Purpose – Shared leadership describes leadership as a collective and reciprocal activity distributed among the members of a team (Carson et al., 2007). The purpose of this paper is to investigate variables assumed to be antecedents for this leadership approach. In particular, the authors examine the importance of external empowering leadership and task and goal interdependence for shared leadership as well as the relationship between shared leadership and team performance. Design/methodology/approach – In order to test the hypotheses, the authors applied structural equation modeling using a field sample of 81 knowledge and manufacturing teams from a Danish company. Findings – Results indicated that an external empowering team leader and interdependence in the team significantly predicted the extent of shared leadership, which, in turn, was positively related to team leader ratings of team performance. Research limitations/implications – Overall, the study supports previous findings that the act of sharing leadership in a team may contribute to increased team performance. In addition, the study provides an initial understanding of antecedent conditions for the successful development of shared leadership. However, as the study was cross-sectional and conducted within a single organization, care must be taken in making causal claims or in generalizing the results without additional evidence. Originality/value – Few studies focus on the antecedents of sharing leadership. The authors obtained evidence, which suggests that the development of shared leadership may depend on the presence of an empowering team leader as well as task and goal interdependence in the team.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between transformational leadership and voice during the change-planning process. The authors propose a moderated mediation model to investigate the relationship between voice, other change-related variables, and the boundary conditions of transformational leadership. Design/methodology/approach – The authors collected survey data from 124 employees and their leaders in a medical technology company in Norway. The organization was planning a major restructuring of its working procedures. The authors analyzed the data using PROCESS and a fixed effect approach. Findings – The results suggest that transformational leadership has no effect on change-related voice (CRV) by itself. However, there is an indirect effect through affective commitment to change. This effect is conditional on the employees’ level of perceived change impact. Research limitations/implications – The paper is limited by the cross-sectional design of the study. Other potential limitations are discussed. Originality/value – The paper is the first to explore the relationship between transformational leadership and CRV, and is thus interesting for practitioners who wish to increase the level of CRV from their employees. Furthermore, researchers interested in organizational change and proactivity constructs such as voice will also find the paper valuable.

The construction industry has one of the highest frequencies of work-related accidents. We examined whether construction workers predominantly identify themselves in terms of their workgroup or in terms of the construction site. In addition, we examined the associations between social identity and safety climate, and how these constructs are associated with work-related accidents. The analyses were based on questionnaire responses from 478 construction workers from two large construction sites, and the methods involved structural equation modeling. Results showed that the workers identified themselves primarily with their workgroup, and to a lesser degree with the construction site. Social identity and safety climate were related both at the workgroup and construction site levels, meaning that social identity may be an antecedent for safety climate. The association between social identity and safety climate was stronger at the workgroup level than at the construction site level. Finally, safety climate at both levels was inversely associated with selfreported accidents, with the strongest association at the workgroup level. A focus on improving safety climate, particularly by integrating initiatives at both the workgroup and management level, may have the potential to improve safety performance and thus decrease the risk of accidents and injuries on construction sites.

PurposeEmployee participation is often suggested to improve employees' relations to the organization. A multidimensional perspective on employee participation may heighten its specificity. The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the relationships between multiple dimensions of employee participation and social identification.Design/methodology/approachThe study applies questionnaire data from 166 hospital employees, i.e. nurses, physicians and medical secretaries, in a cross‐sectional design. Hierarchical regression analyses were applied to investigate the hypothesized associations.FindingsThe results showed that individual influence on proximal (i.e. work‐related) issues predicted organizational identification. The relevance of proximal issues and psychological involvement in relation to direct participation were suggested to explain why this particular dimension of participation is directly associated with organizational identification. The result qualifies the theoretical notion that participation symbolically signals inclusion and status in the organization.Research limitations/implicationsThe result emphasizing participation in decisions about work issues may be limited to the highly meaningful patient work in the health care context. Future studies are to establish if the findings may be generalised to other contexts.Originality/valueThe originality of the study lies in the applied combination of participation dimensions, the inclusion of organizational identity at different social foci, and the application of social identity as a theoretically well‐grounded concept of employees' relations to their organization.