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As technology-mediated communication improves, many organizations increasingly use new types of collaborative online tools to promote team-based learning and performance. The purpose of this study is to explore how virtual team leaders cope with process challenges in developing a context for team creativity.

The authors interviewed nine leaders who have worked for more than five years and managed virtual teams in different fields.

This research uncovered distrust, personality differences, generational differences in views, scheduling issues and technology difficulties as the top five inhibitors for virtual team creativity and success. The authors identified seven main strategies for developing virtual team creativity and success. The authors found that building “team norms” and guidelines to encourage positive interactions between team members can facilitate team creativity. In addition, a concept of trust-based open communication was identified as one of the important strategies when teams actively use technology-mediated communication tools.

Organizational practitioners can use the results of this study when developing knowledge to establish assessments regarding which employees possess the appropriate characteristics to lead virtual teams and implement virtual team training.

This study emphasizes the importance of technology in professional lives by showing how technology-mediated work leads to success in learning and producing creative ideas and performance in a virtual team environment.

The purpose of this paper is to understand different aspects of structural dispersion in virtual teams (VTs). The study measures five types of dispersion, their impact on VT performance and the moderating effect of electronic communication.

The authors collected data from 44 globally distributed VTs representing 403 members. The authors used details of the members’ locations to measure five elements of dispersion for each team: spatial, time-zone, number of locations, extent of numerical balance across locations and extent of isolated members for a team. The authors used two items to assess effective electronic communication and measured team performance on four items from three sources – members, leaders and third-party stakeholders.

Using regression, the authors found that the number of sites, degree of team balance and isolation had a negative impact on team performance. Spatial and temporal dispersion did not impact performance. Effective electronic communication moderated the relationship of team performance with team balance and the number of sites.

Study presents novel findings on the role of team configuration in VTs. Limitations: the study provides pointers to the likelihood of a non-linear relationship between spatial distance and performance; however, the scope of the paper does not permit an examination of this model. Future research can study this relationship. Second, the study does not examine how team configuration impacts the team processes that discount performance. Finally, the study treats each index of dispersion as independent of the others. The analysis does not study the interplay between and among the indices.

The findings provide clear indicators for managers and researchers of VTs on the issues associated with the location and configuration of the teams. Managers, while designing and managing dispersed members are now informed of the impact of the number of sites and the sub-group dynamics. The study underscores the importance of effective electronic communication in managing dispersion.

The study presents how faultiness based on location of VT sub-groups (as represented in the configuration of a team) can hamper performance. Literature suggests that this faultiness can also extend to social identities (based on gender, culture, etc.). The indicators provided by this study in this respect provide a topical focus for research because diverse dispersed teams are becoming more prevalent.

The study is the first empirical exploration of dispersion in VTs beyond the traditionally acknowledged dimensions of spatial distance and time-zones. It is a timely response to the recent trends in literature. Additionally, the study derives data from a unique data set of global VTs, thus making findings easily generalizable.

As team members temporarily assume the role of leader, a system of shared leadership emerges. This study had three purposes: (a) to test the underlying three dimensions of shared leadership behaviors, (b) to examine the relationship between shared leadership behaviors and team performance, and (c) to examine the mediating effect of trust between team members’ perceptions of shared leadership and performance.

We used the sub-dimensions of shared leadership: relation-oriented shared leadership (ROSL), task-oriented shared leadership (TOSL), and creativity-oriented shared leadership (COSL). We collected survey data from college student teams at two different time points.

This study’s factor analysis results supported a second-order factor model that explains shared leadership with TOSL, ROSL, and a new COSL construct. Additionally, we discovered that shared leadership behaviors predicted team performance both directly and indirectly through team trust.

This study confirms the role of the new sub-dimension of COSL originally discovered by video analysis of project teams (Leight et al., 2018), thereby adding value to shared leadership research. This quantitative study supports the COSL with TOSL and ROSL in a second-order model where each component contributes unique input into the team dynamics. Our findings underscore the significance of shared leadership in elevating team trust, ultimately resulting in improved team performance. This insight holds particular relevance for educational management and leadership, offering a framework for understanding how shared leadership practices can positively influence team dynamics within academic contexts.

The study attempts to build a creative learning transfer (CLT) theory represented by a nomological network incorporating relevant theories and empirical support for the relationships among the transfer predictors in the learning transfer system (LTS), leaders' CLT and their job performance.

The authors used 76-item survey data from 471 managers who worked for 16 large companies located in South Korea, had completed leadership training at least three months before the data collection and had received a performance review just before the data collection. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and reliability tests were conducted, followed by a common method variance test and structural equation modeling.

A nomological network of LTS, CLT and job performance was established. The findings supported the mechanism for motivating managers to transfer acquired leadership skills to challenging organizational situations and eventually, increase their managerial job performance. This study provided a parsimonious CLT scale and verified the influence of CLT on leaders' job performance.

This study is the first attempt to measure the concept of CLT and suggest a parsimonious CLT scale. In addition, this study conceptualized, operationalized and confirmed a nomological network for CLT. Organizations may develop such a system and help managers apply the learned leadership knowledge and skills to novel business situations for creating more competitive work systems, products and services.

Learning and development are critical to a business’s success. This paper aims to focus on organizational factors at multiple organizational levels that facilitate learning culture in a small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) in northwestern China.

This study is qualitative in nature. A single case study method is used to explore an SME’s organizational factors that facilitate learning culture.

This paper categorizes the organizational factors into seven dimensions: shared vision, creating continuous learning opportunities, informal learning that promotes inquiry and dialogue, collaboration and team learning, knowledge management systems, work–family enrichment and encouragement and support. This paper also compares the findings with learning culture models from Western research.

Chinese culture has far-reaching and fundamental effects on many East Asian countries and regions. For SMEs in similar cultural settings with a collectivist orientation, future research may focus on the effect of the work–family enrichment on learning culture.

Work–family enrichment was found to be an important factor that influences learning effectiveness in this Chinese small business based on traditional values in Chinese culture.

The purpose of this study is to identify and examine findings from empirical research regarding organizations’ talent development (TD) strategies, taking into consideration the countries in which the studies were conducted and the TD-approach organizations adopted, and recognize the positive outcomes of TD implementation, as well as potential issues and challenges.

This systematic literature review used Garrard’s matrix method to organize the review of publications. It identified 31 empirical articles from the total of 551 publications.

The findings indicate that a majority of the studies were conducted in countries other than the USA and that they were all published recently, after 2007. The results show that organizations have mostly applied organizational development interventions at the individual level for developing talented employees, followed by formal training and development. Additionally, managerial issues were identified as the most common issue on the way of implementing TD interventions.

Trying to define TD as a discrete concept from HRD could be considered as both differentiating the current literature review and a limitation.

This article is among the first to identify TD interventions through a systematic literature review and provides a model of TD’s intervention antecedents and outcomes for the follow-up empirical works.

This paper aims to examine the effect of shared leadership on student project team processes and outcomes. The authors focused on shared leadership and its association with team processes (coordination, goal commitment and knowledge sharing) and team performance.

To examine the shared leadership, team processes and performance model, the authors conducted two separate surveys of 158 graduate and undergraduate students working in project teams at a large southwestern university.

Results showed that shared leadership positively affected coordination activities, goal commitment and knowledge sharing, which in turn positively affect team performance. Each team process factor had a mediation effect, although shared leadership had no direct effect on team performance.

This research adds to the knowledge of important team process factors through which shared leadership indirectly affects team performance.

Based on the findings, the authors provided implications for students and instructors that shared leadership can facilitate team performance by enabling team members to coordinate activities, commit to goals and share knowledge effectively.

This study presents an initial understanding of the shared leadership-team performance relationship by introducing influential variables, such as coordination activities, goal commitment and knowledge sharing in a team.

This paper aims to conduct two studies to investigate shared leadership and team creativity (TC) in leaderless short-term project teams (STPTs).

To answer the research question, this paper used a multi-level mixed-methods design. This paper analyzed video recordings, transcripts of STPTs’ collaboration and self-report surveys from an international engineering competition. In Study 1, this paper attempted to connect relation-oriented shared leadership (ROSL) and task-oriented shared leadership (TOSL) with TC by coding video recordings. In Study 2, this paper further investigated the proposed positive relationship between shared leadership and TC by surveying a sample of 166 students in 51 teams.

In Study 1, this paper found that shared leadership covaries with TC following a similar behavioral pattern. In Study 2, multi-level structural equation modeling results suggested that both TOSL and ROSL are positively correlated with TC.

In this mixed-methods multi-level research, this paper found that when the team’s shared leadership increases, their TC activity becomes frequent. This paper confirmed the qualitative finding by quantitatively investigated the relationship between shared leadership and creativity at the team level.

As a cornerstone of team performance, learning depends on each member’s mindset. Drawing on implicit theories of intelligence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among individual members’ mindsets and shared leadership (SL) behaviors in design teams and the mediation role of team growth mindset (TGM) on that relationship.

The authors analyzed survey results based on individuals who participated in an international design competition. To test the hypothesized model, the data was analyzed by using SEM using Mplus 7.

The results indicated that an individual growth mindset (IGM; but not an individual-fixed mindset) has significant and positive direct effects on a team growth mindset and SL behaviors. In addition, a TGM mediates the relationship between an IGM and SL.

The research discusses several theoretical and practical implications for human resource development professionals and scholars to improve understanding of a TGM and its influence on individual mindsets and SL behaviors.

Michael Beyerlein is Director of the Center for Collaborative Organizations (www.workteams.unt.edu) and Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of North Texas. His research interests include all aspects of collaborative work systems, organization transformation, work stress, creativity/innovation, knowledge management and the learning organization, and complex adaptive systems. He has published in a number of research journals and has been a member of the editorial boards for TEAM Magazine, Team Performance Management Journal, and Quality Management Journal. Currently, he is senior editor of the Elsevier annual series of books Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams and the Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer Collaborative Work Systems series. He has authored or edited 15 books. His most recent are Beyond Teams: Building the Collaborative Organization (2002), The Collaborative Work System Fieldbook (2003), and Team-based Organizing (2003). He has been involved in projects at the Center for Collaborative Organizations (formerly, The Center for the Study of Work Teams) with such companies as Boeing, Shell, NCH, AMD, Raytheon, First American Financial, Westinghouse, and Xerox and with government agencies such as Veterans Affairs, DCMAO, EPA, and the City of Denton.Douglas A. Johnson is director of the Industrial/Organizational psychology program, professor of psychology, and associate director of the Center for Collaborative Organizations at the University of North Texas. He has published research in a variety of areas ranging from teams, leadership and job satisfaction, to operant conditioning and interpersonal attraction. He co-founded and served as president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Organizational Psychology Group (now Dallas Area Industrial/Organizational Psychologists), and participated in the creation of the Dallas office of the consulting firm, Personnel Decisions International, from whom he recently retired.Susan Tull Beyerlein holds a Ph.D. in organization theory and policy with a minor in education research from the University of North Texas. Since 1995, she has been an instructor of business and psychology at Our Lady of the Lake University in Irving, Texas. Susan has served as a research scientist/project manager with the Center for Collaborative Organizations at the University of North Texas, and has been a recipient of research grant awards from the Association for Quality and Participation, the National Science Foundation, and corporate donors. Since 1995, she has co-edited the Elsevier/JAI Imprint annual book series entitled, Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams, and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for The Academy of Management Review. She has been a member of the Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer Collaborative Works Systems series since its inception. Susan has published book reviews on contemporary business offerings in Business and the Contemporary World, and her work has also appeared in Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Journal of Management Education, Empirical Studies of the Arts, and Multiple Linear Regression Viewpoints. She is a member of the Academy of Management, Beta Gamma Sigma – the honor society for collegiate schools of business, and Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.