Transnational leadership in the Pacific Islands

WHAT IT’S ABOUT

How leadership works at the regional level across the Pacific.

• How do transnational leaders in the Pacific understand their role and function?
• How were their values and interests formed?
• How do they collectively influence institutions, be they local, regional or international?
• How can internal and external actors facilitate the development of transnational leadership cohorts?

WHAT WE EXPECT TO LEARN

How regional leaders come to be leaders, what motivates them, and how they achieve change while balancing their national and international commitments.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Existing research on developmental leadership has tended to focus on national or subnational actors. This project will extend this agenda, by taking the innovative step of studying transnational Pacific leaders, examining their pathways in and through leadership roles, their motivations and intentions, and the ways they juggle local and international obligations.

Transnational leadership in the Pacific is especially important as a key site of contestation between an increasingly assertive China and ‘traditional’ donors such as Australia and New Zealand. To achieve this, we will apply the methodological approach of previous DLP research on ‘positive outliers’ to Pacific Island leaders occupying prominent roles in regional and international institutions. Specifically, it will build on the biographical approach developed in the Being the First publication (Spark et al 2018).

We will seek to construct life histories of these leaders that establish their pathways in and through transnational leadership roles. By doing so we will be able to look beyond the types of cold facts and dead variables common to many studies of leadership characteristics.

Jack Corbett, Principal Investigator

WHO’S INVOLVED, WHERE

• Jack Corbett (PI), University of Southampton
• Roannie Ng Shiu, The Australian National University
• George Carter, The Australian National University
• Edmond Fehoko, University of Auckland

COUNTRIES

Pacific (regional-level)

TIMELINE

March 2020 - December 2022

CHECK OUT THIS PROJECT'S BLOGS

• COVID-19, the choices leaders make, and why we should spend more time thinking about how they see the world and act in it
• From humble beginnings to leading the fisheries of the Moana: A Talanoa with Dr Manumatavai Tupou-Roosen

NEWS

Sign up to the DLP Leadership Observatory for more information on DLP projects or visit the DLP Twitter account to join the conversation #LeadershipObvs.

You may like to visit our partner's websites.

• University of Southampton, on Twitter @unisouthampton
• The Australian National University, on Twitter @ourANU