Event chains triggering or hindering the emergence of shared leadership in project teams
Karppi, Marion, Aramo-Immonen, Heli, Hyrkkänen, Ursula, Joel-Edgar, Sian and Jokisaari, Markku (2024) Event chains triggering or hindering the emergence of shared leadership in project teams. In: EURAM.
Abstract
Project leadership literature has traditionally focused on project manager driven leadership practices. Recently the emphasis has shifted towards understanding project team dynamics and the collective leadership practices that contribute to project success, indicating a transition from leader behaviors to a broader team-centric perspective. Our qualitative research contributes to project leadership literature by exploring the event chains which lead to emergence of shared leadership (SL). Activity Theory (AT) was chosen as an analytical lens to explore the event chains identified from interview data (n=30). According to AT, contradictions are triggering development or change, not referring to problems or conflicts but rather chains of actions which disturb the prevailing practices enabling the evolvement of new ones. Our study refers to these chains of actions simply events, and we found more than 400 examples from the interview data. The events occasionally break down the existing procedures but embed a possibility for cyclic development, such as changes in project team’s leadership practices. The aim of our research was to identify what kind of event chains trigger or hinder the emergence of SL. This study is the first qualitative analysis of data collected in research project in 2022 from 30 interviews among project teams at industry and public sector in Finland to explore the emergence of SL. This paper comprehended teams as an entity. We found multifaceted and overlapping event chains triggering the emergence of SL, namely competences and experience, engagement in shared goals and event chains featuring the specific characteristics of project work. Multiple project environments and vertical leadership culture were found to hinder the emergence of SL. Our research contributes to the research of SL, as the multifaceted event chains create alternative approach for understanding the emergence of SL. Our practical contribution highlights the importance of including team members from diverse backgrounds in regard to experience and competences. We also emphasize the actions for engaging team members in shared project goals to facilitate the emergence of SL.
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