Building trust in the leader of virtual work teams

What is it about?

In recent years, due to the development of new technologies, virtual work teams have arisen as a new organizational form that offers businesses greater flexibility and adaptability in coping with new market challenges. The departments that manage high value-added projects are more susceptible to implementing virtual teams; the area of marketing and market research being one of them. However, the peculiarities of these teams present a real challenge for building trust within the team, with trust being one of the key factors for their success. Accordingly, this study considers various antecedent factors of trust toward leaders of virtual teams grouped in two blocks: the physical attributes (attractiveness) and the behavioral characteristics (justice and empathy) of the leader. Furthermore, the paper discusses how leadership style (transactional or transformational) can moderate the relationships between some of the previously mentioned variables. The results suggest a greater capacity for attractive, empathetic and just leaders to build trust. These results have interesting implications for management which are discussed along with the principle lines of future research.

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