TY - JOUR
T1 - The double-edged sword of leadership task transitions in emergency response multiteam systems
AU - Luciano, Margaret M.
AU - Fenters, Virgil
AU - Park, Semin
AU - Bartels, Amy L.
AU - Tannenbaum, Scott I.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by a grant from the Army Research Institute (Grant no. W911NF-15-1-0014: The Development and Construct Validation of Unobtrusive Dynamic Measures of Team Processes and Emergent States). The opinions expressed herein, however, are strictly those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the sponsoring organization.
Publisher Copyright:
© Academy of Management Journal
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Multiteam systems (MTSs) operating in complex and dynamic environments often have a formal hierarchical leadership structure. However, it is unclear whether individuals should stick exclusively to performing their designated tasks within the hierarchical leadership structure, or if, instead, they should switch between different types of tasks to align efforts with changes in the environment. We refer to such task switching-an individual shifting to or from tasks designated for a particular leader position-as leadership task transitions. Our qualitative study of six MTSs responding to live-actor mass-casualty incidents revealed that leadership task transitions are a double-edged sword as they can simultaneously help manage the MTS-environment interface and harm MTS internal functioning. More specifically, leadership task transitions benefit the MTS by rapidly reallocating effort to alleviate the dominant environmental pressure at that time. However, they also harm the MTS by disrupting its internal task-based cycles. Rapidly restoring the disrupted cycles mitigates this harmful effect, but such cycle restoration is not successful when there is a high level of cycle activity or when multiple areas of the MTS are disrupted. Our findings generate new knowledge on how and why leadership task transitions impact MTSs. Implications and future directions are discussed.
AB - Multiteam systems (MTSs) operating in complex and dynamic environments often have a formal hierarchical leadership structure. However, it is unclear whether individuals should stick exclusively to performing their designated tasks within the hierarchical leadership structure, or if, instead, they should switch between different types of tasks to align efforts with changes in the environment. We refer to such task switching-an individual shifting to or from tasks designated for a particular leader position-as leadership task transitions. Our qualitative study of six MTSs responding to live-actor mass-casualty incidents revealed that leadership task transitions are a double-edged sword as they can simultaneously help manage the MTS-environment interface and harm MTS internal functioning. More specifically, leadership task transitions benefit the MTS by rapidly reallocating effort to alleviate the dominant environmental pressure at that time. However, they also harm the MTS by disrupting its internal task-based cycles. Rapidly restoring the disrupted cycles mitigates this harmful effect, but such cycle restoration is not successful when there is a high level of cycle activity or when multiple areas of the MTS are disrupted. Our findings generate new knowledge on how and why leadership task transitions impact MTSs. Implications and future directions are discussed.
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U2 - 10.5465/AMJ.2019.0707
DO - 10.5465/AMJ.2019.0707
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85116051904
SN - 0001-4273
VL - 64
SP - 1236
EP - 1264
JO - Academy of Management Journal
JF - Academy of Management Journal
IS - 4
ER -