Daleen Koch (Stellenbosch University Business School) approached ALSA for help recently when she started her MBA (Masters in Business Administration) study on Leadership in Antarctica. Her edited project description follows.
A pioneering Antarctic leadership study is launched by Daleen Koch
For the first time overwintering expeditioners from Gough, Marion and SANAE are being invited to participate in a leadership study, which combines Antarctic expedition experience with business studies. The researcher, Daleen Koch, describes how South African Antarctic and sub-Antarctic stations provide unique challenges to management and leadership, due to their harsh climate, limited infrastructure and isolation. The study will be valuable to national Antarctic programmes, as well as to organizations in distress, says Daleen, who is undertaking the research as part of her MBA degree at the Stellenbosch University Business School.
The purpose of her study is to explore the perceptions around leadership qualities and approaches that South African Antarctic and sub-Antarctic expeditioners perceive to be most successful when leading teams. “Overwinterers from Marion, Gough and SANAE are a valuable source of experience, and can provide an incredible contribution in the little explored field of Antarctic leadership.”
Antarctic and sub-Antarctic research is well known for its contribution to physics, biology, geology, oceanography and other science disciplines. Its value as an analogue for space travel and planetary settlement has led to space agencies investigating the conditions faced by overwintering teams at Antarctic and sub-Antarctic stations. Amongst others, leadership at these stations is a topic of interest. This study aims to contribute to the field of Antarctic leadership, but will add a unique South African flavour to the international research studies.
With the assistance of the Antarctic Legacy of South Africa and the South African Antarctic Club the study aims to attract team members from SANAE, Marion and Gough to become involved. With expeditions that started as early as the 1950s and 1960s, the study aims to collect the views of a wide range of overwintering members. It will provide a unique view of how South Africans perceive the role of the station leaders, in terms of age, gender and life experience.
An online questionnaire will be distributed to the SANAE, Marion and Gough communities. The contributions and opinions from participants will remain anonymous and the results will only be studied at an aggregate level.
The study is being supervised by Dr. John Morrison, a senior research consultant at the Stellenbosch University Business School. The project’s principal researcher Daleen Koch completed a winter at SANAE IV from 2007 to 2009 with S47, and has participated in relief voyages to Marion and Gough Islands as a Space Physics Support Engineer for the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). She served as a Communication Engineer for an Antarctic tourism and logistics operator for three seasons in East Antarctica and Punta Arenas, Chile. She is currently in Melbourne, Australia and is preparing to depart for her second Antarctic winter, this time at Davis Station, with the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).
Feature photograph: Daleen Koch on Marion Island
Ria Olivier, Project Manager and Archivist, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 19 August 2016