How Software Development Group Leaders Influence Team Members Behavior

TL;DR

This paper investigates how software development leaders influence team members' innovative behavior, emphasizing the importance of combined leadership styles in fostering innovation within software teams.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that combined transactional and transformational leadership styles positively impact innovative behavior in software development teams.

Findings

Combined leadership styles enhance innovative behavior

Empirical validation in software development context

Leadership practices support innovation thriving

Abstract

Evidence in the literature from several business sectors shows that exploratory and exploitative innovation strategies are complementarily important for competitiveness. Our empirical findings reinforced those evidences in the context of software development companies. The innovative behaviour of individuals is an essential ingredient to success in both types of innovations strategies and leaders can have a big influence on this behaviour. Adopting a leadership style that combines transactional and transformational practices is more likely to produce effective results in supporting innovative behaviour. In software development, project managers and other group leaders should be stimulated and supported in adopting such practices to create the conditions for innovative behaviour to thrive.