Research questions, findings and implications.

Together with unstoppable trend of business going digitally global in recent years and the worldwide spread-out of COVID-19 since 2020, virtual teams have gradually garnered considerable attention in academia. Yet, the question of how to boost virtual team effectiveness remains underexplored. This study adopts a leadership perspective to examine the role of E-leadership in enhancing virtual team effectiveness. Gathered survey data from 74 virtual teams of Chinese manufacturing firms and employed an integrated fsQCA and NCA method, this study unravels two primary results. First, Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) identified the sufficient combinations of E-leadership dimensions to promote virtual team effectiveness. Second, Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) specifies the quantitative thresholds a E-leadership dimension’s value must be to render different levels of virtual team effectiveness. The conclusions of this research offer valuable insights into the theoretical and managerial implications of E-leadership in virtual teams.

近年来，伴随商业数字化全球化的不可逆浪潮，以及2020年以来新冠疫情在全球范围内的蔓延，虚拟团队逐渐受到学术界的广泛关注。然而，如何有效提升虚拟团队效能这一核心问题，目前仍未得到充分探索。本研究从领导力视角出发，探讨电子领导力（E-leadership）在提升虚拟团队效能中的作用。本研究收集了中国74家制造企业的74个虚拟团队的调研数据，并采用模糊集定性比较分析（fsQCA）与必要条件分析（NCA）相结合的整合研究方法，得到两项核心研究结果。其一，模糊集定性比较分析（fsQCA）识别出可促进虚拟团队效能提升的电子领导力维度充分组合；其二，必要条件分析（NCA）明确了电子领导力维度需达到的量化阈值，以实现不同层级的虚拟团队效能。本研究结论可为虚拟团队场景下电子领导力的理论拓展与实践管理提供极具价值的参考依据。