The Moderating Role of Virtuality on Trust in Leaders and the Consequences on Performance

Virtual leadership is a phenomenon that has strongly risen in importance in recent years. Therefore, the study at hand took a closer look at the way in which virtuality affects the trust in leaders, which again influences the performance of employees. In a questionnaire, in which 121 participants took part, the influence of virtuality on the relationship between the trustworthiness of a team-leader and the trust in that leader was investigated. Moreover, the effect of trust on the performance was examined. Thereby, virtuality was split into the two components geographical and temporal/cultural virtuality based on Chudoba, Wynn, Lu, and Watson-Manheim [1], trustworthiness, a proven antecedent of trust for non-virtual contexts was split into its three components ability, integrity and benevolence [2], and performance was assessed by the participants´ general work satisfaction and their in-role performance. The results showed that, as hypothesized, the virtuality of the relationship between leader and employee significantly influenced the relationship between trustworthiness and trust. Furthermore, the perceived trust significantly influenced both performance measures. However, the influence of virtuality on the relationship between trustworthiness and trust was more complex than expected. Only geographical virtuality moderated the relationship of ability on trust, and temporal/cultural virtuality moderated the relationship of benevolence on trust. The relationship of the leader´s integrity and trust was not moderated by the virtuality of the context at all. Interestingly, our data did not support a direct connection between the perceived ability of a leader and the trust in that leader. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are highlighted.