Shared Leadership and Team Effectiveness: Moderating Effects of Task Interdependence

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship and effect between the attitude about shared leadership and team effectiveness with two dimensions of task interdependence such as Received Task Interdependence (RTID) and Initiated Task Interdependence (ITID) tested for the potential moderating effects on the relationship. Research hypotheses were developed and tested using regression analysis. To test the hypotheses, we distributed 550 questionnaires among the employees in nine insurance companies in South Korea. Finally we used 296 valid responses for our analysis. Two hypotheses showed significant result while others did not show any potential impact. The major findings indicate that attitude about shared leadership has a positive impact on team effectiveness. One dimension of task interdependence, RTID did suppress the relationship between shared leadership and team effectiveness. But for ITID, we did not get any positive moderating effect between the relationships. For practical implications it suggests that attitude about shared leadership should be prioritized to accelerate team effectiveness. Moreover, team leadership should use less of RTID when shared leadership is exercised by the team leaders to improve the level of team effectiveness. Key words: Shared Leadership, Team Effectiveness, Attitude about Shared Leadership, Task Interdependence.