Giving peace a chance: organizational leadership, empowerment, and peace An earlier version of this paper was presented at an All Academy Symposium entitled ‘A role for organizations in sustainable peace’ at the 2005 National Academy of Management Meetings, August 7–10, Hawaii.

Abstract

This paper provides an exploratory look at how the leadership practices of business organizations may foster more peaceful societies. I develop the logic for positive relationships between participative organizational leadership, employee empowerment, and peace. I offer several mechanisms to explain why these different manifestations of voice are likely to contribute to peaceful societies. I then draw on several cross-national databases to provide a preliminary examination of the hypotheses. I find support for the hypotheses regarding the positive effects of participative leadership and employee empowerment in work organizations on peace. The paper concludes by discussing contributions of this research to the organizational studies literature and offers directions for future research. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.