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theses

Geographical dispersion of team members is posited to have negative effects on team dynamics such as communication and cohesion, and in turn on team performance because both of these dynamics are important mechanisms for improving team performance. Members of teams who do not have other collocated team members to support them, that is, isolates working alone at a location, present a special case of geographical dispersion. Organizations have tried to use leadership interventions such as transformational or shared leadership to mitigate the likely negative effects of distance among team members. This study examines the influence of both transformational and shared leadership styles, on geographically dispersed teams at the team level as well as isolation at the individual level. This study is based on a sample of 86 cross-functional innovation-focused teams from 29 companies across multiple industries. At the team level, I find that as geographical dispersion increases, higher levels of transformational leadership effects become less positive on mediating team dynamics. Because team communication and cohesion are adversely affected, geographical dispersion negatively impacts team performance. Transformational leadership also has a similar pattern of effects at the individual level in influencing team performance through team communication, but not team cohesion. At the individual level, I find that as shared leadership increases, isolates have more positive perceptions of innovative team performance, but team communication and cohesion do not appear to mediate that effect.

ETD_5799

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

Includes vita

by Julia Eisenberg

doi:10.7282/T3J67JH4

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.