The Interactional Construction of Leadership: The Case of a German Start-up

Schmitt, CJ (2024). The Interactional Construction of Leadership: The Case of a German Start-up. PhD thesis The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.00098635

Abstract

This study examines the interactional construction of leadership in a German start-up team by analysing team members’ everyday work-related interactions across different mediated and unmediated communication channels (Skype, email, WhatsApp, face-to-face) over a span of six months (February 2015-July 2015). The start-up team, a contemporary distributed leadership setting (e.g., Vine et al., 2008), has received limited attention in terms of interactional leadership research. Without an assigned leader, leadership among the formally equal start-up team members is constructed in interaction as they navigate specific routine activities of their venture (in this study, update deliveries and decision-making). This study’s leadership investigation incorporates broader notions of leadership as influence-in-action, while also acknowledging leader as a professional identity that is indexed in interaction (Bucholtz and Hall, 2005). The analysis of interactions draws on interactional pragmatics, bringing together notions from pragmatics (e.g., politeness theory; Brown and Levinson, 1987; professional face; Márquez Reiter, 2009) and conversation analysis (e.g., epistemic authority; Heritage, 2012; deontic authority; Stevanovic, 2015), while considering the relational continuity (Sigman, 1991) between exchanges and the affordances (e.g., Mannell, 2019; Mascheroni and Vincent, 2016) of the media involved. The study’s results show that leadership in the start-up is dynamically constructed in interaction, with variations in linguistic practices across activities and channels, and according to members’ interpersonal relationships. In verbal updates, leadership is primarily constructed through assessment contributions, giving update deliverers a notable advantage. Conversely, textual updates offer more autonomy to recipients. Leadership construction in decision-making occurs mainly during proposal-assessment sequences, with a decision’s outcome as a result of individual influence. Leadership in textual decision-making is particularly evident during meeting arrangements, whereas textual strategic proposals are often resisted through practices like non-responses. Overall, leadership in the start-up team is found to not be the product of an individual member, but instead a collaborative accomplishment.

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