@article{Majumdar:273604,
      recid = {273604},
      author = {Majumdar, Sumon and Mukand, Sharun },
      title = {The Leader as Catalyst: On Leadership and the Mechanics of  Institutional Change},
      address = {2007-06},
      number = {2110-2018-4253},
      series = {Working Paper No. 1128},
      pages = {46},
      year = {2007},
      abstract = {Individual leaders have been central to the transformation  of organizations, political institutions and many instances  of social and economic reform. In this paper we take a  first step towards analyzing the role of leadership to ask:  when and how does a leader engineer change? We show that  while underlying structural conditions and institutions are  important, there is an independent firstorder role for  individual agency in bringing about change and thus  transforming the institutions. We emphasize the key nature  of the symbiotic relationship between followers decisions’  to willingly entrust their faith in the leader and the  leader’s initiative at leading them. This two-way  interaction can endogenously give rise to threshold  effects; slight differences in the leader’s ability or the  underlying structural conditions can dramatically improve  the prospects for successful change. Given the centrality  of this leader-follower relationship, we further explore  conditions under which an individual may deliberately  prefer to follow an ambitious leader with divergent  interests rather than a benevolent one with congruent  preferences. Thus by virtue of having followers, both  ‘good’ and ‘bad’ leaders may be effective at bringing about  change.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/273604},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.273604},
}