Emergencing: Discovering the tacit dimension of global health leadership

摘要

This study addressed the problem of leadership effectiveness in the practice of global health using a qualitative method with an emerging grounded theory design. A paradoxical increase in the incidence of diseases and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa exists at a time when there is increasing investment for fighting the diseases and poverty. Failure to acknowledge tacit knowledge leads to the emergence of unintended consequences and ultimate failure of projects, creating a relevance paradox. The underlying systems archetypes of failure to acknowledge the tacit dimension include fixes-that-fail and shifting-the-burden. Processual integrity emerged as the positive central phenomenon that allowed the emergence of relevant knowledge from a group of diverse stakeholders. Knowledge alienation emerged as the negative central phenomenon inhibiting the emergence of knowledge from a group of diverse stakeholders. Emergencing is the theoretical model of bringing forth relevant knowledge from a group of stakeholders.