This paper tests the relationship between shared leadership with TLBs in Dutch welfare teams, exploring and accounting for the mediating variable of psychological safety. The research is...Show moreThis paper tests the relationship between shared leadership with TLBs in Dutch welfare teams, exploring and accounting for the mediating variable of psychological safety. The research is constructed around the following research question: How does the shared leadership influence team learning in Dutch welfare teams, and to what extent is this relationship mediated by psychological safety? The research question is examined within social welfare teams with team members from various public and non-profit stakeholders that work together.Show less
The COVID-19 crisis is a complex cross-sectoral crisis that requires a large number of actors to be involved in crisis management. But amidst a crisis, uncertainty, time pressure and chaos arise....Show moreThe COVID-19 crisis is a complex cross-sectoral crisis that requires a large number of actors to be involved in crisis management. But amidst a crisis, uncertainty, time pressure and chaos arise. Luckily, few crises occur and therefore the intended crisis management structures are not frequently put to a robust test. But the COVID-19 crisis is different and discrepancies between the intended and actual crisis management structures were uncovered. This research investigates how the discrepancy between intended and actual crisis management can best be explained. A congruence analysis focussing on contingency and institutional theory seeks to explain which of these two theories provides the best explanation by focussing on the degree of centralisation/decentralisation. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were conducted to collect the data. The analysis shows that contingency theory best provides an explanation for the discrepancy, but institutional explanations better explain discrepancies in crisis management related to the public, such as communicationShow less
Solving and effectively tackling crises requires cooperation. This statement is often considered a universal truth. The abundant literature assesses the performance and cooperation of crisis...Show moreSolving and effectively tackling crises requires cooperation. This statement is often considered a universal truth. The abundant literature assesses the performance and cooperation of crisis management organizations during a crisis. However, the existing literature neglects whether leaders within tasked with crisis management adopt a leadership style that facilitates this cooperation. This study defines how a crisis is associated with leadership behavior and if collaborative leadership behavior occurs. The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to assess this behavior. Leaders and people working under their supervision working in crisis management organizations of the Dutch Haaglanden safety region are interviewed to reflect on the approach a leader took and their behavior. The qualitative methods used present a deeper understanding of what leaders motivate to make certain decisions. Collaborative leadership behavior does occur during a crisis. The main motivations are that the increased pressure on the organization and the high uncertainty levels drives leaders to adopt several features of collaborative leadership behavior. Therefore, this research concludes that a crisis incentivizes leaders to assume a leadership style that facilitates collaboration within and between organizations. Nevertheless, further research is required on how other dimensions of crises – media and public pressure and resource scarcity – are associated with leadership behavior.Show less
Objectives: the growing trend for both public and private organisations to introduce hybrid work locations is giving employees an opportunity to work both remote and proximal from their...Show moreObjectives: the growing trend for both public and private organisations to introduce hybrid work locations is giving employees an opportunity to work both remote and proximal from their organisations. The goal of this thesis study is uncovering the contextual antecedents of leadership behaviours as a result of a work environment characterized by physical distance. Due to a lack of theoretical work on leadership which adequately understands the dual impact of both globalization and technology, this study seeks to develop a more in-depth understanding of the antecedent-conditions of physical distance and the relationship with the emergence of the task-oriented leadership behaviours: monitoring and clarifying, and the relations-oriented leadership behaviours: supporting and empowering. Four deductively constructed hypotheses are testing as possible mechanisms: feelings of uncertainty and stress, communication quality, trust in the leader-follower relationship and perceived control, as guiding the relationship between physical distance and the emergence of leadership behaviours. Methods: the research method is qualitative in nature and follows a deductive explanatory research approach. To accomplish this goal the research design is a single-case study using primary data collected through semi-structured interviews with a municipal leader and four followers measuring their intended and perceived leadership behaviours from a single, and their immediate, municipal leader. Results: the findings indicate that physical distance can be considered an antecedent-condition for the emergence of both task- and relations-oriented leadership behaviours. Additionally, two out of the four tested mechanisms did show a relationship between the work condition of physical distance and the emergence of leadership behaviours. The mechanism: feelings of uncertainty and stress increased the task-oriented leadership behaviour monitoring, while the mechanism: lowered perceived control increased the relations-oriented leadership behaviour empowering.Show less
This case study explores the individual self-efficacy of the members of a single team to cope with the organizational changes caused by the COVID-19 crisis, and how their confidence is shaped by...Show moreThis case study explores the individual self-efficacy of the members of a single team to cope with the organizational changes caused by the COVID-19 crisis, and how their confidence is shaped by the sharing of two concrete leadership behaviours within the team. Visionary leadership has been proven effective in organizational change, and the directive style in managing crisis, both as a vertically-exerted authority. Instead, this study places these leadership behaviours in a shared leadership context. Through 8 surveys and 3 interviews, the research found that the team experienced initial levels of fears and anxieties regarding the uncertainty of the crisis, which were further transformed into high levels of self-efficacy to cope with those changes. The findings confirm that visionary leadership was indeed effective to stimulate individual confidence for performance, also when horizontally shared between equal peers. The evidence on sharing directive leadership style, however, was insufficient to demonstrate their existing relationship.Show less
Some of the most influential politics happen in response to a crisis. As a result, it is important to study how a crisis impacts a politician’s thoughts, preferences and frame of mind....Show moreSome of the most influential politics happen in response to a crisis. As a result, it is important to study how a crisis impacts a politician’s thoughts, preferences and frame of mind. Understanding whether negative information during a crisis causes a shift in preferences between blame avoidance and credit claiming can help us understand how crises impact politicians’ willingness and ability to act. By using a survey experiment conducted amongst municipal councilors across 5 European countries; France, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, the goal of this study is to investigate whether negative financial prospects have an effect on politicians’ preferences for blame avoidant or credit claiming policies. Level of abstraction (abstract or concrete) was used as a signal for either blame avoidant or credit claiming policies allowing this research to add a quantitative dimension and scope to the literature on credit claiming and blame avoidance, performance feedback, and crisis accountability. Using six linear regression models, the experiment showed that in general, councilors are more likely to support than to not support policy goals. There was a small but significant treatment effect as councilors in the treatment group rated both blame-avoidant and credit claiming policies lower than their control group peers. However, treatment did not create the expected shift in preference from credit claiming to blame avoidance or vice versa. Rather, it was found that both groups rated blame-avoidant policies substantially higher than credit claiming policies. Given these preferences, strategic use of blame avoidance can help politicians to gather support for difficult but necessary policies.Show less
