Seulki Lee's research while affiliated with Singapore Management University and other places

Challenging oversimplified models, the leader identity literature calls for new perspectives of leadership identity construction (LIC). Using a collective leadership lens and narrative methods, this collaborative study explores how Indigenous women’s leadership identities develop within a contest for power and voice. Observations, interviews, and micro-ethnographies helped identify how history, community dynamics and cultural contradictions influence LIC. We find the LIC process to unfold as a dialectical spiral, informed by contradictions experienced when enacting social identities in various spheres of influence. This highlights the intersectionality of salient identities when theorizing LIC, and suggests that minoritized leaders can resignify and ultimately, capitalize on their multiple identities to strengthen their leadership.

This study explores the perceived legitimacy of collaborative governance from a citizens’ perspective. We use a preregistered online survey experiment to test the effect of three factors – representation, performance information, and issue complexity – on the perceived legitimacy of a collaboration. Findings show that representation and positive performance information influence citizens’ perceptions of collaborative governance legitimacy, while issue complexity has little impact. Additionally, heterogeneous treatment effects were found: respondents with low trust in public organizations factor representation more into their legitimacy perceptions of collaborative governance, while those with high trust in public organizations show little influence of representation.

Despite the complexities involved around the accountability mechanisms of collaborative governance, little is known about how to assess accountability at the network level and disentangle possible accountability deficits. This study first explicates the nature of collaborative governance accountability in contrast to accountability in traditional public administration and market-based governance. The analysis shows how collaborative governance accountability is distinctive: (a) accountability relationships shift from bilateral to multilateral; (b) horizontal as well as vertical accountability relationships are involved; (c) not only formal standards but also informal norms are used; and (d) accountability challenges move from control/audit issues to trust-building and paradox management issues. We then propose a framework for accountability in collaborative governance, drawing its dimensions from the process-based accountability research. Our framework builds on three dimensions of collaborative accountability—information, discussion, and consequences—and elaborates on their components and indicators. Based on the framework, questions to guide future research are provided, focusing on tensions and paradoxes that can arise in each process dimension as primary accountability challenges in collaborative contexts.

Accountability in collaborative governance comprises a tangled web of vertical and horizontal accountability relationships. While different accountability mechanisms are apparently complementary, they also clash with each other, producing serious accountability tensions. This study explores how actors in collaborative governance experience and manage conflicting accountability demands in the context of a Korean interorganizational network. Using qualitative data based on in-depth interviews with 32 personnel across 10 organizations and document analysis, the study identifies different types of accountability tensions and actors’ strategic responses to them. The analysis reveals that accountability tensions vary across the sources of the demand, and they are more likely to emerge when there are gaps in procedural and institutional arrangements or differences in collaborators’ commitment levels. Findings suggest that accountability tensions inherent to collaborative networks, when harnessed and actively managed, may be viewed as opportunities for advancing the whole network’s mission and improving network accountability. Based on these findings, the study proposes a novel framework for accountability tensions in collaborative governance with propositions about the mechanisms through which accountability tensions emerge and are managed. The study provides insights into the complexities of maintaining accountability in cross-sector, multi-actor networks.