Date of Award

Winter 12-31-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Industrial/Organizational Psychology (PhD)

Department

Industrial/Organizational Psychology

First Advisor/Committee Member

Paul Yost

Second Advisor/Committee Member

Mike Yoder

Third Advisor/Committee Member

Matt Magill

Keywords

Shared Leadership, Buy/Make Strategy, Make/Buy Strategy, Team Composition, Team Leadership, Build versus Buy

Abstract

The study of shared leadership is growing to address the challenges faced in an increasingly dynamic and interdependent workplace. Shared leadership under the right conditions has been found to be related to team adaptability, creativity, and effectiveness. However, there is growing research on the conditions that limit or enhance the effectiveness of shared leadership. Specifically, it was proposed that teams which are more made than bought (internally developed) should adopt a shared leadership model. In contrast, teams that are more bought than made (developed externally) should use a traditional hierarchical team leadership model. Using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA, 240 teams from 2014-2021)), the study found negative relationships between a team’s buy/make ratio and team effectiveness; that is, teams purchasing talent tended to perform better. The study also found negative relationships between shared leadership and team effectiveness; that is teams that exhibited non-shared leadership systems tended to perform better. Proposed interaction effects (buy/make and shared leadership decentralization) were found for team performance (offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency) with the best teams adopting a buy strategy and adopting non-shared leadership models. Post-hoc interactions effects for failed shared leadership density and buy/make were found for defensive efficiency and winning percentage with the best teams adopting a buy strategy and high failed shared leadership density. The failed shared leadership decentralization and buy/make interaction also significantly predicted offensive efficiency with the best teams adopting a buy strategy and centralizing failures. Thus, within this high-performance team environment, teams constructed with more buy players performed better, non-shared leadership systems were higher performing; and when teams are more made than bought, limiting shared leadership actions that fail is preferred. Theoretical and practical implications for shared leadership and talent acquisition are discussed including a call for future research to explore the boundary conditions in the use of shared leadership and further explore the buy/make team construction strategy.

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