Antecedents of Shared Leadership in the Public Sector: A Social Network Approach

This study responds to the growing call for shared leadership in the public sector by investigating the factors that contribute to its emergence. Specifically, it examines to which degree key characteristics of the public sector – i.e., organizational red tape (ORT) and public service motivation (PSM) – along with internal team environment (ITE), which presents a frequently studied antecedent of shared leadership, influence shared leadership. The context for this analysis was public universities. The results of our social network analysis suggest that only the PSM sub-dimension "compassion" is positively associated with displays of shared leadership. ORT was not found to be associated with the emergence of shared leadership. In line with research conducted in the private sector, ITE, and specifically its sub-dimension "shared purpose", was found to be positively associated with shared leadership. We outline directions for future research by discussing explanations for our (in)significant findings.