TY - JOUR T1 - Functional and Visionary Leadership in Self-Managing Virtual Teams JF - Group & Organization Management Y1 - 2021 A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Heckman, Robert KW - functional leadership KW - Leadership KW - Self-managing teams KW - structuration theory KW - virtual teams KW - visionary leadership AB -

In this conceptual article, we present a theory of leadership in self-managing virtual teams. We describe leadership in this setting as a process that results in the creation, reinforcement and evolution of shared mental models and shared norms that influence team member behaviour towards the successful accomplishment of shared goals. We distinguish two types of leadership. We identify leadership that works within and reinforces existing models and norms to influence team contributions as “functional” leadership. We identify leadership that results in changes in models and norms as “visionary” leadership. We propose that successful self-managing virtual teams require both types of leadership and that they will exhibit a paradoxical combination of shared, distributed functional leadership complemented by strong, concentrated and centralized visionary leadership and that visionary leadership is enabled by functional leadership in the form of substantive team member contributions.

VL - 46 IS - 2 ER - TY - Generic T1 - Asynchronous Decision-Making in Distributed Teams (Poster) Y1 - 2008 A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - Allen, Eileen E. A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - James Howison A1 - Wiggins, Andrea KW - Decision-Making KW - FLOSS JF - Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work CY - San Diego, CA ER - TY - Generic T1 - Towards A review of the empirical FLOSS literature Y1 - 2008 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Kangning Wei A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - Li, Qing KW - FLOSS N1 - Towards A review of the empirical FLOSS literature ER - TY - Generic T1 - Emergent leadership in self-organizing virtual teams (Poster) Y1 - 2007 A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Misiolek, Nora A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz KW - FLOSS KW - Leadership JF - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) CY - Montréal, Québec, Canada, 9–12 Dec ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The role of face-to-face meetings in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams JF - IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications Y1 - 2007 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Masango, Chengetai A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz KW - FLOSS AB - We examine the role of face-to-face meetings in the context of technology-supported self-organizing distributed or virtual teams, specifically Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Based on a qualitative inductive analysis of data from interviews and observations at FLOSS conferences, we identify a variety of settings in which developers meet face-to-face, activities performed in these settings and benefits obtained. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, FLOSS developers generally do not meet face-to-face until the project is well under way. An additional benefit of face-to-face meetings is time away from a regular job and speed of interaction for certain kinds of tasks. VL - 50 ER - TY - ADVS T1 - Audio of ICIS 2006 Presentation Y1 - 2006 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - Li, Qing KW - FLOSS N1 - Audio of Kevin, Yeliz and Qing presenting our paper at ICIS 2006. The audio is ok, but next time I'm definitely going to put the recorder nearer the speakers! ER - TY - Generic T1 - Emergent decision-making practices in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams T2 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) Y1 - 2006 A1 - Heckman, Robert A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Allen, Eileen E. A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - James Howison A1 - Kangning Wei KW - Decision-Making KW - FLOSS AB - We seek to identify work practices that make technology-supported self-organizing distributed (or virtual) teams (TSSODT for short) effective in producing outputs satisfactory to their sponsors, meeting the needs of their members and continuing to function. A particularly important practice for team effectiveness is decision making: are the right decisions made at the right time to get the work done in a way that satisfies team sponsors, keeps contributors happy and engaged, and enables continued team success? In this research-in-progress paper, we report on an inductive qualitative analysis of 120 decision episodes taken by 2 Free/libre Open Source Software development teams. Our analysis revealed differences in decision-making practices that seem to be related to differences in overall team effectiveness. JF - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) CY - Milwaukee, WI, 10–13 Dec ER - TY - Generic T1 - Coordination of Free/Libre Open Source Software development T2 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) Y1 - 2005 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Kangning Wei A1 - Li, Qing A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz A1 - James Howison KW - Coordination KW - FLOSS AB - The apparent success of free/libre open source software (FLOSS) development projects such as Linux, Apache, and many others has raised the question, what lessons from FLOSS development can be transferred to mainstream software development? In this paper, we use coordination theory to analyze coordination mechanisms in FLOSS development and compare our analysis with existing literature on coordination in proprietary software development. We examined developer interaction data from three active and successful FLOSS projects and used content analysis to identify the coordination mechanisms used by the participants. We found that there were similarities between the FLOSS groups and the reported practices of the proprietary project in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-task dependencies. However, we found clear differences in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-actor dependencies. While published descriptions of proprietary software development involved an elaborate system to locate the developer who owned the relevant piece of code, we found that “self-assignment” was the most common mechanism across three FLOSS projects. This coordination mechanism is consistent with expectations for distributed and largely volunteer teams. We conclude by discussing whether these emergent practices can be usefully transferred to mainstream practice and indicating directions for future research. JF - Proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) CY - Las Vegas, NV, USA, December ER - TY - Generic T1 - An exploratory study of factors related to effectiveness of Free/Libre Open Source Software teams Y1 - 2005 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz KW - FLOSS N1 - Talk at the Padua Open Source Software Symposium, 14-15 April 2005. ER - TY - CONF T1 - Face-to-face interactions in self-organizing distributed teams T2 - Academy of Management Conference Y1 - 2005 A1 - Kevin Crowston A1 - James Howison A1 - Masango, Chengetai A1 - Eseryel, U. Yeliz KW - FLOSS AB - We explore the role of face-to-face meetings in the life of distributed teams using data from Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Such distributed teams are part of many organizations’ new vision of management in the 21st century. Practitioner research has suggested the need for face-to-face meetings when a team is formed, but few studies have considered the role of face-to-face meetings during a team’s life. Based on a qualitative inductive analysis of data from interviews and observations at FLOSS conferences, we identify a variety of settings in which FLOSS developers meet face-to-face, activities performed in these settings and benefits obtained. Contrary to prior research, we find that FLOSS developers generally do not meet until the project is well under way. We also find that an additional benefit of face-to-face meetings is time away from a regular job. We conclude by noting limitations in our data collection due to a focus on core developers in large projects and with directions for further research. JF - Academy of Management Conference CY - Honolulu, HI ER -