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Team-level antecedents of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams

  • Dispersed innovation teams rely upon team members who share leadership responsibilities to attain high levels of team performance. Although this concept of team shared leadership is receiving increasing attention, this dissertation shows that especially research on team-level antecedents of shared leadership has major deficits regarding a basic framework for analyzing antecedents, depth of theory, context-specific arguments, and empirical validation. This dissertation tries to fill these research gaps, thus shedding light on the question: How can we foster the important process of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams? This dissertation introduces a theoretical framework into shared leadership literature to structure the antecedents of shared leadership according to their mode of functioning. As such, this dissertation argues for the first time that to establish high levels of team shared leadership the basic dimensions of motivation, opportunity, and ability for shared leadership should be addressed (motivation-opportunity-ability framework or MOA framework). Based on this notion team-level antecedents providing motivation, opportunity, and ability for shared leadership are operationalized and hypothesized as antecedents of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams using acknowledged theories. Moreover, all discussed hypotheses are verified in a sample of 96 dispersed real work teams with innovative software tasks. Thereby, empirical results are drawn from 96 team leader responses (used to assess team-level antecedents of team shared leadership) and 337 team member responses (used to assess team shared leadership). Motivation for Team Shared Leadership. Based on the perspective of shared leadership as a risk-taking behavior for team members in dispersed innovation teams, trustworthiness is argued as a facilitator of the willingness, thus motivation to engage in risky shared leadership actions with others. This argumentation based on trust theory was supported by empirical results showing that team member trustworthiness in terms of benevolence and integrity was positively related to team shared leadership. Surprisingly, the proposed positive relationship between ability-based trustworthiness and shared leadership could not be confirmed, thus ability-based trustworthiness could not be validated as a facilitator of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams. Opportunity for Team Shared Leadership. Opportunity for team shared leadership is addressed by discussing team reflexivity as an antecedent of shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams. Team reflexivity is argued as opportunity providing antecedent of shared leadership as it gives team members a clear information basis in the complex and constantly changing environment of dispersed innovation teams, thus making leadership needs identifiable. In support of this argumentation based on goal setting theory and shared mental model theory team reflexivity was positively related to team shared leadership. Thereby, the relationship between team reflexivity and shared leadership could be shown as even stronger under conditions of high team role breadth self-efficacy and high team empowerment. Ability for Team Shared Leadership. Ability for shared leadership is addressed in terms of social and project management skills. These two skills are argued as basic and complementary skills needed for shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams based on socio-technical systems theory. Underscoring the importance of interpersonal competence the empirical analysis showed that social skills were strongly positively related to team shared leadership. Contrary to the hypothesis of this study project management skills were not related to team shared leadership. Structural Team Properties and Team Shared Leadership. Moreover, several structural team properties are discussed as team-level antecedents of shared leadership, namely female ratio, mean age, age diversity, and national diversity. Thereby, structural team properties are argued as potentially affecting team shared leadership through several MOA dimensions. In the empirical analyses female ratio was positively related to shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams, while mean age was negatively related. Age diversity showed no significant relationship and national diversity was marginally positively related to shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams. Based on these findings, important implications for practice, related to the three stages of a project team (establishment, forming, and performing stage), are provided. As such, team leaders of dispersed innovation teams is given a check-list of how to foster shared leadership in dispersed innovation teams based on the results of this dissertation. Future research is especially suggested regarding the “non-findings” of this dissertation, interaction effects, additional team-level antecedents, the vertical team leader’s role within shared leadership evolvement, antecedents of shared leadership in other contexts, and other levels of antecedents (e.g., organizational-level antecedents).

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Metadaten
Author:Sarah Gehrlein
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:992-opus4-1491
Place of publication:Vallendar
Referee:Martin Högl, Dietmar Grichnik
Document Type:Doctoral Thesis
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2016/06/20
Publishing Institution:WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management
Granting Institution:WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management
Date of final exam:2010/11/08
Release Date:2016/06/20
Tag:Dezentralisation; Führung; Gruppe; Innovation; Voraussetzung
Page Number:204
Institutes:WHU Management Group / Chair of Leadership and Human Resource Management
Licence (German):Copyright this PhD thesis