LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOUR IN THE CONTEXT OF NEPOTISM, CRONYISM AND FAVOURITISM: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Abstract

This paper reviewed leadership in the context of nepotism, cronyism and favouritism (NCF) from different disciplines. Studies reviewed were those that have established an association between leadership and NCF behaviours, country differences in leadership and NCF behaviours and the extent of attention that has been granted to leadership in the context of NCF. The analysis was based on articles published by peer-review from 1980 to 2016. The analysis accessed data from EBSCO Discovery, Web of Science, Science direct, Scopus, E-journals and E-books and Google scholar. In total, 24 empirical studies, 12 theoretical studies and 3 news reports were reviewed. The analysis was guided by three research questions. 1) How do existing studies cover leadership behaviour in the context of NCF? 2) How is different leadership behaviour associated with
NCF? 3) How are country differences – developed versus developing – associated with leadership behaviour in the context of NCF? It was found that only a few studies mentioned exact leadership behaviour in studies associating leadership and NCF behaviours. All studies reviewed in this paper acknowledged the association between leadership and NCF behaviours except one. There were no country differences as far as leadership and NCF behaviours were concerned. There were scant studies
of leadership in the context of NCF behaviours in Africa and Latin America and it is recommended that more empirical cross-country studies
on leadership and NCF behaviours should be undertaken to draw
attention to these negative behaviours in the political environment,
business environment and educational environment