| With the growing popularity of virtual team environments in business and government, it has become important to understand effective virtual team management. Though existing research has examined virtual team leadership effectiveness, the literature lacks explanation of how gender affects perceived effectiveness of virtual team leaders. This quantitative research study examined how gender affected virtual team member's perceived effectiveness of their virtual team leaders. The purpose of the study was to gain insight into whether the gender of the virtual team leader and the gender of the virtual team member affected virtual team members' perception of the virtual team leader's leadership effectiveness. Using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire survey, 210 responses were collected from SurveyMonkey panelists who have worked, or currently work, on a virtual team in the United States. Data for the research question were analyzed using two-way ANOVA. The analysis of the data resulted in there being no statistically significant difference in how male and female virtual team members rated the effectiveness of their male and female virtual team leaders. Study results indicated that role congruity theory could not be supported in the context of virtual teams. The findings have implications for organizations in the United States that utilize virtual teams, or are considering implementing virtual team programs in their organizations. Future research should focus on how race, age, and education level affect virtual team member's perceived effectiveness of virtual team leaders to get a more complete picture on what factors affect perceived effectiveness of virtual team leaders. |
