The impact of task interdependence on the
relationship between transformational leadership and
readiness for change in virtual teams
B. Belder
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Author Note
De Laan 2B11, 9712AV, Groningen, The Netherlands. +31 6 3159 3057,
b.belder@student.rug.nl, s1452428
Supervisor:
Dr. H. Grutterink (University of Groningen)
Co-assessor:
Abstract
In today’s workplace virtual teams are becoming more normal: the use of virtual teams in
organizations with over 10,000 employees is projected to be over 80% (Hoch & Kozlowski,
2012). Even though the first article on virtual teams dates back almost 20 years, still little is
known about how to effectively manage them in a stable context, let alone in a change context.
This research sets out to see whether the popular transformational leadership style is positively
related to readiness for change in virtual teams. A transformational leader is expected to
influence readiness for change in several ways, most likely through trust building, individualized
consideration and other ways. Task interdependence is hypothesized to influence the relationship
between transformational leadership and readiness for change. A survey was conducted among
116 members of 23 virtual teams within a large Dutch telecommunications company. Even
though neither of the hypotheses were supported, other effects were discovered. A significant
negative effect of age on readiness for change was found and a significant positive effect of task
interdependence on readiness for change.
Keywords: readiness for change, transformational leadership, virtual teams, task
Virtual teams, teams of people working together separated by space and or time, are becoming a well-established phenomenon in the workplace of today. Evidence was found that in 2000 less than 50% of the companies professed to using virtual teams, but in 2008 65% of them said their reliance on said teams would only grow in the future. In companies with more than 10,000 employees the use of virtual teams is projected to be over 80% (Hoch & Kozlowski, 2012). In the Netherlands it is becoming more popular to work in the comfort of your own home: one in three employees is reported to work from home at some point in the week (CBS, 2013). Clearly virtual teams play an important role in the business world.
Even though the first theoretical article on virtual teams dates from almost 20 years ago (Geber, 1995), still little is known about how to effectively manage a virtual team (Hertel, Geister & Konradt, 2005; Ilgen & Kozlowski, 2006). However, as Boerman (2014) and Dissel (2014) argue it is of considerable managerial interest to organize said virtual teams in such a way that the gains are optimized because there is little doubt virtual teams will play a key role in the design of organizations in the new millennium (Bell and Kozlowski (2002: p. 15). Virtual teams have been getting more attention from other authors and the research focus has been mainly on their advantages and disadvantages (Hoch & Kozlowski, 2012).
Not a day goes by in the work environment without it involving some kind of change. People used to have jobs for life (Altman, 2008; OECD, 2005; Nabi, 2004), but nowadays people are changing jobs more often than ever before. Employees encounter change more often than was normal in the past. Change has been named as an important part of a successful organization. However, it has been recognized that half of all change initiatives fail because managers have failed to establish sufficient readiness (Kotter, 1996; Weiner, Amick & Lee, 2008). Due to the importance of this particular subject, the context for this research will be within the domain of change, more specifically readiness.
styles in relation to readiness for change in virtual teams, even though several authors have stressed the importance of readiness for change. Indeed, in several papers readiness for change has been linked with employees being more invested in the change effort, invest more effort towards the change and or being more persistent in the face of obstacles (Armenakis et al., 2007; Beckard & Harris, 1977; Kotter, 1996; Weiner et al., 2008). Instilling readiness for change in your employees greatly increases the chances of having a successful change effort in your organization. Because an increasing number of organizations use virtual teams more and more, it will be interesting to find out which factors have a relationship with readiness for change in virtual teams.
As noted by Kotter (1996), readiness for change needs to be established by the manager. In recent literature, transformational leadership has received considerable attention (see Kramer, 2007 for an overview). In the case of virtual teams, there has been some research into effective leadership (Balotsky & Christensen, 2004; Hunsaker & Hunsaker, 2008; Kayworth & Leidner, 2002). Balotsky and
Christensen attempt to identify ways for leaders to overcome role conflict, social isolation, and other issues, which are rising due to the virtuality of the team. Also, Hunsaker and Hunsaker attempt to give guidelines to help leaders understand virtual teams. Kayworth and Leidner focused on leadership effectiveness in global virtual teams. Unfortunately, to our knowledge no research has addressed the potential positive effect of transformational leadership in virtual teams. However, one could expect that this is a very important factor in determining readiness in these teams because transformational leadership is able to strengthen group cohesion, increase organizational commitment, and recognize and reward the work done by followers (Green, Miller, and Aarons (2013, p. 374). Therefore in the present thesis
Working as a team means completing tasks together. Kozlowski and Ilgen (2006) named some features of teams: they consist of two or more individuals who interact socially and possess one or more common goals and exhibit interdependencies with respect to workflow, goals, and outcomes to name some of them (p. 79). Virtual teams attempt to fulfil these requirements yet are dispersed across time and space. Cohen and Bailey (1997) found that task interdependence is one of the primary characteristics that influence team effectiveness. Task interdependence describes the degree or requirement of task-driven interaction among group members. On the one hand task interdependence has been connected with higher process losses and more conflicts within the team due to coordination needs and opportunity costs. On the other hand evidence was found that potential positive effects of high task interdependence are increases of team cohesion, trust, and the sense of indispensability of personal contributions to the team (Hertel, Konradt, & Orlikowski, 2004; Kirkman et al., 2004). The importance of task interdependence has been established for traditional teams. The question remains if the same goes for virtual teams, because people within virtual teams do not work within the same location for instance, hence one can imagine that the need to coordinate all tasks may be much higher and more critical. It is assumed here that task
interdependence will have a moderating role on the relationship between readiness for change and
transformational leadership: as virtual teams rely on task interdependence to complete their tasks, degrees of interdependence must influence the relationship between a transformational leader and their readiness for change. A graphical representation of the model can be seen in figure 1.
in order to effectively reach readiness in teams. Otherwise, change initiatives have more factors on which to fail.
Summarizing, the research question that will be answered in this paper is as follows: What is the relationship between Transformational leadership and readiness for change in virtual teams and how does task interdependence relate to this relationship?
In this next part the constructs used in the research are addressed. This theoretical framework will be followed by the method section, after which the results will be presented. Finally these results and their implications will be discussed in the light of their limitations.
Figure 1
2. Theoretical background and hypotheses
2.1 Virtual teams.
The concept of virtual teams was briefly addressed in the introduction. Definitions vary from distributed workgroups , that is, teams of people performing their tasks in different geographical locations (Geber, 1995), to more complex definitions such as virtual teams are individuals working together who have never met each other in person and probably will not meet face-to-face during the assigned project. Hybrids of the virtual team include teams with some of the members in one location working with other members in other different global locations and teams with members who have met each other at some point in time but don't see each other on a frequent basis (Brandt, England & Ward, 2011).
In this research, the following definition will be adhered to: a virtual team is a team consisting of members linked by networks and distributed across space and/or time who do not interact face-to-face on a daily basis (Kozlowski & Ilgen 2006). This definition is chosen because it includes all aspects that are of interest: geographical or temporal dispersion of cooperating teams. It is not necessary for
organizational members to never have met; yet we need to make sure members are part of a virtual team. Communication done primarily through the digital media of phone, e-mail, chat, video conferencing or other means of digital communication (such as internal system memo s) in order to complete their tasks will do this. Face-to-face meetings do not take place on a daily basis.
Differences between virtual teams and traditional teams are named in a paper by Martins et al. (2004): They found evidence that virtual teams are used more in complex tasks of significant importance
compared to traditional teams (Kirkman et al., 2004; Leenders, van Engelen & Kratzer, 2003). Virtual teams are used more in these situations because it allows organizations to use their best employees even though they may not be working in the same locations or time frames. Still, the main difference is the fact they do not interact face-to-face on a regular basis: as mentioned above, virtual teams can be divided by space and time making face-to-face contact difficult.
Traditional teams have been found to outperform their virtual counterparts regarding planning and effective communication (DeMeyer, 1991; Galegher & Kraut, 1994). Team interactions have been found to be lengthier and sometimes confusing (Bordia, 1997), and cultural differences within virtual teams have been of large interest, and these are more prevalent within virtual teams than traditional teams (Johansson et al., 1999; Kayworth & Leidner, 2000; Maznevski & Chudoba, 2001; Robey et al., 2000).
2.2 Readiness for Change
The term readiness for change has some inconsistency when it comes to conceptualization (Weiner, Amick & Lee, 2008). In 55% of the articles used for their research, authors relied on the readers common sense to understand the concept. The concept emerges from the social sciences, from fields such as health psychology and medical sciences (McKay et al., 2013). Even though over half of the articles do not contain explicit definitions, there are several sources available as to what readiness for change consists of.
In a paper by Cunningham et al. (2002) it was found that readiness for change starts with an individual's perception of the benefits of change, the risks of failing to change, or the demands of
An often used and clear definition comes from Holt et al. (2007), who define readiness for change as follows: Readiness occurs when the environment, structure, and organizational members attitudes are such that employees are receptive to a forthcoming change (2007: p. 290). Thus, readiness is established before the change occurs and, among other things, within the attitudes of organizational members. Readiness for change is reflected in beliefs, attitudes, and intentions of the members of the organization:
It is the cognitive precursor to the behaviours of either resistance to, or support for, a change effort (Armenakis, Harris & Mossholder, 1993: p. 681-682). Interestingly, they stress that readiness for change is a clearly different concept from resistance to change. Readiness for change can be used to pre-empt resistance to change (Armenakis et al., 1993), i.e. when readiness is established within the attitudes of the employees the chance they will resist is smaller. It is important to keep a distinction between resistance to change and readiness for change; Resistance to change is a very negative outlook towards the change (McKay, Kuntz & Näswall, 2013), and is a consequence of not establishing sufficient readiness.
In this particular research readiness for change in virtual teams will be measured as an individual characteristic, and not as a situational-variable as has been done in other researches. The reason being firstly that the definition adhered to and discussed above fits better to an individual person s disposition. Secondly, in recent years some researchers believe, amongst whom Oreg (2003) is one, that readiness for change stems from an individual s personality and not necessarily from situational antecedents (Oreg, 2003). He devised a scale with four dimensions with which this disposition can be measured. It is Oreg s believe that disposition is of more influence than a situation a person may be in.
2.3 Transformational Leadership
Stogdill suggested in 1974 that there are as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define it (Stogdill, 1974). Nevertheless, there is some overlap between the definitions. For example, many authors define leadership as a process. Northouse (2012) defines leadership as a process where an individual influences others to achieve a common goal. The view of leadership as a process implies interaction: both leaders and followers may affect each other (Rowe & Guerrero, 2011).
In 1978 J.M. Burns established two types of leadership in his Pulitzer winning book Leadership . In this book he made a distinction between transactional and transformational leadership. Initially a transformational leader was someone who was doing the opposite of a transactional leader, that is, transacting, or setting goals and expectations in return for rewards or recognition. A transformational leader influences an employee through means of motivation or really works on the psychology of an employee, whereas a transactional leader focuses on goal setting and achievement. This is not to say that transformational leaders don t focus on goal achievement, rather they attempt to get there through different means. The transformational leader strives to, in terms of Maslow s hierarchy of needs (1943), be on at least the level of esteem of an employee to elevate an employee s motivation and preferably higher (Bass, 1997; Bass, 1999; Conger, 1999).
Summarizing, the concept of transformational leadership is defined as a leader who attempts to influence others to achieve common goals through means of intellectual stimulation, inspiration and charisma, individualized consideration and encouraging team member cooperation, adapted from Podsakoff et al. (1990).
2.4 Transformational leadership and readiness for change
In our definition of a transformational leader, this leader would try to influence others to achieve common goals. A change initiative should be posited as being a common goal within an organization, because top-down, mandated changes have a higher failure rate (Sabatier, 1986). Inherent to the definition of readiness, through top-down change it is hard to establish readiness because the attitudes of the
employees have not been made receptive for the change. By making the change initiative a common goal within his team the leader will make the initiative tangible for all members in the virtual team. In doing so, readiness will be established.
However, not all employees are the same within the organization, some will require different methods of approaching, managing, handling, etc. (George, Jones & Sharbrough, 1996). This will also hold for influencing the readiness for change in individual employees. Some will accept the presented changes as such, some will need some persuasion. Through the means of individualized consideration the
To use individualized consideration, a transformational leader might employ charisma or inspiration. Inspiration is needed from within the organization to create the perception among employees that an organization is ready to change (Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder , 1993; Weeks et al., 2005). Charisma has been closely linked with transformational leadership and inspiration (Bass, 1988), but has also been named as an innate characteristic: something which cannot be taught (Barbuto, 1997). Because of this, the two characteristics can be used together or independently when one does not possess charisma.
Nonetheless, both these characteristics may aid the transformational leader in achieving readiness within his organization: through inspiring his employees he may be able to influence the attitude of the
employees and similarly, through a charismatic persona he might be able to do the same. The leader must make clear to his employees that the change is needed; a certain sense of urgency is required. Armenakis et al. (1993) state that the inspiration needed, among other things, comes from the individuals within the company: in this case the leader. Inspiration energizes the employees and creates support, all leading to a receptive mindset for upcoming changes and thus readiness.
Finally, to achieve readiness a transformational leader may appeal to the intellect of his employees, a questioning approach instead of a telling one, i.e. intellectual stimulation. This has been found to create a readiness for change in thinking patterns (Kirkbride, 2006), already pointing towards a link. When using intellectual stimulation, a leader challenges his employee to re-examine assumptions and rethink how tasks are performed for instance (Yu, Leithwood & Jantzi, 2002). By asking his employees to think about such matters in this way, they are already creating a readiness for change: they are invited to rethink the status quo and ways to change it, pointing to a relationship with readiness for change.
Due to the arguments presented above, the following hypothesis is proposed:
2.5 The Moderationg Role of Task Interdependence
As mentioned in the introduction, a moderating role of task interdependence is assumed in our model. The simple explanation being that task interdependence is inherit within virtual teams, thus it must influence the relationship between transformational leadership and readiness for change in virtual teams. Let us explore this statement a little further: in order for virtual teams to complete their tasks, certain tasks need to be completed before others can commence. This is the basis for task interdependence. People in teams are reliant on other people to complete their tasks. In order for any team to operate, be it virtual or traditional, some form of organization is required (for instance, to divide the tasks), in most cases a leader fulfils this role. A relationship between leader and team becomes apparent. Following this logic, it seems inevitable that task interdependence will influence the leader-virtual team relationship. A
(transformational) leader will be in charge of team organization, which may include task division, and task interdependence is needed within a virtual team. Thus, the moderating role is anticipated.
According to Van der Vegt (2002) interdependence within a team stems from several different sources such as the distribution of skills and resources across team members, goal definition, how performance is rewarded, and role differentiation. This leads to distinctions such as outcome interdependence, goal interdependence, task interdependence, etc. Interdependence in general describes parts that depend on each other (Hornby, 2005).
these definitions, the conclusion is that task interdependence is task oriented, and outcome interdependence is focused towards personal or team gains.
Task interdependence comes hand in hand with knowledge sharing according to Staples and Webster (2008). In traditional teams it has been found that employees are not always motivated to share their knowledge due to, amongst other reasons, trust issues (Currie & Kerrin, 2003; Husted & Michailova, 2002; Kelloway & Barling, 2000; MacNeil, 2003). Trust issues are also commonplace in virtual teams according to McDonough, Kahnb, and Barczaka (2001), as it is difficult to assess trustworthiness without having met the person in question. Because trust is needed to be motivated to share knowledge, and knowledge sharing in turn is needed for effective task interdependence, task interdependence in virtual teams may suffer even more from lack of trust compared to traditional teams (Martins et al., 2004). In an environment where a transformational leader ensures there is trust within the team, teams operating under high task interdependence should not run into these trust issues (meaning low trust between team
members): trust means being motivated to share knowledge, leading to more effective task
interdependence. In this highly interdependent but trusting situation, employees are more likely to be receptive for an upcoming change. Having trust in the change will therefore lead to readiness for change. This is an example in what may influence task interdependence. Note that trust and task interdependence are not the same, yet the former will aid or lead to the latter.
This leads to the following hypothesis:
3. Methodology
3.1 Procedure
The research was conducted using a digital survey among call centre employees of a large Dutch multinational telecommunications company. Employees were informed of the survey through an e-mail, and the survey was distributed through e-mail as well. Two reminders were sent. The questionnaire consisted of some demographic questions such as sex, age, team tenure, company tenure, and educational background as control questions. Other control questions concerned task complexity, task significance, and task autonomy. After this general part, questions on readiness for change, task interdependence, virtual teams and transformational leadership were answered on a 5-point scale. The survey started with a small explanation of the purpose of the study, as well as stressing and guaranteeing anonymity of the respondents. The survey can be found in the appendix.
3.2 Respondents
intra-team, making them quite good virtual team samples. The employees were part of a helpdesk, the company s customers called with a variety of questions pertaining to billing or loss of service.
3.3 Measurements
Transformational leadership, task interdependence and readiness for change were measured using a 5-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). In addition, the questions on transformational leadership and readiness for change were used to measure them on four dimensions, mentioned below.
Task interdependence was measured with 5 items from Van der Vegt, Emans and Van de Vliert (2001). However, 3 items were deleted which is explained in the factor analysis section. The remaining items from their scale were: I have to obtain information and advice from my colleagues in order to complete my work and In order to complete their work, my colleagues have to obtain information and advice from me . Spearman s coefficient for the two items was .72 (p < .01). Spearman-Brown was used because according to Eisinga, te Grotenhuis and Pelzer (2012) it is a more adequate way to measure inter-item correlation.
Transformational leadership was measured with a scale consisting of 5 items. The dimensions used to measure transformational leadership were the charismatic, inspirational, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration dimension.. The questions were derived from Podsakoff (1990). The items were My manager leads by example , My manager inspires others with his/her plans for the future (both charismatic dimension), my manager has stimulated me to rethink the way I do things (Intellectual stimulation dimension), My manager shows respect for my personal feelings (Individualized
Readiness for change was measured using Oreg s (2003) 17-question scale, and the dimensions were routine seeking, emotional reaction, short-term focus and cognitive rigidity. The questions were, I generally consider changes to be a negative thing , I'll take a routine day over a day full of unexpected events any time and I like to do the same old things rather than try new and different ones . These questions belong to the Routine seeking dimension. When I am informed of a change of plans, I tense up a bit and When things don't go according to plans, it stresses me out belong to the emotional reaction dimension. Changing plans seems like a real hassle to me , Often, I feel a bit uncomfortable even about changes that may potentially improve my life and I sometimes find myself avoiding changes that I know will be good for me belong to the short-term focus dimension. Finally, I often change my mind belongs to the cognitive rigidity dimension. Cronbach s alpha for these items was .86.
3.4 Factor analysis
A factor analysis was done in order to further establish validity. In the case of task interdependence, factor analysis showed some questions had too many cross loadings, leading to only using two of the 5 items. The items “I have to work closely with my colleagues to do my work properly”, I depend on my colleagues for the completion of my work , and I have a one-person job; I rarely have to check or work with others were omitted. An explanation for this could be that the dimensions measured with these questions did not apply in this specific job. As a help desk employee, the workers might feel they do their job themselves with little dependence on co-workers. The only questions that loaded properly were concerning task division, which might be a clear and cut case in their line of business. The questions mentioned above pertain to tasks actually done together, which may not occur according to the employees at this particular job.
For transformational leadership, one specific question, My manager insists on only the best
performance (Inspirational leader behaviour dimension), loaded very poorly, leading to it being omitted from further analyses. One reason for this is that out of the six questions asked, there is no clear subject to this question. What or who needs to give the best performance can perhaps be ambiguous to a survey taker: They might think that it applies to them as individuals, or as a group as a whole. All other questions either had the team or the individual as the subject.
Factor analysis gave some problems for Oreg s scale of readiness. Out of the 17 questions, 8 had to be omitted. These were the questions Whenever my life forms a stable routine, I look for ways to change it ,
I'd rather be bored than surprised (both routine seeking dimension), If I were to be informed that there's going to be a significant change regarding the way things are done at work, I would probably feel
the change may ultimately benefit me (short-term focus dimension), I don t change my mind easily , Once I ve come to a conclusion, I m not likely to change my mind , and My views are very consistent over time (cognitive rigidity dimension). The questions asked might be answered in reference to the work of the employees or their personal life. It may well be that their readiness for change is quite
different in day-to-day personal life than it is in a work environment. If people interpreted the questions in those different ways, factor loading will not occur properly. After factor analysis was done again, all factors loaded above .4. The original factor loadings containing all seventeen questions are added in the appendix in table 4. Due to the process of deleting questions, some cross-loadings occurred after the original questions with cross loadings were deleted. The final factor analysis can be found in table 1.
Table 1
Factor loadings and communalities based on a principal components analysis with oblimin rotation for the questions concerning Transformational Leadership, Readiness for Change, and Task Interdependence (N = 116)
1 2 3 4
Transformational leadership
Mijn leider inspireert mij met zijn/haar plannen voor de toekomst .857 Mijn leider ontwikkelt teamgeest en teamgevoel onder de teamleden .849 Mijn leider geeft richting aan het team door het goede voorbeeld te geven .817
Mijn leider toont respect voor mijn persoonlijke gevoelens .765
Mijn leider stimuleert me om mijn optreden vanuit verschillende invalshoeken te bekijken
.827
Task Interdependence
De taakverdeling tussen mij en mijn teamleden is zodanig dat ik van hen afhankelijk ben bij het uitvoeren van mijn werk
.930
De taakverdeling tussen mij en mijn teamgenoten is zodanig dat zij van mij afhankelijk zijn voor het uitvoeren van hun werk
.901
Readiness for change
Over het algemeen zie ik verandering als iets negatiefs -.889
Ik heb liever een standaarddag dan een dag vol verrassingen -.811
Ik doe liever hetzelfde dan dat ik iets nieuws probeer -.825
ongemakkelijk bij
Als iets niet volgens plan verloopt dan levert mij dat stress op .773
Wijzigen van gemaakte plannen lijkt me een gedoe .624
Meestal voel ik me ongemakkelijk bij veranderingen, ook al kan het mijn leven verbeteren
.746
Soms ontloop ik veranderingen waarvan ik weet dat ze goed voor me zijn .806
Ik wissel vaak van mening .652
Note: Factor loadings < .4 are suppressed.
3.4 Data analysis
To test the effects of transformational leadership and task interdependence on readiness for change in virtual teams a hierarchical regression analysis was done. In the first step of the analysis, all control variables (age, sex, team tenure, company tenure, educational background, task significance, and task complexity) were added. However, in order to not have an impotent control variable the regression was done again, as recommended by Becker (2005). The reason for this decision will be explained in section 4.2. The regression analysis consisted of three steps: The first step was redone with the control variables age, sex, and educational background. The second step consisted of the two predictors transformational leadership and task interdependence to see whether these variables had any relationship with readiness for change. To test the interaction the two predictors transformational leadership and task interdependence were multiplied and added in the third step. All variables were standardized to avoid issues with multicollinearity.
4. Results
4.1 Correlations and descriptive statistics
.01). Age correlated negatively with readiness for change (r = -.20, p < .05). Sex correlated positively with task interdependence (r=.25, p < .01). Finally, educational level correlated positively with task interdependence (r=.21, p < .05).
Table 2
Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD) and Correlations of the Variablesa
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 1 Sex 1.72 .45 2 Age 31.04 8.90 - .11 3 Educational level 7.26 1.61 . .03 -.02 4 Transformational Leadership 3.78 .76 - .00 -.13 .02 5 Task Interdependence 2.59 .93 - .25** -.05 .21* .09
6 Readiness for change 2.55 .56 . .04 -.20* .05 .19* .24**
aN = 116, *p < .05, **p < .01
4.2 Hypotheses testing
The first hypothesis stated Transformational leadership will be positively related to readiness for change in virtual teams . The first regression analysis showed only age had a relationship with readiness for change. Sex and educational background had significant correlations. The regression was redone as recommended by Becker (2005). In his paper he states that when there is no correlation or other relation in the regression analysis, an impotent control variable should be removed, otherwise they may reduce analytical power. There was no reason to believe the control variables team tenure, company tenure, task complexity and task significance were legitimate suppressors, because these control variables were unrelated in both correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis, the analysis was redone with the control variables age, sex and education level as there were significant correlations observed (Becker, 2005). The results of the hierarchical regression analysis showed that the first step produced the following results: R2 = .05; F = 1.44, p > .05 (see table 3). The control variables age, sex and educational
The second step with the main effect produced the following results: ΔR2 = .09; ΔF = 4.67, p < .05 (see table 3). However, the predicted relationship between transformational leadership and readiness for change was not found (B = .11, t = 1.67, p > .05., see table 3). This means that the first hypothesis was not supported. A relationship between task interdependence and readiness for change in virtual teams was found (B = .18, t = 2.60 p < .05, see table 3).
In the third step, the second hypothesis was tested: The expected positive relationship between transformational leadership and readiness for change in virtual teams will be moderated by task
interdependence in the sense that this relationship is stronger if task interdependence is high and weaker when task interdependence is low . The interaction effect of transformational leadership and task interdependence on readiness for change in virtual teams was tested. The results of the third step ( R2 =
.00; F = .21, p > .05, see table 3) showed that the interaction term was no significant predictor of readiness for change in virtual teams (B = .03, t = .52, p > .05, see table 3). This means that also the second hypothesis was not supported.
Table 3
Three-step Multiple Regression Analysis
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Step Variable B t B t B t 1 Age -.11 -1.77 -.09 -1.43 -.09 -1.46 Sex -.06 -.83 -.09 -1.22 -.09 -1.19 Education level .07 .93 .02 .26 .03 .39 2 Transformational Leadership .11 1.66 .112 1.64 Task Interdependence .18* 2.60 .17* 2.43 3 TransxTask .04 .52 R2 .05 .13* .13
ΔR
2 .05 .09* .005. Discussion
5.1 Findings
This research set out to study the joint effect of transformational leadership and task interdependence on readiness for change in virtual teams. When looking at the several correlations, we saw a positive correlation between task interdependence and readiness for change in virtual teams, implying higher task interdependence is related with higher readiness for change. Also, a positive correlation between
transformational leadership and readiness for change was observed, means that a higher degree of transformational leadership was related with more readiness for change. Other positive correlations were observed between educational background and task interdependence, and between sex and task
interdependence. The only negative correlation was observed between age and readiness for change in virtual teams, meaning older employees reported less readiness for change in virtual teams.
The basic premise was that transformational leadership had a positive relationship on readiness for change. The results of the regression analysis unfortunately did not support this, although the correlation analysis did show a positive relationship. The hypothesis was based on theoretical articles, in which achievement of common goals, individualized consideration, and inspiration and charisma, and intellectual stimulation were named as part of transformational leadership dimensions. Next to this an expected moderating effect of task interdependence was hypothesized.
To find out why there was no significant relationship between transformational leadership on readiness for change in virtual teams, in this next section the several dimensions that are part of the definition of transformational leadership will be reviewed. In this analysis perhaps some light can be shed as to why there was no significant relationship.
As dimensions of transformational leadership, inspiration and charisma, two similar but not
and many responded as being inspired in some way. Nonetheless, it did not result in any significant effects on readiness for change in virtual teams. Mintzberg (1998) did find that non-knowledge workers do not respond well to motivation and inspiration of leaders. A case can be made for the call center employees not being knowledge workers as their jobs are highly repetitive and perceived as simple, thus explaining why this particular concept did not behave as expected.
The dimensions achievement of common goals and individualized consideration are concepts which might be hard to achieve within virtual teams. What has been found is that in many cases, these virtual team members find it harder to develop personal bonds or start sharing in informal ways with each other (Martins et al., 2004). If this is the case, it will be nigh impossible for a transformational leader to show individualized consideration: it is hard for him to know the individual situations of his or her virtual team members when there is no personal bond. Important for goal achievement in virtual teams is performance related frequent and concrete feedback (Hertel et al., 2005). As feedback was not a measure in this research, it will be hard to make any conclusions however it might very well be possible that this feedback was not given, and as such the common goal achievement was hard to attain for the
transformational leader. If feedback is not given, there is no information for the employee on his current progress on the project. If he does not now his progress, it is unlikely he will stay committed in the project at hand. Future research should look into the importance of feedback in this case.
Let us not forget the context of change here, being within virtual teams. It is possible that virtual teams do not lend themselves for transformational leadership. Perhaps the personal contact is of great
to intellectually stimulate employees in a virtual manner: Getting them to re-examine their assumptions can be done through email.
Next to this, one must keep in mind that a positive correlation was observed. There is a positive relationship of some sort between transformational leadership and readiness for change in virtual teams, meaning that transformational leaders do seem to work in certain conditions when it comes to readiness for change in virtual teams. Therefore, we can say that there is some evidence that the first hypothesis is supported, but it is as of yet unclear where the correlational relationship stems from. However, a side note here is the fact that there is a correlation does not automatically imply causation. Therefore we cannot conclusively state that transformational leadership leads to readiness for change.
A similar relationship exists between gender and task interdependence. It seems that being male results in higher task interdependence. This relationship is not necessarily caused by the gender of a person, it may well be that another factor comes into play here. Perhaps the men were overrepresented in this particular study (71.6% males), leading to the relationship. What the actual cause for this strong correlational relationship is, is an interesting avenue for further research.
In the second hypothesis the expectation was that task interdependence would have a moderating effect on the relationship between transformational leadership and readiness for change in virtual teams. Again, this was not supported. It was found that virtual teams are used more for complex tasks, but at the same time this specific group of respondents may not experience task complexity (Kirkman et al., 2004; Leenders et al., 2003). It is possible this has influenced the results and should be taken into consideration in future researches.
this is all pure speculation as the concept was not measured in any way, shape, or form. Task conflicts were assumed to occur in these virtual teams on the basis of findings of Mortensen & Hinds (2001).
Regardless of the hypotheses not being supported there were significant findings: Two significant findings here were a positive effect of task interdependence on readiness for change in virtual teams, and a negative correlational relationship of age with readiness in virtual teams.
Starting with the latter of the two, the negative relationship suggests that the older a person becomes, the less likely they are to have an accepting stance on change. An interesting finding that warrants some future research, not only because the disposition of readiness was measured, and not the situational variant of readiness. If this is the case, it seems that a disposition is more likely to change with age. According to Oreg, his scale measures a disposition that comprises of behavioural, cognitive, and affective components (2003, p. 680). A negative correlation suggests that either one or more of these components change with age, leading to lower readiness for change. It is not inconceivable that behaviour changes over time; however, to change a disposition entirely seems unlikely. Once more, we cannot forget that correlation does not imply causation.
The positive effect of task interdependence was not hypothesized upfront, yet with hindsight perhaps it is not very surprising there is a relationship. There were certain concepts which showed that task
interdependence benefited virtual teams, such as conflicts leading to more and better alternatives. This may in turn affect the readiness of employees because they can see there are good options. However, as conflicts were not measured we can merely speculate. Taking conflicts into account seems to be a good idea for this reason.
importantly, a good flow of information will allow a transformational leader to manage his virtual team without being face-to-face all the time.
5.2 Strengths and Limitations
There are certain limitations to the research as well as strengths. Starting with the former, a causal effect of the correlations cannot be named due to the nature of the correlational tests (Field, 2005). The correlation analysis leaves it unclear whether readiness is high because of high transformational leadership or the other way around.
Also, one can question whether the sample is representative enough. From the 295 people asked to participate about 40% responded, which can be considered as one of the strengths of this research: For an e-based survey these results are quite good as response rates of only 20% are not uncommon (Witmer et al., 1999). However, over 70% of respondents were male. This may be due to the fact that the population for this survey was taken in a telecommunications company customer helpdesk: The technological nature of the job may attract more male than female employees: in a survey done by Panteli, Stack and Ramsey (2001) they found that in the IT industry only 13.1% of employees were women. Be that as it may, due to the high degree of male presence in the study it is hard to generalize the results. Perhaps men in this industry are less susceptible to the transformational tactics of their managers, though evidence does not point in that direction. In a study on gender differences in transformational leadership styles of managers no significant differences were found (Mandel & Pherwani, 2003), and in another study it was found there were no differences between male and female subordinates in their acceptance of transformational leadership (Druskat, 1994).
The generalizability can also be questioned because of the organizational sector where the research was conducted. As mentioned, the sample was collected from a customer helpdesk of a large
it led to discussions about possible solutions: The leader might have encouraged intellectual stimulation, forcing employees to rethink the status quo and seeing the forthcoming change is for the best.
Finally, some of the measurement instruments had to be adapted in order to ensure they were
representative instruments. Factor analyses showed that some questions did not load very well, leading to the omission of a number of questions, where these same questions were successfully used in other questionnaires. This means there are some validity issues, because these instruments have been proven to work. A possible explanation can be translation errors or misunderstanding of questions by employees (i.e. ambiguous phrasing of questions). For example, in the case of the question on transformational leadership ( My manager insists on only the best performance ), it was the only question that was ambiguous as to the subject of the best performance . People might have interpreted it as concerning to the team, the individual, the company as a whole etc.
5.3 Theoretical and Practical Implications
The results of this research can have several implications for both virtual team theory and
transformational leadership theory. The hypotheses were not supported in this research, leading to the conclusions that virtual teams in this change context do not respond to transformational leadership. This is not necessarily the case for traditional teams. In fact, in many different instances and as early as 1991, Bass (1991) reported that on many different levels a transformational leader performed better than his transactional counterpart. Moreover, employees say that they themselves exert a lot of extra effort on behalf of the managers who are transformational leaders (Bass, 1991; p. 22). Further research should explore the difference between the two types of teams in more detail: What were the specific reasons that the hypotheses did not hold? Is it to be expected that virtual teams do not lend themselves for
drawn here is that it would be a waste of talent to use transformational leaders on virtual teams, as they are not effective. On the other hand evidence for a positive relationship has been uncovered in the correlation analysis. This discrepancy in findings is intriguing and begs the question what causes the correlation but does not support a significant relationship in the regression analysis. Further research should be done in order to answer this.
This study is a first step in providing some insight into the functioning of virtual teams. The findings of the present study suggest that task interdependence may be crucial for readiness for change in virtual teams; it seems to have a direct effect on readiness. Different interdependence conditions could exist which may influence attitudes towards readiness. If task interdependence has a positive relationship with readiness for change, what will be the relationship of other dependencies on readiness for change in virtual teams? Will it behave in the same manner as it does with in traditional teams when combined with outcome or goal interdependence? And why does this direct relationship between task interdependence and readiness for change in virtual teams exist in the first place? It will be a good idea to look into this. We saw in the introduction people are more likely to work from their own residence, automatically making those people virtual team members. Also, 80% of the Fortune 500 companies were shown to rely more and more on virtual teams. Any company wanting to get the most out of their virtual teams will be helped by more knowledge on virtual teams. In this particular research with highly virtual teams, it was shown there is no significant relationship between transformational leadership and readiness for change. However, task interdependence was positively related with readiness for change. As noted in the
introduction, change is almost of daily concern for most organizations. This research has found that high task interdependence can help in achieving readiness for change.
5.4 Suggestions for future research
do a more in depth research with the specific constructs used here, before generalizing in a larger study. What is meant is that one must first understand which constructs influence which variables in a specific way. For instance, charisma was used as a dimension of transformational leadership, and although it is not an unknown concept, it will be of interest to know its specific relationship with task interdependence for instance.
Next to this, it is proposed to study in more detail the relationship of task interdependence and task complexity on the readiness for change in virtual teams. A group has to have a certain propensity for information processing based on the requirements of the task (Gladstein, 1984). The different dimensions of tasks, such as complexity or interdependence, set these requirements. When a sample does not possess this information-processing capacity it will be hard for them to operate under high interdependence for instance (Tushman & Nadler, 1979). Therefore, more research into the information-processing capacity is also advised to see whether they can cope with certain task dimensions.
A significant relationship has been recorded between task interdependence and readiness. Task interdependence is an inherent part of virtual teams, thus the importance of understanding its relationship on virtual teams needs no explanation. Interestingly some evidence was uncovered which stated task conflicts lead to better results in virtual teams (Jehn & Mannix, 2001). Perhaps complex tasks can be better done within virtual teams due to this. Further research is suggested as this may be of theoretical and practical interest as well.
Of all the relationships observed in this particular study, one that stands out is the one between transformational leadership and readiness for change in virtual teams. A positive correlation did not lead to a significant relationship in the regression analysis. We strongly recommend to look into this: what was the reason for the correlational relationship? Is it because of a causal relationship or was there some other variable at play causing the correlation? A same question exists in the relationship between task
Furthermore, it is suggested to study the same variables in different industries to see whether a certain industry shows stronger relationships between the variables. This in order to ascertain the generalizability of the results found in our research presented here: as was mentioned in the strengths and weaknesses the environment tested here might be of a specific influence. Also, other industries with more equal gender division can be sought out to tackle to problems at once: different industries and equal division of men vs. women as this was also named as one of the weaknesses.
5.5 Final Conclusions
The fact that the hypotheses were not supported does not mean the research has been a complete loss of time. If anything, it has led to more questions which is a good thing: We should strive to find out how virtual teams behave in certain situations such as the ones in this research. See if they need different leadership styles to be receptive for oncoming changes. One conclusion to be drawn is that the results state that transformational leaders, which are a scarce commodity, should not be used in virtual teams: the results show no significant relationship, thus it would be a waste of their skills.
As mentioned earlier, there are some avenues for further research. A comparison of these results can be made between virtual teams and traditional teams to see if there are any differences between them. Other moderating variables may be of influence in other industries: to be able to better generalize these results a large-scale study across different industries should be done. Also, to negate any bias because of the high degree of men in this study, environments with more equal division of sex should be considered. The other interesting finding is the positive relationship found between task interdependence and
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Figure 1
Table 4
Factor loadings and communalities containing all questions based on a principal components analysis with oblimin
rotation for the questions concerning Transformational Leadership, Readiness for Change, and Task Interdependence (N =
116)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Transformational leadership
Mijn leider inspireert mij met zijn/haar plannen voor de toekomst .163 .866 .068 .054 -.146 .032 -.004
Mijn leider ontwikkelt teamgeest en teamgevoel onder de teamleden -.027 .837 -.070 -.023 -.034 -.087 -.066
Mijn leider geeft richting aan het team door het goede voorbeeld te geven -.039 .812 .005 .052 .024 .070 -.176
Mijn leider wil altijd het maximaal haalbare .245 .460 -.088 .194 -.082 -.026 -.594
Mijn leider toont respect voor mijn persoonlijke gevoelens -.061 .760 .089 -.106 .134 .017 .154
Mijn leider stimuleert me om mijn optreden vanuit verschillende invalshoeken te bekijken
-.053 .812 -.136 -.111 .089 .004 .073
Task Interdependence
De andere teamleden en ik zijn afhankelijk van elkaar voor informatie en middelen die we nodig hebben om onze taken goed uit te kunnen voeren
-.131 .100 .205 -.128 .127 .827 .049
Mijn taken zijn van dien aard dat ik gedwongen ben met anderen teamleden te overleggen en samen te werken om goed te kunnen presteren
-.033 .026 .503 -.176 -.077 .346 -.369
Ik heb een éénpersoonsfunctie; Ik hoef nauwelijks met andere teamleden samen te werken om mijn taken goed te kunnen doen
.309 -.108 .004 .266 -.132 .653 .131
De taakverdeling tussen mij en mijn teamleden is zodanig dat ik van hen afhankelijk ben bij het uitvoeren van mijn werk
.071 -.008 .876 -.029 -.129 .082 -.044
De taakverdeling tussen mij en mijn teamgenoten is zodanig dat zij van mij afhankelijk zijn voor het uitvoeren van hun werk
.050 -.070 .863 -.049 .041 .051 .016
Readiness for change
