A Study of Leadership\u27s Role in Building Relationships Among Virtual Team Members

This research study focused on leadership\u27s role in building relationships among virtual team members. A qualitative case study, the research focused on organizations in the medical device industry within the Charlotte Metropolitan region of North Carolina. The research was formed using 15 open ended questions in an interview of 20 leaders of virtual teams. Each leader was interviewed individually and allowed to elaborate on their answers to help the researcher to thoroughly understand the approach used to help the relationships form among their virtual team members. During the interview, the discussion between the researcher and the leader being interviewed covered many topics that helped to identify the emerging themes for this research. After the interviews were completed, the responses were transcribed and coded. There were three themes which emerged during the data analysis process. These themes were (1) the importance of collaboration, (2) the need of sufficient tools for communication, and (3) the importance of face-to-face interaction to build relationships. The results of these emerging themes illustrates the importance for leaders of virtual teams to create opportunities for the team members to collaborate and develop a level of trust among their colleagues. This development of trust helps to ensure the team members will look to their colleagues for input on topics that may be difficult to resolve, as well as building relationships and often having conversations and resolving issues without input from leadership

Transformational leadership and team performance in sports teams: A conditional indirect model

This study tests how transformational leadership fosters team performance through team cohesion and how that relationship is moderated by previous team performance and leadership consensus. We computed a moderated-mediation model based on a sample of 690 professional players in 59 top professional teams in interactive team sports leagues (basketball, handball, roller hockey, and indoor football/soccer) in Spain. Our findings suggest that transformational leadership indirectly influences objective team performance through the mediation role of team cohesion and that this indirect effect is more prominent when the level of previous performance is higher. We also found that the indirect effect of transformational leadership on team performance via cohesion is stronger in teams with higher consensus regarding their coaches' leadership. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of integrating dispersion and contextual variables into research models, in particular, previous performance and leadership consensus.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

E-leadership in Practice: The Components of Transformational Leadership in Virtual Business Environments

Today more and more organizations increasingly conduct business using globally distributed teams, also called virtual teams, because of the availability and ubiquity of information and communication technology. E-leadership refers to leading through computer-mediated communication. In the field of e-leadership, transformational leadership has been studied for the past two decades and has been the most-often-cited leadership theory. The literature review discusses how transformational leadership behaviors affect team performance in the context of virtuality, in particular interpersonal trust and organizational commitment of the virtual team members. The researcher conducted a quantitative research study to examine (a) the relationships between transformational leadership and interpersonal trust and organizational commitment of virtual team members, (b) the impacts of the four constructs of transformational leadership via computer-mediated communication, and (c) the moderating effect of the degree of virtuality on such relationships. Study results indicate that transformational leadership behaviors positively affected interpersonal trust and organizational commitment of virtual team members. Among its four constructs, one particular construct—individualized consideration—had a more prominent role. Variety of practices moderated the relationship between transformational leadership and interpersonal trust. Practical implications and future research directions in the emerging field of transformational e-leadership are discussed. Future research directions are suggested

Strategies Small Business Owners Use for Long-Term Existence

More than 90 of every 100 new businesses fail within 5 years. The need to explore ongoing strategies that provide low-cost alternatives can prove invaluable to cash-strapped new business owners. Exploration of relationships among a group of stakeholders essential to business success provided data in this case study. Those stakeholders include the owner, the customer service personnel and the consumer. Without the consumer, all other business activities would cease to be necessary. Five business owners and five employees from Redding, California participated in 2 separate focus group interviews. The conceptual framework for this case study was to explore the specific business problem, the lack of low-cost strategic resources, and initiatives to facilitate continued existence of new small businesses. The focus group interviews were conducted in 2 separate settings using notes and Audacity voice recordings. Through personal notes and the use of NVivo 11 data was disseminated and provided rich information on at least four themes. Major themes were customer retention, creating teamwork, building relationships, and communication to create business sustainability. Having communities in which businesses thrive allows for greater job opportunities and increased community revenue. The impact of empty storefronts in cities throughout America and the loss of community identity necessitate the need for the strategist to continue to attempt to provide resources and strategies to business owners everywhere. The social change impact occurs when SBOs who recognize their business provides structure to the community seek out ways to increase sustainability

AN INSTRUMENTAL STUDY OF FIRE SERVICE LEADERS’ INFLUENCE ON FOLLOWERS’ WORKPLACE AEROBIC EXERCISE ACTIVITY

Sudden cardiac events resulting from the physical demands associated with fire suppression among individuals lacking adequate aerobic fitness are known concerns within the firefighting domain. The purpose of this research study was to explore fire service leaders\u27 perceived leadership behaviors that aided in followers\u27 performing workplace aerobic exercise activities (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Following within-case and cross-case analyses of interviewees\u27 data, five leadership themes emerged comprising four behaviors and one influence related to followers\u27 workplace aerobic exercise activities: role model, supportive, cooperative, visionary, and planned exercise regimen. In the present study, thematic findings indicated that fire service leaders\u27 role-modeling exercise and fitness behaviors exemplified the importance of performing workplace aerobic exercise activities among followers. In addition, supportive behaviors focused on interactive exchanges, job-related training, and team-building helped followers perform workplace aerobic exercise activities. Moreover, interviewees portrayed cooperative behaviors towards working out with followers, scaling exercises, and procuring fitness equipment promoted workplace aerobic exercise activities. Furthermore, interviewees described the use of visionary behaviors focused on thinking outside of the box and eliciting solutions to barriers limiting followers’ from performing workplace aerobic exercise activities. Equally important, interviewees identified that establishing a prescribed planned workout regimen influenced followers\u27 performance of workplace aerobic exercise activities. Therefore, the present study\u27s findings have practical implications for helping fire service leaders lessen followers\u27 cardiovascular disease-related events within the firefighting domain

The impact of cultural differences in temporal perception on global software development teams

This dissertation investigated the impact of cultural differences in temporal perception on globally dispersed software development teams. Literature and anecdotal evidence suggest that these temporal differences affect individual communication quality, which in turn will affect individual satisfaction and trust within global teams. Additionally, the temporal dispersion of the team was expected to affect an individual\u27s sense of temporal disruption which, in turn, was expected to affect individual satisfaction and trust. Differences in temporal perception were expected to moderate this impact on perceived temporal disruption. A Fortune 100 Company that carried out software testing in Ireland, the United States, China and India provided the respondent population which resulted in all testing teams having global membership. The research used two methods for data collection: survey and interviews. The survey instrument\u27s constructs were developed via pilot tests conducted on student software development teams and through a card sorting task. Four temporal perception constructs were used: Future Orientation, Lateness Attitude, Temporal Rigidity and Temporal Urgency. Team members answered the temporal perception questions twice; once for how they felt their remote team members would answer the questions and once for how they felt their local team members would answer the questions. A gap analysis was performed on this data yielding temporal perception difference scores. A Gap Magnitude that looked at the size of the gaps was also calculated to provide measures of the size of the cultural differences. Semi-structured interviews were carried out on fifteen percent of the respondent population to explore the temporal perception differences in more detail. Survey results only partially supported the hypotheses that cultural differences in temporal perceptions affect Individual Communication Quality. Specifically, it was found that group differences in the temporal perceptions of Sense of Urgency and Lateness Attitude significantly impacted Individual Communication Quality. Sense of Urgency also impacted Individual Trust. Follow-up interviews suggested that differences were recognized, but other factors such as an orientation to a future benefit by working hard now, the prestige of working with people in the Company\u27s home country and possibly a sense of being a professional, may have outweighed the examined temporal differences. It also was found that Temporal Distance affected an individual\u27s Temporal Disruption, that Individual Communication Quality affected Individual Trust, and Individual Satisfaction. Gap Magnitude helped identify areas of potential problems that corresponded to areas identified by management, and mentioned by the employees in their interviews. Overall, the research suggests that certain Temporal Perceptions affect Individual Communication Quality, which in turn affects Trust and Individual Satisfaction. Communication, itself, seemed to be a large cause of problems, in part, because of the language differences, in part, because of the need to convey complex problems requiring detailed solutions, and, in part, because of the extreme temporal disruptions that time zone differences caused in a global team members working life

Predicting Government Non-Manager Employees’ Creative Self-concept Based on Their Leaders’ Transformational Leadership Qualities

This quantitative non-experimental, predictive, correlational study aimed to evaluate the predictive relationship between government leaders exercising transformational leadership attributes and government service employees\u27 potential to engage in creative problem-solving. This study contributes to the existing knowledge on leadership and creative self-concept by focusing on the government civilian service sector. This sector represents a large population with limited exposure to the correlation between leadership and creativity. The sample for this study was 1,432 engineering and contracting professionals from a government acquisition center in northern Alabama who designed and built weapons systems for combat forces. The data analysis included 609 participants. The Team Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was used to measure the key attributes of transformational leadership and the Short Scale of Creative Self-measured employees\u27 creative self-concept. Data were collected through an online survey platform, and the participants volunteered to complete the survey. A multiple linear regression model was used to analyze the leadership attributes\u27 predictive capability related to employees’ self-perceived creativity. The results demonstrated a predictive relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Idealized attributes, intellectual stimulation, and inspirational motivation were found to be the best predictors of employee creativity. Recommendations for future studies include continued exploration into other career areas in government service to determine the generalizability of results across the government civilian service career fields and explore how transformational leadership impacts employee creativity in different contexts

Bibliometric Citation Analysis of Cultural Intelligence

Master's thesis Business Administration BE501 - University of Agder 2017Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the most influential contributions to cultural intelligence by a bibliometric citation analysis using HistCite, VOSviewer and CiteNetExplorer, in order to provide an objective and scientific future research direction. Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the development of cultural intelligence construct and its antecedents to and outcomes of CQ, the synthesis of three bibliometric citation tools to analyse a sample of 357 articles by 823 scholars in 199 different journals published between 1992-2017. Findings – The analysis revealed 10 research clusters within the topic of Cultural Intelligence that can be categorized as the most relevant antecedents to and outcomes of CQ: 1) Validation of Cultural Intelligence; 2) Cultural Intelligence Hypothesis; 3) Experiential Learning & Global Leader development; 4) Expatriate Performance and Adjustment; 5) The use of EQ in Culturally Diverse Teams; 6) Mindfulness, Knowledge and Behaviour; 7) CQ moderating intercultural service encounters; 8) Emotional Intelligence Research; 9) Managerial and Cognitive CQ; and 10) Global Virtual Teams & Cross-Cultural training. We also include future research direction for each emerged research cluster. Originality/value – This study is the first attempt of a citation analysis on the cultural intelligence research; The first integrated and synthesised use of three different citation tools to achieve objective and scientific results as close as possible; The first attempt of essentially unpacking the "DNA" of Cultural Intelligence

Effective Strategies for Building Trust in Virtual Teams

Virtual teams often fail to achieve their objectives because virtual team leaders lack strategies for nurturing trust among dispersed team members. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies virtual team leaders in large corporate banks use to build trust among virtual team members. The population of this study included 6 virtual team leaders from a large corporate bank located in the northeast region of the United States. The interpersonal trust theory was the conceptual framework of this study. Data were collected via semistructured telephone interviews and review of company documents. The data analysis process included content analysis and thematic analysis for theme identification. Data analysis revealed four themes related to strategies that leaders of virtual teams can use to build trust among team members: reliable technology, effective communication, teamwork and participation, and respect for people and culture. A fifth theme emerged related to barriers to trust strategies. The implications for positive social change include the potential to improve work environments for virtual team members isolated because of the absence of a social context

Cross-Cultural Competencies and Diversity in International Teams: A Comprehensive Exploration

This thesis comprises three essays that investigate cross-cultural competencies in a diverse international team context. The first essay conducts a systematic review of 158 seminal CQ, GM, and CC publications. Utilising advanced bibliometric methodologies, key journals, influential publications, and ground-breaking researchers in this domain are identified. Further co-citations are examined through factor and cluster analyses, deciphering the complex knowledge structure in this research spectrum. Five predominant research streams emerge, bridging the overlap between CQ, GM, and CC constructs. Burst analyses further spotlight the prevailing trends and rapidly growing research avenues, laying a foundation for impending scholarly endeavours. The second essay addresses the multifaceted nature of 'diversity' - a term that remains largely enigmatic despite its widespread use in International Business literature. The context in this paper is on Global Virtual Teams (GVTs), which are inherently infused with diversity. This paper presents the conceptual framework of personal diversity, which clarifies three salient diversity types - the variety of demographic attributes, disparity in functional attributes, and separation along covert attributes. Using a sample of 345 GVTs, the implications of these diversity types on intermediary team processes, barriers to collaboration, and psychological and task outcomes are empirically tested employing PLS-SEM modelling. Key findings reveal that demographic variety augments collaboration and enhances psychological outcome. Additionally, disparity, especially concerning English proficiency and technical skills, can increase barriers to collaboration and adversely impact psychological outcome. The third essay pioneers a nuanced conceptual framework tailored to assess the configurations of team cultural intelligence. The framework originates from the multiple intelligence theory and is enhanced by foundational theories specific to each CQ dimension. Simultaneously, it integrates three diversity theories: information processing, (in)justice perspective, and categorisation paradigms. The delineation elucidates how diverse CQ configurations, characterised by CQ ranges, dimension disparities, and separations, associate with different team outcomes. An illustrative example of global virtual teams tests the theoretical framework empirically to present further theoretical and practical implications.acceptedVersio