Team leadership and self-managed teams in the Creative industry
Häkkinen, Laura (2025)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025061222664
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025061222664
Tiivistelmä
How is leadership exercised in self-managed teams within creative industries? How does leadership, whether formal or informal, influence creative processes? What advantages do self-management and team-based leadership offer to creativity, and how should creativity be fostered in organizations that rely on self-managed teams?
In this thesis, I focus on teams that operate without an official, formal leader. Instead, leadership is informally distributed among team members. This form of shared leadership presents a unique dynamic, particularly relevant to creative work environments where collaboration, autonomy, and innovation are the key. My emphasis is on teams and teamwork, rather than traditional group work, with a specific interest in what makes teams effective in creative projects.
The research is based on two case studies. The first examines Housemarque Oy Inc, a game development studio where I interviewed team members working on a major game project scheduled for release on the Sony PlayStation console. This team includes two official leaders and one principal designer who has informally taken on leadership responsibilities. The second case explores a fully self-managed student team from the Castle Spirit Service Design project, conducted as part of a Circular Economy course in autumn 2023, in which I participated as a team member.
This study employs a qualitative research approach, using case study methodology and semi-structured email interviews with team members. I analyze the findings in light of theories on self-managed teams, team leadership, creative leadership, and authentic leadership. The central questions explore how teams can lead themselves and how leadership should be approached in creative industries.
The findings support the idea that self-managed teams can be highly effective when supported by authenticity, psychological safety, diversity, shared decision-making, and freedom in the ideation process. The team at Housemarque emphasized the importance of autonomy—having the freedom to solve problems independently and manage significant aspects of a project, rather than being limited to narrowly defined tasks. Similarly, the Castle Spirit team highlighted the power of cross-disciplinary collaboration and diverse backgrounds in generating innovative outcomes.
In this thesis, I focus on teams that operate without an official, formal leader. Instead, leadership is informally distributed among team members. This form of shared leadership presents a unique dynamic, particularly relevant to creative work environments where collaboration, autonomy, and innovation are the key. My emphasis is on teams and teamwork, rather than traditional group work, with a specific interest in what makes teams effective in creative projects.
The research is based on two case studies. The first examines Housemarque Oy Inc, a game development studio where I interviewed team members working on a major game project scheduled for release on the Sony PlayStation console. This team includes two official leaders and one principal designer who has informally taken on leadership responsibilities. The second case explores a fully self-managed student team from the Castle Spirit Service Design project, conducted as part of a Circular Economy course in autumn 2023, in which I participated as a team member.
This study employs a qualitative research approach, using case study methodology and semi-structured email interviews with team members. I analyze the findings in light of theories on self-managed teams, team leadership, creative leadership, and authentic leadership. The central questions explore how teams can lead themselves and how leadership should be approached in creative industries.
The findings support the idea that self-managed teams can be highly effective when supported by authenticity, psychological safety, diversity, shared decision-making, and freedom in the ideation process. The team at Housemarque emphasized the importance of autonomy—having the freedom to solve problems independently and manage significant aspects of a project, rather than being limited to narrowly defined tasks. Similarly, the Castle Spirit team highlighted the power of cross-disciplinary collaboration and diverse backgrounds in generating innovative outcomes.