Aybike Mergen

Research

My research asks how authority, responsibility, and voice are produced in organizations and sociotechnical systems.

Areas of work

Follower roles and the co-production of leadership

This line of work develops follower-centered and participatory-theatre approaches to leadership, with attention to audience roles, follower agency, and the social processes through which authority is sustained or challenged.

Publication anchors

  • Understanding the Followers of Toxic LeadersInternational Journal of Management Reviews
  • Follower-Centered Approach: The Co-Creation of Bad LeadershipThe Oxford Handbook of Bad Leadership In press
  • Intersectional FollowershipEdward Elgar Encyclopedia of Intersectionality In press

Toxicity normalization in organizations

This work examines how harmful practices become normalized through local rationalizations, institutional rewards, professional norms, and repeated non-decisions.

Publication anchors

  • Normalization of Toxicity in OrganizationsJournal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology
  • Toxic Experts in Longevity BusinessOrganization
  • Red Pill Leadership Behaviours and Discourse EthicsJournal of Business Ethics

Generative AI, digital commons, and accountability

I study generative AI as a governance problem: how resources resist ownership, how enclosure happens, and how bias and responsibility are displaced in datafied systems.

Publication anchors

  • Generative AI Models as Wicked ResourcesJournal of Management
  • The Algorithmic Leviathan or the Digital Agora?Business & Society In press
  • Artificial Intelligence and Bias Towards Marginalised GroupsEmerald

Recognition, peer influence, and voice

This line of work studies how inclusion travels through peer relationships, how recognition is granted or withheld, and how exclusionary leadership emerges relationally.

Publication anchors

  • The Ripple EffectDe Gruyter Handbook of Inclusive Leadership
  • Relational Emergence of Exclusionary LeadershipInclusive Leadership and Employee Voice
  • Spectrum of EngagementA WSPC Handbook of DEI In press

See the publications →