Interaction Effect of Leadership and Communication Media on Feedback Positivity in Virtual Teams

Technology and contextual factors may moderate the effects of leadership in virtual teams. We conducted an experiment to study the effect of leadership styles on feedback positivity in small, ad hoc teams performing a decision-making task using a virtual world or instant messaging. We also examined the relationship of feedback positivity to team outcomes, including satisfaction, social presence, cohesion, group efficacy, consensus, decision quality, and task time. Leadership style interacted with communication medium to influence feedback positivity. Relative to transactional leadership, transformational leadership led to greater feedback positivity in the instant messaging condition but had no effect in the virtual world condition. Greater feedback positivity was positively associated with social presence, discussion satisfaction, cohesion, group efficacy, and task time, but was negatively associated with decision quality.