The relationship between transformational leadership and LMX: The moderating role of team virtuality and task interdependence.

Abstract

Despite widespread increase in virtual teamwork, there still remains relatively little research on how leaders build relationship with their virtual team members and what factors that might influence this. Therefore, this study examined the joint moderating roles of the degree of team virtuality and the level of received task interdependence on the relationship between transformational leadership and leader-member exchange (LMX). In order to explore this relationship, the study used data collected from two-stage online surveys from two companies operating in virtual teams. Using regression analysis, the data collected from the total of 79 participants, showed that the relationship between transformational leadership and LMX turned negative if team virtuality and team task interdependence were high. This indicates that transformational leadership is more effective in building LMX in low team virtuality conditions. An elaborative discussion of our findings, together with practical implications and directions for future research are discussed. Key words: Virtual teams, transformational leadership behavior, LMX and task interdependence