Relationship building in virtual teams: A leadership behavioral complexity perspective

E-leadership has emerged in virtual team literature as an important determinant of relationship building. However, the way e-leaders develop high quality relationship between virtual team members is little understood. The purpose of this paper is to identify the key roles that enable virtual team leaders to build high-quality exchanges with their team members. We draw on the behavioral complexity theory to analyze the roles played by e-leaders, which help them to develop effective leader-member exchanges (LMX). We draw up a research model to explain how e-leaders build cooperative and collaborative relationships through social-related and work-related activities. We then test the research model using a large survey of 193 virtual team members. Our findings show that, except for internal process roles (coordination and monitoring), open systems roles, roles of rational pursuit of goals and human relation roles have a significant positive effect on LMX.