Context (archaeology)

Engineering

Biology

Social psychology

Public relations

Economics

Computer science

Conceptual framework

Management science

Business

Paleontology

Process management

Database

Psychology

Management

Political science

Sociology

Artificial intelligence

Conceptual model

Team effectiveness

Salient

Knowledge management

Shared leadership

Perspective (graphical)

Leadership style

Social science

International Journal of Project Management

Shared leadership has rarely been studied in the project management context, despite its proven performance-enhancing benefits in other management domains. Based on a systematic review of the salient literature from multiple disciplines, this paper develops a new multi-level conceptual model to advance a holistic understanding of how shared leadership develops and how it may impact individual, team, project and wider organisational performance. The conceptual model draws upon the input-mediator-output-input perspective of systems theory, which is well-established in the general team literature. The new integrative model identifies the potential multi-level antecedents, proximal team functioning outcomes, and the more distal multi-level outcomes of shared leadership based on findings from the shared leadership literature drawn largely from other domains. Potential boundary conditions of the model are identified. A future research agenda is recommended for empirically testing the new multi-level shared leadership model and its different elements in a diverse range of project contexts.

Shared leadership in project teams: An integrative multi-level conceptual model and research agenda