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This paper reports upon a two‐year, qualitative, case study action research investigation into “learning within a project team”. This project team undertook a significant socio‐technical redesign project within a major Australian heavy engineering/manufacturing operation. The paper identifies and elaborates upon a number of elements that form a potential “learning architecture” for intra‐project learning. In unison with these elements, the paper also argues that project teams pursuing a learning objective within a project must pay systematic attention to the “situated learning” aspects of their project context. It is concluded that the potential learning architecture presented has implications for research in the learning and project management fields and, most importantly, for learning processes within project management workplace practice. These implications may extend beyond the project management boundary researched and be applicable in other similar group settings where managers attempt to facilitate learning.

Michel Foucault and Max Weber dominate contemporary organisation theory. At least in part, Foucault can be read as an extension of Weber's concepts of bureaucracy and rationalisation. Or, more profitably, Weber can be read through Foucault and vice versa. Central to the development of the bureaucracy was the construction of the career as a life-long project of the self. From the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, British banks developed extensive forms of surveillance predicated upon the career. Not all clerks satisfied the banks' close inspection of the individual's personal life. Here, we use Weber and Foucault to tell the story of William Notman, a Scottish bank clerk who successfully sued his employers for dismissing him because he married against their wishes.

The aim of this chapter is to argue that charisma is a collective representation, and that charismatic authority is a social status that derives more from the “recognition” of the followers than from the “magnetism” of the leaders. I contend further that a close reading of Max Weber shows that he, too, saw charisma in this light.

I develop my argument by a close reading of many of the most relevant texts on the subject. This includes not only the renowned texts on this subject by Max Weber, but also many books and articles that interpret or criticize Weber’s views.

I pay exceptionally close attention to key arguments and texts, several of which have been overlooked in the past.

Writers for whom charisma is personal magnetism tend to assume that charismatic rule is natural and that the full realization of democratic norms is unlikely. Authority, in this view, emanates from rulers unbound by popular constraint. I argue that, in fact, authority draws both its mandate and its energy from the public, and that rulers depend on the loyalty of their subjects, which is never assured. So charismatic claimants are dependent on popular choice, not vice versa.

I advocate a “culturalist” interpretation of Weber, which runs counter to the dominant “personalist” account. Conventional interpreters, under the sway of theology or mass psychology, misread Weber as a romantic, for whom charisma is primal and undemocratic rule is destiny. This essay offers a counter-reading.

We take as our point of departure Weber's well-known taxonomy of forms of authority (Weber, 1947; 1968). Traditional authority, which first of all characterizes pre-modern societies, is based on inherited privileges and positions. Legal authority, which is often termed rational and bureaucratic, is based on position and competence. In addition, it is impersonal. By contrast, charismatic authority is personal, not positional. It has one main feature, authority legitimated by the appeal of leaders who claim allegiance because of the force of their extraordinary personalities. Weber saw this kind of authority as liberation from the alienation, which the bureaucratic “iron cage” represented. The essence of charisma is a sort of life and vitality, which is the opposite of the formality of bureaucracy and the roles and conventions of traditional society (Weber, 1968, p. 24). Consequently, charisma implies a sort of renewal. According to one of Weber's most heavily quoted passages, charisma is based on “the devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him” (Weber, 1968, p. 46). The charismatic leader has, in other words, exceptional qualities and is accordingly “set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” (Weber, 1968, p. 48).

Political science and public administration have seen significant transformations as a result of digitalization. The literature depicts the transformation brought about by digitalization at various stages. In the literature, these periods are termed as Public Administration 1.0 (Cameralism), Public Administration 2.0 (Weberian Bureaucracy), Public Administration 3.0 (New Public Administration), Public Administration 4.0 (Digital Public Administration) and Public Administration 5.0 (Super Smart Society). Not only has digitalization contributed to a more effective, efficient and accountable service understanding, but it has also contributed to the dissolution of the rigid understanding between voters and politicians. However, digitalization has brought both problems and benefits to the field. By creating a fast world, unconfirmed information reaches a greater number of people, bringing negative situations with it. Aside from the societal benefits of digitalization, the methods to be considered will also be discussed in this study.

The purpose of this paper is to fill a gap in the literature on Arab women's conceptions of leadership. By comparing women's leadership authority values in three Arab countries, the paper aims to refine existing gender‐neutral research on leadership in the “Arab world”.

The study involved administering a survey, which had been developed based on Weber's work on authority (1978) and contemporary discussions of implicit leadership theories (ILT). The data (n=320) were drawn from female subjects who were enrolled in upper‐division business major classes in three countries, Oman, Lebanon and the UAE The women thus constituted educated entrants to their respective labor markets. The data were subjected to an analysis of group means on each of the questions, using the Scheffe option available in ANOVA.

The analysis found evidence of common leadership authority values in the Gulf countries (Oman and the UAE). Lebanon, meanwhile, was distinguished by relatively low levels of “traditional” authority, and very high levels of “charismatic” authority. The findings demonstrate important regional similarities and difference in leadership authority values in the “Arab world.”

The study is limited by the number of countries studied. It is thus anticipated that future comparative research will be extended to include other countries (both Arab and non‐Arab), and men.

Leadership training in the Arab region must be sensitized and tailored to address regional and gender‐specific conceptions of leadership.

The paper challenges and refines widespread meta‐notions and analyses of the “Arab world” and “Arab leadership.”

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.