Impact of leader's e-competencies on employees' wellbeing in global virtual teams during COVID-19: the moderating role of emotional intelligence
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-06-2021-0236 |
| Published date | 08 February 2022 |
| Date | 08 February 2022 |
| Pages | 1048-1063 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Priya Chaudhary,Mukta Rohtagi,Reetesh K. Singh,Simple Arora |
Impact of leader’s e-competencies
on employees’wellbeing in global
virtual teams during COVID-19:
the moderating role of
emotional intelligence
Priya Chaudhary
Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
Mukta Rohtagi
Shyam Lal College, New Delhi, India
Reetesh K. Singh
Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi,
New Delhi, India, and
Simple Arora
Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
Abstract
Purpose –The current study aims is to investigate the impact of leader’s e-competencies on the emotional
wellbeing of employees in GVTs. Also, the moderating role of a leader’s emotional intelligence in enhancing the
wellbeing of the employees during the pandemic was explored.
Design/methodology/approach –A survey of 810 employees belonging to international IT companieswas
conducted. The conceptual model was hypothesized and validated using CFA and PL-SEM.
Findings –The three core e-competencies of leaders (e-communication skills, e-change management skills and e-
technological skills) impacting the wellbeing of employees in the COVID pandemic were found. Also, emotional
intelligence significantly moderated the association of leader’s e-competenciesand the wellbeingof employees.
Research limitations/implications –The study is limited to IT sector companies. Data were collected
using the snowball sampling technique through a self-reported questionnaire. Future studies can explore the
relationship between e-leadership and variables like job performance in other sectors.
Practical implications –A unique framework of “leaders”e-competencies and employees’wellbeing,
moderated by emotional intelligence, has been proposed and validated. The present study is relevant for
guiding the traditional leaders and managers transitioning to e-leaders due to the pandemic.
Originality/value –The current exploration is one of its kinds to understand the dynamics of study variables
in international workplaces. Today, the majority of organizations are conducting their business through GVTs.
Therefore, the emerging leaders have to display specific e-competencies to contribute to employees’wellbeing
effectively.
Keywords Global virtual teams, Survey data, E-leadership, Emotional intelligence, Employee well-being,
COVID-19, Virtual workspace, Personality, Structural equation modelling, Factor analysis, Task-technology fit
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Leadership is an interesting, adored and extensively-studied subject in social sciences.
To comprehend the grand image, scholars have studied metaphysical, subjective, objective
ER
44,5
1048
This paper forms part of a special section “Employee Experience and Well-Being in International
Workplaces”, guest edited by Wided Batat.
We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 6 June 2021
Revised 25 November 2021
14 January 2022
19 January 2022
Accepted 22 January 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 5, 2022
pp. 1048-1063
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-06-2021-0236
and inter-subjective factors to understand the making of an effective leader. Although
leadership is visualized as cross-fertilization of the workplace and the competencies of a
leader, this combination remains largely unexplored. It is worth mentioning that the
COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a departure from the physical to a digital workplace
(Arora et al., 2021) catering to larger, geographically diverse virtual work spaces. The
pandemic has been perplexing for organizations, particularly for human resource and
marketing management, as they are dealing with new challenges every day (De-la-Calle-
Dur
an and Rodr
ıguez-S
anchez, 2021;Chamakiotis et al., 2021).
According to Carnevale and Hatak (2020), different rules and processes to limit contact
and radical shift in ways of working have expedited the need to build sound information and
communication technology (ICT) systems to maintain continuity of work. Interestingly,
leadership studies have not incorporated the changing context of the workplace and the rise
in global virtual teams (Hambley et al., 2007). This lays the foundation for the present study.
Global virtual teams ( GVTs) are multicultu ral and multinational teams which are
geographically dispersed but connected through technology (Jimenez et al., 2017;
Adamovic, 2018). The changing nature of the workplace, particularly GVTs, has given
“leadership”a new shape, design and avatar. It is also found that prior knowledge of ICT
enables a smooth physical-to-virtual transition for an IT sector leader (Lombardi et al., 2021).
Van wart et al. (2019) have described leadership at virtual workplace as “e-leadership”
and ascribed the success of e-leaders to six e-competencies (e-change management,
e-technological, e-communication, e-social skills, e-team building and e-trustworthiness).
However, the understanding of the competencies of an effective leader appears to be
incomplete in the absence of the leader’s personal attribute, that is, emotional intelligence
(Nokelainen and Ruohotie, 2005). According to Jordan et al. (2002), leaders with high
emotional intelligence tend to refrain from exhibiting extreme emotions under pressure.
Furthermore, Sparks et al. (2001) observed that leaders’effectiveness cannot be accurately
measured without considering their influence on employees’wellbeing. This is because the
literature suggests that a leader’s e-competencies positively impact employee wellbeing
(Sparks et al., 2001) and experience (Shambi, 2021). Simultaneously, the emotional intelligence
of an e-leader moderates this relationship (Dasborough, 2019).
Against this backdrop, the research question of the current study is as follows:
RQ1. What are the leader core e-competencies in GVTs during COVID-19 in the IT sector,
and how do they affect employees’wellbeing?
To answer this research question, the current study investigates the impact of e-leadership
competencies on employees’wellbeing in GVTs during COVID-19. Additionally, the study
explores emotional intelligence as a moderator between e-leadership competencies and
employees’wellbeing and attempts to develop and validate the hypothesized model. This
study aims to add to the body of literature on employee relations.
2. Background literature
2.1 E-leadership
In the current scenario, organizational leaders grapple with two interrelated forces: an
exponential explosion in ICT and a rise in GVTs. This has led to frequent interactions among
employees located in different geographies and time zones; thus making it imperative to
understand how leadership addresses new challenges of the digital workplace (Cortellazzo
et al., 2019). Avolio et al. (2000) found e-Leadership to be a socio-technical process in which
social influence mediated by advanced information technology (AIT) produces a change in
attitude, thinking, feelings, behavior and performance. The influence of AIT is visible in the
ongoing digital revolution, where an increase in telecommuting, GVTs, and distributed
Impact of
leader’s
e-competencies
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