TY - JOUR AU - Salem, Mojtaba AU - Van Quaquebeke, Niels AU - Besiou, Maria AU - Meyer, Louisa T1 - Intergroup leadership: How leaders can enhance performance of humanitarian operations JF - Production and Operations Management SP - 2877 EP - 2897 IS - 11 VL - 28 PY - 2019 AB - International humanitarian organizations (IHOs) always strive to improve their operational performance in the field. While anecdotes from practice suggest that IHO field office leadership plays a crucial role in this regard, these claims have not been deeply substantiated by primary data. In response, we collected survey data from 125 humanitarian workers, concentrated in disaster response and development programs, on the issues of field office leadership and operational performance. Building on the operations management and organizational behavior literature, we find that leaders who adopt an intergroup leadership style can significantly improve operational performance via enhancing cooperation between local and expatriate subgroups inside a field office. Notably, we find that the intergroup leadership style becomes more effective as humanitarian workers become more entrenched within cohesive subgroups. These results should help IHOs to better select and train their field office leaders and achieve higher operational performance. M4 - Citavi ER -