Virtual Leader of a Virtual Team: He or It?

Abstract

虛擬團隊往往依靠電子化的溝通和資訊技術來完成其工作。隨著資訊技術的進步，讓虛擬領導者的出現成為一種可能性，也是虛擬團隊研究中有趣的一項議題。在透過對電子化領導的干預的實驗室研究中，本研究從領導替代的觀點，以電腦系統替代領導行為，並觀察其對領導效能的影響。在106組的實驗性研究顯示，虛擬領導者的存在是具有意義的，尤其是對於替代真人領導者某些規則化的工作上。此外，我們認為在虛擬團隊中，領導者仍須以較為積極的領導作為，才能帶領團隊成員創造出更好的績效。

Virtual teams tend to rely on electronic communication and information technology to accomplish their tasks. The progress of information technology has made the development of a virtual leader possible. Thus, the emergence of virtual leaders has become an interesting issue for researchers when focusing on virtual teams. In this study, a 106-team experiment adopted the theory of substitutes for leadership by replacing human leaders with computer systems to examine the effectiveness of virtual leadership. The results indicated that a virtual leader could be important, particularly as regards certain routine tasks. In addition, we believed that if the leaders of virtual teams would behave more proactively, their team members could perform better.