The Influence of Team Leaders on Well-being and Productivity During Unforeseen Digital Change

The field of Information Systems has often neglected the critical role that team leaders play in fostering both well-being and productivity during digital transformations. Only a handful of recent studies have highlighted the significant impact that team leaders have when their teams face unexpected changes involving digital technology. By examining insights from 31 team leaders in Denmark and South Korea, the study theorizes a pattern of team leadership approaches during digital change, leading to increased team productivity and well-being. These new insights into the influence of team leaders during digital change can help teams and organizations succeed amidst the multitude of future changes stemming from novel technological developments and unpredictable events. The study builds on knowledge from team leaders in two different countries, exploring how they managed abrupt changes to their work systems triggered by the pandemic. Grounded in critical realism and socio-technical change theory, the research identifies how approaches from team leaders activate influential generative mechanisms, leading to productivity and well-being in work systems. The study concludes that team leadership is crucial for activating mechanisms like 1) socialization, for establishing social norms, 2) individualization, for providing individual flexibility, 3) institutionalization, for upholding a delicate balance between social norms and individual flexibility, and 4) team leadership transformation, for constantly approaching new demands and unforeseen changes. While the same mechanisms are invoked in both case settings, differences in leadership approaches between two contexts call for further research into how corporate and regional contexts impact the triggering of these mechanisms.