al., 2005, p. 120). Uneth-

ical leadership results from deviance from the

normative model in either or both of two dimen-

sions (Treviño et al., 2003): being a moral person

(i.e., characterized by such traits as honesty and

integrity) and a moral manager (i.e., creating and

diffusing a strong ethics message).

The complexity of normative appropriateness

The notion of normative appropriateness is left out

of these definitions, although it is highly relevant to

qualify the ethical value of leadership. Deontological

approaches center their assessment on the means that

were used to attain the leadership’s proposed goals.

Appropriateness would follow the tenets of the

categorical imperative or, at least, of some indis-

putable universal rules (Brady, 1985). On the other

hand, utilitarian approaches would focus their

judgmental capacity on the ends, the objectives, and

the ultimate purposes of leadership (Toulmin, 1950).

In this case, appropriate action would be any that led

to a greater good or a lesser evil (Schminke et al.,

1997).

The discussion about normative appropriateness is

not limited to these two approaches. As religion,

habits, culture, or even time can influence the def-

inition of ethical norms, the debate is extended to

the questions of relativism and absolutism, even

challenging the very principles of deontology and

utilitarianism. In the first case, normative appropri-

ateness is defined within the boundaries of culture–

time and should not be open to question by those

who remain outside those normative walls. The

segregation of women and their confinement to

‘‘family and home’’ (Abu-Lughod, 2002, p. 785) is

considered ethical in some regions of Afghanistan,

and as such should not be condemned by strangers to

that culture without some understanding of the

cultural dynamics that constitute this situation: of

course, understanding does not signify ethical ap-

proval but it might make for better policy inter-

ventions that need to factor in this element of social

reality, no matter how reprehensible the observer

might find it to be. By the same token, slavery was

generally accepted 500 years ago by many of the

leading pillars of Society, Church, State, Military,

and Commerce, and as a result, contemporary

understanding of slavery in the past should not be

judged in terms of an application of contemporary

moral principles (which is not the same as defending

slavery today; for instance, one would not interpret

contemporary slavery in the same way, as it is clearly

indefensible in terms of the understandings available

to its perpetrators) (Harman, 1975). An absolutist

approach asserts that there is only one truth,

regardless of culture or time (Donaldson, 1996). As

190 Miguel Pina e Cunha et al.

such, appropriateness is defined by the universal

principles that rule right and wrong.

Aware of the endless debate between these dif-

ferent approaches to ethics, Donaldson and Dunfee

(1994) devised the integrative social contracts the-

ory (ISCT), which blended community-based eth-

ical norms with universal rules. For these authors,

an appropriate norm would be (1) created within a

given community of practice, (2) generally accepted

by the members of that community as appropriate,

(3) abided by the majority of the members of that

community, who would be informed about the

norm and have the freedom to leave the commu-

nity in the event that they did not agree with the

norm, (4) in line with universal indisputable ethical

principles ‘‘so fundamental to human existence that

they serve as a guide in evaluating lower level moral

norms’’ (1994, p. 265), (5) subject to prioritization

by rules previously agreed upon, in case of conflict

with another equally authentic and legitimate norm.

Any attitude displayed by a leader that complies

with these criteria is deemed as appropriate under

ISCT.

Even incorporating different approaches to ethics,

the above approaches to analysis of ethical and

unethical leadership are certainly critical for under-

standing the process of ethical leadership but they

illustrate only part of it. Moreover, they are essen-

tially functionalist approaches, prescribing deviance

from ethical behavior as resulting from problems of

socialization into the central value system, which is

defined by the ethical perspective of the observer; if

managers were fully socialized there would be no

problem. That problems occur, indicated by devi-

ance from the ethical codes in practice, means that

the failure is a case of individual dysfunction due to

inadequate socialization. The remedy must, there-

fore, be a reassertion of the ethical code and more

intense socialization in it. Typically, this results in

ethics sensitivity training. The happy outcome of

this response is that any future ethical breaches can

be argued to be yet another individually deviant act

for which the reassertion of the central value system

is the remedy. Failure defines the success of the

project. What this process misses is the central dis-

tinction between applying a rule and acting ethically.

Even within the same ethical framework, in which

ethical norms are generically shared and accepted,

and the notion of right and wrong is consensual,

there are significant ethical issues that emerge from

those gray areas where it is not clear what rule is to

be applied. Furthermore, across ethical frameworks

or ethical understandings, the occurrence of these

gray areas is likely to outnumber the situations in

which the ethical response is clear for those

involved. As Wittgenstein (1968) argues, no rule can

ever account for the circumstances of its own

applicability.

The dialogue between leaders and their context

Realistically, leaders influence their organizations,

including ethically, via role modeling, but are also

influenced by their expectations, interpretations, and

interactions with others, including followers (Glynn

and Jamerson, 2006; Kellerman, 2004), often playing

in different ethical contexts, which makes it difficult

for ‘‘good people’’ to sometimes make ‘‘good

decisions in bad situations’’ (Glynn and Jamerson,

2006, p. 154; see also Gellerman, 1986). Kellerman

(2004) emphasized this reality, suggesting that bad

leadership (including unethical leadership) is the

result of the interaction of three factors: the leaders,

the followers, and the context. We add to this

equation the possibility of there being more than

one ethical context as well as the occurrence of gray

areas whenever universal principles are not at stake

(however, leaders can be confronted with situations

in which other actors may challenge the universality

of those principles – see Brenkert, 2009).

Seeking to explain the apparent dichotomy be-

tween the espoused values and actions demonstrated

by Kenneth Lay (former Enron CEO), Glynn and

Jamerson (2006) stressed that, ‘‘What seems more

plausible to us is the argument in more recent

publications on Enron that the decisions of the top

executives were shaped within the larger context of

societal and corporate culture during the 1990s’’

(p. 153). In this instance, what executives said was

less important than what they did: their ethical

attitudes were not so much expressed discursively in

codes or utterances but modeled in behaviors. The

process of ethical practice takes place in complex and

dynamic systems involving relationality and inter-

action – rather than occurring in situations that

are under the strict control of leaders (Glynn and

Jamerson, 2006; Uhl-Bien, 2006).

191Leading and Following (Un)ethically in Limen

Such a notion of leaders being in control is, in-

deed, one of the illusions of leadership: that the

unpredictability of events can be controlled by the

leader. Instead, we suggest that leadership emerges in

practice precisely where the leader cannot control

events. The adoption of such a perspective implies

that organizing builds within the space of interaction

rather than around the individual properties of

organizational members (Bradbury and Lichtenstein,

2000; Manning, 2008) or the codes that organiza-

tions espouse (Bowie, 1998). As Glynn and Jamerson

(2006, p. 156) observe, ‘‘[l]eadership is inherently

relational, linking a leader to followers.’’ However,

they also go onto argue that leadership is ‘‘inherently

driven by some set of principles, which guide leaders

as they make decisions and take actions.’’ They miss

the point that ethical leaders may be forced to pre-

mise their decisions on practice when and where

existing rules or principles clash with their beliefs or

are deprived of utilitarian meaning, thus not being

able to guide their actions. They argue that blaming

individual leaders for ‘‘weak leadership’’ leads to

underestimating ‘‘the social nature of leadership.’’ In

order to remedy this situation they suggest that there

is a ‘‘need for an analysis of principled leadership that

includes a focus on the power of cultural schema and

organizations in shaping leadership decisions and

actions’’ (p. 159).

As such, ethical dispositions and stable organiza-

tional contexts are certainly important aspects of

leadership but they may not tell the whole story.

The individual leader is not merely a cipher being

shaped by extraneous factors of culture and organi-

zation, but is a moral agent freely choosing courses

of action within the discursive possibilities that

appear to be available, including those deemed as

ethical and those deemed as unethical by the dif-

ferent intervening parties, all of whom are likely to

have varying legitimacy and powers to enforce

compliance. Interdependent relationships and inter-

subjective meanings may be critical for understand-

ing the emergence, stability, and change of ethical

frames (which vary according to ethical content and

interpretation) in organizations.

In this sense, to view ethical leaders as people who

maintain ‘‘unequivocal commitment to honesty,

truth and ethics in every facet of behavior’’ (Fulmer,

2004, p. 312) may be a normative ideal rather than a

description of actual business leaders. The ideal may

be difficult to operationalize consistently, for at least,

three reasons: (1) we all, including ethical leaders and

followers, live in an equivocal world, composed of a

multitude of conflicting contexts that create their

own notions of ‘‘unequivocal commitments’’ and,

therefore, may render these an equivocal notion in

some circumstances (see Spicer, 2009 for an inter-

esting perspective on the normalization of corrup-

tion); (2) the understandings or the ascribed

meanings of honesty, truth, and ethics may differ

depending on the organizational and/or cultural

context, i.e., information is interpreted and given

meaning in social contexts (see Schlegelmilch and

Robertson (1995) for a study of the different per-

ceptions of ethics across several countries); (3)

although some practices undertaken by leaders can

be deemed as unethical in a deontological approach,

they can be justified using a utilitarian lens (Hamilton

and Knouse, 2001), such as in the case of bribing to

secure jobs in a corrupt country. Even if one uses the

sensitive approach of ISCT, the concepts of honesty,

truth, and ethics may be open to discussion, pro-

vided they are reflected in authentic and legitimate

norms (Soule, 2002). In fact, as much as Kantians

(Bowie, 1998) might wish to make ethics a cate-

gorical imperative, it is impossible to do so:

abstractions simply do not cover all contingencies.

It is then possible that the depictions of ethical

leaders found in the literature are not immune to the

phenomenon termed the ‘‘romance of leadership’’

(Meindl et al., 1985) in which ‘‘ethical leaders’’

appear as infallible external observers of a reality that

they can understand objectively, rather than normal

human beings with limited cognitive capacity, living

and managing in an ambiguous and equivocal world.

As Treviño and Brown (2004) have noted, ethical

leadership is not only about doing what is right, but

also about deciding what is right. Obviously, the

ethicality of the ‘‘choice’’ is more likely if the leader

is virtuous (Aristotle, 1985; Flynn, 2008). However,

the process continues to be highly ambiguous to

decision makers, as will be discussed below.

The unequivocality condition, as discussed above,

in which ethics is seen simply as the application of a

categorical imperative or rule, may be too simplistic

to accommodate many situations that matter for the

understanding of ethical leadership, namely, those in

which ‘‘normatively appropriate conduct’’ is not

clear. There is often an assumption that clarity and

192 Miguel Pina e Cunha et al.

transparency should be associated with organiza-

tional life, but in reality, it is sometimes difficult for

those subjectively immersed in a given setting to see

eventful phenomena clearly. The normative per-

spective on business ethics tends to discount the idea

that leadership emerges through the interactions of

individuals over time (Lichtenstein et al., 2006). We

would argue that ethical leadership concerns not

only the leaders or the situations and contexts

wherein they reside (Treviño, 1986) but also the

relational space between them and followers as they

interrelate in context (Uhl-Bien, 2006). Moreover,

ethical leadership is a dynamic process, rather than a

static reality: the frames that emerge from this

interrelation act as guides to interpretation, rather

than as rules for such interpretation, and rule-

guidedness is constructed in and through interaction

(Goffman, 1974). As noted by Kaplan (2008, p. 730),

‘‘frames shape how actors recognize what is going

on, and framing is an active phenomenon implying

agency and contention.’’

The complexity of life in organizations occa-

sionally puts leaders in situations in which the usual

rules may be suspended or the conditions of their

application are absolutely equivocal; in turn, this

brings them into confrontation with very difficult

choices that, relationally, may shape the frameworks

within which people constitute their decisions. If we

take unethical leadership as that which is deemed, at

some particular time, to be morally unacceptable to a

specific and relevant community (Kaptein, 2008), in

the sense that Donaldson and Dunfee (1994) define a

community and ensuing ethical behaviors, then it is

apparent that all ethical judgments concerning ac-

tions that do not violate universally accepted norms

are situationally contingent on the ways in which

some actions already elapsed are treated in that

community. It is evident that, at the time of action,

there can never be any guarantee that the action in

itself will be ethical within the boundaries of the

relevant community. Different groups or commu-

nities socially construct different ways of under-

standing what is moral and acceptable, and have

differential relations of power for fixing those

judgments, thus generating different configurations

of the related moral free space geography (Donaldson

and Dunfee, 1994). Although bounded by the

generally accepted universal rules, ethical leaders

have to face uncertainty at the community level, that

is, at the level at which norms can be socially con-

strued. If ethics could be reduced to codes of con-

duct clearly understood and applied, then there

would be no deviant behavior in a world full of

tutelary projects from coaches, regulatory agencies,

public commentaries, audits, and consultancies.

The fluidity and ambiguity that characterizes the

contexts in which ethical leaders move renders them

as liminal personae (Turner, 1969), as individuals

that experience liminality. In the next section, we

explore the concept of liminality and relate it with

the field of organization and business ethics.

What is liminality?

Liminality refers to ‘‘the condition of being betwixt

and between, at the limits of existing social structures

and when new structures are emerging’’ (Tempest,

2007, p. 821). The word ‘‘liminal’’ derives from

limen, Latin for threshold. The notion of liminality

was introduced in the social sciences by Van Gennep

(1908/1960) to explain rites of passage (e.g., from

‘‘boy’’ to ‘‘man’’). He ascribed three main stages to

any transition. The pre-liminal stage corresponds to

the period immediately before the transition. Here,

the individual still belongs to a specified and struc-

tured condition. It entails separation rites from that

very condition. The liminal stage corresponds to the

transition proper. Here, the individual does not

belong to either the previous or future conditions –

but at the same time belongs to both. She/he is a

liminal persona who submits to transition rites. The

post-liminal stage corresponds to the period imme-

diately after the transition. Here, the individual

enters her or his new condition. She/he no longer

belongs to the previous context, being well estab-

lished in the new one. This stage entails incorpora-

tion rites.

Subsequent authors, especially Turner (1969),

extended research on liminality to other spheres of

social functioning. In the field of management and

organizations, the concept was used in research on

consulting (Czarniawska and Mazza, 2003), tempo-

rary workers (Garsten, 1999), interim managers

(Inkson et al., 2001), organizational celebrations

(Rosen, 1988), business dinners (Sturdy et al., 2006),

and business ethics (Cunha and Cabral-Cardoso,

2007). In these studies, liminality refers to events

193Leading and Following (Un)ethically in Limen

happening in the interstices of organizations, betwixt

and between existing and alternative structures, ra-

ther than to the original application to the case of

rituals and rites of passage.

For the purpose of our discussion, what is most

relevant about the concept of liminality is that it

blurs, fuzzes, merges, and amalgamates the structures

of organizations. People who find themselves in a

liminal space are temporarily outside ‘‘normal’’

normative structures. In other words, they are in

limbo and experience the tension between estab-

lished rules and the limitations of these rules for their

experience (Turner, 1969). We consider that these

liminal spaces are part and parcel of organizational

life, rather than exceptional deviations from nor-

mality. First, as discussed by Max Weber, with his

notion of ‘‘official secrets,’’ there are things hap-

pening in the organizational backstage, which do

matter and serve relevant functions (1920, in Sturdy

et al., 2006). This does not mean, however, that

these functions are acknowledged formally and

explicitly, even by those promoting them. Second,

rules are abstractions whose application in specific

settings requires an effort of translation (Czar-

niawska, 2008). In other words, people may have to

ask themselves about the meaning of a rule in a

particular setting and consider the difference be-

tween ‘‘what is’’ and ‘‘what can or will be’’ (Cook-

Sather, 2006). Such a translation exercise may be

equivocal due to the inherent complexity of real

contexts and the ambiguity they often involve.

Hence, Maguire et al.’s (2006) reference to the dif-

ficulties associated with ‘‘achieving intersubjective

agreement on fundamentally interpretive issues’’ (p. 171,

italics in the original), for example, the meaning of a

general rule in a specific context.

The need to develop intersubjective agreements

under conditions of ambiguity is a fundamental

correlate of liminality (e.g. Cook-Sather, 2006,

p. 110; Tempest and Starkey, 2004). We thus argue

that liminality is inevitable in complex organizations,

in which general values, rules, and norms need to be

interpreted in and translated to specific contexts.

Before proceeding, it is important to distinguish

liminality from ethical dilemmas. An ethical di-

lemma ‘‘is a situation in which the person does not

know how to act because of conflicting beliefs about

what is axiologically required’’ (Lurie and Albin,

2007, p. 196; italics in the original). Liminality is a

three-stage process where (1) confusion and ambi-

guity (pre-liminal phase) resulting from conflicting

sources of (ethical, social, etc.) judgment are fol-

lowed by (2) a tolerance stage of less than ethical

behaviors (liminal phase), and (3) a normalization/

justification stage (post-liminal phase) where ‘‘less

than ethical’’ behaviors are justified as being ethical

and normalized. Ethical dilemmas may occur in the

first stage, but not necessarily. For example, one

leader may have no doubt about what should be

decided in ethical terms, but experience confusion

and ambiguity due to social pressures and/or eco-

nomic constraints. Liminality may be experienced at

the individual and collective level, as well as at the

intersection between both. In the following section,

we discuss signs of liminality in organizations, and

how they should be interpreted.

How does liminality become manifest?

For both researchers and practitioners, the presence

of liminality may be difficult to recognize and

investigate, in part, because it is an unfamiliar con-

cept. Therefore, it tends to go unnoticed as people

relationally construct their situations and move in

and out of the liminal condition. We suggest that the

exploration of liminality’s presence in the process

of ethical leadership may consider three signs of

liminality in the making: confusion and ambiguity

(in the pre-liminal phase), tolerance of less than

ethical behaviors (during the liminal phase), and

normalization/justification (in the post-liminal

phase). Other signs do certainly exist, but these

exemplify the type of ethical issues raised by the

liminal process.

Pre-liminal sign: confusion and ambiguity

A first sign of the possibility of liminality refers to

conditions of confusion and ambiguity. Some deci-

sions and courses of action made questionable ex post

unfold in conditions of ambiguity and confusion.

Because dealing with ambiguity requires intense

communication and a collective process of sense

making, people may come to push each other

to accept solutions that would not be acceptable

individually, which is characteristic of liminal

194 Miguel Pina e Cunha et al.

conditions. In such circumstances, phenomena such

as groupthink breed an internal logic that may be

difficult for outsiders to understand. Also, this type

of interpretation, which results from an internal logic

created in fluid space–time (Tempest and Starkey,

2004) and, in the end, may be in opposition to

outside rules and norms of business ethics, is facili-

tated by the interstructural condition of liminality.

Liminal sign: tolerating less than ethical behaviors

A second sign of liminality in the making refers to

how less than ethical behaviors are tolerated within

the organization. The relational process that leads to

the progressive acceptance of actions otherwise

deemed unethical is conducive to the collective

redefinition of ethical frames, which eventually

facilitates the creation of new understandings or

degrees of acceptance of right and wrong, which

become valid within the boundaries of a specific

community. There is evidence of the application of

this type of process in a formal way, such as in the

extreme case of socializing individuals to become

torturers (Haritos-Fatouros, 1988) or to play the role

of ruthless prison guards (Glynn and Jamerson, 2006;

Zimbardo, 2004). When this happens informally, in

an emergent way, we are in the presence of another

sign of liminality. The process is a step-by-step

induction that reframes individual beliefs by becom-

ing increasingly tolerant to a set of behaviors that most

people would not accept without socialization and

the liminal experience. This is the case of organiza-

tions that act unethically, from an outsider perspec-

tive, although internally their members may be

unaware or convinced otherwise.

Post-liminal sign: normalization and justification

A third sign of the presence of liminality refers to the

normalization and justification of less than ethical

behaviors. When people engage in unethical pro-

cesses, they will make an effort to justify why their

behaviors are not only acceptable, but also morally

sustainable. This can be partially justified by the

presence of liminality. The function of the liminal

period is precisely to open up new forms of under-

standing and interpretation. The interactions taking

place during this period may facilitate the emergence

of new frames which will be validated and institu-

tionalized in the post-liminal phase, during which

the way people think about what is ethical and what

is not may have changed significantly, even though

the ethical quality of the associated acts remains

unaltered. Research has shown that people may

engage in unethical behavior and normalize and

justify it in a sequence of group activities that could

be aimed at protecting or benefiting the organization

(Pinto et al., 2008). In other words, people ratio-

nalize their previous choices and justify their exis-

tence with moral arguments in a process that has

been described as a spiral toward moral decadence

(Den Nieuwenboer and Kaptein, 2008).

After having described the conditions that may

signal the presence of liminality in organizations, we

explore six specific possibilities in which there is a

greater potential for liminality to emerge.

When does liminality happen?

In order to explore those occasions in which a liminal

condition is likely to be triggered, we consider three

organizational factors supporting ethical conduct in

organizations (Brown and Treviño, 2006, p. 601):

rules (formal policies), norms (collectively legiti-

mized, informal forms of behavior), and examples of

ethical leadership (the observed and interpreted

behavior of leaders). The importance of these

dimensions has been the subject of both theoretical

and empirical studies (e.g., Mulki et al., 2009). We

consider that when two of these dimensions collide,

liminality is bound to occur: the lack of consistency in

what is supposed to be consistent provides an

opportunity for people to reinterpret habitual

mindsets. Based on this reinterpretation, and the

ensuing ethical challenges, leaders become more ex-

posed to the possibility of unethical behavior. The

summary of possibilities discussed below and sum-

marized in Table I is the result of the combination

among these three variables.

Possibility 1: rules collide with rules

A situation in which the occurrence of liminality and

of ethical conflict is most likely is when one set of

195Leading and Following (Un)ethically in Limen

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in al

st ag

e L im

in al

st ag

e P o st

-l im

in al

st ag

P ro

p o si ti o n

1 :

R u le

v s.

ru le

A n e w

ru le

is in

tr o d u c e d .

It c la

sh e s

w it h

an o th

e r,

p re

-e x is ti n g

ru le

T h e

le ad

e r

an d

th e

te am

ar e

c o n -

fr o n te

d w

it h

th e

n e e d

to ac

c o m

m o d at

e tw

o o p p o si n g

ru le

A n

o rd

e r

e m

e rg

e s

o u t

o f

th e

d i-

le m

m a.

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ru le

m ay

b e

ig n o re

d o r

re in

te rp

re te

d in

su c h

a w

ay th

at th

d il e m

m a

is ta

c k le

d in

a w

ay th

c o n tr

ad ic

ts th

e p re

v io

u s

o rd

e r

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p o si ti o n

2 :

R u le

v s.

n o rm

A n

e x is ti n g

ru le

is c h al

le n g e d

b y

so m

e o rg

an iz

at io

n al

m e m

b e rs

T h e

ru le

s an

d n o rm

s ar

e c o n fr

o n te

d .

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ar e d

n o rm

m ay

b e

v ie

w e d

le g it im

at e

fr o m

th e

g ro

u p ’s

p e r-

sp e c ti v e s,

b e c au

se ,

fo r

e x am

p le

, it

p ro

te c ts

th e

g ro

u p

fr o m

in ad

e q u at

ru le

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n o rm

is v ie

w e d

as le

g it im

at e

an d

ta k e s

p re

c e d e n c e

o v e r

th e

ru le

P ro

p o si ti o n

3 :

R u le

v s.

e x am

p le

A le

ad e r

ac ts

in a

w ay

th at

g o e s

ag ai

n st

a ru

T h e

re su

lt in

g d is so

n an

c e

n e e d s to

b e

ad d re

ss e d .

W h ic

h is

w ro

n g :

th e

le ad

e r’

s b e h av

io r

o r

th e

n o rm

P e o p le

m ay

e n d

u p

ac c e p ti n g ,

fo r

e x am

p le

, th

at le

ad e r’

s b e h av

io r

is as

le g it im

at e

o r

m o re

th an

a ru

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p o si ti o n

4 : N

o rm

v s.

N o rm

A n

e th

ic al

le ad

e r

e n te

rs a

g ro

u p

w it h

n o rm

s th

at ar

e e th

ic al

ly q u e s-

ti o n ab

T h e

le ad

e r

m u st

c h an

g e

o r

b e

c h an

g e d

If th

e g ro

u p

is st

ro n g

e n o u g h ,

th e n

th e

le ad

e r

m ay

e n d

u p

ac c e p ti n g

it s

n o rm

s as

ad e q u at

e ,

g iv

e n

it s

p as

ad e q u ac

P ro

p o si ti o n

5 : N

o rm

v s.

e x am

p le

A le

ad e r

tr ie

s to

c h al

le n g e

n o rm

s o f

e th

ic al

p ra

c ti c e , w

h ic

h o b st

ru c t h ig

p e rf

o rm

an c e

L e ad

e r

an d

g ro

u p

m e m

b e rs

e n g ag

in re

in te

rp re

ta ti

o n

o f

n o rm

s in

fa c e

o f

d is so

n an

t le

ad e r

e x am

p le

N o rm

s m

ay b e

re d e fi n e d

in su

c h

w ay

th at

u n e th

ic al

p ra

c ti c e

b e c o m

e s

to le

ra te

d to

th e

e x te

n t

th at

it c o n -

tr ib

u te

s to

th e

b o tt

o m

li n e

P ro

p o si ti o n

6 :

E x am

p le

v s.

e x am

p le

A le

ad e r

ad o p ts

a p ra

c ti c e

th at

c o n -

tr ad

ic ts

p re

v io

u s

o r

c o e x is ti n g

le ad

e rs

h ip

m o d e ls

L e ad

e r

an d

m e m

b e rs

e n g ag

e in

th e

d is c u ss

io n

an d

re in

te rp

re ta

ti o n

o f

p ra

c ti c e s

N e w

p ra

c ti c e s

m ay

b e

ad o p te

d ,

th at

c o n tr

ad ic

t p re

v io

u sl y

ac c e p te

p ra

c ti c e s

196 Miguel Pina e Cunha et al.

rules collides with another. Many people working in

bureaucracies have experienced a situation in which

formal policies are in opposition, due to the prolif-

eration of rules (Masuch, 1985). As an extreme

example of how rules may collide, the Greek gov-

ernment decided, at some point in time, to pay

doctors a fictitious overtime (overtime work not

actually performed) to circumvent constitutional

constraints on medical doctors’ salaries (Ballas and

Tsoukas, 2004). This legal decision, in opposition to

the Constitution, suggests that what is adequate or

not may actually be less than clear. People con-

fronted with this situation experience a condition

that is difficult to reconcile with expectations about

the management of the state and that have a po-

tential for the sort of interpretative ambiguity asso-

ciated with liminality. If fictitious overtime may be

created by the state, then other fictions can also be

created by its agents. What once was unethical and

undoable may have become reinterpreted as uneth-

ical but normal. The case can be even more radical

when a leader acts with two sets of rules, as happens

with expatriates. Consider the following example:

decisions need to be made concerning (again, for

example), employee theft. Does one call the police, as

company policy in the West might dictate? Managers,

who in the past have done so, sometimes find that

from a cultural perspective, the punishment far out-

weighs the crime. Stone (2002), for example tells of an

American manager in China who (because of company

policy) notified the police that he had fired an em-

ployee for theft. Later, he was horrified when told that

his ex-employee had been executed. (Wright et al.,

2003, p. 186)

Working between ethical frames may put people

in an ethical limbo, where the previous order needs

to be reconsidered. Although the above examples

portray situations in which the ethical content of

each rule is disputable, i.e., in which there can be

disagreement concerning the ethical value of at

least one of the options, the collision of rules with

identical ethical value can also trigger liminality,

and thus leave room for unethical behavior (or at

least action that will be perceived as such by some).

This is the case of Microsoft in China, in which

the rule that asserts abiding by the freedom of

speech and the rule that stipulates respect for the

sovereignty of different states collide on entering

the attractive Chinese market (Dann and Haddow,

2007).

Therefore, we suggest that:

Proposition 1: People confronted with the collision

of rules will be likely to experience a liminal con-

dition and thus to be faced with ethical challenges.

Possibility 2: rules collide with norms

One of the documented liminal situations in orga-

nizational life is the purposeful creation of spaces

where usual structures are suspended in such a way

that being between organizational and non-organi-

zational spaces leads to the neutralization of existing

rules and the creation of norms that are viewed as

convenient and acceptable by those involved in their

making. The process can be seen in Sturdy et al.’s

(2006) study of the role of corporate meals in con-

sultancy projects. During these interactions in limen,

leaders of the consulting firms may receive instruc-

tions with regard to the results ‘‘expected’’ by the

client firm. The business meal works as a liminal

occasion, where formal professional relations are

redefined in a space of informality and stabilized in

the post-liminal period. The occurrences taking

place in these spaces may be questionable and may

stimulate the discomfort of those experiencing them,

due precisely to the ‘‘ethical concerns’’ they may

raise (Sturdy et al., 2006, p. 949). Other examples of

interstitial spaces where formality is partly suspended

have been observed by Crozier (1963) and Orr

(1996), who showed that groups can quietly culti-

vate informal norms that contradict formal policies

or rules. The process of norm creation possibly in-

volves some form of liminality. If, in these cases, the

post-liminal space can still be described as remaining

within the boundaries of ethicality, then, in other

cases, new norms may neutralize rules and fall into

the space of corruption (Den Nieuwenboer and

Kaptein, 2008).

Again, both rules and norms need not have dif-

ferent ethical values. For instance, a company with a

policy of no facilitation payments or gift giving can

be confronted with a local norm of gift exchanges as

tokens of good will (Steidlmeier, 1999). The rule

appears to be ethically indisputable, while the norm

197Leading and Following (Un)ethically in Limen

also appears to violate no ethical principle, yet the

confluence of the two puts the individual into a

liminal situation and risks unethical behavior. From

this, we derive our second proposition:

Proposition 2: Formal rules colliding with informal

norms will be likely to manifest the liminal phe-

nomenon and thus to favor the emergence of ethical

challenges.

Possibility 3: rules collide with leadership example

Another situation that may lead to the emergence of

liminal spaces and to ethical strain is when rules

collide with leadership example. In this case, the

formal rules may not be followed, which leads to a

state in which the suspension of policies may be

perceived as acceptable by followers, because it has

been demonstrated as exemplary action by the lea-

der. There is a well-documented literature on this

gap (e.g., Clark, 2006; Glynn and Jamerson, 2006;

Kellerman, 2004; Sims and Brinkmann, 2003),

which suggests that formal ethical policies may be

ignored by leaders, and subsequently by their sub-

ordinates, since employees often imitate leader

behavior and look to leaders for cues on appropriate

behavior (Sims and Brinkmann, 2003), or try to

avoid clashes of values with those in positions of

power (Gordon et al., 2009). The ethical strain

emerges when ethics is viewed as amounting to

nothing more than window dressing, as seems to be

the case when Chief Ethics and Compliance Officers

are created for institutional reasons of compliance

with imposed norms or to mask hidden aspects of

organizational life (Clark, 2006).

Enron provides an example of ethics as window

dressing: a low level of ethicality in the organiza-

tion’s culture, which was expressed in leadership

behavior, combined with a strong presence and

marketing of formal business ethical tools. Leaders

setting unrealistic financial targets and ‘‘turning a

blind eye’’ (Ashforth et al., 2008, p. 673) to less than

ethical behaviors, supported, as in Enron’s case, by

the larger context of societal and corporate culture

during the 1990s, may trigger the process of limi-

nality that eventually reduces the cognitive

dissonance (Festinger, 1957) felt by those living with

mutually inconsistent formal policies and leadership

behaviors (Sims and Brinkmann, 2003). Hence:

Proposition 3: Formal policies colliding with leader

example will be likely to lead to the liminal phenome-

non and thus to the emergence of ethical challenges.

Possibility 4: norms colliding with other norms

Liminality and ethical challenges may also take place

when norms collide with other norms. It is possible

that norms favorable to ethical behaviors clash with a

strong pressure for results – which leads to the idea

that good guys come last. Both sets of norms may

even be substantiated in formal policies. It may be

difficult, however, to find a healthy tension between

the two. When such a synthesis is not enacted,

people may find that it is the primary values stressing

the need to deliver that mold the understanding of

what is and what is not ethically acceptable. As a

result, one set of norms may shape the content of

another to induce fit. The case of Enron indicates

that pressures for ethical behavior may be difficult to

reconcile with ‘‘the pressure to make the numbers’’

(Byrne et al., 2002, p. 37). It is also known from this

iconic and well-documented case that internal dis-

cussions helped to establish standards and to validate

emerging frames on the appropriate methods of

corporate valuation: ‘‘There were endless meetings

fighting about how this deal should be valued,’’

participants remarked (France and Zellner, 2002,

p. 35). Discussions on how to make sense of and to

tackle seemingly incompatible norms may be con-

ducive to liminality and the subsequent loosening of

ethical standards. In the end, one set of norms may

provide the legitimacy for the deteriorating group

norms, for example, by suggesting that some bad

things need to be done for the sake of a greater good

– for example, for reaching an important goal

(Barsky, 2007; Ordóñez et al., 2009).

A process with some similarities to the one de-

scribed above occurs in the case of companies run-

ning operations in different countries. Expatriated

leaders may find themselves having to cope with

disparate cultural and ethical frameworks (Beekun

198 Miguel Pina e Cunha et al.

et al., 2004; Chung et al., 2008; Hendry, 1999;

Newman et al., 1978), as sources of informal norms

within the boundaries of the organization. The often-

conflicting sets of norms compete at the same level for

the expatriated leaders’ attention, thus leading to the

enactment of individual strategies that seek to

accommodate different normative strains within

decision-making processes (Feldman and Thomas,

1992). One solution for these cases of conflicting

authentic and legitimate norms, would be applying

the prioritization rules suggested by Donaldson and

Dunfee (1994). This would solve the ethical problem

and terminate the liminal period. However, before

that occurs, the leader is indeed subjected to a period

of liminality during which he is able to reflect on the

conflict with no interference from outside frames and

decide to adopt unethical processes.

When organizations with different cultures

merge, the embedded norms of one partner may

collide with other norms that are taken for granted

in the partner organization; the same thing can

happen when a change of culture leads a company to

a collision with its own past. This is the case of some

financial institutions in the build up to the recent

global economic crisis. Former norms that required

parsimony in lending and cautiousness in evaluating

risk were gradually replaced by more prodigal norms

that facilitated credit and seamlessly led to the sub-

prime crisis and to bankruptcy (Bianco, 2008) in a

liminal context of permissiveness and allowance

(Garsten, 1999). A close look at the present financial

institutions’ policies and norms leaves no doubt that

the process is now returning to the prudence phase

of this ‘‘roller coaster’’ – a return that certainly is

leading many leaders and other organizational

members into the liminal space once again. From

this, we derive our next proposition:

Proposition 4: When different sets of norms collide it

makes it likely that the liminal phenomenon will

ensue, as will ethical challenges.

Possibility 5: norms colliding with leadership example

Another case that may lead to liminality and to the

emergence of ethical conflicts is when norms collide

with leadership example. Illustrations would be

where leaders are acting ethically in mainly unethical

settings, and unethically in predominantly ethical

settings. In multinational organizations, for instance,

expatriated leaders may conceive of themselves as

bearers of a deep cultural heritage (Knight, 1939) but

it is one that has to be knowledgeable and receptive

toward an equally enforcing, pervasive, and distinct

host-country culture (Tung, 1998). Several authors

refer to such a possibility when discussing the ‘‘cultural

separation’’ experienced by expatriates in Russia:

what is tolerable from the local workers’ ethical point

of view may be considered intolerable by the expa-

triate managers (Beekun et al., 2004; Camiah and

Hollinshead, 2003; Puffer and McCarthy, 1995).

This led Camiah and Hollinshead (2003) to propose

that both Russians and expatriates must learn and

unlearn several issues (i.e., develop a liminal space) to

establish a ‘‘new cross-cultural order’’ (p. 258).

In these non-mediated encounters between cul-

turally (thus, ethically) different leader and followers,

both have to negotiate an order where the two

ethical dimensions can be articulated. The initial lack

of consistency provides a platform for liminality, in

the sense that people will be working in the space

between two distinct frames. Together, leaders and

followers will possibly engage in a process where

differences will have to be discussed, and a shared

understanding achieved, which may even include

the adoption of unethical behaviors. Thus:

Proposition 5: Informal norms colliding with leader-

ship example will be likely to lead to the liminal

phenomenon and thus to the emergence of ethical

challenges.

Possibility 6: leadership example collides with leadership

example

Finally, the absence of consistency may occur at the

level of leadership behaviors. Some leadership

examples may collide with other leadership exam-

ples. Leaders acting ethically may co-exist with

leaders acting unethically in the same company.

Leaders who follow the ‘‘ethics of responsibility’’

may experience attrition with leaders who espouse

the ‘‘ethics of conviction’’ (Enderle, 2007). When

this happens, the leadership message is not consistent

199Leading and Following (Un)ethically in Limen

throughout the organization. A governmental prime

minister or president might stress the importance of

open government while concealing politically sen-

sitive information that, once becoming public, by

virtue of it not having been distributed, undercuts the

ethicality of the previous claims. The consistency of

leadership example across an organization, or the lack

of it, may be more important than has been

acknowledged. In fact, the shared influence of mul-

tiple leaders is a recent topic in leadership research

(Yukl, 2009), and its impact on ethical leadership is a

theme yet to be explored. People in organizations

have access to a multitude of leadership examples that

may display distinct degrees of ethicality.

Issues concerning the consistency of leadership

may be observed at different points within the

organization, including the ethical homogeneity of

top management teams, the consistency between

one’s immediate supervisor and more senior leaders,

including the CEO, the consistency between lead-

ers’ and followers’ values, and the consistency be-

tween the ethicality of one’s leader and his/her peers

in other parts of the organization. Different disci-

plinary formations and different management port-

folio responsibilities will often generate a different

rank ordering of ethical priorities. When leadership

examples diverge, there is (liminal) space for people

to negotiate the meanings of such concepts as

‘‘ethicality’’ and ‘‘example.’’ Previous ethical frames

may be challenged and new ethical understandings

and levels of ethical acceptance be adopted in light of

observed behavior. ‘‘Framing contests’’ (Kaplan,

2008) of leader’s example may be more likely in

times of uncertainty, when the strategy changes and,

with it, the previous meanings of business ethicality

and leadership example may be reinforced or ques-

tioned. From this, we build our final proposition:

Proposition 6: Lack of between-leaders consistency

will be likely to lead to the liminal phenomenon and

thus to the emergence of ethical challenges.

Why does liminality matter?

Existing normative approaches already address the

black and white areas of ethics. This is the case of

deontology and of the universal principles, the case

of utilitarianism and the greater good, as well as the

already cited case of ISCT. Contrastingly, liminality

matters for understanding the process of ethical

leadership because it clarifies the important role of

the ‘‘gray areas’’ that tend to be obscured by the

dominant normative approaches. It is possibly in

these gray areas that ambiguity places leaders betwixt

and between clear frames for making decisions, and

that the risks of unethical leadership are most rele-

vant, as we saw in the previous section. In this

section, we discuss some possible reasons why the

study of ethical leadership in limen should be in-

cluded in the business ethics research agenda. We

consider five motives: (1) avoiding ‘‘black and

white’’ views of ethical leadership; (2) adopting a

process/relational approach to ethical leadership; (3)

avoiding dispositional and situational deterministic

explanations; (4) presenting ethical leadership as a

social construction; and (5) incorporating the role of

ambiguity in the process of ethical leadership.

Avoiding black and white views of the ethical

leadership process

The clear cut opposition between ethical and

unethical leaders and leadership is, in our view,

limiting. In an article on the leadership lessons of

Nelson Mandela for Time magazine, Richard Stengel

wrote that ‘‘nothing is black or white’’ (Stengel,

2008). Mandela could be seen as the public face of a

terrorist organization, a freedom fighter, or a polit-

ical prisoner – all at the same time. The need to

consider gray areas, rather than relying on absolute

distinctions, has been defended by authors from the

area of complexity theory: ‘‘there is no black-and-

white answer, which in itself indicates that context is

critical’’ (Richardson et al., 2001, p. 10); again, the

same authors pointed out that all ‘‘contexts should

be considered ‘‘gray.’’ As such, new perspectives

must be tailored to ‘‘fit’’ the new context’’ (p. 16).

Although we recognize that, in ethical terms,

there are indeed black and white areas, in which

right and wrong are clear concepts that can be

applied to concrete situations, the static simplicity of

the bad apples/bad barrels explanations does not

mirror the subtleties of most of the real world con-

vincingly; hence the need to consider the role of

liminality in the constitution of gray areas, especially

200 Miguel Pina e Cunha et al.

where cultural worlds overlap, entangle, and collide:

in the Mandela example, the entanglements of

Afrikaans hegemony and African liberation; trade

and politics; international sport and apartheid.

Adopting a process/relational approach to ethical

leadership

The reading of ethical leadership as a process that is

both multidirectional and interactive (Ashforth et al.,

2008), as reflected in the liminal view, may add tex-

ture and richness to future research on the topic. Such

a view aligns with emerging models of complexity

leadership that depart from mechanistic models in

which linear causal relationships are predicted. The

ways in which leaders deal with moral dilemmas may

also benefit from consideration of liminality. A moral

dilemma is ‘‘a situation in which people judge that

morally they ought to do one thing (A) and morally

ought to do another thing (B), and sometimes a third

(C), or even a fourth thing (D) as well, however they

cannot perform all of these mutually exclusive options

together’’ (Lurie and Albin, 2007, p. 195). The

ambiguity inherent in these situations may put deci-

sion makers in the liminal condition and influence the

way they tackle these dilemmas.

Avoiding dispositional and situationally deterministic

explanations

The presence of liminality brings to the fore that

ethical leadership is a process that, as such, can be

explored and researched beyond the two established

forms of understanding, represented by dispositional

and situational views. By offering a dynamic and

relational view of the leadership process, liminality

enriches our understanding of the collective consti-

tution of ethical leadership by leaders, followers, and

their circumstances.

Presenting ethical leadership as a social construction

Liminality strengthens the argument that the ethical

content of leadership is a product of social interac-

tion. Some studies have already advanced the

implications of considering leadership as a social

construction. For example, Izraeli (1988) showed

that followers who have observed others performing

unethical behaviors are more likely to engage in

unethical behaviors themselves. Liminality, with its

room for negotiation and openness to novel per-

spectives over well-known phenomena, favors, as

we have seen above, the emergence of new under-

standings and degrees of acceptance concerning

ethics, which eventually is reflected in the quality of

ethical leadership. As Kellerman (2004, p. 226)

pointed out, ‘‘leaders and followers literally cocreate,

coconstitute, leadership,’’ thus socially confirming or

creating, in a context of liminality, existing or new

types of ethical leadership.

Incorporating the role of ambiguity in the process

of ethical leadership

The study of ethical leadership in limen provides a

meaning for the role of ambiguity in the social

construction of organizational ethicality and uneth-

icality. The clarity often associated with representa-

tions of ethical leadership (e.g., Ardichvili et al.,

2009) may constitute a normative ideal, but the

complexity of real situations renders the world less

clear or unambiguous. It must be a concern of both

academics and practitioners to provide further depth

to the explanation of otherwise inexplicable viola-

tions of existing ethical precept. The consideration

of liminality as a state betwixt and between suggests

that the appreciation of the interstices may render

the adoption of unusual research methods necessary,

as discussed next.

Conceptual and methodological challenges

The discussion of the role of liminality in the process

of ethical leadership raises a number of methodo-

logical challenges for researchers. First, they will

need to define what a liminal space is in reference to

ethical leadership. Liminality was originally studied

with reference to rituals and rites of passage, pro-

cesses whose boundaries (temporal and spatial) are

perhaps clearer than those of leadership processes in

organizations. Here, people move from one state of

being to another. Today, in ethical terms, we are

201Leading and Following (Un)ethically in Limen

more likely to see liminal situations occurring where

different cultures interpenetrate each other. In

Australia, for instance, anthropologists are widely

used in negotiations over land rights and mineral

rights and hired and read avidly by indigenous

peoples, administrations and business seeking to

negotiate access of one kind or another. A complex

ethical reality is being translated and interpreted

between the law of indigenous lore, the Dreaming,

of a particular people and the formal law of the

nation, in which vast profits are at stake for business

and for the indigenous people, a complete way of

life.

Second, once defined, the liminal states should be

studied as they unfold, inviting the adoption of

naturalistic approaches to avoid the bias of retro-

spective justification, and to diminish the potential

for social desirability and impression management.

Third, considering the above points, established

techniques, such as questionnaires and surveys, may

at this stage not be appropriate to build theory about

liminality in organizations due to the scarcity of

cumulative knowledge on the topic. There is also

the possibility that much of the action will unfold in

contexts where such devices would be useless, such

as the Australian outback, or the Papua New Guinea

Highlands. The experience sampling method (i.e.,

asking participants to stop at certain times and make

notes of their experiences, feelings and behaviors in

real time; Larson and Csikszentmihalyi, 1983) pro-

vides an example of a promising research approach;

it is very much akin to what applied anthropologists

have to do in complex negotiations.

The issues raised above also suggest that

researchers may pursue the study of the role

of liminality in ethical leadership as participant

observers, namely in those contexts to which they

do have open access. Firsthand experience in

university settings (Cabral-Cardoso, 2004) and eth-

nographic studies (Schwartzman, 1993) may be

adequate to explore how liminality plays its part in

the ethical behavior of leaders and followers, but the

challenges of the liminal experience may also stim-

ulate the elaboration of research approaches more

suited to the particularities of this type of experience.

Authors such as Bargiela-Chiappini (2007) and

Knox et al. (2007) suggested that liminal processes

may be especially salient in liminal organizations,

such as restaurants, airports, and monasteries, points

of passage that may facilitate the understanding of

liminality by rendering it more salient. The menu of

research approaches for studying relationality sug-

gested by Bradbury and Lichtenstein (2000) seems

particularly suited for the exploration of relationality

in limen. Ethnographies, action research, reflective

practitioner methodology, insider/outsider team

research, active interviews, and other qualitative

methods that tend to be only marginally used in

management studies, are examples of research

approaches appropriate for exploring liminality in

ethical leadership/followership.

Conclusion

We suggested that the understanding of ethical

leadership as a relational process may benefit from

the consideration of the hitherto neglected role of

liminality – ignorance and neglect probably result-

ing from the preference of dominant theories of

organization for clarity over ambiguity (Chen,

2008). Liminality thrives on ambiguity rather than

on clarity. It refers to the fluid processes where

normal order is suspended and a new order, based

on emerging frames, is under construction (Sturdy

et al., 2006). We discussed how the suspension of

normal order may be unsettling and difficult to

manage and how it may, as a consequence, be a

favorable ground for unethical leadership because it

helps to build the frames that will later be used to

justify different understandings of ethical leadership,

regardless of their real ethical value. Our study

complements, for example, research on decision

making showing that ethical lapses may result from

lack of decision-making quality, rather than from

unethical intentionality (Bazerman and Chugh,

2006). The liminal view of ethical leadership rep-

resents it as a process rather than as a state, and

considers the role of the collective social construc-

tion of the meaning of ethicality in organizations.

As a result, as Masuch (1985, pp. 30–31) suggests,

‘‘what is a vicious circle for one party, then, is a

virtuous circle for another.’’

Ethical leaders and followers and their organiza-

tional contexts are often assumed, implicitly, to be

static, homogeneous, and unambiguous. This is ex-

pressed, for example, in the notion that unethical

leadership/followership has a dispositional base or

202 Miguel Pina e Cunha et al.

results from rotten cultural foundations comprising

(un)ethical cultures. We consider these views to be

simplifications of life in and around organizations

resulting in the domination of normative views and

difficulties in describing and understanding ethical

collapses without falling into the ‘‘bad apples/bad

barrel’’ type of explanations. One of the potential

advantages of the inclusion of the notion of limi-

nality in the research agenda relates to the need to

search for explanations of business ethics, which are

sensitive to the influence of interactions over time

and space. In this sense, our study belongs to the

same domain as other texts that focused on the

dynamics of organizational ethics, as reflected in

notions such as cycles (Masuch, 1985), spirals (Den

Nieuwenboer and Kaptein, 2008), and practices

(Brown et al., 2005; Clegg et al., 2007a, b).

In conclusion, this article may be treated as an

invitation for management researchers to explore the

meaning and role of liminality in the leadership

process. Considering existing ethical leadership

research divisions between static individual traits and

stable organizational contexts, the inclusion of lim-

inality may shed light on what is dynamic, fluid,

ambiguous, unstable, confusing, and dubious in this

process. In turn, this may facilitate a better articu-

lation across levels and contribute to explaining why

decent people can end up engaging in morally

questionable practices – even if they are virtuous and

prudent individuals who need to make a choice after

weighing respectable but conflicting values, interests,

or goals. If they opt to align with unethical pressures

rather than, for example, finding another job in a

decent organization, then it means that some subtle

yet powerful force is possibly in place to influence

them. We suggested that liminality may be part of

the explanation.

Acknowledgments

Miguel Cunha gratefully acknowledges support from

Nova Forum. A preliminary version was presented at

the EBEN Research Conference 2009, Beer-Sheva,

Israel. We thank the participants in our session, and

acknowledge the feedback obtained from the Journal

during the review process.

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Miguel Pina e Cunha

Faculdade de Economia,

Universidade Nova de Lisboa,

Rua Marquês de Fronteira, 20,

1099-038 Lisboa, Portugal

E-mail: [email protected]

Nuno Guimarães-Costa

Faculdade de Economia,

Universidade Nova de Lisboa,

Campus de Campolide, 1099-032 Lisboa, Portugal

E-mail: [email protected]

Arménio Rego

Departamento de Economia,

Gestão e Engenharia Industrial,

Universidade de Aveiro,

3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal

E-mail: [email protected]

Stewart R. Clegg

Centre for Management and Organization Studies,

Faculty of Business,

University of Technology Sydney,

P.O. Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia

E-mail: [email protected]

206 Miguel Pina e Cunha et al.

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