Title: Does remote work promote shared leadership in public organisations?

Authors: Iman Karam I.M. Ashmawy

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt

Abstract: With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the imposed lockdowns, various public organisations adopted remote work for safety measures. However, many studies warn that remote work might make the employees feel isolated and make it difficult for the leadership to observe and evaluate employee performance. These challenges were preceded by an increased emphasis on informal, lateral, or collective styles of leadership, such as shared leadership. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate the extent to which remote work promotes shared leadership. By disseminating a questionnaire to N = 90 employees working at a central public organisation (CPO) and statistically analysing it, the findings reveal surprising conclusions that highlight a positive correlation between remote work and shared leadership, including its components of bottom-up leadership, collective assumption of responsibility, and reciprocal interdependence, respectively.

Keywords: remote work; shared leadership; collective assumption of responsibility; reciprocal interdependence; bottom-up leadership.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNVO.2023.134282

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2023 Vol.29 No.1, pp.38 - 54

Received: 29 Nov 2022
Accepted: 16 Apr 2023
Published online: 17 Oct 2023 *

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