Virtual Leadership: Required Competencies for Effective Leaders

There are countless books, articles, and resources available which attempt to identify the competencies and qualities of effective leaders. Traditionally, leaders have been at the center of a community, be it work, church, or social groups. In these communities, face-to-face meetings and close personal interaction have dominated the way leaders interact with their members. However, with the advent of the internet and the host of communication tools that followed, teams today are becoming increasingly dispersed and diverse. Studies are now being done to understand how leadership has or should evolve in order to meet the changing needs and demands of these new and different communities. Some argue that leadership in the virtual environment is simpler as fewer tools are available to virtual leaders. Others may argue that access to fewer tools makes virtual leadership more complex and challenging than traditional leadership. This paper will explore leadership in virtual settings and how it’s changing as more teams move away from traditional team environments. I’ll review the responsibilities and roles of virtual leaders in an effort to better highlight the core competencies needed in today’s virtual settings. I’ll also look at competencies required of global virtual leaders and I’ll address how these competencies can be cultivated to ensure leaders are more effective in leading teams in these new environments

Working Across Boundaries: Current and Future Perspectives on Global Virtual Teams

Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) are a commonplace in contemporary organizations, and an already established topic of research in international management. While we have a good understanding of advantages and challenges associated with this ubiquitous form of work groups, this special issue aims to contribute to theory development by focusing on key drivers that influence the success of GVTs, along with ways for mitigating their challenges. We briefly review current knowledge on GVTs and propose a structuring framework that can help with both organizing what we know about GVTs, and with guiding the conversation on where the research on this topic might focus next. We then introduce four special issue articles that illustrate avenues for generating new empirical evidence towards uncovering key characteristics and dynamics underlying GVTs complexities, providing useful insights for both theory development and managerial practice

Leveraging Intellectual Capital Management in Virtual Teams: What the Covid-19 Pandemic Taught Us

This study undertakes a review of the scientific literature on the role and impact of Intellectual Capital (IC) with all its components (human, structural and relational capital) on Virtual Team (VT) work. As already proven in the discipline research, IC as a summum of organizational knowledge resources plays a fundamental role in the knowledge economy in sustaining competitive advantage, innovation and performance. Despite an abundance of papers investigating VTs from both a theoretical and empirical perspective, a surprising discovery has been made during this research. The extent of work dedicated to analysing the relationships between IC and VTs is minimal, notwithstanding the unprecedented expansion of the use of VTs since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Following a first review of the extant literature regarding IC and VTs, a second literature review has been conducted for the benefit of revealing crucial aspects and the newest best practices in what concerns work in VTs. In doing so, the authors attempt to draw attention to the need for in-depth researches in the IC field, to catch up with the business, economic and societal most recent developments. Furthermore, this study aims to provide the practitioners with up-to-date, concise knowledge on the practical aspects relevant for the work in VTs

Tourism Education in the Digital Era:Navigating Innovation and Transformation

In the contemporary era, the tourism industry is undergoing a profound transformation due to the digital revolution, which requires a comprehensive study of how education responds to this transformational shift. This study uses a qualitative research approach to gain in-depth insight into how innovation and transformation occur in curriculum, teaching methods, and relations with the tourism industry. This study uncovers the complex dynamics of innovation and transformation within the tourism education framework using qualitative research methods, including in-depth interviews with lecturers, students, and tourism industry practitioners involved in the education process. Through these interviews, aim to better understand how curriculum, teaching methods, and relationships with the tourism industry are adapting to the digital age. This research also explains how tourism education can innovate and transform in the digital era, describes how challenges and solutions can be implemented in tourism education in the digital era, and describes future trends in tourism education in the digital era. The research results confirm adopting diverse pedagogical strategies such as virtual reality experiences, data-driven insights, and cross-disciplinary collaborative projects. This dynamic approach aims to prepare students for the challenges and opportunities in digital-led tourism. However, ethical considerations and challenges arising from this digital transformation, including updating the curriculum and ensuring equitable digital access continuously, are also addressed. By unravelling the linkages between technology and education in the tourism context, this research provides important insights into pedagogical strategies that successfully leverage digital innovation. These findings serve as a practical guide for educators, educational institutions, and industry stakeholders in designing tourism education programs that are flexible and relevant, empowering students to thrive in the digital dynamic era in the tourism industry. Amidst an ever-changing environment, this research has become a beacon of navigation, guiding tourism education through waves of innovation and transformation

Tourism Education in the Digital Era:Navigating Innovation and Transformation

In the contemporary era, the tourism industry is undergoing a profound transformation due to the digital revolution, which requires a comprehensive study of how education responds to this transformational shift. This study uses a qualitative research approach to gain in-depth insight into how innovation and transformation occur in curriculum, teaching methods, and relations with the tourism industry. This study uncovers the complex dynamics of innovation and transformation within the tourism education framework using qualitative research methods, including in-depth interviews with lecturers, students, and tourism industry practitioners involved in the education process. Through these interviews, aim to better understand how curriculum, teaching methods, and relationships with the tourism industry are adapting to the digital age. This research also explains how tourism education can innovate and transform in the digital era, describes how challenges and solutions can be implemented in tourism education in the digital era, and describes future trends in tourism education in the digital era. The research results confirm adopting diverse pedagogical strategies such as virtual reality experiences, data-driven insights, and cross-disciplinary collaborative projects. This dynamic approach aims to prepare students for the challenges and opportunities in digital-led tourism. However, ethical considerations and challenges arising from this digital transformation, including updating the curriculum and ensuring equitable digital access continuously, are also addressed. By unravelling the linkages between technology and education in the tourism context, this research provides important insights into pedagogical strategies that successfully leverage digital innovation. These findings serve as a practical guide for educators, educational institutions, and industry stakeholders in designing tourism education programs that are flexible and relevant, empowering students to thrive in the digital dynamic era in the tourism industry. Amidst an ever-changing environment, this research has become a beacon of navigation, guiding tourism education through waves of innovation and transformation

Effectiveness of Government Leadership to Maintain Productivity in a Virtual Environment

The purpose of this qualitative flexible design single case study was to expand the understanding of reasons behind the potential challenges of federal government leaders with maintaining employee productivity in a virtual environment. The general problem addressed was the challenges leaders face with maintaining employee productivity in a virtual environment, resulting in reduced organizational performance. The research included determining the driving factors in employee productivity in the federal government while in a virtual environment and determining if there was a specific leadership style to help maintain productivity and organizational performance. The research questions and sub-questions fully addressed the specific problem statement as they led to knowledge of why leaders face the challenges of maintaining employee productivity in a virtual environment and uncovered ideal leadership styles and behaviors to prevent or reduce failure. The findings of this study illustrated a complete understanding that leaders are still facing communication challenges from leading in a virtual environment but are finding successful styles and methods to overcome these challenges successfully. The results could assist individuals and leaders to understand and recognize practices leadership can use to maintain employee productivity in a virtual environment

Cross-Cultural Competencies and Diversity in International Teams: A Comprehensive Exploration

This thesis comprises three essays that investigate cross-cultural competencies in a diverse international team context. The first essay conducts a systematic review of 158 seminal CQ, GM, and CC publications. Utilising advanced bibliometric methodologies, key journals, influential publications, and ground-breaking researchers in this domain are identified. Further co-citations are examined through factor and cluster analyses, deciphering the complex knowledge structure in this research spectrum. Five predominant research streams emerge, bridging the overlap between CQ, GM, and CC constructs. Burst analyses further spotlight the prevailing trends and rapidly growing research avenues, laying a foundation for impending scholarly endeavours. The second essay addresses the multifaceted nature of 'diversity' - a term that remains largely enigmatic despite its widespread use in International Business literature. The context in this paper is on Global Virtual Teams (GVTs), which are inherently infused with diversity. This paper presents the conceptual framework of personal diversity, which clarifies three salient diversity types - the variety of demographic attributes, disparity in functional attributes, and separation along covert attributes. Using a sample of 345 GVTs, the implications of these diversity types on intermediary team processes, barriers to collaboration, and psychological and task outcomes are empirically tested employing PLS-SEM modelling. Key findings reveal that demographic variety augments collaboration and enhances psychological outcome. Additionally, disparity, especially concerning English proficiency and technical skills, can increase barriers to collaboration and adversely impact psychological outcome. The third essay pioneers a nuanced conceptual framework tailored to assess the configurations of team cultural intelligence. The framework originates from the multiple intelligence theory and is enhanced by foundational theories specific to each CQ dimension. Simultaneously, it integrates three diversity theories: information processing, (in)justice perspective, and categorisation paradigms. The delineation elucidates how diverse CQ configurations, characterised by CQ ranges, dimension disparities, and separations, associate with different team outcomes. An illustrative example of global virtual teams tests the theoretical framework empirically to present further theoretical and practical implications.acceptedVersio