Draft:Dennis Tourish

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Dennis Tourish (Born: 1957) is an Irish-born academic and author who is emeritus professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at the University of Sussex Business School.His research has focused on leadership, organizational communication, research integrity and misconduct, and organizations exhibiting cult-like characteristics.

Academic career

Tourish completed his PhD at the University of Ulster in 1996. He has held academic positions at the University of Ulster, the University of Queensland, the University of Aberdeen, Robert Gordon University, the University of Kent and Royal Holloway, University of London, before becoming Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies at the University of Sussex. He is now emeritus professor at Sussex. Tourish was editor-in-chief of the journal Leadership from 2014 to 2022. His research has appeared in journals in management, organization studies and leadership, and he has served on the editorial boards of several academic journals. He is a Fellow of the International Leadership Association.

Research

Leadership

Tourish has written critically about transformational and charismatic approaches to leadership, particularly the possibility that strong identification with leaders and organizational visions can discourage dissent and critical evaluation. His 2013 book, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective, examined what he regarded as potentially dysfunctional consequences of transformational leadership, including excessive leader influence, conformity and the suppression of dissent. The book was reviewed in Organization Studies, where Yiannis Gabriel discussed Tourish's critique of transformational leadership and its relationship to wider debates about leadership and organizational power. Tourish has also written about leadership and organizations exhibiting characteristics associated with cults. His research in this area has examined processes of ideological conformity, authoritarianism and influence within organizations.

Management research and academic integrity

Tourish has also been a critic of contemporary management research and the incentives governing academic publishing. His 2019 book Management Studies in Crisis: Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research, published by Cambridge University Press, examined problems including research misconduct, publication pressures, excessive theorizing, weak replication, poor writing and the use of quantitative and publication metrics in academic evaluation. The book's argument was that pressures associated with academic careers and research assessment can encourage academics to prioritize publication in prestigious journals and the production of theoretical novelty over the practical and intellectual value of research. Tourish argued for reforms intended to make management research more rigorous, accessible and socially useful. The book was reviewed in The Economist. The Economist subsequently listed it among recommended books on managing people. Tourish's criticism of management research subsequently received attention in wider discussions of research integrity and misconduct in business-school research. In a 2025 article, The Atlantic discussed his 2019 book in the context of controversies surrounding questionable research practices and alleged research fraud in business-school psychology. In 2020, Tourish published "The Triumph of Nonsense in Management Studies" in Academy of Management Learning & Education. The article criticised what he regarded as excessive emphasis on theoretical contribution and publication conventions at the expense of relevance, clarity and engagement with practical social problems. The journal subsequently published a special section responding to Tourish's argument. His paper won the journal's best paper of the year award.

Political cults

An earlier strand of Tourish's work examined political organizations that he characterised as exhibiting cult-like characteristics. In On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left (2000), co-written with Tim Wohlforth, Tourish examined political groups on both the left and right, applying concepts from the study of persuasion, thought reform and authoritarian organizations to political movements. The book was reviewed by cult researcher Janja Lalich in Cultic Studies Review in 2003. Lalich described On the Edge as a welcome addition to the literature on political cults and discussed its examination of groups across the political spectrum. Lalich nevertheless criticised some of the book's language towards cult members, arguing that certain descriptions were unnecessarily disparaging. She concluded that she recommended the book to readers interested in political activism, cults and the risks associated with political movements. In 2021, Tourish contributed to a BBC feature on the dark side of leadership which focused on cults.

Selected publications

Books

• Tourish, Dennis (2019). Management Studies in Crisis: Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research. Cambridge University Press. • Tourish, Dennis (2013). The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective. Routledge. • Hargie, Owen; Tourish, Dennis, eds. (2009). Auditing Organizational Communication: A Handbook of Research, Theory and Practice. Routledge. • Tourish, Dennis; Wohlforth, Tim (2000). On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left. M. E. Sharpe.

Selected articles

• Tourish, Dennis; Craig, Robert (2025). "Is Your Research Responsible?". Academy of Management Learning & Education. 24: 497–511. • Tourish, Dennis; Willmott, Hugh (2023). "Despotic leadership and ideological manipulation at Theranos: Towards a theory of hegemonic totalism in the workplace". Organization Studies. 44: 1801–1824. • Tourish, Dennis (2020). "The Triumph of Nonsense in Management Studies". Academy of Management Learning & Education. 19: 99–109. • Tourish, Dennis (2019). "Is Complexity Leadership Theory complex enough?: A critical appraisal, some modifications and suggestions for further research". Organization Studies. 42: 219–238. • Collinson, David; Tourish, Dennis (2015). "Teaching leadership critically: New directions for leadership pedagogy". Academy of Management Learning & Education. 14: 576–594.

See also

• Leadership studies • Research misconduct • Cult • Transformational leadership

External links

• University of Sussex profile • Google Scholar profile • Dysfunctional leadership in corporations