This chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to examine leadership discourse in the workplace. It focuses, in particular, on how leaders communicate in “ethnicized” organizations. In ethnicized workplaces, ethnicity acts as a taken-for-granted backdrop, crucial for interpreting everyday workplace communication; ethnic values underpin the guidelines or norms that influence the way people interact and the ways in which they construct different aspects of their identity, including their ethnicity. The chapter discusses a theoretical model for analyzing workplace discourse which...

This chapter first sets out the purpose of the book, which is to examine leadership discourse in the workplace. It focuses, in particular, on how leaders communicate in “ethnicized” organizations. In ethnicized workplaces, ethnicity acts as a taken-for-granted backdrop, crucial for interpreting everyday workplace communication; ethnic values underpin the guidelines or norms that influence the way people interact and the ways in which they construct different aspects of their identity, including their ethnicity. The chapter discusses a theoretical model for analyzing workplace discourse which reflects a “realist” position on the relationship between structure and agency. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.