Antecedents of shared leadership: empowering leadership and interdependence

How to share the leadership competence among the team members in active learning scenarios: Before, during and after COVID-19 pandemic

Teamwork is one of the most demanded generic competencies by international organizations, and higher education institutions train and assess that competence to prepare students for working life. Leadership is a crucial part of teamwork development, and previous research has shown that shared leadership tasks between team members present more advantages than the traditional concept of a formal leader. Shared leadership seems to be the best option in the academic context due to the university students' characteristics. This paper aims to prove that students can identify, distinguish and exercise shared leadership actions based on the needs that arise during the development of teamwork and that derive from the teamwork method applied rather than by the training modality that is followed (face-to-face - online). The achievement of the aim has been possible through a qualitative study of the teamwork development of 40 teams of new university entrance (237 students) with the Comprehensive Teamwork Competency Formation Model. The research has been carried out during three consecutive academic courses, with different training modalities for each course, forced by the COVID-19 pandemic (face-to-face for the pre-COVID-19 course, online for the COVID-19 course and face-to-face during the post-COVID-19 course). The shared leadership tasks and responsibilities, defined by students, were categorized in the same way independently of the training modality, which validates the proposed ontology. Also, the three academic courses studied the evolution of the primary shared leadership responsibilities by category. Besides, it is concluded that the primary responsibilities for each category remained unchanged during the three academic years but that some other categories were affected to some extent by the exceptionality caused by COVID-19. The ontology validated here constitutes a recommendation for future teams working with an evidence-based methodology.

Impact of Shared Leadership Quality on Agile Team Productivity and Project Results

Drawing on leadership theory, this research verified what makes shared leadership an effective form of leadership for agile project teams, and whether using it influences the outcomes achieved by such teams as well as the more distal outcomes. Survey data were collected from 251 members of agile project teams implementing projects of an iterative and incremental character. Structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted to test the hypotheses. Our research confirms that shared leadership is an effective form of leadership for agile project teams whose members are empowered to engage in leadership functions or processes. The findings confirm a positive direct impact of shared leadership on the performance of agile project teams and indirect impact on project efficiency and effectiveness. The research results also confirm the influence of project team–related contextual moderators on shared leadership inputs and outputs. The study contributes to leadership theory in the plural leadership research stream and confirms the shift from individual leadership to collective leadership as a result of the growing popularity of the agility paradigm.

Developing players for athlete leadership groups in professional football teams: Qualitative insights from head coaches and athlete leaders

Athlete leadership groups (ALGs) are a widely used yet under researched approach to leadership in professional sports teams. Athlete Leadership Groups (ALGs) represent a shared athlete leadership model whereby a small group of players are selected as athlete leaders and appointed to a formal ‘leadership group’ (i.e., an ALG) that shares team leadership responsibilities with the coach. Although athlete leadership has been linked to improved team outcomes, inadequately trained athlete leaders can have a detrimental effect on team functioning and performance. The aim of this study was to provide coach and athlete leader’s perceptions of the development opportunities that have been afforded to players to prepare them for their role in an ALG. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 head coaches and 14 players from leadership groups drawn from 17 teams across four professional football leagues (i.e., Super Rugby, National Rugby League, A League and Australian Football League) in Australia and New Zealand. Results illustrate that athlete leaders benefit from developing enhanced understanding of leadership as a multidimensional relational process, recognising various leadership styles, preferences, and how to leverage their influence with teammates. However, it is evident this theoretical knowledge alone is insufficient to equip players for a professional team ALG role. Players need opportunities to practice their developing leadership skills in authentic and appropriately challenging situations with support and facilitation. Findings point to the importance of systematic, individually tailored leadership development that includes scaffolded, structured experiential learning and meaningful interactions with other successful high-performance leaders. Further, this study reinforces the value of guided reflective practice in leadership development and how this process can enhance learning and transfer from leadership development initiatives. Finally, this study adds weight to calls from other researchers for coaches to be consistently intentional in employing leadership development strategies.

Looking within: a longitudinal qualitative analysis of shared leadership behaviours in organisational teams

Purpose

To date, empirical research on shared leadership (SL) has been dominated by quantitative studies of antecedents and outcomes, frequently in simulated environments. Consequently, there have been few authentic accounts of how SL is practiced within organisational teams. Underpinned by shared leadership theory and leadership behaviour theory, this paper aims to provide a fine-grained view of the SL behaviours exhibited by team members over time, in five organisational teams in Ireland.

Design/methodology/approach

This longitudinal qualitative study uses critical incident technique, semi-structured interviews and participant diaries to explore SL behaviours emerging in five teams over time.

Findings

SL became widespread over time in each team, with almost all (96%) team members exhibiting SL behaviours. Ten different leadership behaviours were exhibited, indicating that SL permits a wide variety of leadership behaviours to be expressed. Some leadership functions were rarely or never fulfilled by team members (team composition, performance monitoring and resource allocation), suggesting that these leadership behaviours are not amenable to sharing.

Practical implications

This paper provides an insight into how SL could be used to increase the leadership capacity in team-based organisations.

Originality/value

This paper adds depth to the understanding of SL, revealing the specific behaviours underlying this approach, expanding our understanding of the micro-dynamics at play in SL processes.

Shared Leadership in Virtual Teams at Work: Practical Strategies and Research Suggestions for Human Resource Development

Working in virtual teams has become more prevalent in some industries, especially following the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. To address rapidly developing markets, businesses are implementing changes in leadership structures, work systems, and technology adoption. Human resource development (HRD) and virtual HRD (VHRD) practitioners and researchers must draw on best practices from previous research regarding virtual teams to help meet organizational needs and changes. Shared leadership is one of the emerging approaches showing promise in tackling complex challenges as it responds to problems by drawing on all members’ expertise rather than on the authority of a few. To understand shared leadership in virtual teams, we conducted a systematic literature review to identify how shared leadership is conceptualized and measured in virtual team research. We also synthesized the antecedents and outcomes of shared leadership in virtual teams. We presented practical remote work strategies and future research suggestions for HRD and VHRD.

When Do Team Members Share the Lead? A Social Network Analysis

Shared leadership is not only about individual team members engaging in leadership, but also about team members adopting the complementary follower role. However, the question of what enables team members to fill in each of these roles and the corresponding influence of formal leaders have remained largely unexplored. Using a social network perspective allows us to predict both leadership and followership ties between team members based on considerations of implicit leadership and followership theories. From this social information processing perspective, we identify individual team members’ political skill and the formal leaders’ empowering leadership as important qualities that facilitate the adoption of each the leader and the follower role. Results from a social network analysis in a R&D department with 305 realized leadership ties support most of our hypotheses.

Seizing the opportunity: the emergence of shared leadership during the deployment of an integrated performance management system

Background

Performance management systems have been introduced in health and social services institutions to improve organizational performance, supporting the emergence of new management behaviors that are more rooted in collaborative management practices. This study aims to understand how different leadership styles emerge through the implementation of a performance management system and its related tools, and how these can foster distributed leadership.

Methods

Over two years, the implementation of an integrated performance management system supporting the integration of social services for children, youth, and families was studied at a recently merged Canadian healthcare organization. Qualitative analysis of data collected from 15 interviews, 3 focus groups, and over 350 h of non-participant observation was conducted.

Results

The results show that leadership evolved to adapt to the context of organizational integration and was no longer confined to a single manager. Transformational leadership was needed to encourage the emergence of a new integrated performance management system and new behaviors among middle managers and team members. Transactional leadership was legitimized through the use of a status sheet when the integration project did not deliver the expected results. Both transformational and transactional leadership paved the way to distributed leadership, which in turn promoted collaborative practices associated with activities in control rooms and dialogue stemming from the status sheets. Distributed leadership among team members made a difference in the outcome of the integration project, which became a driver of collaboration.

Conclusions

The integrated performance management system and the use of its tools can help renew leadership in health and social service organizations. The results lend credence to the importance of distributed leadership in promoting collaborative practices to improve services for children, youth, and families. The results also highlight how various leadership styles can contribute to the emergence of distributed leadership over time.

Teamworking in Healthcare during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Method Study

The widespread impact of COVID-19 on healthcare has demanded new ways of working across many organisation types and many forms of healthcare delivery while at the same time endeavouring to place minimal, or no, additional burden on already strained healthcare teams. This is a cross-sectional mixed-method study which captured the experiences of teamwork during the COVID-19 pandemic contributing to successful collaboration. We hypothesised that work engagement and psychological safety separately contribute to collective leadership and organisational citizenship behaviours. Participants were healthcare staff on active duty during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland (n = 152) who responded to our social media (Twitter) invitation to participate in this study. Survey and free-text responses were collected through an online platform. Structural equation modelling examined the relationships between work engagement and psychological safety, and collective leadership and OCBs. Open text responses relating to experiences of teamworking during the pandemic were analysed for latent themes. From the survey data, the structural model demonstrated excellent statistical fit indicating that psychological safety, but not work engagement, was predictive of collective leadership and OCBs. From the qualitative data, two key themes were generated: (1) Contrasting experiences of working in a team during the pandemic; and (2) The pandemic response: a tipping point for burnout. This study offers a valuable starting point to explore the factors driving change and the shift to more collective ways of working observed in response to COVID-19. Future studies should use longitudinal data to capture the temporal relationship of these variables which could be moderated by prolonged pressure to healthcare staff during the pandemic.

Feasibility of a Responsibility-Based Leadership Training Program for Novice Physical Activity Instructors

Most coaches and instructors would like to teach more than just sport skills to their athletes and children. However, to promote athletes’ or children’s holistic development and teach them to take responsibility and lead, requires the coaches and instructors to first master the skills themselves. Therefore, feasible, high quality leadership training programs where coaches and physical activity instructors are taught to teach and share leadership are needed. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the feasibility of a leadership training program to optimize it and to determine whether to proceed with its evaluation. In the leadership training program, eight Finnish novice physical activity instructors, aged 18 to 22, were taught to promote positive youth development, personal and social responsibility, and shared leadership in a physical activity context. The participants had minimal to no leadership training or experience. The training program consisted of seven meetings totaling 20 h. Helllison’s teaching personal and social responsibility (TPSR) model was the theoretical and practical framework of the training program. Feasibility of the leadership training program was evaluated across four domains of an evidence-based framework: demand, practicality, acceptability, and implementation fidelity. Data of the current complex intervention were collected with application videos, questionnaires, researcher’s log, lesson plans, video recordings, and a semi-structured focus group interview. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data using deductive and inductive content analysis. There was a demand for the leadership training program. The training program was perceived as practical and highly acceptable by the novice instructors and the trainers, and implemented with fidelity, indicating high overall feasibility. No implementation issues were found. Consequently, the current leadership training program has a high probability of efficacy and can be accepted for further evaluation.

Shared Leadership and Team Performance: The Joint Effect of Team Dispositional Composition and Collective Identification

This study explores how team core self-evaluations (CSE) influence the emergence and effectiveness of shared leadership. Drawing on adaptive leadership theory, we propose that decisions to share leadership responsibilities rather than allocating the role to a single team member are influenced by homogeneity in members’ CSE. In addition, we identify team collective identification as an emergent team state that interacts with CSE homogeneity to promote the emergence of shared leadership. We then argue that not all shared leadership teams are equally effective; applying group social capital theory, we propose that team mean CSE strengthens the impact of shared leadership on team performance. Results based on multisource and time-lagged data from 85 project teams provide support for our proposed moderated mediation model. We discuss how our theoretical model extends research on the role of team dispositional composition on the antecedents and consequents of shared leadership and highlight practical implications related to the design, recruitment, and socialization of autonomous work teams.

Seizing the benefits of age diversity: could empowering leadership be the answer?

Purpose

Acknowledging that only examining the main effects of diversity may be limiting, the authors explore integrating van Knippenberg et al.'s (2004) categorization–elaboration model (CEM) of workgroup diversity as a linchpin in the relationship between empowering leadership and performance in age-diverse work groups. While prior research has focused almost exclusively on the impact of transformational leadership in diverse contexts, few studies have found the positive effects of transformational leadership to be diminished in certain age-diverse contexts. Consequently, the authors investigate whether empowering leadership may be a better approach in this context due to its emphasis on accommodating and participative behaviors.

Design/methodology/approach

Using survey data gathered from work group members across a wide array of industries (N = 214), the authors test for the moderating effects of empowering leadership on the relationship between age diversity and work group performance and its indirect relationship via information elaboration (while controlling for transformational leadership).

Findings

Empowering leadership positively moderated the direct relationship between age diversity and work group performance and the indirect relationship via information elaboration, whereas transformational leadership had the opposite effect. “Coaching” and “showing concern/interacting with the team” drove the positive effects of empowering leadership, and “personal recognition” and “intellectual stimulation” predicted the negative effects of transformational leadership.

Practical implications

This research offers insights into how managers can lead age-diverse work groups more effectively (i.e. by utilizing an empowering as opposed to a transformational leadership approach, with a particular emphasis on “coaching” and “showing concern/interacting with the team” behaviors).

Originality/value

The study identifies an “alternative” moderating contingency to the age diversity–performance relationship (empowering leadership).

The effects of shared leadership on team performance

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the relationship between shared leadership and team performance at the team level. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, the authors examine whether shared leadership is associated with team performance through team positive psychological capital (PsyCap). This study further examines whether task-oriented and relationship-oriented shared leadership affect team performance differently.

Design/methodology/approach

Multi-source survey data were obtained from 92 team leaders and 319 employees. An aggregation approach was used to analyze the data at the team level.

Findings

A high level of shared leadership positively influences team performance through the mediation of team PsyCap. Moreover, relationship-oriented shared leadership is positively associated with team performance through team PsyCap, while task-oriented shared leadership is negatively associated with team performance without the mediating effect of team PsyCap.

Practical implications

By focusing on the negative effects of task-oriented shared leadership and the positive effects of relationship-oriented shared leadership and team PsyCap on team performance, this study suggests new ways to manage team performance effectively and extends shared leadership literature.

Originality/value

This study applied COR theory to analyze the effect of shared leadership mediated by team PsyCap on team performance. It contributes to shared leadership literature by shedding light on the negative effects of task-oriented shared leadership and on the positive aspects of relationship-oriented shared leadership.

Empowering Leadership, Commitment to Managers and Company and Employee Proactivity: A Study of National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Accredited Hospitals

The purpose of this article was to explore the relationship between empowering leadership and employee proactivity with commitment to manager and company as mediator in Indian National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Healthcare (NABH) accredited hospitals. The authors used SPSS Process macro (medication model) in order to examine the proposed hypothesis with collected data through structured questionnaire from 252 frontline employees of Indian NABH accredited hospitals. The results of data analysis support mediating role of commitment to managers and company between empowering leadership and employee proactivity. The finding of this study significantly contributes to theory and offers important implications for hospital managers and administrators.

Empowering leadership in hospital employees

Purpose

This research paper aims to develop and test a conceptual model which explains whether and how empowering leadership, through employee goal orientation and job conditions, influences employee proactivity. The authors suggest two simultaneous pathways from empowering leadership to employee proactivity based on path-goal theory and social exchange theory.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 253 frontline employees working in Indian NABH accredited hospitals. Regression analysis was performed to analyze the data with the help of SPSS 24. Further, SPSS process macro was used to test the parallel mediation effects with the help of bootstrapping procedures.

Findings

The important findings of this study are as follows: (1) empowering leadership has direct influence on employee proactivity; (2) empowering leadership, employees' goal orientation and job conditions are important antecedents of employee proactivity; (3) goal orientation and job conditions simultaneously partially mediate the relationship between empowering leadership and employee proactivity. In particular, employees' goal orientation is a more important mediating variable than job conditions in the studied relationship.

Practical implications

Organizations may reap the benefits of employee's proactive work behavior by hiring, training, and developing empowering leaders.

Originality/value

The study adds to the existing literature by building theory in the area of employee proactivity. In doing so, this study explains the less understood relationship between empowering leadership and employee proactivity.

Multiteam Systems: An Integrated Review and Comparison of Different Forms

In this review, we examine the burgeoning body of research on multiteam systems (MTSs) since the introduction of the concept in 2001. MTSs refer to networks of interdependent teams that coordinate at some level to achieve proximal and distal goals. We summarize MTS findings around three core processes and states: within- and between-team coordination processes/structures, leadership structures/processes, and cognitive and affective/motivation emergent states. Furthermore, we explore how these processes and states vary according to MTS boundary status (internal or external), component team distance (geographic, functional, cultural, and discipline), and superordinate goal type (intellectual or physical). We identify several process and state similarities across levels of these attributes, as well as highlight some important differences. We conclude with a set of propositions and future directions prompted by our review, which can serve as a guide for future MTS research.

Disentangling the relationship between empowering leader behaviors and adaptive performance in work teams

When teams operate in a dynamic and complex environment, their ability to adapt to changing demands is crucial for organizational success. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of empowering behaviors exhibited by team leaders in team adaptive performance by taking into account the mediating role of shared leadership displayed by team members and the moderating effect of access to resources. Data were collected from 82 work teams (i.e., 394 members and 82 immediate supervisors) in a public safety organization. Results of path analyses show that the relationship between empowering leader behaviors and team adaptive performance is mediated by shared leadership. Moreover, we found that the relationship between empowering leader behaviors and shared leadership is moderated by access to resources, such that this relationship is stronger when the level of access to resources is high. Overall, the findings shed light on the process through which team leaders can enhance the adaptive performance of their team.

Identifying factor measuring collective leadership at academic workplaces

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate important determinants of the culture of collective leadership in academic organizations. The present school improvement framework of Dubai School Inspection Board (DSIB) does not include cultural factors such as collective leadership, which is, according to many researchers, a leading factor of the operational efficiency and sustainable growth. The research objective was to identify the set of conditions that extend support to the development of collective leadership culture in the school work environment. In order to achieve research objectives, a sample of 271 employees from 12 underperforming private schools in Dubai was selected to examine the degree of the presence of visible practices promoting the culture of collective leadership. The past literature was explored to identify three manifest variables as determinants of the culture of collective leadership in the organization. The descriptive research design was adopted, and factor loadings on three manifest variables were examined through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to validate the scale, and later the model hypotheses were tested using the linear regression model. The study has revealed that shared vision, employee’s commitment to achieving the organizational goal, and collaboration are key determinants, whereas staff commitment is the most important determinant of collective leadership. Generalization of the findings is one of the main concerns due to small sample size, which can be improved in future similar studies by running the model on the larger sample size. Indeed, this study is one of the few that provides a quantitative approach to the measurement of collective leadership in schools, and its findings can be a source of guideline for institutions in higher education and non-academic organizations as well.

Design/methodology/approach

The descriptive research design was adopted to explain the the characteristics of the population with respect to variables used in the model. The underlying variables were explored through the past literature; therefore, EFA was also undertaken to validate the relationship between scale items and manifest independent variables of the hypothesized construct. The testing of hypothesis makes this research “confirmatory” that allows making inference about the parameters of the multiple regression models in this empirical model.

Findings

The concept of collective leadership is explaining the wider role of leadership function in an organization. It is one of the cultural aspects that can be seen through everyday practices in any educational institution. These practices include shared vision among employees, commitment to achieving the common goal, and collaboration and teamwork. The results show that staff commitment is the most important determinant of collective leadership. The understanding of a cultural aspect of collective leadership is necessary to deal with the problems of nonperforming educational organizations. It is important that school leaders must think beyond the current DSIB model and include elements of collective leadership in their strategic plans. This will enable them to achieve sustainable students and organizational achievements. Employees’ clarity on the objectives, trust and collaboration are prerequisite of such culture.

Research limitations/implications

Generalization is one of the main concerns in this study. The larger sample size can help overcome this problem. The sample size in the current study was also gathered without stratification of the population. Schools can be classified with respect to gender, ethnicity, curriculum and social status. These factors were controlled in this study but can produce different results if included for the analysis. Data collection can be expanded to the entire country, Middle East and Asian region for further generalized interpretation. This will also open the scope to the cross-cultural analysis on the subject. Moreover, the mediating or moderating role of many other variables needs to be involved in the model for more accurate findings, such as curriculum, economic status of students, employees nationality and qualification, leadership experience and school budgetary volume are considered important factors which may affect school performance. A similar study can be conducted for the entire country covering all states.

Practical implications

The culture of collective leadership is not a sole cultural factor that creates success for the institution. When an organization achieves maturity in the collective leadership, employees set up goals in their own work in alignment to the overall organizational objectives. These goals will act as challenges, and with the motivated employees will take up these challenges and find new and improved ways to address the problems. This will provoke the creative thinking among employees. They will start realizing the importance of the critical knowledge in the work. Ultimately, when the organization develops a system to identify, store and make use of such knowledge, it will become learning organization, which is ready to meet future challenges.

Social implications

This study will help organizations in other sector and industry as well, especially in service industry including financial institutions, higher education, etc. This will also provide guidelines to the education ministries across the region and beyond.

Originality/value

This is a new contribution in the field of HRM or workplace practices. It describes the factors determining the culture of collective leadership that in return creates success for the organization. This paper was never published before.

Power and physician leadership

Power and leadership are intimately related. While physician leadership is widely discussed in healthcare, power has received less attention. Formal organisational leadership by physicians is increasingly common even though the evidence for the effectiveness of physician leadership is still evolving. There is an expectation of leadership by all physicians for resource stewardship. The impact of power on interprofessional education and practice needs further study. Power also shapes the profession’s attempts to address physician and learner well-being with its implications for patient care. Unfortunately, the profession is not exempt from inappropriate use of power. These observations led the authors to explore the concept and impact of power in physician leadership. Drawing from a range of conceptualisations including structuralist (French and Raven), feminist (Allen) and poststructuralist (Foucault) conceptualisations of power, we explore how power is acquired and exercised in healthcare systems and enacted in leadership praxis by individual physician leaders (PL). Judicious use of power will benefit from consideration and application of a range of concepts including liminality, power mediation, power distance, inter-related use of power bases, intergroup and shared leadership, inclusive leadership, empowerment, transformational leadership and discourse for meaning-making. Avoiding abuse of power requires moral courage, and those who seek to become accountable leaders may benefit from adaptive reflection. Reframing ‘followers’ as ‘constituents or citizens’ is one way to interrupt discourses and narratives that reinforce traditional power imbalances. Applying these concepts can enhance creativity, cocreation and citizenship-strengthening commitment to improved healthcare. PLs can contribute greatly in this regard to further transform healthcare.

EMPOWERING LEADERSHIP IN R&D — MODERATING EFFECTS OF THE STRATEGIC AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Successful new product development is of crucial importance for the survival of enterprises and for creating and securing competitive positions. In R&D performance in new product development is generally affected by interpersonal leadership. Empowering leadership, specifically, is suitable for this context, as the need for autonomy and achievement, as well as the cooperation of the followers, are taken into account through the support of the leader. However, so far no moderating effects of the context have been examined. Therefore, the present study examined the influence of the contextual factors of strategic, structural, and cultural orientation on the relations between empowering leadership and new product development performance in R&D. Additionally, a wide range of leadership behaviors with transformational and transactional leadership is taken into account in this study. Empowering leadership is assumed to have the highest impact on the R&D context. The moderating effects of the context were investigated in a quantitative design with 116 leaders and 371 respective followers from 32 R&D departments of various branches of industrial enterprises. The results confirmed a main effect of empowering leadership on new product development performance. Additionally, moderation analyses showed moderating effects on strategic and cultural orientation, while structural orientation had no moderating effect. It can be concluded that empowering leadership has a positive effect on new product development performance; nevertheless, the context in which leadership is practiced has to be considered.

A Meta-Analysis of Shared Leadership: Antecedents, Consequences, and Moderators

Many organizations are encouraging a shared leadership approach that meets the increased complexity of today’s working environment. It is therefore imperative for researchers to clearly comprehend the mechanism of shared leadership in teams. Contributing to the burgeoning research in the field of shared leadership, this study aims to advance our understanding along the many dimensions of the shared leadership phenomenon: its antecedents, moderators, and consequences. In this article, we provide a critical and comprehensive analysis of the extant literature and generate an integrated framework that presents seven hypotheses and five research questions. We then empirically test this framework via a systematic meta-analysis from 40 studies (team n = 3,019). Significantly, our findings reveal that the internal team environment and team heterogeneity are positively related to the emergence of shared leadership in teams. Moreover, we confirm the positive relationship between shared leadership and team outcomes. Our analysis also highlights how intragroup trust and task interdependence significantly moderate the shared leadership–team outcomes relations, with higher correlations observed in greater levels of intragroup trust, as well as larger levels of task interdependence. We also find the moderating effect of shared leadership measurement methods in such relations. Specifically, there is a stronger relationship when shared leadership is measured with social network analysis, rather than aggregating approaches. Overall, our study brings valuable insights into the shared leadership area and provides clear directions for future research.

Job characteristics affect shared leadership

Purpose

Shared leadership is characterized by exercising lateral leadership influence depending upon the task and the adroitness required for the task. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of job characteristics on shared leadership and explore the moderating effects of perceived self-efficacy, and psychological safety on the relationship between job characteristics and shared leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors applied hierarchical regression and social network analysis using a sample of 23 teams consisting 219 employees from an Indian-based multinational BPO.

Findings

Results indicate that skill variety, task significance, autonomy and feedback are significant precursors for shared leadership, and psychological safety and perceived self-efficacy act as moderators.

Research limitations/implications

The study extends the literature associated with job characteristics in relation to shared leadership. Managers can encourage shared leadership using job design and by creating a psychologically safe environment to enhance performance of the team. The cross-sectional nature of the study and data from a single organization question the generalizability of the results.

Originality/value

The authors provide an initial understanding of the impact of job characteristics in a team for the development of shared leadership, which has not been studied so far. Also, psychological safety and self-efficacy of individuals in teams have not been explored in the past, moderating the job characteristics and shared leadership relationship.

Distributed leadership in organizations: an investigation of antecedent conditions

Purpose

This study aims to investigate antecedent conditions that lead to the development of distributed leadership (DL). The authors examine how the emergence of DL is affected by empowerment and internal context, which consists of shared purpose, social support and voice. The moderating effects of training are also investigated.

Design/methodology/approach

To test the hypotheses, this empirical analysis of the relationship between the variables was based on the results of a questionnaire survey on 62 teams in high-tech enterprises of mainland China.

Findings

Results indicate that empowerment and internal context in the team significantly predict the extent of DL and that training has positive moderating effects on the relationships.

Practical implications

The results imply that firms must carefully analyze specific team conditions to ensure shared purpose, social support and voice in each team. This study also suggests the importance of empowerment. Moreover, enterprises can use training, a human resource tool, to enhance the positive effects of internal context and empowerment on DL.

Originality/value

By building on upper echelons theory and integrating insights from contingency theory, this study extends prior research by examining the direct effects of both empowerment managerial system and internal context on DL and the moderating effect of training.

How does TMT transactive memory system drive innovation ambidexterity?

Purpose

Although prior studies have found that transactive memory system (TMS) in top management team (TMT) can enable innovation ambidexterity, works that focus on only the direct role of TMS and neglect the question of how the differentiated knowledge of the TMS are integrated. The purpose of this paper is to further elucidate how a TMS promotes ambidexterity and examine both its mechanism process and the conditions influencing the process.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is based on a questionnaire survey of 94 high-tech enterprises in China.

Findings

The findings show that the positive relationship between TMS usage and innovation ambidexterity is mediated by TMT shared leadership, which refers to collective decision-making behaviors and can integrate the heterogeneous knowledge of the TMS into coherent strategic forms. The authors also found that having a TMS was more positively related to innovation ambidexterity via shared leadership when top managers have high team learning goal orientation or high team performance approach goal orientation.

Originality/value

This research contributes to the literature on the antecedents of innovation ambidexterity by showing the effects of TMS and TMT shared leadership, responding to the call to explore how TMT cognitive structures interact with behavioral processes to shape ambidexterity. This study also contributes to TMS research by taking team goal orientations into consideration, which promotes understanding of the effectiveness of TMS in an achievement context. In addition, the authors bring distributed cognition to the fore as a novel fuel for understanding how shared leadership forms.

Rethinking distributed leadership: dimensions, antecedents and team effectiveness

Purpose

Studies of distributed leadership (DL) are increasing, but are not systematic, often taking a normative position emphasizing the superiority of DL to solo leadership and using the term in an imprecise way. The purpose of this paper is to re-conceptualize DL and develop a systematic framework to identify dimensions of DL and their association with team effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a comprehensive review of existing literature, this paper develops a systematic framework of DL and team effectiveness by deriving eight research propositions.

Findings

Based on two perspectives, role space occupation and dependency of actions, the paper identifies four main dimensions of DL: shared, conjoint, fragmented and dispersed leadership, each of which represents a specific pattern of DL activities. A leader-task-context (LTC) framework is developed to analyze outcomes of DL dimensions in different settings. The eight propositions developed clearly identify where DL can be best applied, how particular configurations of DL affect team performance, and in what situations it is most effective.

Originality/value

This paper has made several contributions. First, the authors address the question of what constitutes DL by conceptualizing its dimensions. Second, the authors extend the DL literature by arguing and modeling how different contexts influence the fulfillment of DL. Third, the authors develop an analytical framework of DL – the “LTC” framework – to help build a foundation and guide further research on the relationships between DL and team performance.