You’re fired: A study of public leader exits from 1945 to 2018

Abstract

The present thesis examines if exiting leaders is a viable solution to problems in organizations, or if exiting leaders has become a practice of its own. To investigate what involuntary public leader exits (i.e. leader exits publicly portrayed in the media) are attributed to and what mechanisms affect these exits, 611 cases of involuntary public leader exits in Norway from 1945 to 2018 has been analyzed. There has been an exponential increase in public leader exits from the postwar-period to today, much because of how we romanticize leadership and how corporate governance has affected the structures of organizations. The study further takes on the medias’ inability to acknowledge context when reporting on leader exits. In line with previous research, the study finds that public leader exits are affected by more than leadership variances and inter-organizational factors. In conclusion, this thesis provides a deeper insight into the change in stability leaders have dealt with over the passing of time and what mechanisms have been in play.