Abstract
This paper examines how distributed leadership involving actor–object couplings may contribute to coordinated action across disparate thought worlds. We draw on ideas from French pragmatist sociology and on a case study of a successful collaborative research project involving participants from academia, government and practice settings to show how various kinds of objects (including material artifacts, more abstract concepts and human-material assemblages such as committees and procedures) come to participate in the leadership practices of multiple individuals, allowing the connection among different worlds. We suggest that adjustments between groups involved in collaborative work do not necessarily occur through the sharing of a common vision but through the ability of leaders to translate projects in terms that can be appreciated by the groups that must be mobilized. These translation activities are distributed widely between leaders and objects that co-construct each other. Objects frame action and give meaning to people, participating in the construction of leaders' roles.
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