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Abstract
Many complex challenges are beyond the scope of single teams, and instead, require coordination and collaboration across larger interdependent systems comprised of multiple component teams. Referred to as multiteam systems by organizational scholars, these teams of teams offer a number of advantages, including increased resource capacity and structural flexibility. Yet, despite their advantages, multiteam system structures also present coordination challenges, such as overcoming functional divides, increased cognitive load, and performing in highly dynamic environments, which may lead to system failures. Multiteam system researchers have identified important interaction processes, including interteam communication (i.e., communication spanning component team boundaries) and task-critical leadership (i.e., influence that is exerted by leaders with relevant task expertise to coordinate multiteam system actions), which can help to enhance multiteam coordination and promote system success. Recent theoretical work asserts that multiteam system size (i.e., the number of teams involved in the system) may be a critical boundary condition that determines the patterns of interaction processes that are most effective. However, traditional research approaches that have examined short-term, stable multiteam systems have yet to investigate this question due to data collection constraints. I build and test hypotheses to uncover the effects of interteam communication and task-critical leader influence under different task conditions that present different levels of system size. I test my hypotheses using data collected from a multinational military coalition training simulation which dynamically adapted its structure in response to disruptive events. Specifically, this system changed the number of teams that were required to resolve those events, thus altering system size in response to changing task demands. This approach enabled investigation into the moderating effects of system size on the relationship between interteam communication and task-critical leadership on multiteam system success. My results suggest that whereas tasks involving a larger number of teams require centralized leadership influence through task-critical leaders; tasks involving fewer teams can benefit from either interteam communication or task-critical leadership, but attempting to leverage both strategies is unnecessary. These findings determine important boundary conditions that enable researchers and managers alike to better align multiteam system interaction processes with system size to enable multiteam system success.