Shared Leadership: Towards a Theoretical Moderation Framework in Information Systems Project Teams

Introduction

Organizations have recognized the significant role of leadership in information systems (IS) project success and some researchers have even argued that it is the most important component (Starkweather & Stevenson, 2011). Yet, most extant studies on leadership have narrowly concentrated on a singular project manager and his/her characteristics, leadership styles and competences (Chang & Torkzadeh, 2013; González, Coronado, & Casas, 2016; Nauman, 2012; Silva & Pejic-Bach, 2019), and largely neglected leadership stemmed from project team members. As the complexity and ambiguity that IS project teams experience make it improbable that a formal leader can perform all leadership functions successfully (Day, Gronn, & Salas, 2004), the notion of shared leadership has gained growing interest. By definition, shared leadership is considered to be “an emergent team property that results from the distribution of leadership influence across multiple team members” (Carson, Tesluk, & Marrone, 2007 p. 1218). Under the shared leadership approach, leadership is carried out by the team as a whole rather than an appointed or elected leader. Bligh, Pearce, & Kohles (2006) have suggested that this leadership form could be particularly powerful and potentially successful, as it does not adhere to hierarchical structure, nor has formal authority over the group, but rather it relies instead on individuals’ unique backgrounds, knowledge, expertise and competences.

Previous theoretical and empirical studies have advanced our understanding of shared leadership. However, several unanswered research gaps motived the current research. First, there is still a lack of conceptual clarity. In particular, there is ambiguity relating to the differences between theoretical overlapping concepts, such as collective leadership, distributed leadership, emergent leadership and empowering leadership. Conceptually disentangling shared leadership from these concepts is imperative in order to gain a more fine-grained understanding of the shared leadership construct. Second, while previous studies have focused on the association between shared leadership and team performance (Carson et al., 2007; Drescher, Korsgaard, Welpe, Picot, & Wigand, 2014), there is a dearth of knowledge about the boundary conditions in which these relationships operate. Further academic inquiry that specifically examines the moderating factors is needed so as to enrich our understanding about what conditions shared leadership plays a stronger or weaker role in team performance. Third, shared leadership has rarely been studied in the context of IS project teams, although its theory and construct has been developed in various contexts, e.g., consulting project teams (Hoch, Pearce, & Welzel, 2010), decision- making teams (Vandewaerde, Voordeckers, Lambrechts, & Bammens, 2011), entrepreneurial teams (Zhou, 2016) and Six sigma project teams (Galli, Kaviani, Bottani, & Murino, 2019). Studying IS project teams that comprise knowledge-based employees is important, because these employees possess high levels of expertise and skills and are eager to seek autonomy in how they apply their specialties, and thus desire more opportunities to shape and participate in the leadership functions for their groups (Carson et al., 2007). As such, a shared leadership approach would potentially provide a more effective solution to IS project team management. This would also extend and enrich the academic debate in the field of shared leadership.

In addressing the aforementioned research gaps, the current study makes the following contributions: 1) it brings conceptual clarity to shared leadership relative to similar leadership theories; 2) it synthesizes the boundary conditions of shared leadership for IS team performance; 3) it creates a theoretical moderation framework of shared leadership in IS project teams detailing two types of moderators (project-centered moderators and team-centered moderators); and 4) it presents insightful thoughts to shape future shared leadership studies as well as practical implications for IS project managers.