One’s leadership role on the team has profound effects on one’s workload, performance evaluations, and ultimately career prospects. The question is why some people become team leaders (formal or informal) and others don’t?

Furthermore, knowing who is likely to become a team leader has important implications for team member selection.

This study explores possible predictors of one’s role on the team, as well as looks into how team characteristics and work design may moderate these effects.

Big questions:

What predicts who will emerge as a team leader in the context of GVTs?

• Demographics?
• Working language proficiency?
• Prior international experience?
• Project-specific knowledge?
• Cultural intelligence?
• Personality?
• Technical skills?
• Cultural values?
• Something else?

What could moderate these effects?

• Can these predictors work only under certain circumstances?
• Can, for example, cultural intelligence be a better predictor of leadership emergence in more culturally diverse teams?

Lead author: Vas Taras