Investigating the Prevalence and Performance Correlates of Vertical Versus Shared Leadership in Emergent Software Development Teams

ABSTRACT

In this multi-disciplinary study involving 44 software development projects, we investigate how leadership types—vertical versus shared—impact team performance. The results of the study show that while vertical leadership was found to have a higher positive impact on team efficiency, shared leadership was found to have a higher positive impact on team innovation, and a balanced shared and vertical leadership was found to optimally impact team effectiveness.

KEYWORDS:

• Shared leadership
• team performance
• vertical leadership

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adarsh Kumar Kakar

Adarsh Kumar Kakar is a PhD in Management Science (MIS track) with research interest in theory, methods, and practices of software development. He has over 3 decades of experience in the software industry, and has worked as consultant for many Fortune 500 companies. He is current working as an Assistant Professor in the department of Computer Information Systems at Alabama State University. He has published in journals such as Computers in Human Behavior, Information and Software Technology, Journal of Computer Information Systems, Interacting with Computers, AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, and Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application.