SAMINT-MILI 21052

Master’s Thesis 30 credits

September 2021

Leadership as Practice within a

Remote Working Environment
Interview Study

Nemanja Arnaut

Master’s Programme in Industrial Management and Innovation

Masterprogram i industriell ledning och innovation
 Abstract
Leadership as Practice within a Remote Working
Environment

Nemanja Arnaut

Faculty of Technology
The world is in a pandemic situation. Shifting to remote working has become a
Visiting address: priority for many companies and remote work has become new normal. In
Ångströmlaboratoriet
Lägerhyddsvägen 1 doing so, industrial organizations are experiencing new challenges. Moving to
the online way of working, new working conditions and different practical
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Box 536
challenges they bring have created empirical context highly relevant for studying
751 21 Uppsala leadership which is currently a hot topic among scholars. Almost all studies, in
the context of remote working, emphasize the importance of leadership.
Telephone:
+46 (0)18 – 471 30 03
Nevertheless, it is argued that the most recent literature and work on
Telefax:
+46 (0)18 – 471 30 00 leadership have remained the leader-centered approach highly employed within
traditional leadership literature. The leader-centered approach focuses on
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http://www.teknik.uu.se/education/
individual leaders and their traits, abilities, and actions, and thus contributes to
placing the abstract phenomenon of leadership into distinct individuals, thereby
supporting the taken-for-granted assumption that leadership is a single-person,
heroic, task. Instead, scholars call for more studies that investigate leadership
as ongoing social production of direction through constructions of space of
action by actors in certain practice/practices. This emergent movement in
leadership research is known as leadership as practice.

Accordingly, the aim of this thesis is to investigate leadership within the remote
working environment, from leadership as practice perspective and through the
construction of actors’ space of action. This includes an analysis of current
leadership practices in relation to the construction of space of action as well as
the analysis of practices that might potentially contribute to improving the
current ones in doing so.

An interview study has been carried out at the three companies in Serbia,
Germany, and the UK with a qualitative approach. The thesis builds on a
theoretical framework and empirical data that have been collected through an
extensive literature review and semi-structured interviews using an open-
ended interview guide.

The result suggests that the current leadership practices are narrowing down
the space of action. Also, the analysis of empirical data revealed that certain
leadership practices have the potential to contribute to the construction of
space of action within a remote working environment. The thesis’s insights
might help companies to improve their own practices.

Keywords: Leadership as Practice, Relational Leadership, Shared Leadership,

Space of Action, Remote Working Environment

Supervisor: David Sköld

Subject reader: Caroline Ingvarsson
Examiner: David Sköld
SAMINT-MILI 21052
Printed by: Uppsala Universitet
Popular Science Summary
We live in a pandemic time where working from home has become the new normal. As we all
know, this shift, from office to remote work, was not planned and prepared in advance. Rather,
we have witnessed the unexpected and quick change and we were forced to adapt to those
changes as best as we can. That was not easy and it still is not. Companies all over the world
have been facing numerous challenges that came with the transition to remote working. This
situation has created empirical context very attractive for researchers interested in different
aspects of remote working. Almost all studies, in the context of remote working, realize and
emphasize the importance of leadership. Scholars interested in leadership are working at a high
pace to discover the role of leaders in current circumstances.

At the same time, there is an emergent movement in leadership research that criticizes those
scholars due to their individualistic approach that focuses on individual leaders and their traits,
abilities, and actions while investigating leadership. Instead, they argue that the most suitable
way to study leadership is by focusing on leadership practices that they define as a cooperative
effort among participants to achieve distinctive outcomes. For example, the practice of
empowerment includes encouraging the development of taking responsibility for one’s own
work, and supportive behaviors that facilitate the social development of the team. Instead of
the practitioner, they emphasize the importance of practices. They argue that investigating
leadership as a practice is especially important now as the current pandemic crisis constitutes
unfamiliar conditions and that we need a form of leadership that can improvise around the
reality that is evolving in front of us. This improvisation cannot come from a single leader as
there is no person who has the capacity to reconcile the complexity and uncertainties that this
crisis throws on everyday work life. Instead, we need to focus on practices as a collective
response in order to meet the challenges and thus everyone needs to be free to participate in
leadership.

Accordingly, this interview study investigated the leadership practices in three companies,
namely Bio-Tech Company, Software Company, and Automotive Company that have
experienced the transition from office to remote work. The aim of the thesis was to investigate
leadership practices in relation to the construction of possibilities, potentials, opportunities, and
limitations with the respect to individual and collective action. In a nutshell, it investigated how
and in what ways leadership practices define what is possible to do and what is not. In so doing,
the thesis also revealed the ways in which team members, through their mutual endeavors, can
create a supportive and trusting group atmosphere where team members feel that their input is
valued and appreciated and, thus, are encouraged and motivated to participate through their
ideas. Therefore, the thesis’s findings may serve as inspiration for companies and their
employees to improve their own practices.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1

1.1. Background ..................................................................................................................... 1

1.2 Statement of the Problem ................................................................................................. 3

1.3 Study Aim and Research Questions ................................................................................. 5

1.4 Thesis Disposition ............................................................................................................ 6

2. Literature Review – Toward Leadership as Practice ............................................................. 7

2.1 The Beginnings of Leadership Theory – Leadership as Leader-Centered Theory (1920 to

1980)....................................................................................................................................... 7

2.2 Widening Perspective (the 1980s and on) ........................................................................ 8

2.3 Emergence of Feminism and “Critical Studies on Men” within Leadership Literature (the
1990s and on) ....................................................................................................................... 11

2.4 Shared Leadership – Theory Beginnings and Development (the 1990s and on) ........... 11

2.5 Critiques on Traditional Leadership –It’s Heroic and Romantic Leadership Conception
.............................................................................................................................................. 14

2.6 Emerging Leadership Research (from the 2000s) .......................................................... 15

2.7 Critiques on Emerging Leadership Research ................................................................. 19

2.8 Leadership as Practice .................................................................................................... 20

3. Theoretical Framework ........................................................................................................ 23

3.1 The Idea of the Use of Theoretical Framework ............................................................. 24

3.2 Relational Leadership ..................................................................................................... 25

3.3 Shared Leadership .......................................................................................................... 27

3.4 Analytical Framework for Studying Space of Action .................................................... 32

3.5 Summary of Theoretical Framework ............................................................................. 33

4. Method ................................................................................................................................. 34

4.1 Ontology and Epistemology ........................................................................................... 34

 4.2 Research Strategy ........................................................................................................... 36

4.3 Research Design ............................................................................................................. 36

4.4 Sampling......................................................................................................................... 37

4.5 Descriptions of the Companies and Interview Participants ........................................... 37

4.6 Data Collection Method ................................................................................................. 39

4.7 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................. 40

4.8 Ethics .............................................................................................................................. 41

5. Results and Analysis ............................................................................................................ 43

5.1 Difficulties of Building and Maintaining Relationships ................................................ 44

5.1.1 Theme Summary...................................................................................................... 46

5.1.2 Analysis ................................................................................................................... 47

5.2 Feedback and Reflecting Issues ..................................................................................... 49

5.2.1 Theme Summary...................................................................................................... 51

5.2.2 Analysis ................................................................................................................... 52

5.3 Need for Mutual Support................................................................................................ 54

5.3.1 Theme Summary...................................................................................................... 56

5.3.2 Analysis ................................................................................................................... 57

5.4 Importance of Empowerment ......................................................................................... 58

5.4.1 Theme Summary...................................................................................................... 61

5.4.2 Analysis ................................................................................................................... 62

6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 64

6.1 Research Questions ........................................................................................................ 64

6.2 Statement of Potential Significance ............................................................................... 66

6.2.1 Significance to Theory............................................................................................. 66

 6.2.2 Significance to Practice ........................................................................................... 67

6.3 Research Limitations ...................................................................................................... 67

6.4 Future Research .............................................................................................................. 68

7. References ............................................................................................................................ 69

Appendix .................................................................................................................................. 78
1. Introduction
1.1. Background

The world is in a pandemic situation. Everything we knew before has changed (or at least it
seems like that). Healthcare systems, educational systems, industries, media contents, everyday
talks with friends, virtually everything is affected in this way or around. It is a human, economic
and social crisis (Singhal, 2020). Still, as this thesis represents business research, the focus will
be upon specific industry/business situations and challenges. This does not mean that other
subjects are less important, not quite sure, rather that it is impossible to cover everything and
that something must fail out of the domain. Now, let the story start, again.

Industrial organizations are experiencing new risks and challenges. On a global scale, apart
from the number of internet-based businesses such as online entertainment, food delivery,
online shopping, solutions for remote work (such as Zoom) that became booming economy,
the pandemic is likely to cause major bankruptcies in numerous industries (Donthu and
Gustafsson, 2020). The travel industry is deeply affected which is well depicted in hotel rooms
of which 80% are empty. Airlines, that are still facing huge losses, cut their workforce by 90%.
Moving to the other important industries, such as automotive, transport, and electronics
industries, the situation is not better at all as all of them faced abrupt closure and certain
difficulties at some moment. Also, digitalization that started long before the corona pandemic
is now fostered and it is occurring at a high pace. Currently, it is a hot topic among scholars
which are concerned with different aspects of digitalization (for instance, Soto-Acosta, 2020;
Alper and Yavuz, 2020; Stanojevic and Radanov, 2020; Savic, 2020a; Savic, 2020b; Nagel,
2020; Flecher and Griffiths, 2020; Majumdar, 2020; Kudyba, 2020). Yet, how do these
occurrences reflect on everyday work life? More precisely, what is happening within the
workplace, and how everyday work practice looks now? Has something changed?

Results of a nationally representative sample of the US population indicate that about 50

percent of those employed work from home (Brynjolfsson et al., 2020). Furthermore, another
study stated that 88 percent of workers were interested to work from home after the pandemic
situation (Majumdar, 2020), which might indicate an enormous change in the traditional "going
to work" perspective and a change in ambition concerning the place for work. Thus, it seems
that work from home with the only laptop as a tool and certain electronic media (such as Zoom,
team viewer, Microsoft teams, etc.) are becoming a (desirable) standard component of
everyday work life. And, they were before. The main difference is that what we have today
does not involve any physical interactions with people, except with those one lives with. This
is all evident and depicted in the emergent (and increase) of virtual teams, People-First as a
priority strategy, rethinking the future of work, etc. (Singhal, 2020). Apart from those
concerned with safety and prevention of virus spread, it is argued within the literature that this
way of working (remote work) comes with many other benefits.

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Practitioners point out the flexibility and numerous different benefits that come with remote
work and which concern employees. The possibility to attract and hire employees no matter of
their location, extending the organization working hours to 24h a day regardless of time zone,
increasing international competitiveness, maintain health and productivity through enabling
flexibility in regard to employee's working time, less stress related to communication, work
without being constantly monitored and controlled by managers, saving time and money on the
road, less stress resulting from commuting, more free time, are just some of the benefits that
might come with remote work (Blumberga and Pylinskaya, 2019; Raišienė et al., 2020; Ferreira
et al., 2021). The list of benefits one might consider promising and desirable. Looking only at
the positive facts previously pointed out, it indeed looks like that. A little heaven for employers
and employees. Nevertheless, everything has two sides. The other side is waiting for its turn.

Prasad et al. (2020) wanted to find out are there any challenges (and opportunities) for the
employees working remotely and psychological well-being during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Their study identified a number of challenges that employees experience and which need to be
mitigated so an employee can work with minimum disturbance during the pandemic period.
Identified challenges are communication problems (totally the opposite finding to one
concerning communication from the study of Raišienė et al.,2020) due to internet glitches, no
person to person meetings, delay in communicating decisions, then, workplace isolation, fear
of 24/7 reporting, and burnout, employees do not work or working too much, prioritizing work,
interruptions, lack of human interaction, and loneliness. In addition to this, while discussing
remote work challenges, Wang et al. (2021) stated that most of their study’s participants
mentioned that they are struggling with different shapes of work-home interferences. For
instance, the study found that interruptions from family during work may negatively influence
work effectiveness, and, on the other side, interferences from work domains could make people
feel exhausted which might affect someone’s ability to meet his/her family obligations (ibid.).

But is there “something” that might prevent and/or at least facilitate these negative
consequences and challenges that pandemic constantly throws on everyday work life?
“Something” that “holds like glue” and “leads a group of people toward the same goal”? Today,
leadership seems to be more important than ever. Yet, what does the literature say when it
comes to leadership within discussed circumstances? For instance, what is the role of
leadership in this transition time when a company is moving from an office toward a remote
work to prevent the coronavirus from spreading (which is the most common government
measure across the world)? How and in which ways can leadership facilitate everyday work
life and encounter different home-work-related challenges?

Shankar (2020) argues that some new skills became important for leaders within the
circumstances that we have today. The ability to deal with ambiguity, being agile in decision
making, being empathetic while building trust with team members, and working seamlessly
across boundaries, are some of the discussed skills. Shankar also considers that building these
skills and behaviors represent a key task and that organizations are looking for ideas to
accelerate those, thus calls for future research in regard to this. Furthermore, Gurbuz and Ozkan
2
(2020), while discussing the role of leaders in connection to the adaptation of employees to
work from home, argue that it is the leaders who should ensure that employees adapt to work
from home and use the resources properly, make active, fast, and guiding decisions, share
painful trust with employees, be honest and trustworthy. It is argued that it is up to leaders to
ensure that workplaces are both productive and safe (Boland et al., 2020). Moreover, the role
of the leader in the digitalization process, which is currently happening at its highest pace (as
already pointed out), is crucial if companies aim to take full advantage of an opportunity to
digitally transform their work (Perčić and Nikolić, 2020). Regarding the same topic, Pericic
and Nikolic (ibid.) say that leaders should have empathy, develop some leadership practices
(i.e., coaching), boost dialogue (via regular meetings, feedback culture, mentoring, etc.), make
processes, transactions, and relations more visible, etc.

The importance of leadership and what a leader's role should be within the transition process
from office to remote work is recognized among many scholars (for example, Shankar, 2020;
Gurbuz and Ozkan, 2020; Perčić and Nikolić, 2020). Consequently, numerous literature
streams that focus on investigating leadership in a context similar to this that we have today
have emerged. There are different literature streams, such as remote leadership literature,
digital leadership literature, virtual leadership literature, and e-leadership literature. Although
their names differ, each of these streams investigates different aspects of leadership within a
similar environment in which team members are not located in the same space (mostly working
from home) and when their goal accomplishment and communication rely on different
information and communication technologies. Scholars who were concerned with leadership
in such circumstances investigated (among others) the connection between leader performance
and physical distance (i.e., Neufeld et al., 2010), how leaders communicate and motivate
remote workers (Madlock, 2012, 2013), etc. Furthermore, Verburg et al. (2013) wanted to
investigate which conditions (i.e., style, communication, and its clarity, competencies, trust)
are important for successful task accomplishment when working in dispersed settings. Also,
Lilian (2014) aimed to study which leadership skills, behavior, and practices contribute to
effective virtual teams, similar as Cogliser et al. (2012) did in their investigation of
relationships between the Big Five personality factors (Extraversion, Emotional Stability,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience), leader emergence, team
trustworthiness, peer-rated member performance contributions, and team performance, within
virtual teams. To conclude, it is argued that almost all studies, in the context of the challenges
of remote working, emphasize the importance of leadership (Ramage, 2017).

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Nevertheless, something must be noticed in the relation to the previous studies. It seems that
the most recent literature and work on leadership have remained the leader-centered approach
highly employed within traditional leadership literature. As it was presented in the previous
discussion, studies investigated: the connection between leader performance and physical
distance (i.e., Neufeld et al., 2010), how leaders motivate remote workers (Madlock, 2012,
2013), the role of leaders in relation to employees’ adaptation to work from home (Gurbuz and
3
Ozkan, 2020), leader’s role in ensuring that workplace is productive and safe (Boland et al.,
2020), which leader’s skills are important within a remote working environment (Shankar,
2020), etc. In these studies, and within other studies that were previously mentioned, the
emphasis is on a leader.

This leader-centered approach has been highly criticized among scholars (i.e., Crevani et al.,
2007, 2008; Raelin, 2016). The argument behind the scholars' critiques is that this approach
observes leadership as a leader-follower construct (i.e., Crevani et al., 2007, 2009; Crevani,
2018; Raelin, 2016, 2020). The nature of this leader-follower construct is rather vertical – top-
down, than horizontal - equal. More precisely, it is such construct where the emphasis is on
vertical leadership and, consequently, the focus is on an individual leader who has granted top-
down authority based on command and control, thereby supporting the taken-for-granted
assumption that leadership is a single-person, heroic, task (Crevani et al., 2007). Also, it is
stated that the traditional leader-centered approach that focuses on individual leaders and their
traits, abilities, and actions, contributes to placing the abstract phenomenon of leadership into
distinct individuals who are detached from their cultural context (Raelin, 2016).

Contrary to this, current theory development is based upon viewing leadership as collectively
constructed. More exactly, where power, organizational roles, definitions of reality,
boundaries, responsibilities, and identities are continuously negotiated in ongoing social
interactions (i.e., Crevani et al., 2007). It requires looking at these interactions through the
lenses that give no primacy to an individual leader (as it was usually the case within traditional
leadership research), but instead focus upon a number of people involved (Crevani et al., 2008;
Crevani, 2015). Consequently, there has been increasing recognition of the value of studying
leadership from a practice perspective, known as leadership as practice (Raelin, 2016). It
emphasizes the importance of practices, not the practitioner, and leadership, seen from this
perspective, is co-constructed by actors in certain practice/practices. While describing
leadership as practice approach, Raelin (2011, p. 4) states: “Leadership-as-practice is less about
what one person thinks or does and more about what people may accomplish together. It is thus
concerned with how leadership emerges and unfolds through coping in day-to-day experience”.
The practice view/approach challenges the traditional leader-centered approach on leadership
because it does not rely on attributes of individuals nor if focuses on dyadic relationship
between leaders and followers, which historically has represented the starting point for any
discussion of leadership (Raelin, 2017). Leadership is thus viewed as “an ongoing collective
practical accomplishment that is produced in a particular social setting” (Raelin, 2019, p. 3).

In addition to the necessity for investigating leadership from leadership as practice perspective,
it is stated that the spatial dimension is still largely unexplored within leadership studies and
that there is a need for bringing space back in leadership studies (Yanow, 1998; Kornberger
and Clegg, 2004; Clegg and Kornberger, 2006; Taylor and Spicer, 2007; Vasquez and Cooren,
2013, cited in Crevani, 2018). Instead of conceiving space as a container that is already there,
Crevani (2018) states that space is to be conceived as produced, always under construction.
Space is a sphere, a dimension, constituted through practices and relational achievements. It is
4
also described as: “The construct that allows us to appreciate how the world is not only fluid,
changing, but also characterized by interrelatedness – in other words, it helps us focus on
structuring processes in their ‘depth and width’” (Crevani, 2018, p. 85). Accordingly, it is
argued that “leadership can be studied as the ongoing social production of direction through
the construction of actors’ space of action” (Packendorff et al., 2014, p. 1). Crevani (2018)
concludes that adding spatial dimension has the potential to enrich our understanding of the
phenomenon thus calls for more studies capturing the fluidity of leadership work as it happens.

Finally, due to the fact that we cannot meet physically to the same extent as previously, remote
work has become a new normal (Crevani et al., 2021). It is stated that: “Frustration, discomfort,
and burnout created by digital meetings, as well as the satisfaction that can also accompany
digital work, have shown clearly that leadership is not just a matter of discourse. Interactions
between people very much matter” (p. 135). Thus, what needs to be taken into consideration
are both interactions between people, but also how remote working environment affects those
interactions. As “circumstances have made us more aware of the ambiguity and multiplicity of
reality, of the need for collaboration, adaptation, and resilience, and of the embodied and
material dimension of work-life, among other aspects” (p. 136), they call for more studies
exploring leadership practices within a remote environment in order to renew the way we do
and talk about leadership. Raelin (2020) confirms the importance of taking context while
investigating leadership as practice. He says that leadership as practice research is interested in
context, which in turn lends meaning to the practices in which they are transacted. Thus it is
argued that we need to think of context as the set of embedded circumstances in which practice
is occurring.

1.3 Study Aim and Research Questions

The thesis aims to address the recognized opportunities and to address these gaps within
leadership literature. Consequently, the thesis will investigate leadership within the remote
working environment, from leadership as practice/practice-centered perspective, through the
construction of actors’ space of action. Thus, the thesis sees leadership as collectively
constructed through mutual endeavors and focuses on everyday activities, interactions, and
relationships, as Raelin (2016) says “doings” of leadership as practice “unfolds”. This study
aim can be operationalized within the following research questions:

1. How do current leadership practices achieved in the interactions between team members
influence the construction of space of action within a remote working environment?

2. What leadership practices achieved in the interactions between team members may
contribute to the construction of space of action within a remote working environment?

5
The research questions attempt to delicately balance between being too broad and too narrow.
This is done in order to leave questions open and thus make space for new findings that would
contribute to existing literature, without going too narrow and thus limiting potential
discoveries. Also, as the thesis aims to investigate co-constructed leadership practices, it is
suggested that research questions broaden beyond questions of influence toward certain
constructs such as mutual adjustment, shared sense-making, and collaborative learning (Raelin,
2011). Accordingly, the focus of the investigation is highlighted - “leadership practices
achieved in the interaction”.

1.4 Thesis Disposition

The thesis consists of six main sections. Following the Introduction (section 1) to the topic, the
extensive Literature Review – Toward Leadership as Practice (section 2) aims to introduce the
reader to the development of leadership research from a traditional leader-centered approach
toward investigating leadership from leadership as practice – practice/centered perspective.
This section walks the reader through the leadership research development from the beginning
of the 20th century till today. In doing so, it will show how it is possible and the most relevant
way to study leadership as constructed by actors in certain practice/practices. The Theoretical
Framework (section 3) is then presented. Within the Theoretical Framework, the reader will be
introduced to the three components on which the analysis of the results relies upon, namely,
Relational Leadership, Shared Leadership, and Analytical Framework for Studying Space of
Action. Before presenting the components, The Idea of the Use of Theoretical Framework will
be explained to the reader and the role of each component in the further analysis in order to
improve the reader’s understanding of the idea of the theoretical framework and show how its
three components relate to each other. Afterward, the Summary of Theoretical Framework will
be provided. Thereafter, Method (section 4) describes the thesis’s Ontology and Epistemology,
Research Strategy, Research Design, Sampling, Descriptions of the Companies and Interview
Participants, Data Collection Method, Data Analysis, and Ethics. Following this section is
Results and Analysis (section 5) where the themes, identified through the thematic analysis,
are presented, summarized, and analyzed within their own Theme Summary and Analysis
sections. Lastly, within the Conclusion (section 6), a summary of the outcomes of the thesis’s
Research Questions, Statement of Potential Significance, Research Limitations, and
suggestions for Future Research, are provided.

6
2. Literature Review – Toward Leadership as Practice
Leadership portrays a hot issue that, somehow seductively and charmingly, has been
magnetizing researchers' attention from the beginning of the 20th century. It is not, then,
surprising that there are numerous approaches and streams within leadership research. This
tremendous effort within the literature was constantly fueled with a need for a better model that
would fill the gaps from its predecessor. Through this literature review, it will be shown how
leadership studies have gradually shifted attention from being focused on individual leaders
and their characteristics toward studying leadership as practice. Accordingly, it will be
presented how leadership research has evolved from theoretical roots of unitary command and
individual/leader-centered perspective, in which individual leaders with their granted top-down
authority represented site for leadership investigations, toward the emergence of numerous
literature streams that analyze leadership as practice, constructed by several people in
interaction. On the road “Toward Leadership as Practice”, it will be presented and exemplified
how different theoretical streams through time have problematized the traditional leader-
follower distinctions and thereby contributed to paying attention to the interactional and social
aspects of leadership and simultaneously toward increasing interest in conceptualizing
leadership as practice. In doing so, those streams have contributed to the dissolving of the
traditional leadership-leader relation and showed how it is possible and most relevant to study
leadership as constructed by actors in certain practice/practices as they perform repetitive
everyday tasks and in which the focus is on the ongoing interactions and what they achieve.
Thus, this review that presents an entire pallet of emerging literature streams shows not only
how leadership research has evolved from a leader-centered toward practice-centered
perspective, but also different ways in which such an enterprise may be undertaken. The section
ends by presenting and discussing the theoretical consequences and advantages of leadership
as practice approach.

2.1 The Beginnings of Leadership Theory – Leadership as Leader-Centered

Theory (1920 to 1980)

Reviewing leadership research through history, Bryman (2006) divided it into four approaches
where each is associated with a particular time period: the trait approach, the style approach,
the contingency approach, and the new leadership approach. Up to the late 1940s, the trait
approach sought to identify personal qualities and characteristics of leaders that usually fall
into three groups: physical traits (i.e., physique), abilities (i.e., intelligence or fluency of
speech), and personality characteristics (i.e., self-confidence). From the late 1940s, the style
approach came on the scene. The style approach shifted focus from the personal characteristics
of leaders to their behavior as leaders. Usually administered as questionnaires, respondents
were asked to indicate how well different statements about leader's behavior reflect their
leaders. This resulted in an overall score for each leader on a number of aspects of leader
behavior. It was from the 1960s when the style approach was changed with the contingency
approach. The proponents of the contingency approach recognized the importance of context
and thus sought to specify different situational variables which will moderate the effectiveness
7
of different leadership approaches. Dominated until the 1980s, the contingency approach was
replaced with the new leadership approach. Transformational leadership, charismatic
leadership, and visionary leadership were some of the labels employed by writers while
describing new kinds of leadership on which they were focused.

It must be noted that the distinction between the time periods when approaches were applied is
not clear cut. It is rather done according to the most dominant approach at a given period of
time. For instance, there are some researches that deploy trait approach in the 1980s (Bryman,
2006), and also more recent, in the 21st century (for example, Cheng et al., 2005). While
explaining his distinction, Bryman (2006, p. 448) confirms this: "Each of these stages signals
a change of emphasis rather than the demise of the previous approach". Regarding the same
issue, Crevani et al. (2007) state that shifts of approach happened due to inconsistency in
research results within each approach and thus consequent need to find better models. At the
same time, Crevani et al. (ibid.) are very critical toward traditional approaches within
leadership studies and hence call for new and better conceptual and methodological tools for
the understanding of leadership.

The main point of the critique is that the traditional leadership literature observed leadership as
a leader-follower construct. The nature of authority within this leader-follower relation was
rather vertical – top-down, than horizontal – equal, where the emphasis was on vertical
leadership and accordingly focus is on an individual leader who has granted top-down authority
based on command and control, thus thereby supporting the taken-for-granted assumption that
leadership is a single-person heroic task (Crevani et al., 2007). The theory development that
started around the 1980s slowly started to change this. More and more scholars started to look
upon a number of people involved while investigating leadership.

2.2 Widening Perspective (the 1980s and on)

The leader-centered perspective was slowly redirected toward a group – as - a – whole (i.e.,
Wells, 1985) and process –perspective (i.e., Conger and Kanungo, 1988), increasingly popular
approaches from the 1980s on. Brown and Hosking (1986, pp. 76-77) argued: "Few have
appreciated that there is no such thing as a leaderless group, there are only groups with different
degrees of leadership residing in the actions of one person or several (…) Our argument has
been that leadership is found in inconsistent, influential contributions to order, and furthermore,
that this is only achieved through the exercise of skill. The skills have been described as skills
of organizing whereby one or more participants, through skillful information search,
interpretation, influence, and choice, succeed in protecting and promoting the values and
interests of their social order". We can see here that instead of focusing on the individual leader
while investigating leadership, the attention is upon leadership found in consistent and
influential contributions to order which is only achieved through the exercise of skill that
includes one or more participants.

8
In a similar direction, Conger and Kanungo (1988) recognized a growing interest in the concept
of the empowerment process among management researchers and practitioners. They believe
that: "Empowerment may prove to be a vital form of influence for leaders attempting to induce
and manage organizational change" (p. 480). What is noticeable here is that although they focus
on the process instead of on the leader (traits, competencies, etc.), they still see leadership as
an individual task. This is depicted in the previous citation but also in their discourse in which
words “leader” and, especially, “subordinates” dominate. Nevertheless, they contributed
toward conceptualizing leadership as a practice which is indicated in the conclusion where they
argue that a more direct link between empowerment practices and leadership should be studied.

The case study in the same year argued that leader-follower distinctions in organizations are
likely to undermine the goals leaders are supposed to achieve (Vanderslice, 1988). The study
presented three contradictions of the leader-follower dichotomy. The first one, “the effects of
labels”, indicates that power-differentiated labels might limit, rather than maximize the
motivation, creativity, and productivity of those in low-power roles. Second, “the issue of
responsibility”, demonstrates the potential negative effects of leader-follower dichotomies for
followers' self-concepts, task-related behaviors, and verbal behavior in groups. In addition to
this, there is the problem of followers' not taking responsibility as a result of having less status,
power, and pay. Third, “resistance”, builds on previous contradiction and implies that low
power members of a relationship often accept the high power person's authority and thus
minimize their sense of responsibility while still do not passively accept the existence of
structural inequities and resist in many forms. It is stated that these findings present “an
interesting irony” as the supposed function of leaders is to motivate followers and thus improve
their performance.

The same study concluded that we should question whether leadership implemented through
static leader roles is really intended to motivate workers to be creative and develop their skills
(Vanderslice, 1988). It is said that: “It seems more likely that they are being asked to
enthusiastically limit their behaviors to those that people with legitimate authority have deemed
useful” (p. 694). Accordingly, if motivation would be refined as a willingness to take
responsibility, think creatively, and develop processes that benefit both individuals and
organizations, we may be less inclined to uncritically accept the need for leader-follower power
differentials. The study thereby contributed to separating leadership from leaders by
highlighting the negative effects of the leader-follower dichotomy and by questioning
leadership implemented through static leader roles.

Many other studies that became increasingly conducted, starting in the late 1980s and on, are
along the same lines with previously discussed research. They recognized the importance of
involving a number of people instead of investigating leadership through individual leaders and
they were highly criticized toward conceptualizing leadership as an individual task. Therewith,
they thereby contributed to separating leadership from an individual leader and simultaneously
to conceptualizing leadership as practice.

9
One example of a study that aimed to extend previous leadership research that was mostly
focused on mechanistic systems characterized by leader’s top-down behavior, is the study on
interactions pattern (Courtright et al., 1989). Instead of focusing only on a mechanistic system
characterized by authority-based philosophy, hierarchical control with high control over tasks,
thereby embodying a traditional leadership philosophy, the study included an organic system
based on self-management without top management which has the center of power and control.
In so doing, it contributed to widening perspective within leadership research, from authority-
based/top-down perspective toward one that involves a number of people on the equal
hierarchy level.

In a similar vein, Meindl (1995) used the romance of leadership to develop a follower-centric
perspective on leadership. While discussing the nature of the romance of leadership, Meindl
(1995, p. 330) stated: “The romance of leadership notion emphasizes followers and their
contexts for defining leadership itself and for understanding its significance”. It moves the
researcher away from the personality of the leader and places weight on the images of leaders
that followers construct. It is due to its assumption that: “Followers react to, and are more
influenced by their constructions of the leader’s personality than they are by the “true”
personality of the leader. It is the personalities of leaders as imagined or constructed by
followers that become the object of study, not “actual” or “clinical” personalities per se.” (pp.
330-331). In this way, Meindl, similarly to Knights and Willmott (1992), contributed to the
stream of leadership research that attempts to find a new site and better way of investigating
leadership, contrary to the individualistic approach that dominated within traditional leadership
research practice.

Knights and Willmott (1992) argued that established methodologies of leadership research
have put unnecessary constraints on researchers’ capacities to examine creatively actual
leadership practices. They stated that a new framework or interpretation which would yield a
new or deeper understanding of actual leadership processes is necessary and that regeneration
of leadership research depends upon it. Accordingly, they presented the conceptual framework
through the analysis of leadership processes amongst senior managers. Therewith, they
contributed to conceptualizing leadership as a process (practice) inherently escaping from the
traditional leadership approach where an individual leader, with his/her traits and
competencies, represented a site for leadership studies.

At the same period, it became widely recognized that gender relations play a crucial role in all
social-relational processes, including leadership, and that leadership cannot be understood
without referencing the narratives created in gender relations. The following section (even
though briefly) will serve as a symbol of numerous gender-oriented streams within the
leadership literature. Thus paragraphs represent the effort of those streams concerning gender
issues within leadership studies.

10
2.3 Emergence of Feminism and “Critical Studies on Men” within Leadership
Literature (the 1990s and on)

Kerfoot and Knights (1993) investigated how the discourse of masculinism reflects and
reproduces management practices in accordance with masculinist priorities. They argue that
this (discourse) has the effect of privileging men over women, serves to rank some men above
others, and maintains as dominant certain forms and practices of masculinity. It justifies and
naturalizes male domination and hierarchy. By doing so, they wanted to “encourage a challenge
to forms of management whose self-defeating practices are further concealed by masculinist
rationalizations” (p. 674).

Furthermore, Hearn and Collison (1998) presented four conceptual and theoretical ways of
linking men and masculinities to debates on managerial and organizational culture. The four
approaches are “taken-for-granted men’s culture”, “men’s explicit domination of
organizational cultures”, “men’s domination of subtext organizational cultures”, and “the
deconstruction of men and organizational culture”. In this regard, they argued that social
construction and reproduction of men and masculinities are central and usually neglected
features of managerial practices. Moreover, they consider that taking into account the power
of men, masculinities, and gender relations is very necessary and a requirement for
transforming and thus developing management theory.

Many other studies recognized the importance of taking into consideration different shapes of
gender-related manifestations within leadership studies for which they were highly critical (for
instance, Regan, 1995; Henderson, 1996; Chisholm, 2001; Blackmore, 2002, 2006). As noted
at the end of the previous section, previously discussed articles serve to symbolize the stream
and effort of studies that attempted to acknowledge the importance of taking into consideration
different gender manifestations in order to understand leadership, thereby contributing to
feminism and “critical studies on man” (as some of the studies defined themselves). In doing
so, they raised awareness about different social constructions and relations (in connection to
gender) and the importance of including them in leadership investigation.

2.4 Shared Leadership – Theory Beginnings and Development (the 1990s and on)

About the same time (1990-2000), not only did challenging of different gender-related
manifestations became increasingly popular, involving a number of people (not only formal
leaders) in leadership studies became usual as well. In a similar vein as previously discussed
articles (Vanderslice, 1988; Courtright et al., 1989; Knights and Willmott, 1992; Dachler and
Hosking, 1995), these new studies challenged leadership as an individual task. Contrarily, they
looked upon leadership as shared between people – shared task. In the following, predominant
articles on shared leadership within a given period will be presented in order to present this
stream of leadership research that dominates even today.

11
Meadows (1990) mainly discussed shared leadership as a shared decision-making process. In
the study in which he observed shared decision-making processes between principals, teachers,
and students within the two schools, he stated that shared leadership has many advantages and
rewards that come with it, as well as some risks. The study found that the beneficiaries of
shared decisions are the principal, who has access to many ideas, the teachers, who feel more
accountable when they have help in making their decisions, and students who have a richer
learning environment. On the other hand, it was discovered that shared decision-making takes
a great deal of time, planning, and effort to implement. Still, the study concluded that rewards
are worth risks.

On the same topic, while discussing shared leadership in a cybernetic system, Floyd (1994, p.
202) stated: “The two lessons most pertinent to shared leadership are “finding a balance for
governance” and “encouraging leadership by others.” (…) Shared leadership allows
universities to develop more complex ways of thinking, which in turn helps with problem-
solving”. What is noticeable here is the different view on what shared leadership is. While
Meadows (1990) spoke about shared leadership basically as a shared-decision making process,
Floyd, on the other side, discussed it as a “balance for governance”, “encouraging leadership
by others”, and as leadership that allows developing “a more complex way of thinking”.
Floyd’s view and discussion on leadership symbolize the progress of shared leadership theory,
from only decision-making toward complex processes that take place among multiple
individuals. Simultaneously, by speaking about “encouraging leadership by others”, Floyd
contributes to conceptualizing leadership as a practice co-constructed by numerous actors.

That shared leadership theory progressed and developed, thus became way much complex
compared to investigating shared-decision-process as a site for studying (i.e., Meadows 1990),
is visible in Phillips’ (1995) article. While discussing shared leadership, Philips (1995, p. 64)
stated: “Unlike the majority of leadership theories that focus on a single leader, theories of
shared leadership processes emphasize reciprocal social influence processes among multiple
individuals at different levels of an organization, in different subunits, and within executive
teams. The social system in which leadership is embedded is the main focus of this new
approach”. For the sake of comparison and symbolizing of theory progress, let compare again
this discussion on shared leadership with Meadows’ (1990) article and approach. Although we
can see some similarities, for instance, Meadows also focused on multiple individuals, at
different levels of organization (principals, teachers, students), as Phillips speaks about shared
leadership, still, the focus was upon shared-decision-process but merely as a practical task. On
contrary, what is interesting in Philip’s discussion is that the social system is described as “the
main focus of this new approach” (shared leadership) and emphasis is on reciprocal social
influence processes among multiple individuals. It seems that reciprocal social influence
processes are neglected in Meadows’ article, or they are reduced and limited on shared-
decision-process which does not include reciprocal social influence, rather simply represents a
shared task.

12
Furthermore, Phillips (1995) argued that due to the complexity of performing research on
shared leadership, new methodologies may have to be developed in order to fully capture this
phenomenon. He said that initial studies were focused on the consequences of sharing
leadership functions formerly performed by a single supervisor and that traditional leader
behaviors may not be appropriate in these types of situations. Instead, he claimed that more
research is necessary before any conclusions can be drawn. Many other studies conducted in
the period that follows (from 1995 and on) were in line with his critique, especially when it
comes to the new methodologies that need to be developed in order to capture shared
leadership.

Avolio et al. (1996) focused on shared leadership process, efficacy, trust, and performance.
Their study provided an alternative framework for examining team leadership development,
focusing specifically on shared leadership observed at different levels of team development. In
the same vein and the same year, Yang (1996) applies a competing values framework to the
study of shared leadership in self-managed teams. This framework is used to measure the eight
supervisory roles within self-managed teams. Study results showed that effective teams play
and balance the eight competing roles. Moreover, findings indicated that managers should not
only balance those roles but should also change role emphasis during the different stages in the
team development. It could be stated that these two studies (Avolio et al., 1996; Yang, 1996)
are in line with Phillips’ (1995) arguments in regard to what is necessary for the theory to
develop. More precisely, both studies aimed to develop new frameworks/approaches and were
focused upon self-managed teams essentially escaping from a single leader that previously
represented the site and starting point for investigating leadership.

In a similar direction, Pearce and Sims’s (2000) study purpose was to widen the debate on
leadership to include not just individual-level leadership, but also to explore the possibilities of
shared leadership at the group level of analysis and thus suggest direction toward a multi-level
theory of leadership. They argued and built on the critique that scholars were overly concerned
with the role of the individual leader and claimed that leadership can emerge from a context
and be demonstrated by members other than the designated leader. Moreover, they were
concerned with the question: “Can shared leadership be measured reliably and linked to
important group constructs such as group effectiveness?” (p. 122). Accordingly, they
developed a conceptual framework for understanding shared leadership as a mediating casual
variable between three broad categories of antecedent variables – group characteristics, task
characteristics, and environmental characteristics, and three broad categories of group outcome
variables – group psyche, group behavior, and group effectiveness. These three broad
categories of group outcome variables are described as having a significant influence on shared
leadership. This conceptual framework serves as an illustration of the factors likely to impact
shared leadership and an exposition of the factors that shared leadership is likely to impact. By
doing this, they wanted to posit that shared leadership is a “multifaceted” and “multi-pathed”
influence process shared by members of the group. Comparing to the beginnings of shared
leadership theory in the 1990ies, it became obvious that the perspective within shared
leadership research has been significantly widened up.
13
In its early beginnings, scholars that were concerned with the shared leadership phenomenon
were mostly focused on tasks that they considered as leadership tasks, such as shared-decision-
making (for instance Meadows, 1990). Looking from this perspective (31 years later), it is
obvious that focusing only on tasks that are considered as leadership represents a very limited
approach for investigating leadership. This was soon recognized by the majority of scholars
that aimed to contribute to the (shared) leadership theory development by developing different
concepts, frameworks, and models. As previously pointed out, the discussion on shared
leadership was broadened with the importance of encouraging leadership by others and
leadership that allows developing a more complex way of thinking (Floyd, 1994), thus
inherently widening the approach for investigation of leadership.

Furthermore, fueled with constant critiques (i.e., Phillips, 1995) new methodologies started to
develop in order to fully capture the shared leadership. Instead of only focusing on tasks and
processes considered as sites for leadership, looking upon efficacy, trust and performance
became widely employed (i.e., Avolio et al., 1996). Thus we can see how perspective widened
from merely business tasks (such as decision-making process) toward more “human shapes”
of the relationships between individuals (such as trust between them), thereby contributing to
recognizing leadership as a practice between individuals within a social system. The theory
that started its journey from an individual leader and his/her shared task, recognized the
importance of exploring the shared leadership at the group level of analysis (i.e., Pearce and
Sims, 2000).

Thus, it could be argued (with big caution!) that this example of shared leadership as a specific
stream within leadership literature may be used to illustrate the development of leadership
theory through history in general. Theory development that once starts with a very limited
approach, leader-centered approach, with more conducted researches through the time, ended
not only in widened perspective but also in different theories and streams that build on it. Yet,
they still go in a somewhat different direction. In the parts that follow, we will see how theory
continues to develop and how its development is constantly fueled with numerous critiques and
identified gaps and never-ended effort toward identifying a more complete approach in
investigating leadership that simultaneously leads to recognizing the idea of leadership as
practice perspective.

2.5 Critiques on Traditional Leadership –It’s Heroic and Romantic Leadership

Conception

Crevani et al. (2007) critiqued the emphasis of traditional leadership research on vertical
leadership, where the focus is on an individual leader who has granted top-down authority. One
of the main reasons behind their critique is that individualistic approach (for example, trait
approach), which traditional leadership researchers deployed, “thereby supporting the general
taken-for-granted assumption that leadership is a single-person task” (p. 43). Instead of looking
at the individual leader and thus contribute to heroic and romantic leadership conception in
which a leader’s leadership is based on his/her superior knowledge, fear of failure, etc., they
14
favor post-heroic leadership ideals. This is because post-heroic leadership ideals refuse top-
down focus on the leader and see leadership as collective construction of individuals in their
social interaction. Post-heroic ideals also emphasize the relational, collectivist, and non-
authoritarian nature of leadership (Crevani et al., 2009). In a similar manner, Crevani et al.
(2008) argue that individualism, unitary command, and heroism, which are well rooted within
leadership tradition has implied institutional conceptions of leadership that are highly
performative by nature and which reinforce traditional masculinities (they gave the example of
charismatic leader usually described as a patriarchal hero) in all forms of organization.

While traditional leadership research could be characterized by individualism, unitary

command, hierarchization, segregation, heroism, performativity, masculinity,
psychologisation, and morality, emergent leadership literature has quite different basic
assumptions on which is built (Crevani et al., 2008). Instead of focusing on the individual
leader, it emphasizes collectivism. Furthermore, it assumes that responsibilities are agreed
upon in social interaction where everybody has the potential to be co-constructor of leadership
activities. It highlights post heroism and problematizes performativity and gender constructions
(challenge masculinity as a prime source of leadership performativity) while attempts to
understand social interaction and social identity.

Finally, it problematizes grandiose conceptualization of leadership and urges to be more open-

minded when studied leadership within an organization. It is therefore why they (Crevani et
al., 2008) contribute and support ongoing development within leadership research aimed to
escape leader-centered leadership perspective. This, “ongoing development”, resulted in a
whole sea of new streams and new directions within leadership research.

2.6 Emerging Leadership Research (from the 2000s)

Shared leadership, dual leadership, co-leadership, co-workership, distributed leadership,

stewardship, collective leadership, empowering leadership, integrative leadership, discursive
leadership, relational leadership, and dispersed leadership are some of the most common ways
of conceptualizing leadership today (Crevani et al., 2008; Crevani, 2015; Raelin, 2016). Within
these streams of research, leadership is not necessarily an individual matter (meaning - within
some streams still is) as it was within traditional leadership literature. Rather, they problematize
the taken-for-granted idea of leadership embodied in a single leader and accordingly question
its assumption, emphasizing leadership as a process, activities, and practices that involve a
number of people. In the following parts, each above-mentioned theory will be briefly
presented (mainly through the examples of studies where the theory in question was used) in
order to see in which ways leadership theory develops and to illustrate their help to the
conceptualization of leadership as practice perspective that we have today, and that this thesis
employs. Before the beginning, it must be noted that some of the studies that will be presented
as examples of certain streams remained traditional leader-centered approaches. Still, as the
subjects of their investigations are different forms of leadership practices, patterns of connected

15
actions, and interactions, they are considered to contribute to the leadership as practice
conceptualization and it is for that reason that they are mentioned.

1) Shared Leadership: Formerly, we became familiar with the shared leadership

theory, its beginnings, and development road, but the situation in a more recent past
(the 2000s – 2014) became somewhat, or, perhaps, radically different. More recently,
shared leadership is defined as: “A dynamic, interactive influence process among
individuals in groups for which the objective is to lead one another to the achievement
of group goals” (Pearce and Conger, 2003, p. 1, cited in Pearce et al., 2007). Small and
Rentsch in their study (2010) built on the previous critique on shared (traditional)
leadership (for instance, Crevani et al., 2007, 2008, 2009) with arguments that
traditional definitions tend to converge leadership as a process of influencing others,
facilitating goal-related efforts thereby implying nothing about the number of people
who perform these functions. Along the same lines with the critiques discussed in the
previous parts, Small and Rentsch (2010) argued that the focus has been on vertical
leadership where individual leader exerts downward influence on subordinates. Instead,
they suggest social network analysis as a tool for measuring shared leadership which
would enable investigating the patterns of connections representing information
exchange, power, or affect among team members. Grote and Bienefeld in their study
(2014), in which they aimed to examine the effect of shared leadership on team goal
attainment and success, used the definition of shared leadership from Pearce et al.
(2007) with whom they shared view. Therefore, this discussion describes more recent
shared leadership research practices and shows how they differ from those dominated
in the 1990s. The crucial difference is that the more recent approaches tend to gives no
primacy to individual leaders and vertical leadership, instead, emphasis is on the
number of people involved and relations between them that serve as sites for
investigating leadership.

2) Dual Leadership: Bai et al. (2012) investigated the effects of dual leadership on
employees’ trust. More precisely, they wanted to find and explain how leaders at two
different levels affect employees’ trust in leadership. Similarly, Vidyarthi et al. (2014)
aimed to develop and test a model that extends leader-member exchange theory to dual
leadership context. In doing this, they asserted that when employees work for two
leaders, each relationship exists within the context of the other relationship. Therefore,
the level of alignment or misalignment between those two relationships has
implications for the employees’ job satisfaction and voluntary turnover.

3) Co-Leadership: Authors that investigated co-leadership had something in common

with authors who investigated shared leadership. While exploring co-leadership,
Schnurr and Chan (2011) focused on several members who share several leadership
responsibilities. Apart from this similarity to shared leadership studies, the difference
and the focus of co-leadership are on the very complex process of the moment-by-
moment negotiation of power relations in which involved persons constantly negotiate
16
who is the one in charge of specific issues (ibid.). Thus, the subject of investigation is
a dynamic and ongoing process in which both members position themselves and each
other as leader and co-leader at different moments throughout an interaction. On the
same phenomenon, Miles and Kivilghan (2010) investigated whether dissimilarity in
co-leaders behavior is related to the group climate (for example, group engagement,
conflicts within the group). Although only two studies are given as examples, it is
indicated that the focus within co-leadership studies is upon two individuals who
represent co-leaders and on the ongoing process between them in which their power
and position are constantly negotiated, as well as on the effects of the nature of that
process on the group processes.

4) Co-Workership: Along the same lines with the critique of the heroic view of
leadership, Heide and Simonsson (2011) recognized the remarkably little attention that
co-workers receive in research and practice. Consequently, they wanted to investigate
and put in the main focus on co-workers as active and influential persons. They (ibid.)
aimed to illuminate how co-workership can be understood from a communication
perspective. In doing this, they contributed toward the stream of literature (for example,
co-leadership) that does not focus on the traditional leader with vertical/top-down
leadership, instead, they recognize the importance of investigating organization
processes through investigation from a coworker perspective.

5) Distributed Leadership: Instead of different formulations such as leader-followers

and leadership-followership which “prescribe”, rather than “describe”, and instead of
focusing only on the deeds of individual leaders, Gronn (2002) argues for a more
expanded unit of analysis that encompasses patterns of varieties of distributed
leadership. Accordingly, he proposes the study of concertive actions in which the unit
of analysis is concertive action, rather than aggregated, individual acts. Gronn (ibid.)
states that there are at least three forms of concertive action that may be attributed to
leadership. First, there are collaborative modes of engagement that spontaneously arise
in the workplace. Second, the intuitive understanding that develops as a result of close
working relations among colleagues. Third, a variety of structural relations and
institutionalized arrangements which constitute attempts to regularize distributed
actions. To summarize, studying distributed leadership through concertive actions of
spontaneous collaboration patterns, intuitive understandings that emerge between
colleagues and through different institutional arrangements. Furthermore, while
discussing the definitions of distributed leadership, Thorpe et al. (2011) stated that the
focus is on conjoint actions rather than role or position. They argue that: “It is the way
in which leading is enacted in the performance of tasks that is important” (p. 241). Thus,
they defined it as a variety of configurations that emerge from the exercise of influence
that produces interdependent and conjoint action. For them, previously discussed co-
leadership and shared leadership are all seen to represent forms of distributed
leadership. While speaking about shared leadership, Harris (2013, p. 646), on the other
side, states that “distributed leadership means actively brokering, facilitation and
17
supporting the leadership of others”, where social interaction is a critical part of
leadership practice. Similar to the attitudes of Thorpe et al. (2011), Harris (2013) argued
that the practice of leadership is considered far more important than the leadership role.

6) Stewardship: Stewardship is defined as “a metaphor or expression used to describe

the ethical responsibilities and obligations of a discipline” (Milton, 2014, p. 108).
Investigation of stewardship within leadership research includes examining the higher
level duty of governance in which managers’ motivation is based on pro-organization
rather than self-interest behavior (Caldwell et al., 2010). More precisely, stewardship
theory advocates that leader has to maximize long-term wealth creation to benefit
society and all stakeholders. Thus, it emphasizes service over self-interest and
incorporates principles of virtue ethics.

7) Collective Leadership: Collective leadership is defined as: “Dynamic process that

engages a diverse and intergenerational group of people who learn together to honor
their place, and share and generate power to address common challenges in an effort to
build broad-based knowledge and action that leads to constructive, community-based
system change” (Militello and Benham, 2010, p. 622). Militello and Benham (ibid.)
aimed to evaluate the development of collective leadership in order to get a deeper
understanding of how collective leadership was realized (or not). In doing this, they
empower groups, not just individuals thereby enabling the voices of multiple groups to
be heard and defining leadership rather as a horizontal than a vertical task, as they see
leadership as a process on a group level.

8) Empowering Leadership: There are two theoretical approaches within

empowerment research (Amundsen and Martinsen, 2014). The first is defined as a
socio-structural macro-perspective which includes interventions and practices by the
organization, leaders, and managers who aim to empower employees. The second one
is a psychological micro-perspective based on employee perceptions of their work role,
conceptualized as a motivational construct called psychological empowerment.
Furthermore, empowering leadership differs from other leadership theories in its
particular focus on power-sharing, the facilitation of self-leadership, autonomy, and
independence among employees.

9) Integrative Leadership: Integrative leadership includes leading across boundaries

at individual, group, organizational and broad levels (Crosby and Bryson, 2010). For
instance, Crosby and Bryson (2010) investigated how leaders had to work with their
partners across individual, intra-organizational, inter-organizational, and sector
boundaries to create and maintain sustainable cross-sector collaboration which can help
to meet certain important needs and advance the common good. The argument is that
successful integrative leadership at individual, group, organizational, and inter-
organizational levels is required for sustainable cross-sector collaboration, the pursuit
of the common good, and the creation of real public value.
18
 10) Discursive Leadership: Discursive leadership is investigated through the analysis
of different discursive strategies and what roles they have. For example, Wodak et al.
(2011) investigated which discourse strategies leaders employ in driving decision
making, namely, bonding, encouraging, directing, modulating, and re/committing.
Thus, the focus is upon discourse which is believed to has important power and which
influences the situation outcome. As it was showed in their study (ibid.), the choice of
discursive strategies influenced the outcome of the meetings in both negative and
positive ways.

11) Relational Leadership: Relational leadership theory conceptualizes leadership as

embedded in the everyday relationally-responsible dialogical practices (Cunliffe and
Eriksen, 2011). It is a way of theorizing and doing leadership through everyday
interactions and conversations – the relational practices. Furthermore, Cunliffe and
Eriksen (2011) argued that relational leadership is both, a way of theorizing leadership
and being a leader. Moreover, they conceptualized relational leadership as a way of
“being” and “relating” with others, embedded in everyday experience and interwoven
with a sense of moral responsibility. It is about “recognizing the heteroglossic nature of
dialogue and the potentiality that lies within the interplay of voices within dialogic or
conversational spaces” (p. 1436).

12) Dispersed Leadership: Dispersed leadership theory espouses a sharing of power

between leaders and followers (Gordon, 2010). More precisely, it investigates the
distribution or sharing of leadership skills and responsibilities throughout an
organization. Although it is assumed that dispersed leadership exerts influence on
follower’s attitudes and behaviors in teams, dispersed leadership is described as an
emergent phenomenon that emphasizes the importance of processes and time (Konradt,
2014) and that it is the reason why it can be said that dispersed leadership contributes
to conceptualizing leadership as practice.

2.7 Critiques on Emerging Leadership Research

According to Crevani et al. (2008), the emerging literature on leadership could be divided into
two related streams. First, one focuses on practicalities of why and who managerial
duties/positions should be assigned to several people, the shared leadership literature, and the
second one that views all leadership as being collective construction processes with several
people involved, what they call leadership as collectively constructed. They also point out that
these two streams do not exclude each other, rather, they imply quite different research
agendas. Despite that, they contend that the problem with the first stream of the emerging
literature - the shared leadership literature, is its perspective which views shared leadership as
an exception to “usual” leadership, usually defined from the number of individuals with a focus
on formal organizational arrangement. Instead, the focus should be on individuals’ experiences
on if the leadership was shared on not.

19
Over recent years and along the same lines with the critique on inadequate approaches for
leadership investigation, scholars would argue for the need for a whole new vocabulary for
talking about leadership in a more emergent and collaborative fashion (Crevani, 2015). As the
leadership discourse has been narrowly focused on the individual leader, finding new
vocabulary represents a real challenge (ibid.). The fresh call for papers for new leadership
research includes new ways of understanding how leadership develops, approaches that
facilitate the development of collective forms of leadership, and integrative, multidisciplinary,
or transdisciplinary approaches to leadership development (Day et al., 2018).

It is stated that: “The general discourse around leadership still tends to grant primacy to the
notion of the single, heroic, masculine leader as a norm for modern and effective leadership”
(Raelin, 2016, p. 24). This resonates well with the general development of leadership research
that, as we could see through this literature review, has traditionally been leader-centered and
focused on individual leaders’ traits, abilities, and actions (ibid.). Although the focus of the
investigation has widened through time, for instance, focus on actions and interactions, it was
presented how different streams that have recently emerged still give primacy to an individual
leader (for example, dual leadership study by Bai et al., 2012) thereby remaining leader-
centered approach.

Crevani (2018) claims that even within theories that view leadership as a relationship, scholars
often assess such relationships individualistically, basing their conclusions on followers’ or
managers’ ratings. Also, it is stated that it is not enough to say that leadership can successfully
be shared between two or more co-leaders (for example, co-leadership literature), or that is
about the interaction between leaders and followers (Crevani et al., 2010). By taking this stance,
instead of dissolving the leader/centered approach and leader/follower distinction, it maintains
it.

2.8 Leadership as Practice

Contrary to the current approaches for leadership investigation that are the subjects of the
critique due to their leader-centered nature (critiques by, for example, Crevani et al., 2009;
Crevani, 2018; Raelin 2016, 2020), leadership as practice represents a practice-centered
approach. Instead of the practitioner, it emphasizes the importance of practices. Leadership,
from this perspective, is co-constructed by actors in certain practice/practices, not only by one
person in a formal leadership position. It is argued that: “Conceiving of leadership as practice
allows anyone to participate in leadership as he or she engages in agentic activity. Practice
becomes the engine of the collaborative agency. Participants (to the activity) constitute but are
also constituted by the discursive practices of the groups of which they are member” (Raelin,
2016, p. 141). Leadership is considered as a relational phenomenon, produced and sustained in
interactions (Crevani, 2018).

20
Taking the practice-centered approach challenges traditional views of leadership as it does not
rely on the attributes of individuals, nor it focuses on the dyadic relationship between leaders
and followers (Raelin, 2017). A practice represents “a cooperative effort among participants
who choose through their own rules to achieve a distinctive outcome” (Raelin, 2011, p. 4). It
is less about what one actor thinks or does and more about what people might accomplish
together. Thus, leadership as practice is concerned with how leadership emerges and unfolds
through coping in day-to-day experience. Consequently, in order to find leadership, we must
look to the practice within which it is occurring.

It is also stated that the practice of leadership is not dependent on one person to mobilize action
on behalf of everybody else, the effort is intrinsically collective (Raelin, 2016). Still, Raelin
(ibid.) says that in the process of engagement leadership may emanate from the actions of
particular individuals who, often due to historical reasons, may be able to suggest meaning with
a high degree of insight (i.e., by suggesting behavioral patterns). Particular individuals may be
anyone within the team. While discussing leadership as practice, Raelin (2017, p. 5) states:
“The parties to the practice engage in semiotic, often dialogical, exchange, and in some cases
for those genuinely committed to one another, they display an interest in listening to one
another, in reflecting upon new perspectives, and in entertaining the prospect of changing
direction based on what they learn”.

Recently, Raelin (2020) discussed leadership as practice as a response to digitalization and

crises. When it comes to digitalization, it is stated that digitalization requires connectivity,
information sharing, and creating ties among geographically dispersed stakeholders. This
implies that organizational members need to have the capacity and the trust to proceed beyond
organizational boundaries. Thus, everyone needs to be free to participate in leadership.
Speaking of leadership as practice as a response to crises, Raelin (ibid.) says that crises, such
as the current pandemic crisis, constitute unfamiliar socio-environmental conditions. Hence, it
is stated that “we need a form of leadership that can improvise around the reality that is
unfolding in front of us” (p. 2). The improvisation cannot come from a single leader as no one
has the capacity to reconcile the complexity and uncertainty encompassing such variable
conditions. For this reason, we need a collective response that can work through the ongoing
and evolving practices in order to meet the challenges.

It is stated that the primary advantage of the practice-centered approach is that practitioners
adopting this approach are better able to understand and reflect on their own actions and thereby
better able to reconstruct their activity in light of their reflection, and also on behalf of their
mutual interests (Raelin, 2011). In addition to this, it is mentioned that recognizing practices
could help to identify a pattern which once recognized can become useful in understanding
other contexts and even in constructing new theory. Moreover, it is stated that leadership as
practice research can be potentially useful to the formal research and practice of leadership
(Raelin, 2020).

21
For instance, it is said that by identifying a history of a pattern of events unfolding in a change,
leadership as a practice could contribute to formal studies of dynamic processes (Raelin, 2020).
Also, leadership as practice accounts might be directly beneficial to research participants
because of the possibility to investigate underlying forces and dynamics within their practices.
In addition, it is stated that practice-centered approach gives researchers the chance to study
leadership at multiple interacting levels beyond the individual level, to incorporate distinctions
of time and space in their analysis, to tract the multi-intersectional webs that occur in everyday
work, and to uncover tacit processes that contribute to leadership.

Finally, Raelin (2020) adds that we have seen in many parts of the world adverse effects derived
from single leaders because of their abuse of power and that we have participated in this abuse
by ceding our power to them, even do we are the ones engaged in any given practice that
contributes to the vitality of our organizations and communities. Thus, we may enact leadership
by our very involvement in those practices because we are the ones who can be responsible. In
view of the foregoing, Raelin (2020, p.4) concludes: “Let’s study and focus more on practices
rather than individuals to determine the best course of action to which good leadership can take
us”.

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3. Theoretical Framework
The thesis would draw upon recent developments in leadership research and take leadership as
a practice approach, a post-heroic/un-heroic leadership perspective that sees leadership as
collectively constructed through mutual endeavors. Herewith, it builds on the ongoing critique
and the line of argument presented through the comprehensive section of the Literature
Review-Toward Leadership as Practice. Thus, it will take the approach which shifts perspective
from viewing leadership as embodied in one person/individual leader. Accordingly, instead of
investigating traits, behaviors, styles, and competencies that originate from an individual leader
and thereby emphasizing the importance of individual leader as a practitioner, the thesis aims
to investigate practices that are collectively constructed through mutual endeavors that take
place in everyday activities, interactions, and relationships inherently emphasizing the
importance of practices.

Relational leadership theory and shared leadership theory are approaches that highlight the
collective nature of leadership and thus share many underlying assumptions and similarities
with leadership as a practice perspective (Raelin, 2016). The core of their similarity and
belonging to leadership as practice perspective represent their common unit of analysis – what
produces knowledge about the phenomenon of leadership. Similar to the leadership as practice
perspective, the unit of analysis of relational leadership theory and shared leadership theory is
practice. Both relational leadership and shared leadership focus on practices in which influence
is interactionally achieved and leadership is recognized as an interactive practice engaged in
by participants in which team members share responsibilities, mutually guide each other, and
equally participate in decision making (Uhl-Bien, 2006; Hoch and Kozlowski, 2014; Crevani,
2015). Equally, within the leadership as practice perspective, the focus is on multiple
interacting levels beyond the individual level and on practices that become the engine of
collaborative agency which allows anyone to participate in leadership as he or she engages in
agentic activity that aims to achieve a distinctive outcome (Raelin, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2020).

Consequently, the relational leadership theory and the concepts that enable us to see relational
leadership through focusing on social interactions and relations will be presented and serve as
the first part of the theoretical framework of this thesis. Secondly, as the thesis’s intention is to
investigate which leadership practices achieved together may contribute to the construction of
space of action, the conceptual framework that consists of different shared leadership practices
that depict and highlight the collective nature of leadership will be presented. Last of all, as the
thesis aim to investigate leadership practices’ influence and possible contribution to the
construction of space of action, the analytical framework for studying space of action will be
provided. Therewith, each area of choice, namely Relational Leadership, Shared Leadership,
and Analytical Framework for Studying Space of Action, will be reviewed and presented in
their own paragraphs that follow. Eventually, the summary of the theoretical framework will
be provided within section Summary of Theoretical Framework.

23
Still, before presenting the components of the theoretical framework, the idea of the use of
theoretical framework will be explained. This will be done in order to improve the reader’s
understanding of the general idea of the theoretical framework as well as of how different
framework components relate to each other. Acquired understanding of the intention of its use
will also allow the reader to easily follow the analysis of the results.

3.1 The Idea of the Use of Theoretical Framework

The first component, Relational Leadership, with its concepts that allow to see relational
leadership in practice, namely, framing, positioning, and bridging, accompanied with the
concepts of project path, positions, issues, rhythm, space of action, and clearing for action
(Analytical Framework for Studying Space of Action) will be used in order to answer the first
research question – “How do current leadership practices achieved in the interactions between
team members influence the construction of space of action within a remote working
environment?”. For instance, a theme that emerges as the result of the thematic analysis will
reveal how research participants speak about current leadership practices, situations that depict
them, their thoughts, etc. Appropriately, the previously mentioned concepts of Relational
Leadership and Analytical Framework for Studying Space of Action will be used in order to
analyze how current leadership practices influence the construction of space of action. Once,
when certain understanding of their influence on the construction of space of action is achieved,
the second component of the framework, Shared Leadership, comes in. With the number of
reviewed practices, specifically adjusted to remote settings, it will be possible to investigate
which of them have the potential to contribute to the construction of space of action, for the
purpose of answering the thesis’s second research question – “What leadership practices
achieved in the interactions between team members may contribute to the construction of space
of action within a remote working environment?”. In order to simplify and facilitate its
understanding, the general idea of the theoretical framework is presented and described in the
sequence in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The Idea of the Use of Theoretical Framework

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3.2 Relational Leadership

In order to be at the same line with the thesis’s subject of the investigation, leadership practices,
the focus is to be found within social interactions and relations that include a number of people,
at least two, in which certain leadership practices could be manifested. With that in mind, the
relational leadership theory is considered to be suitable for the thesis’s investigation. The
relational leadership theory takes a constructionist perspective in which focus is on processes
in which influence is interactionally achieved and which leads to re-structuring of organizing
practices and relations (Crevani, 2015). The nature of influence is characterized as two-way
rather than the traditional one-way conception of traditional accounts. Relational leadership
emphasizes the importance of “every day” and “trivial” and pays attention to relational
dynamics which often take place in conversations, communication, dialogue, and language.

It takes a relational perspective that changes the focus from the individual to the collective
dynamic such as combinations of interacting relations and contexts (Uhl-Bien, 2006). From
this perspective, an appointed leader is just seen as one voice among many voices in a larger
coordinated social process. Thus, it breaks down the distinction between leader and follower
and it recognizes leadership as an interactive process engaged in by participants, collaborators,
or partners, wherever it occurs. Hence, actors and contexts are constantly being under re-
constructions and, in so doing, they either expand or contract the space of possible action
(Crevani, 2015).

Crevani (2015) states that relational leadership should unfold in collective acts. It needs to be
carried out in interactions that involve several people based on dialogue forms that encourage
and value different contributions in order to direct collective action. It is said that perfect
alignment is not necessarily a condition to strive for as it would mean to reduce possibilities to
one line of action on the behalf of multivocality. The focus of relational leadership is on
respecting and supporting a multiplicity of voices. Instead of the person, it is the practice that
has to be developed (Caroll et al., 2008, cited in Crevani, 2015).

In their study about relational leadership, Crevani (2015) presents three examples of leadership
practices that open up for an alternative understanding of what is leadership about, namely
framing, positioning, and bridging. These practices are defined and conceptualized to describe
leadership work and, most importantly, to look upon them in order to see relational leadership.
These theoretical concepts allow us to see relational leadership in a variety of work situations
and put attention on a different set of interactions than those traditionally considered as sites
for leadership. These practices also serve as examples of what a relational practice of leadership
work might entail.

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Framing

Framing is defined as a “metaphorical expression conveying the idea of putting a situation into
perspective” (Crevani, 2015, p. 10). The given example of the person taking the picture
metaphorically describes framing in an easily understandable way. When someone taking the
picture, he/she is one trying to find the best angle and deciding on what to capture, that is
always only a small fragment of what is going on around him/her. It is impossible to cover
everything. Those who later look at the picture will not be able to see everything that was going
on, rather only the part of it. This means that framing will bring certain aspects to the fore while
some will be left backstage. This implies that the same situations may gain different meanings
depending on how the picture is framed (which angle, which light, what to have in the center,
what to have in focus, etc.). The same applies to leadership. For example, when an organization
faces certain problems, it is the way the situation (problem) is framed that implies actions to be
done in order to overcome it. Therewith, the frame determines new actions which means that
different frames imply different actions with potentially different results. It is argued that “a
practice in which leadership work takes place is, therefore, the practice of framing” (p. 11).
The argument is that the collective space of action (concept will be discussed in one of the
following sections as it will serve as the basis for analysis) when a group or an organization
moves between different frames as bringing different frames into a conversation allow to
recognize which meanings are shared and which not. This leads to re-constructing situations
and opens for new actions.

Positioning

Positioning relates to how positions are shaped/constructed in interactions. This means that
positioning implies how people will act and defines their space of action. Positioning involves
commitments in relation to what people can do, cannot do and should do. As the interaction
unfolds, more or less fluid positions emerge. Also, the conversation within the one project
group takes different shapes “depending on whether you position each other as equally
knowledgeable members, or as a senior person and a number of junior apprentices” (p. 14). A
position might also be understood as the work and the task one is expected to do, but also the
kind of person one is expected to be. This is exemplified through the position of a senior
manager. It entails both, certain kinds of tasks suited for the person such as coordination, and
secondly, the certain type of personal characteristics (for instance, authoritative).
Recapitulating, “positioning is a practice taking place in conversations and affecting both the
development of the conversation at hand and the actions and talks that become socially
intelligible over time, as new conversations build on previous conversations” (p. 15). Finally,
there is a chance that once assigned position might start being taken for granted, for instance,
if someone is constructed and positioned as a poor performer, people will possibly not involve
them in certain action/processes in which they could otherwise play a role. On contrary, it is
mentioned that if someone becomes an expert people might start to include that person in
certain tasks regardless of his/her formal role.

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Bridging

Bridging is described as a “practice in which actors are brought together and interdependencies
are created and/or intensified” (p. 15). Interdependence appears as the glue that connects those
actors and people in organizations grow through the grid of relations in which they are
embedded. Different stories, trajectories, and views brought up together serve as a basis for the
collective action of the group. Thus, interdependencies are crucial for collective action to take
place. Also, increasing and strengthening the space for collective action is done by including
more actors and strengthening the meshes that connect them. For the sake of illustrating
bridging with the practical example, Crevani (2015) calls us to think about the group project.
In order for the group to move forward in somewhat similar directions, people involved need
to “find each other”. This “finding” might require spending time on one-to-one connections,
an arena for dialogue, and for surfacing different views, among other possibilities. It may also
include reflecting on how one manages to reach each other, due to different opinions, ideals,
backgrounds, etc.

3.3 Shared Leadership

Before beginning, it should be noted that the certain leadership practices which will be
presented and here discussed through the relational and practice-centered perspective - means
not occurring through top-down/leader-subordinates relations (traditional leadership literature)
but at horizontal level among individuals, some of the authors that will be referenced here
investigated through the traditional lenses which focus on individual leaders. However, as this
thesis builds on the critique regarding the traditional approach for leadership investigation and
emphasizes the importance of practices, not the practitioner (leader), these practices will be
demonstrated in the form of patterns of action and interaction co-constructed by actors, not a
single person, as Raelin (2016), while speaking about leadership as practice approach, suggests.

The idea that leadership is essential in virtual/remote settings has already received confirmation
in many studies. For instance, it is reported that the difference between successful from
unsuccessful remote teams is to be found in good leadership (Armstrong and Cole, 2002).
Generating (ongoing) discussion among team members, mutual striving to reach an agreement,
coaching, are some of the leadership practices that led to, and characterize, more successful
remote teams (ibid.). Also, it is found that traditional leadership might not be suitable for the
remote working environment due to the increased difficulty for a single leader to influence and
motivate team members in a remote context. Instead, a different form of leadership, such as
shared leadership is considered to be more appropriate.

Shared leadership represents a process by which team members share responsibilities, mutually
guide and influence each other, and perform collaborative decision-making (Hoch and
Kozlowski, 2014). It is described as a process that is more lateral rather than upward or
downward and as a form of a collective effort that increases team performance in a remote
context where everyone has ownership and empowerment that motivates them in excelling
27
their work collectively (Liao, 2017). While vertical (traditional) leadership entails the process
of one individual projecting downward influence on individuals, shared leadership, on the other
side, entails the process of shared influence between and among individuals (Pearce and Sims,
2000).

In the following sections, different leadership practices that portray and could be characterized
as a “process by which team members share responsibilities, mutually guide and influence each
other, and perform collaborative decision making”, as Hoch and Kozlowski (2014) defined
shared leadership, will be presented. These practices take place within the context
“where everyone has ownership and empowerment that motivates them in excelling their work
collectively” (Liao, 2017). Specifically, leadership practices associated with Trust (deals with
the importance and ways of building trust), Communication (concerns its importance and ways
of enhancing/adjusting to current context), Support (speaks about different leadership practices
that belong to that category, such as coaching), and Empowerment (presents practices that
foster an empowered state), are chosen. The following parts deal with the reasoning of their
use and also their explanations.

Trust

Trust can be defined as a willingness to rely on another party and trust between team member
significantly predict members’ work engagement (Hassan and Ahmed, 2011). It has been
recognized as an essential component of leadership in numerous studies. Not only does a sense
of trust is important for individual and individual performance (Zeffane et al., 2011), but studies
have shown clear links between trust and achievement of group goals (Daim et al., 2012). It is
argued that trust is specifically important in remote environments as it reduces members’
psychological distance in a physically dispersed team and therewith trust serves as a glue that
connects physically isolated individuals and determines virtual team success (Liao, 2017).
While studying 54 virtual teams from 14 industries, Malhotra et al. (2007) found that
establishing trust (among others) leads to a successful virtual team. However, building trust
might be especially challenging within remote settings.

Liao (2017) says that virtual teams tend to be more task-oriented and lean on relationships
which obstruct building trust. Also, it is argued that building trust in a remote environment is
hard to create as human beings build trust through social cues combined with daily interactions
and that the lack of social context might hinder the way of building trust (Kayworth and
Leidner, 2002). As daily interactions might be less in a virtual setting, trust between team
members develops more slowly (Berry, 2011; Daim et al., 2012). Taking in mind remote
context that might be challenging, Brady and Prentice (2019) argue that team members should
sense that they can rely and impact on each other in order to build trust in a remote environment.
Fortunately, there are many ways of building trust adjusted to a remote environment.

28
Early face-to-face (online) meetings, more social communication, periodical media-rich
communication channels for members to exchange information in a synchronous format (for
example, videoconferencing), creating opportunities to meet in person as face-to-face
interactions might be irreplaceable for trust-building, increasing communication through
emails, sharing experiences through repeated interactions, and enhancing transparency are
some of the ways for building trust (Liao, 2017). It is believed that these practices help to build
trust and generate a sense of respect among team members (ibid.). It became apparent that there
are clear links between communication and trust and that communication plays one of the key
roles when it comes to building trust in a remote environment. This has been discussed and
agreed upon in several studies. For example, it is found that frequent communication leads to
increased trust (Hart and McLeod, 2003; Kelley and Kelloway, 2012). Clear linkages between
communication, communication frequency, and trust have been noted (De Vries, 2006).

Communication

Far now, it is evident that communication is one of the backbones of the essence of the remote
team. Within the remote settings, most of the communication and collaboration, if not all, takes
place through information and communication technology channels (Avolio and Kahai, 2003;
Cascio and Shurygailo, 2003). As it already mentioned in the previous section, it has been
discussed and agreed in many research that the key for successful communication within a
remote environment is frequent communication, as the frequency results in improved working
relationships, increased job satisfaction, and increased trust (Hart and McLeod, 2003; Kelley
and Kelloway, 2012).

However, it is said that the remote environment carries a significant risk of decreased
communication frequency (Kelley and Kelloway, 2012). Also, it is argued that team members
are likely to have communication issues, and tend to make more inaccuracies when they are
using computer-mediated communications (Foster and Coovert, 2003). Still, there are many
suggested ways/practices that help to adjust and enhance communication in a remote work
environment.

As already pointed out, the key to successful communication lies in its frequency (Hart and
McLeod, 2003; Kelley and Kelloway, 2012). Kelley and Kelloway (2012) differentiate two
types of frequent communication – unplanned communication, and regularly scheduled
communication. Logically, unplanned communication occurs through various media when it is
necessary or needed, not only as a response to the problem. On the other side, regularly
scheduled communication is planned communication, and it is described as important to keep
predictability and reliability of the commitment. Furthermore, it is stated that the strongest
teams have frequent but short communication (Hart and McLeod, 2003). It is the result of
strong relationships, mutual knowledge, and shared language that allows team members to
understood unsaid, as the understanding has already been created through the development of
the relationship. Also, it is stated that frequent and short communication might be a critical
success factor for teams who are working under challenging time pressure (ibid.). When it
29
comes to the nature of communication, it is showed that, for instance, collaborating and
coaching remotely is more useful for building trust, exchanging ideas, and engaging in
teamwork, than just directive communication that consists of telling and monitoring people
what to do (Korzynski, 2013).

Support

As this unplanned remote working environment came rapidly and unexpectedly, employees
faced with numerous uncertainties and numerous challenges need to support each other in order
to overcome what their everyday work life brings them. While discussing support, Desjardins
(2012) says that support consists of four leadership practices – interaction, information,
feedback, and coaching. Team members need to ensure interaction by creating regular meetings
in order to spend at least some quality time together. It is stated that without regular interaction
time, employees are not capable of supporting each other. It is indicated that the information
needs of employees might be possible to fulfill in a virtual way by different ICT channels.
When it comes to feedback, it is represented as a core element of an effective goal achievement
process. Both positive and constructive (negative) feedback are needed to guide current and
future work performance. In the opposite case, if there is a lack of feedback among team
members it can lead to major productivity losses. Speaking about coaching, it is defined as a
leadership practice that is based on starting an action cycle in which an individual is assisted
to set goals, develop plans, start actions, observe, and measure performance. Also, it is said
that coaching leads to higher work productivity as relationship support triggers an engaged
self-learning process. It is especially needed when someone is working on a new and
demanding task or has to operate in a complex and changing work environment. As it supports
skill and knowledge acquisition processes, it leads to higher skill levels and increased and
higher quality outputs of employees.

On the same topic, Mielonen (2011) says that team members support one another through
encouraging and recognizing individual and team contributions and accomplishments. In
addition, Mielonen (ibid.) states that supporting helps to create an environment where team
members feel that their input is appreciated and valued. On top of that, when participating in a
team actively, supporting, and feeling supported, the team members are more likely to work
cooperatively and develop a sense of shared responsibility for team outcomes.

Finally, Raelin (2016) presents seven additional activities to be found in leadership as practice,
that, due to their nature, might be categorized under the Support category. The seven additional
activities are scanning, signaling, weaving, stabilizing, inviting, unleashing, and reflecting.
Scanning represents the process of identifying resources, such as information or technology,
that can contribute to a project through simplification or sense-making. Signaling covers
mobilizing and catalyzing the attention of others. Weaving portrays creating webs of
interaction across existing and new networks by building trust between individuals, or by
creating shared meanings to particular views or frames. Stabilizing depicts offering feedback
to converge activity and evaluate effectiveness. Inviting means encouraging those who have
30
held back to participate in the project through their ideas, their energy, and their humanity.
Unleashing ensures that everyone who wishes to has had a chance to contribute, without fear
of repercussion. Finally, reflecting symbolizes the triggering of thoughtfulness within the self
and with others to reflect the meaning of past, current, and future experiences in order to learn
how to meet mutual needs and interests.

Empowerment

Similarly, as previously discussed leadership practices associated with support, the importance
of empowerment has been recognized among numerous scholars as well. Now far ago, Perry
et al. (1999) have developed a model of shared leadership and identified empowering and
supportive practices as being tied to shared leadership. The same connection was found in the
study that Wood (2005) conducted while exploring which factors are significant to shared
leadership. The study showed that empowering team practices positively relate to shared
leadership and that the development of shared leadership depends upon them. That the same
count within remote settings is confirmed recently in the study conducted by Barnwell et al.
(2014) and Mendez et al. (2015). Their investigation revealed that characteristics and needs of
leadership within remote context include empowering between team members that potentially
led to the development of strong team identity, a shared understanding of their work and their
context, improve team members’ motivation and cohesion and develop a higher level of trust
in each other.

There are many practices that are characterized as Empowerment leadership practices. While
referring to empowering leadership practice, Mielonen (2011) speaks about encouraging the
development of taking responsibility for one’s own work, and supportive behaviors that
facilitate the social development of the team. On the same topic, Conger and Pearce (2009)
mentioned words of encouragement, performance feedback, advice, empowering information
in the form of praise and encouragement, and say that these practices foster an empowered
state. In addition, they mentioned some other leadership practices which have been identified
as empowering practices, such as, expressing confidence in a team member, fostering
opportunities for participation in decision making, encouraging independent action,
encouraging self-development, and opportunity thinking (ibid.).

These practices, conducted in the form of emotional support, create a supportive and trusting
group atmosphere. Iqbal et al. (2020) stated that empowered employees participate easily in
exchanging ideas and opinions at large. Also, they said that empowered employees are
characterized by high knowledge sharing and learning. Furthermore, the same study mentioned
that empowerment facilitates employees with a course of action where they are fully
responsible and accountable for the results.

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3.4 Analytical Framework for Studying Space of Action

Packendorff et al. (2014) identified analytical dimensions intended to be applicable to the study
of project leadership in all sorts of projects. The attention of this analytical framework is on
leadership practices, not individual leaders and their characteristics and competencies.
Therewith, its development contributes to post/un-heroic leadership research. As this thesis
builds on the same critique regarding the traditional approach for leadership investigation
concentrated at individual leaders and also aims to investigate leadership practices, this
analytical framework is considered very suitable for the basis of the thesis’s analysis.

Packendorff et al. (2014) suggest the concepts of direction as a core feature of leadership which
depicts the construction of direction in the ongoing organizing processes, and which is
produced through an ongoing construction of space of action (such as the construction of
possibilities, potentials, opportunities and limitations with respect to individual and collective
action). For example, within the empirical setting, searching for pieces of the interview that
depict the involvement of project members in which someone insists upon a given time
schedule and creates a general project meeting to increase the pace of implementation, thereby
widening space of action due to increased participation by core actors and the intense focus on
uncertainties and unresolved issues. The continuous evolvement of space of action in project
leadership work can be studied through four inter-related analytical dimensions: the ongoing
construction and reconstruction of (1) project path, (2) positions and areas of responsibility, (3)
discarder, ongoing and future issues, and (4) intensity, rhythm and pace.

Project path is defined as the “more or less shared notions of how the project has evolved, its
achievements, its current and provisional status, and the current interpretation of its main task”
(p. 9). Positions refer to “who has what formal and informal role, who is to do what, who is
responsible for what, and who should make certain decisions” (p. 9). Issues are described as
temporarily stabilized meanings referring to decision processes, past and future events,
strategic goals, and similar. When it comes to rhythm, it is stated that rhythm does not only
refers to formal plans and deadlines, it also describes varying senses of urgency or relief as the
process proceeds as the emerged issue disappears.

In the more recent work, with the aim to empirically investigate and analyze the direction
conceptualized as the development of an evolving relational configuration, Crevani (2018)
proposed two constructs: the construction of positions and the construction of issues. The
definitions and explanations of these constructs are similar to previously presented concepts of
positions and issues. Yet, concepts are supplemented with some additional explanations that
increase their understanding. While explaining the new concept of clearing for action (which
will be presented in the following paragraph), Crevani (2018, p. 102) states that both positions
and issues are at the same time located in space and but also producing space: “The construction
of positions by providing possible anchoring points for co-evolving trajectories, the
construction of issues by adding/reinforcing one trajectory, thus affecting the relational
configurations that make space”.
32
Crevani (2018, p. 102) proposed the concept of clearing for action, as a development of the
previously discussed concept space of action, as it might better express “the constructive, open-
ended but bounded character of leadership work”. Although the concept clearing for action and
the concept space of action are similar to a certain extent, Crevani (2018) highlighted their
differences in the favor of the new one. Crevani (ibid.) says that sole verb clearing signals an
ongoing achievement thereby expressing the constructive nature of leadership practice and an
active achievement in which space is produced therewith expressing the depth and width of
such work. With respect to this, the concept clearing of action will be used to describe an active
achievement in which space of action is expended.

3.5 Summary of Theoretical Framework

The Theoretical Framework of this thesis consists of three components, namely, Relational
Leadership, Shared Leadership, and Analytical Framework for Studying Space of Action. The
first component of the framework, Relational Leadership, covers the concepts of framing,
positioning, and bridging, that allow to see leadership, describe leadership, and open up for an
alternative understanding of what is leadership about. The second Theoretical Framework
component, Shared Leadership, presents leadership practices that occur through the patterns of
action and interaction, co-constructed by a number of actors, in the context of the remote
working environment. Leadership practices are selected due to their inter-relation with Trust,
Communication, Support, and Empowerment, which importance within the remote working
environment is highly recognized within leadership literature. Finally, the third component,
Analytical Framework for Studying Space of Action, consists of the concepts of space of action
and clearing for action that can be studied through four inter-related analytical dimensions,
specifically, project path, positions, issues, and rhythm.

33
4. Method
It is well known that ontology and epistemology standpoints define the whole process and
outcome of one research. Therefore, it is a good way to start the Method section with the
discussion concerning the philosophical standpoints that guide this thesis and to start with few
examples within the literature in order to depict the situation that currently prevails within the
literature and which suggests which standpoints should be deployed in order for the theory to
develop. Also, this discussion will be useful as it will show the importance of ontology and
epistemology within leadership research and how it has always been the subject of discussion,
and thereby represent this thesis contribution to literature in regard to certain methodological
issues. After this, the descriptions of the thesis’s research strategy, research design, sampling
procedure, companies and interview participants, data collection method, data analysis, and
ethics will follow. Before beginning, it is worth noting that the Method section is attempted to
be written as detailed as possible with the aim to increase the thesis’s external reliability which
is being considered of extreme importance within business research. In consideration of the
foregoing, let start.

4.1 Ontology and Epistemology

Now far ago, Dachler and Hosking (1995) discussed and summarized two opposite
perspectives, namely the entity perspective, and the relational perspective, which result in two
very different understandings of leadership. Within the entity perspective, the dominating
perspective in traditional leadership research, emphasis is on individuals and the explanatory
force in their assumed properties. People are leaders based on their superior knowledge and,
for instance, charisma. Leaders are understood as subjects who act through leadership styles
and behaviors and who influence the values of others. In contrast, “subordinates” are treated as
objects of leadership that are less active and less knowledgeable. Leadership is understood as
an issue of individuals, their cognitions, and their behaviors, and what usually gets ignored are
the social processes by which leadership is constructed and continuously in the making. This
is where the relational perspective comes in. Within a relational perspective, the focus is upon
social processes by which certain understandings come about. It sees knowledge as socially
constructed and socially distributed, not as constructed by individuals. While describing the
relational perspective, Dachler and Hosking (1995, p. 12) said: “Appointed leaders share
responsibility with others for the construction of a particular understanding of relationships and
their enactment. The issue can no longer be whether it is the brilliance of the leader or the lack
of motivation shown by the co-workers that is the reason for the leader dominating the process
and outcomes of his/her relationships with others. Rather, leaders and those with whom they
interact are responsible for the kind of relationships they construct together”. In view of the
foregoing, they claimed that the entity perspective is the incommensurate epistemological
assumption that shows the very different understandings of managerial and organizational
realities and leadership.

34
Packendorff et al. (2014) say that incommensurate philosophical assumptions within leadership
research have remained the “problem”. One of the possible causes behind this “problem” is the
ontology on which most leadership studies rely. Packendorff et al. (ibid.) argue that the essence
of leadership is not to be found in a social actor. On the contrary, is it to be found in leadership
processes, practices, and performance. They (ibid.) share the view with other scholars (i.e.,
Raelin, 2016, 2020; Crevani et al., 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2021) that the most relevant way
to study leadership is to study leadership work as an ongoing process which is constructed by
several people in everyday interactions. Consequently, instead of the ontology of being (similar
to previously discussed entity perspective) which considers that leadership is to be found in the
qualities and the doings of individual leaders due to its modernist notion of stable and distinct
material entities as the building blocks of reality, they suggest the process ontology as relevant
and rewarding for leadership studies. Within the process ontology, actors are granted no
primacy and the main focus is on the ongoing interactions and practices that include numerous
actors, and what they achieve. While referring to the process ontology, it is stated: “The world
itself is viewed fundamentally as made up of processes rather than things. In this view, entities
(such as organizations and structures) are no more than temporary instantiations of ongoing
processes, continually in a state of becoming” (Langley et al., 2013, p. 5, cited in Packendorff
et al., 2014).

Similarly, Raelin (2017) suggests process-oriented studies as suitable to study leadership as

practice. It is said that the process approach, in which leadership is seen as an ongoing social
flow, would of necessity require slowing down the action sufficiently to study practices and
interactions allowing researchers to study leadership at multiple interacting levels. This
processual lens would lend itself to qualitative methodologies, such as narrative analysis,
discursive analysis, content analysis, critical incidents, ethnographies, and auto-ethnographies
(Raelin 2017, 2020).

Therefore, when it comes to the ontological standpoints of this thesis, the process ontology is
employed in consideration of the foregoing discussion and calls for changes of inadequate
ontology employed within traditional leadership research (i.e., Dachler and Hosking, 1995;
Packendorff et al., 2014). More precisely, as the thesis aims to investigate leadership practices
through the lenses that give no primacy to an individual leader, and is concerned with how
leadership emerges and unfolds through coping in day-to-day experience co-constructed by
actors in certain practice/practices and with what people might accomplish together through
those practices, the process ontology, where actors are granted no primacy and where the main
focus is on practices between many actors and what they achieve, represents the philosophical
standpoint that guides this thesis. Thus, the thesis takes a processual lens, as Raelin (2017,
2020) suggests, in order to investigate practices that emerge from the interplay between actors
and their activities. When it comes to thesis epistemology, this ontological assumption implies
epistemological position – interpretivism, concerned with the “why” and “how” of social action
(Bell et al., 2019). Still, it is suggested that participants should be invited to offer their
interpretation of their interactions rather than rely exclusively on the researchers and their

35
interpretation and knowledge (Raelin, 2017, 2020). How this was ensured will be presented
within the sections that follow (especially in the section Data Collection Method).

4.2 Research Strategy

When it comes to the methodological issue and critique in the study of leadership, there can be
little doubt that quantitative research, in which leadership variables related to various
outcomes, has dominated within leadership research tradition (Bryman and Parry, 2006).
However, it is argued that qualitative research is acutely sensitive to the context of leadership
and able to highlights specific features of context, and, most importantly, especially suitable
for the examination of practices of leadership (ibid.). Therewith, a qualitative study on the
experiences of leadership practices could be an important addition to leadership literature.
Moreover, as we could see in the previous discussions in relation to ontology and epistemology,
the focus was slowly redirected toward social interactions and practices between people.
Accordingly, qualitative research seems more appropriate as it would allow different stories
from several persons’ to be heard without limiting participants in eliciting their views as it
would be the case with some quantitative methods that usually have a defined set of responses.
In view of the foregoing, the thesis employed a qualitative research strategy.

4.3 Research Design

The thesis employed a qualitative interview study, used when researchers want to gain in-depth
knowledge about specific phenomena, experiences, or sets of experiences (deMarrais and
Lapan, 2003). An interview is defined as “a process in which researcher and participant engage
in a conversation focused on questions related to a research stud. These questions usually ask
participants for their thoughts, opinions, perspectives, or descriptions of specific experiences”
(p. 54). Through using interview questions accompanied by follow-up questions (probes),
based on what the participant has already described, the goal is to construct and get as complete
picture as possible from the words and experiences of the research participant. This can only
be achieved when a qualitative interview is open-ended allowing participants to provide a depth
of knowledge on the research topic and thereby discover that participants view of an experience
or phenomenon of study. Although researchers usually develop interview guide, they do not
necessarily use that guide as a standard protocol. It is due to the fact that each participant is
unique and thus each qualitative interview will also be unique. Accordingly, questions can be
tailored to fit into the experience of each interview.

The interview study entailed the collection of data on more than one case as it could help to
detect patterns of association (Bell et al., 2019). An in-depth understanding of the subject of
the thesis’s investigation would be limited if the study would be carried out within a single
company, as that always comes with the risk to be guided (and perhaps limited) by the
company’s interest in some specific aspect. Additionally, it would not be possible to generalize
findings to a wider population (external validity). Thus, a qualitative interview study that
entails the collection of data in three companies helps to overcome these limitations and
36
increase the external validity of this research. In-depth understanding cannot be achieved
through the manipulating of different variables. On the contrary, in order to provide significant
information and useful insights, qualitative data collection methods, are particularly helpful in
an intensive and detailed examination of a subject of interest (Bell et al., 2019).

4.4 Sampling

The empirical material of this thesis is collected from three different organizations here
called Bio-Tech Company, Software Company, and Automotive Company. The types of
companies of which this sample consists are knowledge-intensive companies where employees
are well-educated and which are characterized by the huge amount of networking in project
teams, thus make empirical context beneficial for the aim of developing the new perspective
(Crevani et al., 2008). Furthermore, due to the study aim to investigate the companies which
are currently under transformation toward remote work, the selected companies have either
completely transformed their way of working from office to home (remote) work or are in
process of transforming or have some adjustment in a similar manner. For example, part of
employees works from home while another half in companies facilitates in order to reduce the
number of people within same space.

Purposive sampling is used as it ensures that sampled persons are relevant to the research
question, but also differentiation in terms of key characteristics relevant to the research question
(Bell et al., 2019). Therewith, the purposive sample consists of employees who have
experienced the transition to homework. Also, the sample differs in terms of gender (males and
females) with the nearly equal number of each gender, more precisely eight females and seven
males. Having a sample which is consisted of approximately an equal number of males and
females is of great significance as it allows women’s voices to be heard, instead of suppressing
or ignoring them as was usually the case within leadership literature.

Personal contacts were used to locate persons who have experienced the transition from office
to home (remote) work. Contacted persons who fit the criteria referred to others, their
colleagues, who also fit the required criteria, thereby allowing to locate other participants and
thus increase their overall number. From the initial six participants, the number of them has
raised to fifteen. This is what deMarrais and Lapan (2003) call “network selection strategy”, in
which researchers initially use personal contacts to locate those who fit and who then refer to
others allowing researchers to locate other potential participants for the study.

4.5 Descriptions of the Companies and Interview Participants

Bio-Tech Company is small research and development company stationed in Germany. It is

devoted to examine and design microbial metabolism on a quantitative system level. Also, it is
an interdisciplinary company that employs biotechnologists, bioengineers, biologists, and
molecular biologists. Their research mainly focuses on industrial bio-production where they
develop tailor-made strains for the production of chemicals, smart biomaterials, etc. Software
37
Company is medium-sized software and cloud computing company located in the UK. They
offer custom-built apps and tools for businesses such as cloud platforms adjusted to client's
needs. Their solutions accelerate client's business by reducing costs and offering a better
customer experience. The company employs a wide range of expertise such as software
engineers, sales representatives, product managers, researchers, business analysts, etc.
Automotive Company is a large German company that has many subsidiaries across Europe.
Interviewed persons are employees of the subsidiary located in Serbia. It is an engineering and
electronic company that offers numerous technology and services solutions for the automotive
industry that include brake systems, batteries with extremely long life, wiper blades, and many
others. The company employs a very high range of expertise such as software engineers, data
engineers, product managers, production managers, business analytics, etc.

Nicole, Marco, Maria, John, and Sofia are all molecular biologists working at Bio-Tech
Company within the field of biotechnology. They are all young engineers (26-29 years old) at
the beginning of their career with experience ranging from 1 year (John) to 4 years (Sofia).
Still, each of them has experience in both settings, office, and home, and has participated in the
transition to homework within the Bio-Tech Company. They work on both individual and
group projects. When working on a group project, each member is responsible for certain tasks
depending on his/her expertise and then their work mostly collides concerning time and order
of execution. As their work require physical presence at the laboratory, the pandemic has highly
influenced their workflow as they were forced to make different adjustment such as setting the
schedule for using laboratory which has been bringing in many difficulties such as work delays
on a daily basis.

Ivana, Rosie, Bogdan, Maida, and David are software engineers in the Software Company.
Their work experience range from 4 years (Ivana) to 9 years (David). They are all members of
the same software development team. Also, they constantly work on multiple projects and
collaborate with other teams within the company on a daily level. Moving from office to
homework has created and still has been creating a huge impact on their daily work. For
instance, their communication is worsened which is depicted in Ivana’s statement: “When we
were in the office, if I needed something quickly from someone, I just go to their desk and it's
done in a minute. Now, there is a situation where I wait for a response for hours which affects
my work and progress”. Of course, there are many other issues that will be presented within
the Results and Analysis section.

Lazar, Nenad, Sanja, Bojan, and Jovana are employees in the Automotive Company. They are
quite young mechanical engineers, from 25 years (Sanja) to 28 years old (Jovana). They are
part of Sample Shop, department for prototype production, and work together on different
prototype development projects for many world-class customers. All of them were employees
of Automotive Company before the pandemic has started except Bojan. He started to work
during the pandemic and during the transition from office to homework. Still, as he works one
week in the factory and other from home, he has experienced difficulties and changes that come
with the new situation, which is considered to make him a suitable person to be interviewed.
38
This occurs as, in order to reduce the number of people within same space,
Automotive Company decided that part of employees works from home while another half in
company’s facilities and they switch in shifts (usually one working week long).

4.6 Data Collection Method

The focus of this research is on practices that occur through social interactions between people.
Accordingly, semi-structured interviews using an open-ended interview guide seemed
appropriate as it would allow different stories from several persons’ to be heard and invite
participants to speak in their own words and in narrative structures (Mishler 1986). Semi-
structured interviews are chosen in order to give a voice to research participants and thus get a
better understanding of leadership practices. It is an appropriate method as it does not limit
participants in eliciting their views as it would be the case with a defined set of responses (i.e.,
with structured interviews or surveys). Interviews, approximately between 45 minutes (the
shortest interview held with Sanja) and 2 hours (the longest interview with Ivana), held in
English, were conducted online through Zoom or Viber as a medium, as the current pandemic
situation urges us to be responsible and avoid physical contact. Participants were notified in
advance about the research topic, briefly described in the email, and they were advised to find
a quiet space so interviews would be conducted without potential interruptions, such as
background noise. The former ensured that participants are informed about the interview topic
hence they could quit if they are not interested, and the latter was done in order to prevent
possible distractions that could weaken focus and interview recording as well.

Interviews were recorded in order to help to correct the natural limitations of memory and of
the intuitive glasses that might be placed on what people said in interviews, but also as it allows
thorough examination of what is said and repeated examinations of interviewees’ answers (Bell
et al., 2019). The software Otter was used attributable to its possibility to automatically record
and transcribe what is said. However, due to the possible software’s malfunctions, the
recordings are always checked and transcripts were corrected where it was needed.

When it comes to investigating leadership as practice utilizing, in-depth, semi-structured

interviews, the narrative approach is suggested (i.e., Crevani et al., 2007, 2008; Raelin, 2017,
Raelin, 2020). It includes asking individuals to speak openly about different stories that might
reflect the leadership practices. For instance, their view of how leadership is exercised, how
they had worked together and what problems they had experienced, what they consider as
leadership practices, how can leadership facilitate everyday work, etc. The interview guide
used for this thesis can be found in Appendix. Eventually, through thematic analysis, different
themes that reflect and describe certain leadership practices were extracted.

39
4.7 Data Analysis

The thematic analysis of recorded and consequently transcribed interviews was employed.
Braun and Clark (2006) describe thematic analysis as a foundational method of qualitative
analysis for identifying, analyzing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data. Thematic
analysis search for certain themes or patterns across an entire data set, rather than within a data
item (for instance, individual interview), to find a repeated pattern of meaning and issues of
potential interest in the data.

There are two approaches to data coding and analysis (Braun and Clark, 2006). The first one,
an inductive approach to data coding and analysis, is a bottom-up approach and is driven by
what is in the data. This means that the codes and themes derive from the content of the data
themselves thus what is mapped by the researcher during thematic analysis closely matches the
content of the data themselves. On the contrary, the second one, a deductive approach, is a top-
down approach where the researcher brings to the data a series of concepts, ideas, or topics that
uses to code and interpret the data. In this case, the codes and themes derive more from concepts
and ideas the researcher brings to data. It is said that in reality coding and analysis often entails
a combination of both approaches and that a theme captures something important about the
data in relation to the research questions (ibid.). Guided by this idea of a combination of both
approaches and by the importance of capturing data relevant to research questions, the thesis’s
thematic analysis was conducted.

Accordingly, the thematic analysis of this thesis mainly included looking for themes relevant
to the study’s research question as well as the study’s aim. Thus, the central focus was on
identifying leadership practices achieved in interaction, and their influence and contribution to
the construction of space of action in a remote working environment. The approach was
deductive as the focus was upon existing theory-related material and scientific concepts that
would strengthen existing leadership theories, and inductive, as the focus was also on new
vocabulary that would contribute to their development.

The beginning of the thematic analysis included reading and rereading transcripts of interviews
in order to familiarize with the data. During the first reading, the initial notes were made. Those
were just short notes (maximum few words long) on particular parts within the text that seemed
to speak about leadership practices (or indicate the need for some). For instance, the part within
the transcript, where the respondent is speaking how much he likes and appreciates that he feels
free to organize his work according to his preferences, as this is very encouraged by all team
members every time they have the meeting, is marked and note – freedom to self-organize
work, is added. After the second and third readings, it became easier to detect certain patterns
with the data. During these readings, guided by acquired understanding, some of the initial
comments were refined so they better describe a larger portion of data. For example, the
comment – freedom to self-organize work, is called importance of nurturing autonomy, and the
texts associated with the comment were marked. Once, when initial comments were refined,
they served as codes. Subsequently, the codes and the data associated with them are reviewed
40
in order to find similarities and overlaps between codes. By doing so, the codes were clustered
into themes. For instance, codes importance of nurturing autonomy, importance of giving
responsibility, empowering team members in front of counterparts, encouraging learning
opportunities, are clustered under one theme called Importance of Empowerment. Besides the
construction process behind the theme Importance of Empowerment exemplified here, the
process of thematic analysis was the same for each of the three other themes that emerged
during analysis, namely, Difficulties of Building and Maintaining Relationships, Feedback and
Reflecting Issues, Need for Mutual Support.

4.8 Ethics

Now, it would be appropriate to remind that ethical issues can arise at various points in the
research process and it is the researchers who need to be aware of and prepared to address these
issues in order to ensure the integrity of their study and the reputation of business research in a
more general way (Bell et al., 2019). According to Bell et al. (ibid.), there are four ethical
principles to which researchers are supposed to adhere. The four ethical principles are
avoidance of harm, informed consent, protection of privacy through confidentiality, and
preventing deception. These four ethical principles will be presented in the parts that follow
accompanied by the discussions on how they were dealt with within the research.

When it comes to the first principle, avoidance of harm, the AOM Code of Ethics states: “It is
the responsibility of researcher to assess carefully the possibility of harm to research
participants, and that the possibility of harm should be minimized to the extent that it can be”
(Bell et al., 2019, p. 114). Guided by moral responsibility and this ethical principle, the names
of organizations and interview participants are changed, making them unable to be identifiable.
This is done in order to maintain the anonymity of participants and thereby preventing and
minimizing the chance for any direct or adversely affected harm that might happen. In addition
to this, the fact that anonymity was guaranteed made participants more open and willing to
share their experience, thus not only were taken measures assured avoidance of harm, but they
have also increased the quality of interviews and helped to build the trust and closeness during
the interviews.

The second ethical principle, informed consent, seeks to ensure that prospective participants
are given as much information as possible about research in order to be able to make an
informed decision whether or not they want to participate in the study. These guidelines have
been followed and, as already pointed out in the previous discussion, the participants were
notified in advance through an email about the aim of the study. Sending them an email
provided them with necessary information about the study and gave them a chance to inform
about the study and thus decide whether or not they are willing to participate. Also, at the
beginning of each interview, participants were asked for permission to record the conversation.
All of these were done in order to make interviewees as informed as possible about the research
which also resulted in good ambient and mood that facilitated conversations.

41
The third ethical principle, protection of privacy through confidentiality, relates to the need to
protect the privacy of research participants. For instance, this should be done by taking careful
steps when asking for sensitive information and making that interviews participants do not feel
forced to share any information that they might consider to have a personal character.
Therefore, although it is impossible for a researcher to know beforehand which topics may be
sensitive to particular individuals, the questions that are used in interviews are attempted to
have more informal character. This is done in order to leave respondents with the freedom to
speak openly what they want, instead of using really precise and narrow questions that would
force their answer in some direction that they might find sensitive. Apart from the importance
in regard to the protection of privacy that comes with this, asking open questions is also suitable
as it does not limit participants in expressing their thoughts, as already pointed out in the Data
Collection Method part.

The fourth ethical principle that will be discussed, preventing deception, implies that the duty
of researchers is not to pursue methods of inquiry that are likely to infringe human values and
sensibilities. For instance, deception occurs when researchers present their research as
something other than what it is. With this in mind, and as already mentioned, the information
about the research was sent in advance to the participants in order to avoid deception being part
of this research.

Finally, it should be stressed an important issue to bear in mind and it concerns avoiding
plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as: “The adoption of reproduction of original creations of
another author (person, collective, organization, community or other types of author, including
anonymous authors) without due acknowledgment” (Bell et al., 2019, p. 105). In the light of
this, it should be emphasized that information has been conscientiously used by adequately
citing their sources.

42
5. Results and Analysis
In this section, the results of the earlier presented data analysis method, thematic analysis, are
presented. The overall number of themes that have emerged through thematic analysis is four.
Each of the four themes will be presented in its own section and described through different
quotes from interviews’ transcripts that serve as illustrations. This will be done in order to
increase readers’ understanding of the context in which practices take place. This is considered
to be important within practice research as context, as the set of embedded circumstances, lends
meaning to the practices (Raelin, 2020). Quotes will be supplemented with brief paragraphs of
the author’s discussions and reflections. Before jumping to the themes, the descriptions of
companies and interview participants are summarized in Table 1. Besides the overview of the
companies and interview participants that Table 1 provides, it also serves to remind a reader to
think of the context in which practices are occurring.

Company Bio-Tech Company Software Company Automotive

Company
Operations Research and development Custom-built apps, tools Technology and
company within the field for businesses, cloud services solutions
of biotechnology platforms that include wiper
blades, brake
systems, batteries,
etc. (department for
prototype
production)
Degree of remote work Combination of lab and Completely remote Half of the
remote work. Mainly employees work
remote work, lab work from home, while
when it is required the other half works
in the office (change
in shifts)
No. of employees Around 30 (overall Around 250 (overall Around 2000
number) number) (subsidiary in
Serbia)
People interviewed and Nicole, Marco, Maria, Ivana, Rosie, Bogdan, Lazar, Nenad, Sanja,
cited here John, Sofia (molecular Maida, David (software Bojan, Jovana
biologists) engineers) (mechanical
engineers)

Table 1. Summary of the Companies and Interview Participants

Concerning analysis, each theme, after its presentation, will be summarized within its own
Summary section. This summary will serve as the starting point for the Analysis section that
follows right after. The analysis of the theme follows a certain structure and it is conducted in
the following order. First, the concepts of framing, positioning, and bridging (Relational
Leadership), accompanied with the concepts of project path, positions, issues, and rhythm,
space of action, and clearing for action (Analytical Framework for Studying Space of Action),

43
will be used in order to analyze current leadership practices and their influence on the
construction of space of action. Thus, the first part of the analysis will help to answer the
thesis’s first research question – “How do current leadership practices achieved in the
interactions between team members influence the construction of space of action within a
remote working environment?”. Secondly, when a certain understanding of current leadership
practices and their influence on the construction of space of action is acquired as a result of the
first part of the analysis, it will be analyzed which leadership practices have the potential to
contribute to the construction of space of action within the previously discussed context of the
theme, for the purpose of answering the thesis’s second research question – “What leadership
practices achieved in the interactions between team members may contribute to the
construction of space of action within a remote working environment?”.

5.1 Difficulties of Building and Maintaining Relationships

The theme that has first emerged during thematic analysis is named Difficulties of Building
and Maintaining Relationships. The main factors that influence building and maintaining
relationships among staff are the remote settings, the absence of physical contact and closeness,
and also frequent interactions that come with it, as shown by this quote from Bogdan, a software
engineer in the Software Company:

“What is the biggest challenge is absolutely building relationships. For example, when a
meeting starts, when it's over a video call, I'm more prone just to jump into the topic, into the
subject, but when you have on-site or face to face meetings and interactions you have more, let
say, room and it's easier to experience the other person and also get a better understanding of a
person, as a whole and as a consequence, also develop relationships which are essential
basically to the business”

In this quote, Bogdan explains how there is less “chitchat” during a video meeting. Although
he is aware of the importance of such interactions for developing relationships which he
describes as essential to the business, he is still more focused on the topic at hand and thus
more prone just to jump into the topic, as he says, compared to a face-to-face meeting. He says
that it makes it difficult to build relationships with his colleagues.

Also, although quite a long period of time has passed from the beginning of remote working,
findings suggest that physical distance still represents one of the main challenges when it comes
to building and maintaining a relationship between team members, and barrier that is not yet
to be overcome, here exemplified by Ivana, software engineer, and Bogdan’s teammate:

“Another work-related challenge is bonding with colleagues and kind of creating a team. Even
though we work from home now for a while it's a bit odd. I work in software development and
it's important to have good communication with the team. So it takes much more effort to build
those kinds of relationships when you're not seeing the people, and never meet them in person.
And we have to communicate every day it's a little weird to feel, so to say, all the people, but
you never see them in person”

44
Ivana reflects on the difficulty of building relationships when you are not meeting people in
person. While referring to the difficulty of building relationships she also mentioned the
importance of good communication with the team. This indicates clear links between
communication and building relationships within remote settings. Also, she says that although
communication takes place on a daily level it is “a little weird to feel” all the people, as the
result of not seeing people in person. This “weird to feel” indicates, and might be interpreted
as, difficulties to build a relationship with the people.

Furthermore, findings suggest that the absence of physical closeness especially affects new
team members, making it more challenging for team members to connect with newcomers and
develop a relationship with them, pointed out by Ivana again:

“And we also have one new member on the team. And she, she is in a really tough position,
because she couldn't learn on the spot. And for example, I am her mentor, and I am not even
sure if I find a suitable approach to just help her with her first steps but what is even more
important is to connect with her and develop a good relationship with her. I know that she would
have much better experience in the office where we would be close to each other and where we
could actually see each other in person”

What is interesting here is that while Ivana is speaking about the difficulty of building a
relationship with a new team member, she also says that it makes the learning of new team
members more challenging as she (the new team member) couldn’t learn on the spot. Also, she
perceives that the experience of the new member would be much better in the office as they
would be physically close to each other.

Not only does the remote working environment affect building relationship with new team
members, but it also makes harder to maintain old relationships, here demonstrated by Marko,
a molecular biologist that works 3 years in Bio-Tech Company:

“I think I have really mixed feelings about work from home, especially because you lose a lot
of connection that you have with people when you're at work and, for example, some members
of my team, they are not comfortable with talking when the camera is on. I don't know, like,
from time to time, it was really hard to even start meeting and start talking with people. So there
are, for example, uncomfortable situations where people are just not speaking, they're just like,
looking at each other, and cameras, but everyone is muted, and you kind of have this feeling
like you never had an actual relationship with them. What is even worse is that how time passes
it seems that it will not be better, because you know, each of us should invest some effort to get
into some conversations but it seems that we are less and less interested in doing it”

In this quote, Marco explains how people are not comfortable speaking in front of the camera
which usually results in an unpleasant situation where no one is speaking and everyone is
muted. Although he knows most of his teammates for years, these uncomfortable situations
make him feel that like he never had an actual relationship with them. Also, he says that in

45
order to fix this and improve relationships between members, each member should invest some
effort, but that there is a lack of motivation for doing it.

That people lack interest and motivation to engage in activities that would help to build
relationships is evident. Even when a company is not fully switched to remote working and
there is a chance for employees to meet in person, people do have difficulties in establishing
relationships with others. Sofia, a molecular biologist who works on the same project with
Marko, says:

“And also, over time I noticed that I don't have a lot of contacts with people. I need my friends
now. Although on Thursday we have a common lunch at the institute and we meet sometimes
over the weekend, other than that, I don't have frequent contact with people. But, what I have
noticed is that when I actually go to the Lab and when I finally get a chance to meet some of
my colleagues and speak with them, I am not interested in having conversations with them at
all. Sometimes I even have feeling that I am trying to avoid to encounter them. And I think I
got so used to spend time alone, between my four walls, that I now find it a bit difficult to have
conversations with other people”

This quote implies that the lack of frequent contacts in person and specifically working mostly
isolated in remote settings make people adjusted to be alone. Although the need and desire for
contact in person are evident, adjusting to working isolated made them unwilling to engage in
conversation even when they have a chance to do that in person.

Finally, findings suggest that frequent informal (non-work-related) discussions should be

integrated into the new (remote) working environment. It is believed that this might be very
important for building relationships between members, here exemplified by Lazar, production
planner in the department for prototype production within Automotive Company:

“It would be good that, for instance, during meetings, we have some interactions, or, discussion
in regard to personal issues so every person can, through his or her own example shows that we
are humans with many problems (…) discussion that is not only about work and also makes
visible problems that possible bother many of us. This would make feel us more connected and
I believe that these discussions that are not work-related, should be integrated into this new
work environment (…) Occasionally, from time to time is something that can boost
relationships and help to build relationships on a deeper level”

5.1.1 Theme Summary

As the quotes show, the respondents experience difficulties in building relationships while
working from home. They find less time and motivation for small talk that could help in
improving relationships, instead, respondents said that they are more prone to just jump into
the topic. This confirms the claims of Liao (2017) that virtual teams tend to be more task-
oriented which obstruct building trust and relationships. Consequently, it is expected that
results suggest that it is difficult to nurture and maintain existing relationships, but also that is

46
even more challenging to build new ones that have not been started before the pandemic, like
Ivana’s mentorship. Also, a remote working environment makes the learning of new team
members more challenging, simultaneously influencing their whole work experience, as they
could not “learn on the spot”, as Ivana highlights. Although the need and the desire for
improving relationships are evident, interviews participants expressed a lack of motivation and
interest to engage in activities that could help to improve them. Results indicate that adjusting
to working isolated in remote settings made them unwilling to engage in activities that could
improve their relationships, even when they have a chance to do that. Also, findings show that
some people may not be comfortable speaking in front of a camera during video meetings
which creates an ambient where everyone is muted and which contributes to the lack of
motivation to engage in relationship-building activities. Finally, it is suggested that frequent
informal discussion should be integrated into a new working environment in order to boost and
build relationships on a deeper level, as Lazar points out. This builds on existing evidence of
the importance of frequent communication within the remote environment (Hart and McLeod,
2003; Kelley and Kelloway, 2012). Yet, it provides new insights concerning the type of
communication – informal.

5.1.2 Analysis

These findings imply that bringing actors together and creating interdependencies between
them (bridging) is very difficult within a remote working environment. It is said that it is
interdependence that is the “glue” that is crucial for collective action to take place (Crevani,
2015). Thus, as findings report a lack of connecting between team members, interdependences
between team members, crucial for collective space of action to take place, are weakened. This
implies that the space of action has may be narrowed down. In addition, lack of motivation for
small talk and interest to engage in conversations negatively influence conversational dynamics
and interactions between team members. Bering in mind that positioning is a practice that takes
place in conversation and affects the development of space of action (ibid.), it might be said
that lack of motivation among team members for engaging in conversations where construction
of positions occurs, is narrowing the space for collective action. Furthermore, uncomfortable
ambient during video meetings that deter people from speaking might negatively influence the
practice of framing. Depending on the framing, only certain actions will make sense and it is
only when frames are brought into a conversation that the practice of framing occurs (ibid.).
Also, collective space of action may be expended when a group moves between different
frames. This implies that engaging team members in conversations, in particular, in framing,
and bringing up different frames might be necessary in order to stretch and widen the collective
space of action. Therefore, uncomfortable ambient where everyone is muted, and at the same
time, unmotivated to speak up, narrowing down collective space of action.

Although there are many factors that make it difficult to build and maintain relationships among
team members, such as unpleasant ambience during video meetings or adjusting to working
isolated and thereby making people “asocial”, it could be said that it is the lack of willingness,
interest, and motivation (that these factors cause), to engage in relationship-building activities
47
that represent the barrier for potential improvement. Remote settings, with its both positive
and, especially important here, negative sides, is here and that will not change from itself. Thus,
it might be reasonable (more accurately - obvious) to say that is the people who should strive
to improve it. Therewith, lack of motivation to engage in relationship-building activities might
be the interesting starting point for discussion regarding potential improvements.

Iqbal et al. (2020) in their study stated that empowered employees participate easily in
exchanging ideas and opinions. In addition to this, Mielonen (2011) said that team members
are more likely to work cooperatively when they support and feel supported. Building on these
studies, it may be said that the practices of empowerment and support could positively
influence team members’ willingness and motivation to engage in relationship-building
activities, exchanging ideas and opinions, and cooperative work, and ultimately help to build
and maintain relationships between team members. Bearing in mind the lack of motivation that
the thesis’s findings indicate, the practice of inviting might be suitable and may have the
potential to engage team members in teamwork. Inviting represents encouraging those who
have been held back to participate through their ideas, energy, and humanity (Raelin, 2016). In
addition, it is said that team members support one another through encouraging and recognizing
individual and team contributions and accomplishments (Mielonen, 2011). Similarly, the
practice of unleashing could be useful as it ensures that everyone who wishes to has had a
chance to contribute, without fear of repercussion. In doing so, they help to create an
environment where team members feel that their input is valued and appreciated.

When it comes to the difficulties of building relationships with new team members and his/her
learning process, which is closely connected to building relationships and overall work
experience, as illustrated by Ivana’s mentorship example, coaching might be useful. Coaching
could be effective for building trust, exchanging ideas, engaging in teamwork, but also as a
tool for triggering the self-learning process (Desjardins, 2012; Korzynski, 2013). Coaching
portrays starting an action cycle in which an individual is assisted (in this case new team
member) to set goals, develop plans, start actions, observe, and measure performance. Not only
does it trigger an engaged self-learning process by supporting the skill and knowledge
acquisition process, but it also leads to higher work productivity. Besides, it is stated that
coaching is especially desirable when someone is working on a new and demanding task, or
has to operate in a complex and changing work environment, all of which corresponding to the
situation of new team members within remote settings that currently prevails.

A supportive environment where team members are encouraged to participate through their
ideas, energy, and humanity, where they feel that their input is valued and appreciated, and
where they are assisted to set goals, develop plans, start actions, may help in developing a
repertoire of frames and in shifting from one frame to another, thereby increasing actions that
become possible to do. Besides, they might positively influence and contribute to
conversational dynamics as team members are encouraged to actively participate in
conversations by bringing up their ideas and feeling that their input is valuable and appreciated.
Thus, the practice of positioning would take place in conversations where members mutually
48
empower each other and mutually expand their space of action. Lastly, while referring to the
practice of bridging, it is stated that “by including more actors and strengthening the meshes
that connect them, collective action and achievements may gain importance over other more
individual courses of action, thus increasing and strengthening the space for collective action”
(Crevani, 2015, p. 15). In so doing, previously discussed practices are clearing for action.

5.2 Feedback and Reflecting Issues

During the thematic analysis, the value of feedback and reflection became apparent. Usually,
it was due to physical closeness to other coworkers that previously allowed them to instantly
get feedback or chance to reflect about specific tasks, here exemplified by Rosie, from Software
Company:

“For example, in my case, I work with a lot of different people on different tasks. And if I have
some problem, I can just go over to my colleague, or teammate and just ask him or her simple
questions, and we can together reflect on the problem and figure out the problems really, really
quickly. But that benefit is lost when we switched to work from home”

It is clear that by referring to the pre-remote working times, respondents indicate that the
absence of physical closeness makes the practice of giving feedback and reflecting difficult.
This is also confirmed at the end of Rosie’s statement where she says that the benefit (of getting
feedback easily and quickly) is lost as they have switched to work from home. Also, the quote
depicts the nature of respondents’ work that includes working with a lot of people
simultaneously on different tasks, inherently increasing the need for an easy and quick
approach to teammates in order to reflect and figure out problems that emerge, thereby
increasing the importance and value of feedback and reflection on both individual and team
level.

As already pointed, the benefit of getting feedback quickly and reflecting vanished when
respondents switched to remote work. Not only does waiting for a response invokes frustration,
but it also delays work and thus its progress. While describing the importance of quick
feedback, Maida, Rosie’s colleague in Software Company, exemplifies this:

“Because now it is not that simple. You send a message, and you ping people or send them
emails, but everyone organizes their time according to them and their plans so you usually wait
for a response for a while. Sometimes you receive a response, I think after 20 or 30 minutes.
But that is usually the case when you send a message to your teammate. However, if I send an
email to other teams, it can take few days after I receive a response. It is really frustrating as
that really delays your work and progress”

This quote shows how unplanned, still, regular/daily communication that includes sending
emails can take from 20, 30 minutes to a few days for a response, which directly influences the
work and the progress of the work on the person who is waiting for that response. Also, it
implies that people do not prioritize unplanned communication, rather they stick to and do not
49
depart from their self-organized time/plans. At the same time, it shows that respondents are
aware that they can not rely on their team members.

That slow (late) and inadequate feedback highly influence the pace of the work was extremely
visible within the Bio-Tech Company where employees often need to go to the lab in order to
carry out some tasks and where work in the lab is necessary on a daily basis. Inappropriate
feedback leads to employees unnecessarily going to the lab many times, as shown by this quote
from Maria, a molecular biologist in Bio-Tech Company:

“It's like when I need to do some experiment I am doing it for at least 10 times, and then I had
to export and import certain things from my report, many, many times, just because I couldn't
get proper feedback and instructions, and for instance, all of the corrections about one figure
within the report at one time. But it's like, once I get one piece of advice on how to do
something, then I do it, and then in the next email, it's another correction regarding the same
experiment. It's creating work, where it does not really exist as I could do it all at once”

In this quote, Maria explains how providing inadequate, more precisely, incomplete feedback
results in numerous unnecessary repetitions and corrections of the same work (in her case
experiment), that could otherwise be done at once.

Findings indicate that feedback should be more transparent and up to date with the current work
progress. In the opposite case, situations such as this one, exemplified by Maria, could happen:

“And from my side, I would be happy to just have proper feedback. So, in general, I would like
him (Maria’s teammate) to be more transparent and more up-to-date with what is going on in
general with our experiment and to not forget things that we have already talked about like last
time. He sent me one review that I have to read, and then three weeks later he sent me this
review, again, because he forgot that he already sent it to me”

Maria’s quote signals the absence of knowledge about current work progress among teammates
that directly impacts the quality of the communication that takes place between them. Although
all respondents from Bio-Tech Company work within the same team as molecular biologists,
and on the same projects, their role in the projects depends on their specific expertise that
differs from member to member. Even do this might be the reason for the lack of knowledge
about project progress that includes other team members’ work, presented in the quote above,
one may conclude that there is an evident lack of interest in other’s team members’ works.
Especially if we take into consideration the previous quote by Maria, which speaks about
incomplete feedback that results in numerous repetitions and corrections of the same work.

In addition to the late and inadequate feedback that influences one’s work, delays of one’s
work, numerous unnecessary repetitions, and corrections that otherwise could be done at once,
the findings suggest that the time when correspondence occurs plays an important aspect in the
everyday work life of employees. During the analysis, it became apparent that, for example,
late-night messages from colleagues might negatively influence work-life balance. While

50
discussing communication issues, David, the software engineer with nine years experience,
said:

“(…) like not sending emails to us, when there is no one who is working, like on the weekends,
or late at night because that can cause the pressure to someone. Also, sometimes when I receive
an email late at night, I would start working on it and I would catch myself working till 12 am
or to midnight. It is hard if you work in the same room where you rest, and then, when you hear
that you got some email, you feel responsible to check it, and sometimes to do it, and then you
just jump to it. It is hard when you do not have clear boundaries between work and leisure
because you are in the same space for the whole time”

This quote indicates the importance of not sending emails outside working hours due to
multiple reasons. First of all, it can cause pressure to someone as receiving an email might
trigger the feeling of responsibility to check it, and sometimes even to jump to it, as the previous
quote illustrates. Secondly, receiving emails outside working hours might blur the boundaries
between work and leisure, as people working from home might use the same room for work
and rest.

5.2.1 Theme Summary

As the quotes demonstrate, there are many identified issues in relation to communication within
the remote environment, that negatively influence the everyday working experience of
respondents. Identified issues mainly concern the practices of feedback and reflecting. When
it comes to feedback and reflecting, findings suggest that the absence of physical closeness
makes getting feedback slower, compared to an office environment where one could easily
approach colleagues in order to get feedback, together reflect on the problem, and figure out a
solution. Also, another reason for the slow pace of communication is that team members do
not prioritize unplanned communication, rather they stick and do not depart from their self-
organized plans. This (slow feedback) influence the pace of the work, usually delaying work
progress on both individual and group level. Simultaneously, it is indicated that a long waiting
time for feedback invokes frustrations. Also, inadequate feedback leads to unnecessary work,
as the case of Bio-Tech company shows, where employees, due to the inadequate feedback,
usually need to unnecessarily repeat and make certain corrections of the same work, that could
otherwise be done at once. Furthermore, findings signal that feedback should be more
transparent and up to date with the current work progress, as the lack of one’s knowledge
regarding project progress of other teammates directly impacts the quality of the
communication that takes place between them, and results in unnecessary work. One of the
possible reasons for the lack of knowledge about the progress of others team members might
be a lack of interest in other’s team members' works. Finally, the importance of time when
correspondence occurs is reported as sending emails to team members outside working hours
might negatively influence team members’ work-life balance, cause pressure, and blur the
boundaries between work and leisure. By speaking about all of these issues, it is evident that

51
respondents are aware that they can not fully rely on their team members. This signals the lack
of trust between team members.

5.2.2 Analysis

Before switching to remote work, the close physical distance allowed team members to easily
and quickly approach each other, get quick feedback, and reflect together. Switching to remote
work that comes with the absence of physical closeness (logically), has thus slowed down the
conversation that occurs between team members and thereby feedback and reflecting which
take place there. By doing this, moving between frames that take place in conversation
(framing) has been slowed down as well, inherently limiting and narrowing the collective space
of action. In addition, it is stated that positioning, which also takes place in conversation, needs
somehow to be sustained by the conversational dynamics. Thus, the process of positioning that
takes place as the interaction unfolds has been slowed down by a long waiting time that
negatively influences conversational dynamics and thereby the development of the
conversations and the actions that might become possible as the conversation evolves.
Similarly, the slow process of bringing different stories, trajectories, and views together
(bridging), which is necessary in order to move in somewhat similar directions, weakens the
meshes that connect team members and thus decreasing their space for collective action. When
it comes to the project rhythm and the project path, findings suggest that inadequate feedback
may lead to certain issues such as unnecessary work repetitions and corrections and in this way
influence the pace of the work, usually delaying work progress on both individual and group
level. This implies that inadequate feedback is slowing down the project rhythm and preventing
the project from moving forwards its path.

The thesis’s findings indicate that a possible reason for the slow pace of communication is that
team members do not prioritize unplanned communication. Rather, team members tend to
prioritize and do not apart from their self-organized plans. This implies that there might be
decreased communication frequency. This builds on the existing evidence that a remote
environment carries a significant risk of decreased communication (for example, Kelley and
Kelloway, 2012). Yet, it is stated that the key to successful communication lies in its frequency
(Hart and McLeod, 2003; Kelley and Kelloway, 2012). This suggests that in order to improve
the slow pace of communication, team members should increase the frequency of unplanned
communication. Unplanned communication may occur through various media when it is
needed, not only as a response to a certain problem (Kelley and Kelloway, 2012). Still, team
members should be careful with unplanned communication as findings indicate that sending
emails outside working hours could negatively influence work-life balance, cause pressure, and
blur boundaries between work and leisure, while on the other side, long waiting for feedback
during working hours may invoke frustration. Apart from unplanned communication, the
frequency of planned (scheduled) communication that occurs regularly is important as well to
keep predictability and reliability of the commitment (ibid.). Also, it is said that without regular
interaction time, employees are not able to support each other. On the same topic, Hart and
McLeod (2003) state that the strongest teams have frequent but short communication which
52
might be critical success factors when teams are working under challenging time pressure. It is
also said that frequent and short communication contributes to the development of strong
relationships between team members, mutual knowledge, but also shared language that allows
team members to understood unsaid. As the thesis’ findings report lack of one’s knowledge
about the progress of other team members possibly due to the lack of interest in it, the team
members may use frequent and short communication in order to increase their knowledge about
work progress of others, but as relationship building practice as well.

Furthermore, the thesis’s findings show that feedback should be more transparent and up to
date with the current work progress in order to prevent unnecessary repetitions and corrections
to take place. This indicates that there is a clear link between feedback and an effective goal
achievement process as Desjardins’ (2012) argued. In addition to transparent and up-to-date
feedback, the study by Desjardins (2012) states that both positive and constructive (negative)
feedback are needed for the purpose of guiding current and future work performance. It is stated
that if there is a lack of feedback among team members, major productivity losses could
happen. This statement is in the line with these thesis findings that show how lack of proper
feedback leads to unnecessary work repetition and corrections.

Hence, the practices that might be suitable for addressing the lack of feedback are practices of
stabilizing and reflecting (Raelin, 2016). Stabilizing portrays offering feedback to converge
activity and evaluate effectiveness, while reflecting represents triggering of thoughtfulness
within the self and with others in order to reflect the meaning of past, current, and future
experiences for the purpose of learning how to meet mutual needs and interests. Therefore, not
only do these practices potentially increase feedback and their quality, but they may also
contribute to team members’ learning of how to meet mutual needs and interests, and foster an
empowered state (Conger and Pearce, 2009). This might be very valuable as findings signal
the lack of trust between team members.

By speaking about inadequate and late feedback that causes different delays, triggers
frustration, and similar, it is evident that respondents are aware that they can not fully rely on
each other. Bearing in mind the definition of trust as a willingness to rely on another party
(Hassan and Ahmed, 2011), it may be simply concluded that findings might indicate a lack of
trust between team members. This represents an important issue, as the importance of trust has
been recognized among many scholars. For example, Zeffane et al. (2011) say that trust is very
important for an individual and his/her performance. Similarly, the study by Daim et al. (2012)
reported clear links between trust and achievement of group goals. Also, Liao (2017) argued
that trust is specifically important in a remote environment as it may reduce member’s
psychological distance in a physically dispersed team. Nevertheless, the lack of feedback and
reflections that findings indicate imply that trust between members develops more slowly. This
fits the claims by Daim et al. (2012) and Berry (2011) that the lack of daily interactions in
virtual settings causes trust between team members to develop at a slower pace.

53
Still, it is said that frequent communication, which certain advantages have been already
presented in relation to feedback and reflecting issues, can lead to increased trust (Hart and
McLeod, 2003; De Vries, 2006; Maras and Irwin, 2006; Kelley and Kelloway, 2012; Liao,
2017). Therefore, not only would frequent communication would help team members to
increase the pace of communication (and thereby solved many issues that were presented) and
contribute to the development of strong relationships between team members and their mutual
knowledge, but it also leads to increased trust. In addition to this, sharing experiences through
repeated interactions and enhancing transparency represent ways for building trust and for
generating a sense of respect among team members (Liao, 2017).

Against this background, it could be concluded that frequent communication that consists of
feedback that is transparent, up to date, and both positive and constructive (negative), may be
very important within remote settings due to numerous reasons. It helps to keep predictability
and reliability of the commitment, it may prevent unnecessary work repetitions and corrections,
and also contributes to the development of strong relationships and increased trust between
team members. Practices of stabilizing and reflecting may encourage and increase feedback, as
well as increase their quality by triggering thoughtfulness and helping the team in mutual
reflection. Consequently, strong relationships and trust between team members would
contribute to the strengthening of the meshes and interdependencies that connect team
members (bridging) which are crucial for collective actions to take place inherently. Moreover,
frequent communication enhanced through practices of stabilizing and reflecting would allow
for multivocality and for new conversations to build on previous, and, in so doing, contribute
to the constant construction of positions (positioning) and simultaneously of expansion of their
space of action. These conversations that build on one another would allow team members to
move between different frames and in so doing expand the collective space of action. In these
ways, previously discussed practices are clearing for action.

5.3 Need for Mutual Support

It could be said that the themes that were previously discussed signal the “need for mutual
support” in respondents’ everyday work life, the same as this theme’s name implies. Still, this
theme reflects and covers a small part of numerous pieces of the interviews where respondents
directly referred to, and speak about their need for, support. In so doing, they revealed and
enhanced understanding of what are desirable ways of support within remote settings in order
to improve their everyday work-life experience.

Results of the thematic analysis indicate that respondents are aware that their team members
have certain difficulties in everyday work, here exemplified by Nenad, quality engineer in
Sample Shop, department for prototype production within Automotive Company:

“I noticed that other people are feeling worried about a situation in the country, or they are just
worried about something that is happening to their family. And I have the feeling that they
could not be open to mention those problems because we are in that “artificial setup”. It is also

54
 hard to see when people are struggling, for instance, struggling to concentrate, struggling to
work enough hours, in particular when people are muted with their cameras turned off. And
especially with all the things that are happening at home. For example, some of my team
members have kids, and I would often see them with kids in their arms or doing something
around work while talking. So, they don't have enough focus. I don't blame them. I think that
is something that is happening in the home, like in everyone else home, and that everyone needs
support. Support is really important for me because I want to know that there is someone that I
can count on when there are different challenges at work”

Here we can see that due to the “artificial setup”, such as video meetings, in which participants
are often muted with their cameras off it might be hard for someone to be honest and speak
about different issues, such as, worries about the situation in the country or within the family,
problems with concentration, or kids running around during meeting and shifting focus from
work. Not only can “artificial” ambient deter someone from speaking about and bringing up,
problems he/she has, but it also may hinder other team members to spot when someone has
certain problems that require their support. Also, the quote highlights the importance of
support, more precisely, of knowing that there is someone to rely and count on where different
challenges emerge.

Although quite a long period of time has passed from switching to remote work, it is still hard
to develop an emotional connection between team members, as David from Software Company
says:

“I think it's really important that you develop that emotional connection with your colleagues.
And sometimes it's just good to know that you can rely on them and that you don't need to stress
out if you cannot make to do some work or, you know, could not fix some bug, because you
know, that there are colleagues that you can rely on. That was really difficult to have when we
first started with the work from home. Because we couldn't organize ourselves. It was really
hard to organize our work and still is”

Same as the previous, this quote highlights the importance for someone to know that there are
colleagues that can help when it is needed. Also, the quote indicates that knowing that you can
get support from your teammates when it is necessary might prevent stressing out. In addition,
it implies that there are links between organization abilities and supporting, more precisely,
when team members have difficulties organizing themselves, there is less chance for support
to happen. Even do respondents have been working from home now for a while, the quote
indicates that there are still issues with organizations.

This might suggest that team members need support between themselves with an organization
as well, which would, at the same time, allow and facilitate support on a daily basis. The
following statement from Jovana, production planner in Automotive Company, confirms this:

“I think that the something that I appreciate, for example, is when someone is honest and open
to bring up and discuss every problem because all those problems are affecting all of us. So, if
we can keep in mind what is happening to each of the team members, we will be more aware
55
 of how to organize the work and how to balance things. If everyone would tell about how they're
feeling or what is happening, about the things that did not work well during some period, and
the things that we should improve, or the actions that we should take, we might be able to see
what confuse people, where people are feeling lost, and thus provide guidance and instructions
for everything”

In this quote, Jovana explains how team members should be honest and willing to bring up and
discuss every possible problem as those problems may affect the whole team. Bringing them
to the surface would increase team members’ awareness about them and thereby help them to
better organize their work. Not only would bringing up problems on the surface improve the
team’s organization and prevent hidden problems from affecting the whole team, but it would
also make team members able to support each other and provide suitable guidance and
instructions when it is necessary. Jovana also says that apart from speaking up about the things
that do not work well and different issues, team members should suggest what could be
improved or what actions should be taken. This would also encourage and facilitate team
members in supporting each other.

Lastly, findings accent the importance of staying always in close contact and of having a “clear
slot” in the calendar for emergency situations, here exemplified by Bojan, an employee of
Automotive Company, where half of the employees work in the office while others from home
and they change in shifts:

“And I would just try to reassure them that I'm here if something happens, or if they need some
help, or if they need extra support that they can always schedule the meeting in my calendar. I
would always have a clear slot in my calendar that is not booked and that can be booked for
emergency situations so we can always stay in contact with each other. Never let someone
totally isolate themselves, especially someone who is working at a home office, you should try
to often meet each other, or hear each other over the phone. To give some kind of other support
even like some smiles and just to cherish up and reassure that they are aware that they can count
on you”

Bojan reflects on the importance of staying available to team members in the case of urgency,
but also if someone needs any type of help. Also, the quote emphasizes the significance of
frequent contact especially with someone who is working remotely in order to prevent that
person from feeling isolated. Even simple things such as smiles and cherishing up might
represent valuable support and reassure that team members know they can count on each other,
and thereby contribute to creating a supportive environment.

5.3.1 Theme Summary

As the quotes illustrate, a remote working environment in which participants are often muted
and with their cameras turned off may discourage team members from bringing up different
issues and worries that they might have. Not only does this ambient prevent team members
from shedding light on certain issues, but it hinders other team members to spot when someone

56
has certain problems that require support. Therefore, the quotes highlight the importance of
bringing up issues and sharing them with team members, of supporting between team members,
and in so doing, reassuring someone that he/she can always rely on his/her team members. If
problems remain hidden, they may affect the whole team. Also, the quotes illustrate that
although quite a long period of time has passed from switching to remote work, developing an
emotional connection between team members still represents a challenge. The potential reason
behind this might be a lack of organizational ability, as findings showed that when team
members have difficulties organizing their work, there is less chance for mutual support to
happen. This also indicates that team members might need support between themselves with
an organization as well, which would simultaneously allow and facilitate mutual support on a
daily basis. Being honest and willing to bring problems to the surface are highly encouraged as
that would increase team members’ awareness about them and thereby help them to better
organize their work, provide suitable guidance and instructions, and prevent someone from
stressing out. Team members should also feel encouraged to bring up different suggestions that
could lead to certain improvements. This would stimulate, but also facilitate, team members in
supporting each other. Finally, in order to prevent someone from feeling isolated while working
remotely, the quotes recommend frequent contacts between team members and staying
available in the case of urgency or if someone needs any type of help.

5.3.2 Analysis

Here we can see again how a remote working environment may discourage team members from
bringing up different issues that they might have and which require support from others
members. Thus, instead of bringing issues up and channeling others team members’ attention
toward them and thereby widening the space of action due to increased participation of other
team members, issues remain hidden treating to affect the whole team. Furthermore, when
issues are brought up, positions might need to be reconstructed and then different actions may
become possible. This implies that when issues remain hidden, it is potentially narrowing the
space of action as team members do not know about them. More specifically, it narrowing
down space of action as issues must be brought into the conversation so framing, that includes
creating a context for making sense of situations in a particular way and that for consequences
has what becomes possible to say and to do (Crevani, 2015), can take place. Also, it is stated
that in order for creating interdependencies between member to happen (bridging), people need
to “find each other” which require an arena for dialogue and for surfacing different views
(ibid.). This indicates that remaining issues invisible and not surfacing them weakens the
meshes that connected team members inherently narrowing down their collective space of
action.

Taking into consideration that to prevent problems from affecting the whole team they must be
brought up and invite attention, team members should practice signaling. Signaling represents
the process of mobilizing and catalyzing the attention of others. This can take place in everyday
interactions, through both planned and unplanned communication, just by being honest and
willing to bring problems to the surface, as findings suggest. Yet, in the case when team
57
members may felt discouraged to bring problems up, inviting could be more suitable. As
already discussed, inviting portrays encouraging team members who have held back to
participate in the project through their ideas and energy. In doing so, hidden issues could be
brought up as team members would feel encouraged to do that. Also, by raising awareness
about different problems, inviting and signaling stimulate and, at the same time, facilitate team
members in supporting each other.

Moreover, findings indicate that by including other team members to participate in the project,
team members will be able to better organize their work. Hence, as the findings report
difficulties in work organization, weaving and scanning may be helpful. By creating webs
across existing and also new networks by building trust between team members and by creating
shared meanings to particular frames (weaving) and, accordingly, collective process of
identifying resources that could contribute to a project through simplification or sense-making
(scanning), team members would be in a position to better organize themselves. In so doing,
they would be able to provide suitable guidance and instructions as mutual support on a daily
basis would be facilitated due to improved organization, as well as to prevent someone from
stressing out. Lastly, the findings recommend frequent contact between team members as a
way of support, as well as in order to prevent someone from feeling isolated within a remote
working environment. This builds on the previous discussion and confirms the importance of
frequent communication on a daily basis.

In these circumstances, the creation of the web across existing and across new networks would
allow its actors to mobilize and catalyze their attention toward issues. Consequently, it would
widen the space of action due to increased participation by different actors and due to intense
focus toward unresolved issues. Also, as a result of weaving and scanning, increased
participation of team members and their intense focus toward unresolved issues would
positively influence conversational dynamics and construction of positions (positioning) that
takes place within them, all of these thereby influencing project rhythm causing the project to
accelerate towards its path. Also, increased conversational dynamics would allow the practice
of framing to take place. In so doing, moving between frames would stretch and expand the
collective space of action as more brought frames mean more possible actions to do (Crevani,
2015). Simultaneously, increased conversational dynamics would provide space for ongoing
positioning, resulting in team members mutually expanding their space of action. As a result,
these practices are clearing for action.

5.4 Importance of Empowerment

The final theme that will be presented is named Importance of Empowerment. A range of ways,
from encouraging autonomy, among supporting teammates in front of counterparts (such as
other teams), to encouraging learning opportunities, in which empowerment occurs will be
shown. Findings suggest that even small chat can be empowering in many ways, here
exemplified by Nicole, from Bio-Tech Company:

58
 “I guess, I guess if you feel human, like, it's okay to feel good. And it's okay to feel that it's
okay to feel happy or not productive. Expressing your feelings will make other team members
aware of that so they can just approach you with a small chat, like, what is happening? Can we
catch over a video call or coffee? And that is how you feel much more appreciated in the team
and much more supportive. Just say a few words about someone such as mentioning how you
appreciate someone's work, because it really boosts the happiness or motivation and also
productivity”

As the quote illustrates, a friendly approach with a small chat might be very powerful as it can
make an approached person feels appreciated and supportive. It might also boost happiness,
motivation, and productivity. Still, in order for this to happen, Nicole says that team members
should be aware of someone’s feelings, thus expressing feelings is greatly encouraged.

Apart from expressing feelings as a way for raising team members’ awareness about one’s
feelings, findings also indicate that it is possible to spot whether someone needs a little push
by observing the flow of the project, here exemplified by Sanja from Automotive Company:

“Team members should closely observe the flow of the project, and if they see a dip in
efficiency and productivity, they could just give a little push there. People are not comfortable
talking about issues unless you, kind of gently, pull those issues out of them. You have to
approach the people in a certain way for people to be comfortable to talk about those issues and
to say what is bothering them. I think people get motivated by being gently approached and
asking them how they're feeling, are there any issues, and such. People love that. Then they
might say: “Oh, thank you for asking, I actually do have an issue, I didn't want to talk about it
but now when you're asking me I will talk about it”. And that is how everything might get back
on track”

As Sanja points out, “a dip in efficiency and productivity” might signal that someone needs a
little push. Although this quote touches on similar issues as the previous one, it supplements it
as this quote emphasizes the importance of observation of project flow as a way for spotting
someone’s need for a little push, as some team members might not be comfortable with talking
about issues and expressing feelings. Also, the quote shows how a gentle and friendly approach
can make people comfortable to speak about issues that might bother them, and also get them
motivated, which ultimately leads to getting the project “back on track”.

Furthermore, findings stress the significance of giving responsibility apropos making someone
feeling like a part of a team, here demonstrated by Jovana, Sanja’s colleague in Automotive
Company:

“Giving responsibility to people is very important. That makes them feel like part of a team. If
you are responsible for a part of a task, then you are a part of that, part of the team. You can't
run away from it, you can’t be isolated from it, you have to complete your task, it's your
responsibility to the team and to the project and to everything. So I think it gives people a sense
of purpose and a sense a kind of motivation to work with the rest of the team because they need
to feel engaged and to know that they can contribute”
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Jovana reflects here on the importance of giving responsibility to people. Not only will that
make people feeling like a part of the team, but it will also provide people with a sense of
purpose and motivation. She also says that people need to feel engaged and know they can
contribute and that giving responsibility is a way to achieve that.

Apart from giving responsibility, the importance of nurturing a feeling of autonomy is evident,
here exemplified by John, the most junior molecular biologist with only 1 year of working
experience:

“What I really appreciate is that every time when we have a meeting each of us expresses
opinions, for instance, what shift we prefer, either early, or late shift or something in the middle.
So you are free to choose whatever suits you the most, so other team members also correspond
to that, arrange or organize the lab meetings and lab schedule based on everyone’s opinions and
preferences. And if you're more suitable with home office working, then there is no problem
for taking the home office, but if you prefer to be in the lab, others will agree with you.
Everyone, everyone in the team can provide their view and share their thoughts, experiences,
regardless of a person's role. So, even though they could be the most junior person in the team.
I can speak for myself, even I am one of the most junior people in the team, when we have
some topics, I can also always have the ears of the broader team. I can not only provide feedback
and exchange information, but I can also make proposals on how could we do things and be
actively engaged in every decision”

In this quote, John first highlights the importance of the feeling of autonomy by referring to the
freedom of organizing one’s own work according to his/her preferences which are highly
supported among all his team members. In addition, John also explains how everyone in the
team, regardless of a person’s role and experience, is free to share his/her views, thoughts,
experiences, provide feedback, but also make proposals on how to do something and thus be
actively engaged in every decision-making process.

Findings also signify standing and jumping up for team members as a way for empowering
one’s words in front of other teams, as shown by this quote from Bogdan:

“I want to know that there is someone that I can count on when there are different challenges
at work. For example, when I'm working on something, I usually speak with people from the
different teams, and if their priorities don't align with my team’s priorities, that is when my
word is not valued as much as it can be if my whole team or at least someone from my team
stands up for me. And at that moment, I would really like that my teammates, you know, jump
in that conversation and just mention, like. this should be the priority, that will affect this and
this, this will affect our earnings, and similar. So it's super important because otherwise, people
from other teams will not take that seriously if it's not prioritized, or urged by many persons”

Here Bogdan explains the importance of supporting and empowering team member’s in front
of people from other teams, especially in situations where teams’ priorities do not align. He
says that the inclusion of other team members in one’s discussion with other teams will help to

60
take one’s words seriously and also raise a sense of urgency, thereby increasing the value of
his/her words.

Finally, switching tasks from time to time and getting new challenges respondents recognize
as important learning opportunities, as shown by this quote from Maida, the software engineer.
She explains why it is important for team members to support each other “in a fight to get better
and more interesting projects”:

“It is also important for the team to support each other in a fight to get better and more
interesting projects so that we can all improve our skills, and learn new things. Because it is
important that from time to time, we switch the tasks, so that the work is continuing to be
interesting and motivating, and that we are satisfied with the new challenges that we got”

Not only will new projects help team members to improve their skills and learn new things, but
they will also keep their work interesting and motivating. This indicates clear links between
learning opportunities and motivated employees. As Maida says, learning opportunities might
be in the form of new tasks and new projects. Still, in order to take these learning opportunities,
team members need to support each other “in a fight” for them.

5.4.1 Theme Summary

Expressing feelings is greatly encouraged. If team members are aware of how someone feels,
even a friendly approach and simple small chat, smile, and cherishing up, might be very
powerful support, as that can make an approached person feel appreciated and supportive, but
also boost his/her happiness, motivation, and thereby contribute to creating a supportive
environment. Still, findings suggest that someone might not be comfortable with expressing
feelings and talking about different issues. In that case, team members should observe the
project flow as “a dip in efficiency and productivity” might signal that someone needs a little
push. This could be done in the form of a gentle and friendly approach which can make people
comfortable to speak about issues that might bother them, but it can also get them motivated
and eventually lead to the project getting “back on track”. In addition, the importance of giving
responsibility is evident as it makes people feeling like a part of a team. Moreover, it invokes
sense of purpose and motivation as people feel engaged and that they can contribute. Also,
nurturing and encouraging autonomy, in the shape of freedom for someone to organizes his/her
work according to his/her preferences, are really appreciated among team members. In addition
to this, it is appreciated when everyone in the team, regardless of a person’s role and
experience, should be free to share his/her opinions and be actively engaged in every decision-
making process. Findings also indicate that when a team’s priorities do not align with other
teams’ priorities, team members should support and empower each other in front of their
counterparts (other teams), for instance, by the inclusion of many team members in their team
mate’s discussion with other teams. This would empower one’s words, raise a sense of urgency,
and help to get his/her words taken seriously. Lastly, it is found that getting new tasks and
projects represent valuable learning opportunities that keep the work of employees interesting

61
and motivating. Yet, it is stated that in order to take these learning opportunities (get new tasks
and “more interesting projects”), team members should support each other “in a fight” for them.

5.4.2 Analysis

Building on the previous discussion in relation to the issues that may remain hidden, these
findings show that not only would remaining issues hidden and not surfacing them negatively
influence practices of positioning, framing, and bridging (it was shown how in the analysis of
the previous theme), but that might also result in a dip in efficiency and productivity. By
speaking about the potential “dip in efficiency and productivity”, the potential effect of
uncovering different issues is discovered. This finding supplements the previous results where
team members said that not surfacing problems may affect the whole team by showing new
ways of doing it. Also, “a dip in efficiency and productivity”, potentially caused by lack of
positioning, framing, and bridging that could otherwise, by surfacing issues, be enhanced and
stimulated, depicts a narrow space of action and is slowing down the rhythm of the project
decelerating project progress from moving forward its path. Furthermore, findings indicate that
when team members lack sense of purpose and motivation, they may not feel like a part of the
team as they could not feel engaged and that they can contribute. This may also discourage
team members from engaging in team conversations and simultaneously in practices of
framing, positioning, and bridging, as all of them are sustained in conversational dynamics.
Conversational dynamics that would allow them to construct positions, frame certain situations,
and thus find out what is possible to do (which actions they can do), but also strengthen meshes
that connect them due to their mutual inclusion (bridging), would be negatively influenced and
decreased, narrowing down their space of action.

Findings indicate that even small chat, smile, and cherishing up, may be characterized as
empowerment as it can make an approached person feel appreciated, supportive, and
motivated. This confirms the statement by Conger and Pearce (2009) that words of
encouragement foster an empowered state. Also, it builds on the claims by Iqbal et al. (2020)
that emotional support creates a supportive and trusting group atmosphere. Furthermore, giving
responsibility and autonomy has been recognized among respondents as an important way of
empowerment that, at the same time, make people feel empowered due to freedom and
encouragement to organize and shape their work according to their preferences, and make them
feel like a part of the team as they feel engaged and that they can contribute. This supports the
statement by Mielonen (2011) that encouraging the development of taking responsibility for
one’s own work facilitates the social development of the team. Also, it is in line with the
argument of Conger and Pearce (2009) that fostering opportunities for participation in decision
making, encouraging independent action, and encouraging self-development foster an
empowered state.

Thus, the importance of empowerment within a remote working environment has been
recognized and acknowledged by respondents. This builds on and confirms the raising evidence
regarding the importance of empowering within remote context (for example, Conger and
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Pearce, 2009; Mielonen, 2011; Barnwell et al., 2014; Mendez et al., 2015; Iqbal et al., 2020).
In the addition to the potential benefits of empowering that findings imply, it is also said that
empowerment between team members is important as it may lead to the development of strong
team identity, a shared understanding of their work and their context (Barnwell et al., 2014;
Mendez et al., 2015). Moreover, it can improve team members’ motivation and cohesion and
simultaneously help to develop a higher level of trust (ibid.).

In view of the foregoing, it may be concluded that the practice of empowering in a form of
words of encouragement, giving responsibility and autonomy through encouraging
independent action and self-development, fostering opportunities in decision making, may
create a supportive and trusting group atmosphere where people are motivated as they feel
engaged and that they can contribute. By improving team members’ motivation and cohesion,
empowerment also helps to develop a higher level of trust between team members. Thus,
empowering may stimulate and contribute to an ongoing conversation, as empowered
employees would feel motivated to engage and participate. In doing so, different frames would
emerge thereby increasing their space of action. Also, it would help to sustain conversation
which is necessary for the construction of positions to take place. By creating a supportive,
trusting, and empowered group atmosphere, empowerment strengthens the interdependences
between team members (bridging). Also, empowering team members in their discussion with
other teams in the case when teams’ priorities do not align may help to empower one’s words
in front of his/her counterparts (other teams) and raise a sense of urgency. Raised sense of
urgency due to the mutual empowerment and support would accelerate project rhythm and
allow team members to move forward project path as their priorities gain on importance. By
so doing, empowering is clearing for action.

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6. Conclusion
In this section, a summary of the outcomes of the thesis’s research questions is presented. The
statement of potential significance that the thesis makes on a theoretical and practical level is
described, as well as the thesis’s limitation. Finally, possible future research following this
thesis is suggested.

6.1 Research Questions

In the following, a summary of the results of the thesis research questions will be presented. In
so doing, this section will briefly answer the two research questions that guided this thesis.
Before the beginning and for the sake of clarity, the important concepts are explained again.

Framing is “metaphorical expression conveying the idea of putting a situation into perspective”
(Crevani, 2015, p. 10) and it is the way the situation is framed that implies certain actions to be
done, thus, frame determines actions that means that different frames imply different actions
with potentially different results. The practice of positioning involves commitments in relation
to what people can do, cannot do and should do. Rehearsing, “positioning is a practice taking
place in conversations and affecting both the development of the conversation at hand and the
actions and talks that become socially intelligible over time, as new conversations build on
previous conversations” (p. 15). Bridging represents “a practice in which actors are brought
together and interdependencies are created and/or intensified” (p. 15). These interdependences
serve as the glue that connects actors as it allows different stories, trajectories, and views to be
brought up. Thus, bridging serves as a basis for the collective action to take place. Space of
action alludes to possibilities, potentials, opportunities, and limitations with respect to
individual and collective action. Clearing for action relates to an active achievement in which
space is constructed thereby expressing the depth and the width of such work.

Research Question 1: How do current leadership practices achieved in the interactions

between team members influence the construction of space of action within a remote working
environment?

From the empirical findings as well as from the analysis in the previous section it became
apparent that the current leadership practices of framing, positioning, and bridging, are
narrowing down the space of action within the remote working environment. The remote
working environment, described mostly as “unpleasant” and “uncomfortable” especially
during video meetings in which most of the people are muted, is discouraging and deterring
team members to engage in conversational dynamics. This may results in a lack of willingness,
interest, motivation, and sense of purpose, in team members to engage in relationship-building
activities and to bring up to the surface different issues they may have. Also, feedback and
mutual reflection have been slowed down as team members can not any more easily and
quickly approach their team members, as they could before switching to remote work. This
may lead to many issues, such as unnecessary work repetitions and corrections which directly
64
influence the pace of work, slowing down the project rhythm and preventing the project from
moving forwards its path.

Consequently, interdependences between people (bridging), crucial for collective action to take
place, have been weakened. Bringing up different stories, trajectories, and views together
(bridging) and moving between frames (framing), that take place in conversations, have been
slowed down due to slowed and unstable conversational dynamics. Similarly, the practice of
positioning that takes place as the interaction unfolds has been slowed down as well, since for
it to takes place conversation needs to be sustained by the conversational dynamics. By doing
so, current leadership practices are narrowing down the space of action.

Research Question 2: What leadership practices achieved in the interactions between team
members may contribute to the construction of space of action within a remote working
environment?

After analyzing conducted interviews and achieving a certain understanding of the influence
of the current leadership practices on the construction of the space of action, the following
leadership practices are recognized to have the potential to contribute to the construction of
space of action within a remote working environment. Discussed practices are: inviting,
unleashing, coaching, stabilizing, reflecting, signaling, weaving, scanning, and empowerment
practices ranging from small chat, smile, and cherishing up, to giving responsibility and
encouraging autonomy. The analysis revealed that these practices have the potential to: engage
team members in teamwork and encourage them to participate through their ideas (inviting),
ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute without fear of repercussion (unleashing), build
trust, encourage exchanging ideas, and engaging in teamwork (coaching), increase the
feedback and trigger thoughtfulness and reflections (stabilizing and reflecting). Also, they
might be very helpful in mobilizing and catalyzing the attention of others (signaling), creating
new webs and simplifying shared sense-making (weaving and scanning), creating a supportive
and trusting group atmosphere, and fostering an empowered state (empowering).

These practices, achieved in the interactions, create a supportive environment where team
members feel that their input is valued and appreciated and, thus, are encouraged and motivated
to participate through their ideas as they feel engaged and know that they can contribute.
Increased feedback triggers thoughtfulness and helps the team members in mutual reflection.
Also, improved motivation and cohesion of team members help to develop a higher level of
trust between team members. Accordingly, team members are encouraged to actively
participate in conversations and to bring up their ideas, inherently helping to develop a
repertoire of frames and increasing actions that become possible to do. Team members,
mutually empowered, would thus sustain the conversational dynamics necessary for
positioning to take place. Strong relationships, increased trust between team members, and a
supportive, trusting, and empowered group atmosphere strengthen the meshes and
interdependencies between team members (bridging). When an issue arises in such group
atmosphere, the attention of group members is quickly mobilized, and due to their increased
65
participation and their intense focus on the issue, the issue is quickly solved allowing the project
to accelerate (rhythm) toward its path. In doing so, these practices are clearing for action.

6.2 Statement of Potential Significance

By answering research questions, the thesis potentially contributes from both, academic point
of view with the new knowledge, but from the practical side as well with its findings' practical
implications. Therewith, the thesis has potential contributions to both theory and practice.

6.2.1 Significance to Theory

The thesis investigated leadership practices and leadership as collectively constructed through
added spatial dimension – space of action and thus contribute to the constant theory
development calls for investigating leadership in such a manner (for instance, Raelin, 2011,
2016, 2020; Crevani, 2015, 2018; Crevani et al., 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2021). More
precisely, the thesis investigated leadership from a practice-centered perspective emphasizing
the importance of practices, not the practitioner. In doing so, the thesis contributes to the
emergent movement in leadership research known as leadership as practice (i.e., Raelin, 2011,
2016, 2017, 2020). Moreover, by taking a practice-centered perspective and focusing on
practices achieved in social interactions and relations that unfold in collective acts, the thesis
contributes to relational leadership which de-centers leadership from independent individuals
to situations in which leadership work is carried out (Raelin, 2016). Furthermore, by
investigating which practices might contribute to the construction of space of action within a
remote working environment, the thesis showed how team members can adjust to and
improvise around the unfamiliar socio-environmental conditions that this pandemic crisis
constitutes. By doing so, the thesis confirmed Raelin's (2020) claim that we need a collective
response through practices in order to encounter the challenges that pandemic crisis throws on
everyday work life.

As many have claimed the need for bringing space back in leadership studies (i.e., Yanow,
1998; Kornberger and Clegg, 2004; Clegg and Kornberger, 2006; Taylor and Spicer, 2007;
Vasquez and Cooren, 2013, cited in Crevani, 2018), this thesis has shown how leadership can
be studied as the ongoing construction of actors’ space of action. By applying the analytical
framework that investigates leadership work through the construction of space of action
through four inter-related analytical dimensions project path, positions, issues, and rhythm, and
thus focusing on leadership practices, not individual leaders and their characteristics, the thesis
contributes to post-heroic leadership research (Packendorff et al., 2014) and to “new leadership
ideals where heroic masculinities can be replaced by less individualistic and more humane
constructs, where the potential of leadership in every social situation is emphasized”. as
Crevani et al. (2010, p. 84) state.

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The thesis investigated leadership practices within the remote working environment and in this
way contributed to leadership research. This empirical setting is quite new and challenging for
investigating leadership and, thus, there is little research reported (Raelin, 2020; Crevani et al.,
2021). In addition, the thesis has revealed how the current context (remote working
environment) affects interactions and practices and in so doing showed and confirmed the
importance of taking context while investigating leadership as practice, as Raelin (2020)
claims.

6.2.2 Significance to Practice

As the current pandemic situation, caused by a coronavirus, urges to be responsible and avoid
unnecessary physical contact, shifting to an online way of working has become a priority for
many companies (Foss, 2020). Consequently, the rate of work from home has been increasing
(i.e., Charalampous et al., 2019; Brynjolfsson et al., 2020). Companies all over the world have
been facing challenges to adjust their daily work. In order to prevent and protect their
employees from being exposed to the virus, companies implemented different prevention and
protection organizational measures (Cirrincione et al., 2020). Some of them have completely
replaced the office with remote work. Yet, others still balance and make different strategies,
for example, one-half of employees work from home while other work in the company's
facilities, and their transition happens in shifts (preventive measure to reduce the number of
people within the same space and thus reduce the risk of spreading virus). Therewith,
companies all across the world, either urged by different government measures or simply by
self-consciousness, have made some type of adjustment that almost in every case includes
home (remote) work.

Still, it is said that we have shown poor responses to the pandemic that can be considered as
examples of failing to work adaptively (Crevani et al., 2021). In the light of this, the results of
the thesis may be used in improving training for all workers (especially remote workers) and
making them more adaptive for current settings, simultaneously improving talents retention
and recruitment. Also, by answering the second research question, the thesis provides insight
into the practices that may contribute to the construction of space of action. This knowledge
can inform those engaged in projects to advance their mutual endeavors, as Raelin (2019)
states. Furthermore, study findings may be significant for making companies more flexible
(agile) toward unpredictable changes as leadership is recognized to be of crucial importance
within transition times (i.e., Shankar, 2020; Gurbuz and Ozkan, 2020; Perčić and Nikolić,
2020). To summarize, the thesis’s insights might help companies to improve their own
practices.

6.3 Research Limitations

There are certain research limitations that can potentially influence the results of this interview
study. First, although this interview study entailed the collection of data in three companies in
an attempt to increase its external validity (possibility to generalize findings to a wider
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population), the generalizability of findings still cannot be guaranteed. This is due to the fact
that each company belongs to a different industry (more precisely, biotech industry, software
industry, and automotive industry) and certain circumstances can differ from industry to
industry. Thus, for instance, practices, that this thesis discussed in relation to the construction
of space of action, might not be suitable for some other industries. Still, the findings are most
likely transferrable to similar companies due to the possible similarities of the nature of the
work. Second, the sample consists mostly of young persons with a few years of working
experience. This means that there is a possibility that their lived experience in regard to the
remote work may be influenced by their “short” working experience and that findings might
differ if the sample consisted of persons with a bigger span of working experience.

6.4 Future Research

The limitations of this thesis may serve as the inspiration for future research. Accordingly,
there are two research proposals. First, it could be suggested to investigate leadership as
practice in relation to the construction of space of action within a remote working environment
either within the same type of companies that operate in similar circumstances or at least within
the companies inside a certain type of industry. This would contribute to the generalizability
of the findings. The second suggestion for future research is to construct a sample that consists
of people with a large span of working experience, ranging from low-experienced/junior to
high-experienced/senior persons. This may provide more accurate data on participants’
experience in relation to the remote work.

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7. References
ALPER, E. and YAVUZ, S., 2020. CHANGING WORKING PATTERNS THROUGH
DIGITALIZATION. In Социальные институты в цифровой среде (pp. 67-86).

Amundsen, S. and Martinsen, Ø.L., 2014. Self–other agreement in empowering leadership:

Relationships with leader effectiveness and subordinates' job satisfaction and turnover
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Appendix

A: Interview Guide

1. Please tell me about your experience in relation to remote working. For how long are you
working from home? Follow-up questions: What would you say are the biggest challenges with
remote working? Why?

2. Please describe how you and your team work together (Stay on this question for a long time,
keep probing with follow-up questions) Follow-up questions: How does this transition to
remote work affect the work of you and your team? What is it mainly about? How does this
transition to remote work affect teamwork? What problems do your team usually have?

3. How often do you communicate with your team members and what is it mainly about?

4. Do you feel that you need some type of support from your team members that you do not
receive? Follow-up questions: What support? How often do you feel it?

5. Can you recall some recent discussions with your team members? Please describe that
discussion and be very detailed. Follow-up questions: How long your discussion was? Did you
feel that it should be longer? How did you feel during the discussion?

6. How is leadership exercised within your team? Follow-up questions: Elaborate more on
this/what do you think about it?

7. What do you consider as leadership practices? Why?

8. How can leadership facilitate everyday work?

9. What your team members can do to facilitate your everyday work life?

10. Is there anything from what we have just discussed that your team members do to facilitate
your everyday work life? Follow-up questions: Are they some new practices that emerged
when you shifted to remote working? If yes - what do you think about them? Would you change
something?

11. Did you recently have some situation where you needed help from your team members?
Follow-up questions: What was it about? Did it help you? Can you remember some other
situations?

12. What do you think that I should have asked you about that I haven’t?

78