Heterarchial Ontological Commitment for Leaders to Stimulate Creativity among Virtual Workforce

Abstract

This article debates heterarchy as the ontological commitment to leadership for stimulating creativity in virtual work. According to the heterarchy perspective, an organization is regarded as a multilayered entity with overlaps and hidden inconsistent parts that maintain creative organizing. Heterarchy has its roots in complex adaptive system theory and has so far not been applied to virtual work. The study identifies the focal relations between the challenges in leading the virtual workforce toward creativity and the heterarchial ontology in relation to leadership. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in this exploratory study, and document-based inquiry was used as its main research method. The findings suggest that the heterarchial ontology is appropriate to leadership that fosters creativity in virtual work. Heterarchy can help leaders to perceive their own role in virtual networked work in a comprehensive way, develop supportive orchestration abilities, foster coworkers’ creativity and create a winning organizational culture.