The Influence of Virtual Leadership and Relationship Characteristic Variables on Follower Outcomes.

FRANCAVILLA, NICOLE MARIE. The Influence of Virtual Leadership and Relationship Characteristic Variables on Follower Outcomes. (Under the direction of Dr. Adam W. Meade). Globalization and communication technology advancements have led to a rise in companies’ use of virtual or remote workers (i.e., employees who work at least part of their workweek away from a company office). Virtual work arrangements provide many benefits (e.g., diverse workforce, increased productivity, enhanced employee well-being), but also pose many challenges for virtual workers (e.g., feelings of isolation and uncertainty). Leadership has been suggested as one mechanism through which companies can optimize the experience of virtual workers, lending to a stream of research on effective virtual leadership. Virtual leadership studies tend to simplify the construct by examining only leader-follower distance or reliance on technology as its operationalizations, failing to examine the many nuances associated with working at a distance from one’s leader. The present study examines a more holistic picture of the virtual follower’s experience by investigating five leader-follower relationship characteristic variables: geographic distance, communication frequency, media richness, leader availability, and leader responsiveness. Relationships among these relationship characteristic variables and follower outcomes including job satisfaction, affective commitment, engagement, job performance, and leader effectiveness are examined to investigate the differential ways in which aspects of the leader-follower relationship dynamic influence followers’ job attitudes and performance. Finally, the interactive effects of the relationship characteristic variables combined with generally beneficial (transformational, contingent reward) and generally detrimental (destructive) leadership behaviors on follower outcomes are examined. Results generally indicate that leader-follower geographic distance and the richness of media used to communicate do not meaningfully relate to followers’ job satisfaction, affective commitment, engagement, job performance, or leader effectiveness. The extent to which a leader provides a follower attention via communication frequency, availability, and responsiveness is much more predictive of positive follower job attitudes and performance. Supplemental analyses reveal differential moderating relationships among leader behaviors (transformational, contingent reward, destructive) and relationship characteristics (communication frequency, leader availability, leader responsiveness) on the set of follower outcomes. For example, leader-follower communication frequency exacerbates the negative effects of destructive leadership on all follower outcomes, and leader attention (via availability and responsiveness) moderates the relationship between leader behavior (transformational and contingent reward) and follower selfreported job performance such that leader behavior positively relates to performance when attention is high, but negatively relates to performance when attention is low. Implications for future virtual leadership research, applications in practice, and limitations are discussed. © Copyright 2019 by Nicole Marie Francavilla