Enhancing Virtual Learning Team Performance: A Leadership Perspective

Abstract

Debate abounds over whether a virtual team is an effective substitute for traditional face-to-face team and can sustain itself. Drawing upon literature on leadership, trust, computer-mediated communication, and teams, the authors propose a theoretical model of online learning team effectiveness. A quasi-experiment was conducted to empirically test the impact of team trust, propensity to trust, leadership effectiveness, and communication frequency on the effectiveness of virtual learning teams and team satisfaction and performance. The results support the majority of the authors’ hypotheses. Trust serves as a mediating role in the relationship between leadership effectiveness and team satisfaction and team performance. Practical implications and future trends are discussed at the end of the chapter.