Accomplishing leadership-in-interaction by mobilizing available information and communication technology objects in a virtual context

Abstract

Leadership-in-interaction is a somewhat underdeveloped area of research which to date has concentrated on talk-in-interaction to the detriment of other modalities. Consequently, this paper seeks to illustrate how social actors make use of different modalities to accomplish leadership, which we conceptualize as the creation of direction, alignment, and commitment. Through multimodal conversation analysis this paper explores interactions between actors in virtual contexts, a particularly interesting empirical setting as the context offers specific constraints on everyday workplace interaction. By zooming in on the interaction using transcripts of naturally occurring interaction, we find that the accomplishment of leadership, direction, alignment, and commitment, in a constrained virtual context can appear mundane. However, at the same time the accomplishment of leadership calls for the mobilization of several multimodal resources (both talk and information and communication technology objects). The analysis makes it evident that the actors mobilize objects to draw on their situated affordances, in the accomplishment of direction, alignment, and commitment. With a fine-grained analysis of naturally occurring data, we illustrate that leadership is a collective achievement. We also expand the understanding of leadership in practice, especially in virtual contexts, by demonstrating how actors utilize objects and verbal resources in the co-production of leadership.

How Artefacts Do Leadership: A Ventriloquial Analysis

“…More specifically, as Arvedsen and Hassert (2020) pointed out, recently, a proliferation of leadership studies consider the influence of “things” such as material surroundings, objects, and bodies. However, they (Arvedsen & Hassert, 2020) noted that such studies are often lacking a fine-grained analysis of naturally-occurring interaction that makes visible, and thus analyzable, the role that artefacts and other material phenomena play in the doing of leadership as part of in situ social practice.…”

“…More specifically, as Arvedsen and Hassert (2020) pointed out, recently, a proliferation of leadership studies consider the influence of “things” such as material surroundings, objects, and bodies. However, they (Arvedsen & Hassert, 2020) noted that such studies are often lacking a fine-grained analysis of naturally-occurring interaction that makes visible, and thus analyzable, the role that artefacts and other material phenomena play in the doing of leadership as part of in situ social practice. Thus, this investigation responds to calls by researchers, such as Clifton et al (2020), who ask for more work that uses the fine-grained analysis of video-recorded naturally-occurring workplace interaction that enables researchers to capture and systematically consider the use of artefacts as part of the multimodal interactional accomplishment of leadership.…”

The fallacy of discrete authentic leader behaviours: Locating authentic leadership in interaction

“…Further, such a conceptualization does not locate authenticity as a causal factor impacting on interaction, but instead treats it as a collaboratively achieved outcome. However, that does not deny the possibility for the relationship thus established to be consequential, in terms of subsequent organizing (Meschitti, 2018), commitment (Arvedsen and Hassert, 2020), and obligations (Larsson and Lundholm, 2013).…”

Working Under the Gun: A Theoretical Analysis of Stressors Associated With the Re-negotiation of Norms and Control of Work Tasks During COVID-19

“…In essence, the limited cues known from virtual teams and telecommuting gets paired with low skills in virtual social interaction (cf. Arvedsen and Hassert, 2020 ), and paired with an entire norm-system in turmoil.…”

“…Interpersonal proper behavior may be more ambiguous for most people new to the virtual environment (cf. Arvedsen and Hassert, 2020). Many cues are different than in real life: When to speak, when not to, when to raise your voice in affect, when not to.…”