Willem Fourie

Sixty years of research on leadership in Africa: A review of the literature

This paper reviews peer-reviewed research on leadership in Africa published from 1950 to 2009. The review has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it provides scholars with an entry point to the relatively large body of historical literature by means of a descriptive diachronic analysis of the literature. On the other hand, it also applies a synchronic analysis, and concludes with four interpretative statements on the scholarship on leadership in Africa. These statements are: (i) Scholarship on leadership in Africa has changed, and the change is lopsided; (ii) Female scholars are increasing, and they work on different themes from male scholars; (iii) Legitimacy remains a key issue, and continues to evolve; (iv) Authenticity has become a key issue and is now closely related to reclaiming African values.

Contextuality and Intercontextuality in Public Theology: On the Structure of Churches’ Public Engagement in South Africa and Germany

Contextuality and intercontextuality remain important themes in the burgeoning field of public theology. The authors employ a comparative and descriptive approach to contribute to this complex of themes. It is done by investigating and comparing the concrete ways in which churches in South Africa and Germany structure their public engagement. The authors find both significant similarities and differences and conclude with two consequences for reflection on contextuality and intercontextuality in the field of public theology.

Can MNCs be held morally responsible for the unintended consequences of their operations

There seems to be popular consensus that multinational corporations (MNCs) should take responsibility for both the intended and unintended consequences of their operations. However, within the discipline of ethics, reflection on the responsibilities of MNCs continues to be highly controversial. In this article, we reflect on one of the more contentious issues in this debate, namely, the moral responsibility of MNCs for the unintended consequences of their operations. It is argued that at least two questions need to be addressed, namely, whether or not MNCs can be held morally responsible for anything and – should this be the case – what it actually means to hold the MNCs responsible.

Can Public Theology Be Practised beyond the State

article reflects on the relationship between public theology and the state. It sug- gests that a state-centric paradigm plays a signifijicant role in the self-understanding and practice of public theology, and that transnationalism can serve as correction to state- centrism. It argues that these concepts complement the existing discourse on glocal- ization in public theology. The article investigates the role of churches in the struggle against apartheid as an early example of transnationalism in public theology. The con- cluding section shows that transnationalism may aid the practitioners of public theol- ogy to reflect critically on its relation to the state. Keywordstheology, transnationalism, apartheid, Global Compact, state-centrism

Expanded ethics: Developing a macroethical perspective for multinational companies in South Africa

In this article, it is argued that multinational companies (MNCs) that operate in South Africa should include a macroethical perspective in their ethical reflection. MNCs in South Africa are subjected to significant societal changes. At the same time, they are in a position to exert their influence in a way that affects more people than simply their shareholders, clients and employees. It is argued that a macroethical perspective can assist MNCs in coming to terms with these changes by expanding their understanding of their responsibility towards South African society and future generations.

Thou shalt not fail? Using theological impulses to critique the heroic bias in transformational leadership theory

Leaders whose mistakes are made public are often under pressure to relinquish their positions. The expectation that true leaders should be infallible is particularly pronounced in transformational leadership theory. Its heroic bias seems to point towards a conception of leadership that is at odds with the inevitability of human failure. In this article, we use impulses from Protestant theology to identify and critique the heroic bias in transformational leadership theory. We use theory from beyond leadership scholarship and from beyond its conventional Anglophone locations, to show that fallibility does not necessarily disable leaders from contributing to transformational changes. We show that the acknowledgement of leaders’ fallibility has the potential to correct unrealistic and problematic views of leaders’ influence, correct utopian expectations of processes of change and empower followers.

Innovation or Impediment? On Morality and Development

Development practitioners – be they in nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), international organisations, national governments, or even people in charge of the corporate social investment programmes in the private sector – invariably regard their work as essentially moral. Moral, used in this popular sense, is used as a synonym for everything that is good, promotes human flourishing, expands human capabilities, protects fundamental freedoms or rights, and the like. Immoral, quite simply, is used to denote the opposite of moral. For a moral theorist the use, and often the implied use, of ‘moral’ and related terms is fascinating, as it seems to lie beyond reflection on the actual meaning of ‘morality’.

Can we still be Reformed? A reflection on the Reformed tradition and South Africa's modernity

This article reflects on the potential of the Reformed tradition in the context ofmodernity in South Africa. This is of course a courageous venture: the meaning of theconcepts “Reformed” and “modernity” are intensely debated and in some quarterseven their usefulness is questioned. This is exactly why the argument presented inthis article will not be much more than a tentative consideration. It will be donein three parts. The first part will examine challenges to being Reformed in SouthAfrica. The second part investigates South Africa’s modernity as a central challengein more detail. The article concludes with a consideration of three impulses from theReformed tradition that may prove helpful in the context of South Africa’s modernity.