A Study of Employee Engagement in Virtual Teams

Abstract

The transition from the industrial to the information age has made the world a newlineglobal village. Organizations are continuously challenged to grow at a fast pace, with reduced or controlled costs. As organizations tread carefully with technology newlineas a great leveler, virtual work arrangements have become an integral part of the newlineorganizations. Virtual teams are characterized by short social exchanges and a newlinelack of para-verbal and non-verbal communication. This poses several challenges in managing and engaging the virtual workforce. The purpose of this research is to newlineunderstand the drivers of engagement in virtual teams. It focuses on the newlinepsychological perspective of engagement with an aim to provide a robust research newlinemodel that could help organizations in engaging their virtual workforce. Basis the newlinereview of the literature and our phase I of the qualitative study, this research newlineoffers a comprehensive view of idealized influence (leadership influence) and newlineinspirational motivation (leadership motivation) the two sub-factors of newlinetransformational leadership which defines the charisma of a leader in leveraging newlineengagement of virtual employees. It also studies the impact of effective leadership newlinecommunication, work-life balance, and trust between team members, and size of newlinethe team in engaging employees working in virtual teams. newlineThis research is an exploratory, correlational study undertaken to explore the newlinedeterminants of engagement in virtual employees. A mixed-method, multi-phase newlinedesign, was used to collect and analyze data. The multiphase design had elements newlineof exploratory sequential design. The study was conducted in three phases: newlineQualitative and#8594;Quantitative and#8594;Qualitative. Phase I of the qualitative study helped newlinein exploring the concept of employee engagement from a view of virtual newlineemployees. The themes that emerged from the qualitative study of phase I newlinefacilitated in development of a questionnaire measure for phase II of the newlinequantitative study.