Virtual Leader in Virtual Team:He or It?

Virtual Leader in Virtual Team:He or It? Ching-wen Wang Professor, Department of Business Administration, National Chung Hsing University cwwang216@yahoo.com.tw Wen-chi Ho* Ph D Student, Department of Business Administration, National Chung Hsing University hans.2g@gmail.com Abstract Virtual teams tend to rely on electronic communication and information technology to accomplish its tasks. Advances of information technology have made the development of a virtual leader possible. The emergence of virtual leaders has also become an interesting issue in the study of virtual team. Through the intervention of E-leadership, this experimental study demonstrated the effects of leader-follower interactions on the creativity performance and perception of the members from a perspective of substitutes for leadership in a virtual team. The results suggested the existence of the virtual leader had significant influences, especially regarding the substitution of a real leader for certain routine work. In addition, we argued that the more proactive the leader acted in the virtual team, the better the members performance would be. Keywords: group decision support system; leadership; virtual team Introduction Virtual teams have been emerging as an important work structure (Kahai, et al., 2007). Organizations today set up virtual teams to remain flexible and respond to the changing environment. This temporary arrangement offers a number of strategic advantages for organizations, such as access to formerly unavailable expertise, and ability to cut down the costs of production. Due to dispersion of its members across different geographically time zones, virtual teams are different in significant ways from the leadership in traditional face-to-face teams and tend to rely on computer mediated communication ( CMC ) technologies, such as electronic meetings, video conference or E-mail, to accomplish its tasks. Technology, thus, plays a vital role in facilitating communication among the virtual team members. In spite of the efficacy of these innovative technologies, virtual teams may present a host of problems not typically found in face-to-face group settings regarding communication, culture, logistics, and technology (Kayworth & Leidner, 2002). These complex contexts arise from the dispersion of members present new leadership challenges. Unfortunately, research on leadership in virtual teams has not yet kept its pace with the growth of virtual teams, and the topic of leadership has been virtually ignored in the literature on technology mediated work (Kahai, et al., 2007). Following the context of the leadership theory, contingency theorists argued that there is 1

no one best style of action yielding leadership effectiveness, and that different situations and contexts require different behavioral styles (Glückler & Schrott, 2007). However, the situations or contexts of virtual team are more complex than the traditional face-to-face team. Thus, there is a need to create a new position for these situations including the technological support of employees, leader-follower interactions and its influences on team performance. Under the view of Kerr and Jermier s (1978) substitutes for leadership model, particular individual, task, and organizational variables could substitute for or neutralized leadership. This may provide a reference of leadership in virtual team. Previous research on leadership in virtual teams indicated that the presence of leaders was associated with higher decision quality (e.g., Hiltz, et al., 1991; Kim, et al., 2002), greater levels of participation (e.g., George, et al., 1990; Kim, et al., 2002), and most satisfied members (e.g., George, et al., 1990; Kim, et al., 2002). Some idea about how leadership may affect virtual team interaction and performance is provided by a series of laboratory studies (e.g., Kahai & Avolio, 2006; Kahai, Sosik, & Avolio, 1997, 2003, and 2004; Sosik, Avolio, & Kahai, 1997; Sosik, Avolio, Kahai, & Jung, 1998) in computer-mediated teams (Hambley et al. 2007). Effective leadership is critical for teamwork in the information environment. However, in the summarization of the state of the literature on leadership in virtual teams, Kahai, et al. (2007) reported that past laboratory studies on leadership in electronic teams provide an important foundation for building new knowledge about virtual team leadership. These results should be viewed with caution because they employed groups of students in the same-time, same-place settings, which limited their generalizability. Moreover, if researchers could manipulate leadership behaviors systematically, it would offer greater help in prescribing leadership behavior. The research also suggested that technology features may substitute for leadership in some cases. In sum, the article combined with Avolio et al. s findings on E-leadership, Kerr & Jermier s (1978) substitutes for leadership model and Mayfield et al. s (1995; 1998) motivational language theory for manipulating leadership behaviors systematically in virtual team. The designated leaders in virtual team to communicate with their followers through writing messages based on attributes of task feedback, task routine and leader support. Furthermore, we had designed an additional module for GDSS to play particular team leaders, called "virtual leader" in the paper. In this experimental study, we compared the different impacts on creativity followers performance and perception between virtual leaders and human leaders, and explored how team leaders treated their own members for effective leadership. Theory and Hypotheses Virtual Team and Substitutes for Leadership A virtual team is composed of individuals working across different time zones on a common task. Due to dispersion of its members in time and space, a virtual team tends to rely on electronic communication and information technologies to accomplish its tasks (Kahai, et al., 2007). In other words, traditional teams may communicate face-to-face for decision making (Ocker, 2005), and a virtual team works across time, space and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technologies (Lipnack and Stamps, 1997), such as electronic meetings, video conference or E-mail. The new type of organization, management, leadership, communication and team patterns is thus accompanied 2

by the development of technology (Lipnack & Stamp,1999). As the interaction of members in virtual team is constrained by electronic communication tools, the leaders have to adapt their behavior to circumstances for leadership effectiveness. Kayworth & Leidner(2002)argued that in virtual team leaders must be able to build and maintain a social climate necessary for ensuring adequate levels of team unity and cohesiveness. Is how leaders adapt their behavior in virtual team an issue for researchers? Kayworth& Leidner (2002) suggested that physically dispersed work groups with only limited space for intimate communication has necessitated a fresh inquiry into the role and nature of team organization, leadership, and performance in virtual settings. Robbins (2006) defined leadership as the ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals. That is, this leadership role - a leader, can effectively influence the behavior of followers. The diverse literature on leadership may be grouped into three broad sets of approaches (Kayworth & Leidner, 2002): First, trait theory considers personality, social, physical, or intellectual traits to differentiate leaders from nonleaders. However, the early stage of such research was not successful, and the researchers then turned to focus on the leader's behavior. This behavior theory proposed that effective leadership was to take a specific leadership behavior. The greatest difference between trait theory and behavior theory is the essential premise, in which the former argued that leadership was inherent, while the latter suggested that leadership could be taught. There was some merit to predict the appearance of leadership in literatures on trait theory (e.g., the big five) and behavior theory (e.g., development-oriented), but they could not help us understand a missing component of leadership: the environment in which the leader exists. Contingency theorists argued that a given manager s leadership effectiveness will be dependent on his particular style as applied to specific circumstances (Robbins, 2006). Thus their approach to leadership assumes that there is no one best style and that effective leadership depends on the proper match between leadership style and the situation (Fiedler, 1967). The Substitutes for Leadership Theory, developed by Kerr and Jermier (1978), focuses on four individual variables (i.e., ability/experience/knowledge, need for independence, professional orientation, indifference to organizational rewards), three task variables (i.e., unambiguous/routine, methodologically invariant, provides its own feedback, intrinsically satisfying), and six organizational variables (i.e., formalization, inflexibility, highly specified functions, cohesive work group, organizational rewards not within leader control, spatial distance between leader and subordinate) which may negate the hierarchical superior's ability to exert either positive or negative influence over subordinate attitudes and effectiveness. It also suggests that factors including work design, reward systems, informal peer leadership, and self-management could replace a leader s influence on subordinates (Mary & Susan, 2004). Substitutes theory must be recognized as one of the major approaches to leadership research today, especially when applied to virtual environments. Leadership Effectiveness in Virtual Team The Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST), developed by DeSanctis & Poole (1994), was based on Anthony Giddens' structuration theory and was the first research on leadership in virtual team. This theory indicates that groups and organizations using information technology for their work dynamically create perceptions on the role and utility of technology and how it could be applied to their activities. Avolio and Dodge (2000) proposed a framework based on AST, an E-leadership of concept, which is defined as a social influence process mediated by Advanced Information Technology (AIT) to produce a change in attitudes, feelings, thinking, behavior, and/or performance with individuals, groups, and/or 3

organizations. In the past decade, Avolio and his peers conducted a series of leadership studies on virtual team based on this concept. In the recent years, there are a lot of research findings on the virtual environment. Kahai, et al. (2007) summarized the state of the literature on leadership in virtual teams and divided them into four categories, which were laboratory studies without manipulating leadership behavior, laboratory studies with manipulating leadership behavior, field studies, and current research respectively. The studies that did not manipulate leadership behavior provided preliminary evidence for that the presence of a leader was positively associated with higher decision quality (e.g., Hiltz, et al., 1991; Kim, et al., 2002), greater levels of participation (e.g., George, et al., 1990; Kim, et al., 2002), and greater satisfaction (e.g., George, et al., 1990; Kim, et al., 2002) with decision process, and that utility of technologies did not stop the leader from exercising influence to a greater degree than others (e.g., Harmon, et al., 1995; Lim, et al., 1994). On the other hand, in the studies that manipulated leadership behavior, researchers further suggested that participative-directive (e.g., Kahai, et al., 1997; Kahai, et al., 2004) and transformational-transactional (e.g., Sosik, et al., 1997; Sosik, et al., 1998; Sosik, et al., 1999; Hoyt & Blascovich, 2003; Kahai, et al., 2003; Kahai & Avolio, 2006) behaviors of leaders, and that various contextual factors, including anonymity (e.g., Sosik, et al., 1997; Sosik, et al., 1998; Sosik, et al., 1999; Kahai, et al., 2003), trust (e.g., Hoyt & Blascovich, 2003) and facilitation (e.g., Tan, et al., 1999), may influence group process and outcomes in electronic teams. There has been relatively few published studies in a virtual team setting, like as Kayworth & Leidner (2002) indicated that highly effective virtual team leaders acted as mentors and clarified the roles of team members, Yoo & Alavi (2004) argued that emergent leaders sent more oriented electronic messages than others in the team. Current researchers suggested some critical views that indicated that leadership is critical, leaders and members need to learn how to use different media effectively in virtual teams (Hambley, O Neill, & Kline), less difficult and less important tasks faced by a leader should be automated in virtual teams (Tarmizi, de Vreed and Zigurs), and more than one leader can emerge from a virtual team (Wickham & Walther). Kahai, et al. (2007) further commented and pointed out that these studies without the systematical manipulation on leadership behaviors systematically offered little help in prescribing leadership behavior and were limited on their generalizability by groups of students in the same-time, same-place settings. These results of field studies should be viewed with caution because of their limited statistical validity and use of student teams rather than organizational teams. Overall, these findings have suggested that leadership behaviors, such as transformational -transactional and participative-directive could be manipulated and had impact on group process and outcomes in a virtual environment. However, we are in the beginning of understanding leadership in virtual teams, as Kahai, et al. (2007) has said. Robbins & Judge (2009) proposed that one of common characteristics of effective teams is trust. In virtual teams team members are geographically dispersed and can not communicate face-to-face, and are limited to interact primarily through the use of E-mail or chat facilities, text-based communication technologies, to reinforce trust (Jarvenpaa et al., 1998). Because of popularization of computer and internet, E-mail has become an indispensable computer-mediated communication technologies in work environment today, by which leader may exchange information with his subordinate. However, this limitation of electronic communication pattern may produce higher out of focus, distorted or misunderstood among members than traditional modes, thereby affecting the quality of communication. Good communication is associated with less uncertain and higher 4

satisfaction in electronic communication (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Therefore, it is a worth issue to study what the best strategy of communication is adopted by leader in virtual team. Moreover, high-trust teams engaged in frequent communication, gave substantive feedback on fellow members' work (Jarvenpaa et al., 1998). In other words, if the leaders of conventional team more proactively and regularly communicate with their own members, the member s performance will be better. Yet, in the virtual environment, another interesting issue, which is whether this leadership style is able to lead their subordinates to create a high level of performance, needs to be explored. Motivating Language Theory Recently, some scholars conducted a series of researches based on the Motivating Language Theory (MLT) for the communication strategy between leader and worker, and found that motivating language is a model of effective leadership speech (e.g., Mayfield and Mayfield 2002; Mayfield et al. 1998; Zorn and Ruccio 1998). The strategic variance in leader language developed by Sullivan (1988) is rooted in three universal types of speech acts or the basic or minimal units of linguistic communication. Mayfield et al. (1995) developed and analyzed a motivating language scale (MLS) followed Sullivan s MLT, and interpreted them as Direction-Giving-language, which reduces uncertainty and minimizes worker role and task ambiguity that will increase workers performance and job satisfaction; Empathetic - language, which indicates the willingness to share emotion with a member; and Meaning-Making - language, which explains the structure, rules, and values of the organization's culture. This theory predicts that strategic oral communication is an important motivational tool which has positive, measurable effects on employee performance and job satisfaction (e.g., Mayfield et al., 1995; Sullivan 1986; Zorn & Ruccio 1998). A leader will obtain maximum benefit through powerful use of all three speech acts, including improving employee commitment (e.g., Mayfield & Mayfield 2002), promoting subordinate performance and satisfaction (e.g., Mayfield et al., 1998), and facilitating worker innovation (e.g., Mayfield & Mayfield 2004). Mayfield et al. (1998) also indicated that telecommuting employees do not have as many behavioral cues to build trust with their supervisors and that MLT has the potential to mediate these problems if it can be applied effectively in electronic communications. Hypotheses In sum, the virtual environment and various communications technology have created a new style of leadership and teamwork situations (Avolio, Kahai, Dumdum, & Sivasubramaniam, 2001). In these cases, the content of communication and information exchange have to rely on advanced information technology, as well as which persons, groups, organizations, attitudes, perception, thinking, behavior and performance arise a change. Leaders must be aware of the change of these contextual factors and adapt leadership behavior to the environment to facilitate or maintain the team performance. In addition, because of advanced information technology, technology features may in some cases substitute for leadership. Programmed leadership behavior seems to be a possibility and be further proposed as a "virtual leader" concept in the paper. 5

Therefore, in laboratory we manipulated systematically leadership behaviors based on relative research findings and limitations on E-leadership, substitutes for leadership model and motivating language theory. We employed a GDSS with different-time, different-place features to assess creativity performance of members in virtual setting. Finally, we compared the impacts on the followers creativity performance and their perception between virtual leaders and human leaders as well as proactive leader and passive leader. Hypothesis 1:The difference of the impacts on followers creativity performance between virtual leader and human leader will not be significant. Hypothesis 2:The difference of the impacts on followers perception between virtual leader and human leader will be not significant. Hypothesis 3:The difference of the impacts on followers creativity performance between proactive leader and passive leader will be significant. Structure Methodology The purpose of this study was to explore the impacts of different types of leaders on their own members creativity performance and perceptions to leadership in a task-oriented virtual team under the view of substitute for leadership. The types of leaders as independent variables were divided into virtual leader and human leader, while human leaders are further divided into proactive leader and passive leader. The dependent variables were creativity performance and perceptions to leadership of individual member. Creativity performance was assessed by total of brainstorming ideas and report grade. Perceptions to leadership were consisted of respect, trust and satisfaction to leadership. The structure of research was shown in Figure 3-1. Types of Leaders 1. Virtual Leader 2. Human Leader (1) Proactive Leader (2) Passive Leader Creativity Performance 1. Total of Brainstorming Ideas 2. Report Grade Perceptions to Leadership 1. Respect 2. Trust 3. Satisfaction Figure 3-1:Structure of Research Sample and Procedure Participant 6

In this study, participants assigned randomly into 106 groups of 3 to 7 were composed of 399 undergraduate students from four universities in Taiwan. Of all groups, 34 groups and 31 groups were led by MBA students and EMBA students respectively, and the remains were led by virtual leaders. Of all participants, 178 (44.6%) were led by virtual leaders and 221 (55.4%)were led by human leaders. The report grade of individual members accounted for 10% of semester grade for facilitating participation in the experiment. In addition, they were clearly told the limit of discussion of issues except GDSS in order to interfere with the research findings. Experiment Design There were 4 weeks for experimental activity. The first week (W1) was in preparation for official activity. All participants were trained 2 to 3 hours to operate GDSS within this week, and would received their E-mail notification of description and group of activity from their leaders in the day before the official activity. The official activity was conducted in the second (W2) and the third week (W3), and was divided into four sessions, namely brainstorming (Task1), voting (Task2), brainstorming (Task3) and uploading final report (Task4). The agenda for each session was a low-structural and continuous problems. All team members were asked to use GDSS during the session in accordance with the agenda, and to complete the questions of perception scale within the last week (W4). Table 3-1 presents the experimental procedure in this study. Table 3-1:Experimental Procedure W1 W2 W3 W4 D1~D4 D5~D6 D7 D8~D11 D12~D1 4 1 2 3 4 D15 Task: ; Leadership E-mail: ; Training: ; Notification: ; Survey: Intervention In this study researchers were responsible for the implementation and control of experimental process, and manipulated leadership behaviors of virtual leader, while the instructors of participants assisted in conduct and supervision. As a intervention, human leaders should be trained about 3 hours on motivating language programme before the activity, and constrained to deliver copies of leadership E-mails after the end of activity. Whereas on virtual leader, both direct-giving and empathetic language were combined in three types of E-mail scripts, high, medium and low degree of participation, based on motivating language and four agendas of activity, but retains the name and brainstorming ideas as variable fields. Measures In the study the types of leaders were independent variables and measured by leadership 7

behavior and motivating language in the data analysis and manipulation checks, while creativity performance and perceptions to leadership were dependent variables. Independent Variables and Manipulation Checks Leadership Behavior. Leadership behaviors were assessed by the leadership E-mails. The study collected copies of E-mails from human leaders and logs on the added system after end of task. The added system was developed for being virtual leaders, where the script, time, name, and number of brainstorming ideas of an agenda on GDSS were combined in a personal E-mail, and was sent automatically to specific member. Moreover, we classified human leaders as leader with higher level of leadership behavior, called proactive leader, and leader with lower level of leadership behavior, called passive leader, for further analysis. Of all leadership E-mails that individual members received from leader that maximum amount is 8 and the minimum is 1, and 5 is the most among them, as many as 207 for a rate of 52 percent. Table 3-2, result of comparison on leadership behavior, shows the t tests to examine the difference of two-paired forms of leadership behaviors. It indicates that the mean differences for leadership behaviors between virtual leader (M=5.00, SD=.00) and human leader (M=3.03, SD=1.96) are statistically highly significant (t=14.85, p<0.01) and that between proactive leader (M=4.89, SD=.85) and passive leader (M=1.36, SD=.62) are too (t=39.9, p<0.01). Table 3-2:Comparison of Leadership Behavior N M SD df t Virtual leader 173 5.00.00 220 14.85** Human leader 221 3.03 1.96 Proactive leader 283 4.89.85 392 39.9** Passive leader 111 1.36.62 *:p<.05;**:p<.01 Motivating Language. Motivating language was operationalized by Motivating Language Scale (MLS) items adapted from Mayfield et al. (1995). Ten items measured Direction-Giving language (Likert 5-point scale, Cronbach s α=.927, N=317) which reduces uncertainty and minimizes worker role and task ambiguity, and six items measured Empathetic language (Likert 5-point scale, Cronbach s α=.921, N=320) which is willing to share emotion with a member. Both direction-giving and empathy language was combined in a E-mail script before the experiment as the basis of leadership behavior of virtual leader. MLS items were responsed by participants after the completion of the experiment and employed in the data analysis for manipulation checks. Due to leadership E-mail script of virtual leader was written based on MLT, while leadership E-mail of human leader was written in accordance with his/her personal insight for MLT and status of his/her team member s publication on GDSS. Therefore, under the view of substitute for leadership, this study suggested that the perception of motivating language between virtual leader and human leader should be detected no statistically significant differences. The results of the t tests to compare perceptions of motivating language are shown in Table 3-3, which indicates that the two forms of perceptions, direction-giving language (t=-.65, p>0.05) and empathetic 8

language (t=1.36, p>0.05), are very similar and no significant differences can be detected. Table 3-3:Comparison of Perceptions of Motivating Language Direction-giving (N=317) Empathetic (N=320) N M SD df t Virtual leader 157 3.29 0.72 315 -.65 Human leader 160 3.34 0.63 Virtual leader 161 3.26 0.83 318 1.36 Human leader 159 3.14 0.74 *:p<.05;**:p<.01 Dependent Variables Creativity Performance. Creativity performance was assessed by two dimensions, one was the total of brainstorming ideas aggregated by two brainstorming, the other was report grade. The grade of reports, 266 were uploaded for a rate of 66.7%, were rated by two authors with 1 to 10 points. The results of the t tests to examine the compatibility of the two forms of grades indicated that the two forms of grades were very similar and no significant differences could be detected (t=1.00, p>.05). Therefore, the average of two grades was the report grade. Perceptions to Leadership. Perceptions were composed of respect, trust and satisfaction to leadership. Respect means that team members respect for their leader, and was operationalized by 3 respect for leader questionnaire items (Likert 5-point scale, Cronbach s α=.528, N=321) adapted from Gonger, Kanungo & Menon (2000). Trust, that is, team members trust to their leader, and was operationalized by 3 trust to leader questionnaire items (Likert 5-point scale, Cronbach s α=.774, N=321) adapted from Gonger, Kanungo & Menon (2000) based on Bass (1985) & Bulter (1991). Satisfaction means that team members are satisfied with their leader, and was operationalized by 3 satisfied with leader questionnaire items (Likert 5-point scale, Cronbach s α=.915, N=322) adapted from Gonger, Kanungo & Menon (2000) based on Bass (1985). Of the 399 questionnaires that were delivered to participants were returned 329 (82.5%). Platform We employed two systems platforms for simulating the virtual environment in this study, including front and back. The front is TeamSpirit system developed by Chen & Wang based on Creative Problem Solving (CPS). Chen, Liou, Wang, Fan, and Chi. (2007) had proved that TeamSpirit is of benefit to ideas generating, planning and a long-term project. TeamSpirit system is a web-based GDSS with different-time and different-place features, and can provide everyone for online creative thinking without time and space constraints. It provided a platform to operate for all virtual teams via internet and gathered data for assessing creativity performance of individual members during the task. The back is a added system customized for being the virtual leader as well as linking TeamSpirit system. The E-mail script, names and number of brainstorming ideas of an agenda of individual member on TeamSpirit would be regularly combined in a personal leadership E-mail and be sent out by the Added system, which recorded sending results into logs. 9

Results To further observe whether the impacts of different types of leaders (leadership behaviors) on creativity performance and perceptions of individual members were statistically significant differences. The t test would be conducted to validate the hypotheses in this study. Effects on Creativity Performance Table 4-1 shows the results of the t tests to examine the difference of net effect of leadership behavior on creativity performance. It indicates that the mean differences for effects on total of brainstorming ideas (t=7.40,p<0.01) and report grade (t=10.58,p<0.01) between virtual leader and human leader are statistically highly significant. Of all human leaders, the results of the t tests to examine the difference of net effect on total of brainstorming ideas (t=5.81,p<0.01) and report grade (t=7.05,p<0.01) between proactive leader and passive leader indicate that those effects are statistically highly significant. The hypothesis 1- The difference of the impacts on followers creativity performance between virtual leader and human leader will not be significant- is not supported, but the hypothesis 3- The difference of the impacts on followers creativity performance between proactive leader and passive leader will be significant- is supported. Table 4-1:Comparison of Net Effects of Leadership Behavior on Creativity Performance Total of brainstorming ideas Report grade N M SD df t Virtual leader 178 4.97 4.60 263 7.40** Human leader 221 2.11 2.57 Proactive leader 283 4.00 4.08 282 5.81** Passive leader 111 1.87 2.89 Virtual leader 178 5.52 3.03 397 10.58** Human leader 221 2.52 2.63 Proactive leader 283 4.48 3.12 392 7.05** Passive leader 111 2.13 2.62 *:p<.05;**:p<.01 Effects on Perceptions to Leadership Table 4-2 shows the results of the t tests to examine the difference of net effect of leadership behavior on perceptions to leadership. It indicates that the mean differences for effects on respect (t=-1.03,p>0.05), trust (t=-.13,p>0.05) and satisfaction (t=.36,p>0.05) between virtual leader and human leader are very similar and no significant differences can be detected. The hypothesis 2- The difference of the impacts on followers perception between virtual leader and human leader will be not significant- is supported. 10

Table 4-2:Comparison of Net Effects of Leadership Behavior on Perceptions to Leadership Respect Trust Satisfaction N M SD df t Virtual leader 161 3.37.63 319 Human leader 160 3.44.61-1.03 Virtual leader 162 3.26.76 319 Human leader 159 3.27.73 -.13 Virtual leader 162 3.23.83 320 Human leader 160 3.20.77.36 *:p<.05;**:p<.01 Summary of Validation Validation for all hypotheses were summarized in Table 4-3. Hypothesis 1, the difference of the impacts on followers creativity performance between virtual leader and human leader will not be significant, was not supported. Hypothesis 2, the difference of the impacts on followers perception between virtual leader and human leader will not be significant, was supported. Hypothesis 3, the difference of the impacts on followers creativity performance between proactive leader and passive leader will be significant, was supported. Table 4-3:Summary of Validation for all Hypotheses H1 H2 H3 The difference of the impacts on followers creativity performance between virtual leader and human leader will not be significant. The difference of the impacts on followers perception between virtual leader and human leader will be not significant. The difference of the impacts on followers creativity performance between proactive leader and passive leader will be significant. Not Supported Supported Supported Conclusions This study was to assess the impacts of different types of leaders on their members creativity performance and perception in virtual setting. A laboratory experiment was conducted and consisted of 106 undergraduate student work groups that interacted electronically via a Group Decision Support System (GDSS) to perform a creativity task, a series of low structured discussion. The members creativity performance and perception of leader motivating language, respect, trust and satisfaction were observed by GDSS and questionnaires respectively after end of task. In this section, we discussed the results of the statistical analysis, contributions and limitations of this study, and proposed suggestions for future research. Discussion 11

We manipulated frequency and intensity of leadership behavior in this study, including quantities of leadership feedback E-mail and quality of leadership motivating language, criterions for independent variables checks. For frequency, the check result of feedback E-mail revealed that leadership behaviors of virtual leaders were more significantly frequent than that of human leaders. This advantage should stem from the programmable rules of virtual leaders. On the contrary, the characteristics of diversity, flexibility and thinking of human leaders had become the greatest weakness of virtual leaders while responding to members for the content of brainstorming ideas. Whereas intensity for use of leadership motivating language, the perceptions of team members have no significant difference between virtual leaders and human leaders. In other words, to some extent that when the members geographically dispersed unable to communicate face-to-face, their perceptions for leadership behavior will be blind. Furthermore, the impacts of virtual leaders on creativity performance of team members, both in quantity (i.e. total of brainstorming ideas) or quality (i.e. report grade), are significantly better than human leaders. This may be causal from the virtual leader with proactive leadership behaviors, as same as a result of comparison between proactive and passive leadership behaviors of human leaders. This means that the more proactive the leadership behaviors are, the better members creativity performance will be in virtual environment. In sum, the present study provided evidence for that it is possible to substitute virtual leaders for human leaders in virtual team, and noticed the emergence of the virtual leaders in future. We suggested that the existence of the virtual leader is significant in virtual team, especially for substituting for certain of regular jobs of the human leader. It will present a similar to a human leader, even for better. However, this notion does not means that it can completely take the place of the human leader in virtual environment, because the leaders still need to have characteristics of wisdom and flexibility to keep dealing with the complex interaction. Despite of rapid development in technology, the artificial intelligence (AI) is still in an immature stage. We argued that the human leader can be replaced is the specific "jobs" but not the inherent "role". In addition, a leader should interact proactively with their members via computer mediated communication(cmc)technologies for creating more individual members performance in a virtual team. Implications Previous a series of laboratory studies on leadership in electronic teams employed groups of students in same-time, same-place settings within a period time of 90 to 180 minutes, while present study extended the experiment design for two weeks of time to implement creative task, which belongs to different- time, different-place setting of the web-based GDSS. In addition to make design more closer to practice, this study broke away from human as the leader of a virtual team, and further sent automatically electric messages via a added system, a virtual leader, where a prepared script was combined in a appropriate leadership letter according to number of brainstorming ideas of individual members. Furthermore, the paper proved that a proactive leader enhanced greater individual members performance than a passive leader in virtual environment. These findings would help our understanding of leadership in such electronic contexts. This study presents that because of the progress of information technology, the computer system has the opportunity to substitute for part of work of leadership. We suggested that enterprises can make use of computer systems in their virtual teams to provide appropriate assistance to leaders based on the findings of this study, such as reminding regularly, 12

responding briefly in time, and computing complex data etc. That will enable teams to cut down their operation costs and create higher performance for them. This means that while building a virtual team, the team leader should not charge himself with all jobs, but be assisted in supervising, tracking and feeding back their members by system. It may avoid the leader spending too much time to monitor team members. It also reduce the risk and time of fitting members on leadership style, and improve members in the stability of emotion. Limitations This study has several limitations. First, sample characteristics may limit the generalizability of our findings. The undergraduate student groups across universities but not across culture in Taiwan lacked a history of prior interaction, and they were relatively new users of GDSS. In practice, organizational groups possessing a diversity of characteristics and culture or being with prior experience on GDSS for a common task might be associated with different results. Another limiting characteristic of this study was the motivation of participation by report grade accounting for 10% of the individual final grade, there are problems involved in motivation of participation which can be seen in the 66.7% of completion of reports. Third, In manipulating the leadership behavior, the added system we used can send automatically a personal E-mail, which was combined a script with the number of brainstorming ideas of individual member, but not able to respond to the content of brainstorming ideas, same as a human leader. There is a necessity for further study. However, it s hard to systematize human wisdom and experience, i.e. artificial intelligence, in a short time. It is worth noting that the use of E-mail, our research had not ruled out the electric messages being interpreted as spam. To the extent that there had been intervention on leadership behavior, and we suggested that the validation of E-mail accounts can be included in the experimental procedure to ensure the integrity of leadership behavior. Reference Avolio, B. J. & Kahai, S. S. (2003) Adding the E to E-Leadership: How it May Impact Your Leadership. Organizational Dynamics, 31(4), 325-338 Avolio, B. J. & Dodge, G. E. (2000). E-Leadership: Implications for Theory, Research, and Practice. Leadership Quarterly, 11(4), 615-668. Avolio, B. J., Kahai, S. S., Dumdum, R., & Sivasubramaniam, N. (2001). Virtual teams: Implications for e-leadership and team development. In M. London (Ed.). How People Evaluate Others in Organizations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. Chen, M., Liou. Y., Wang, C. W., Fan, Y. W., & Chi, Y. P. (2007). TeamSpirit: Design, implementation, and evaluation of a web-based group dicision support system. Decision Support Systems, 43, 1186-1202. De Sanctis, G., & Poole, M. S. (1994). Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5(2), 121-147. Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill 13

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