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This paper aims to investigate work–life balance and job satisfaction in the emerging virtual work environments among women in patriarchal Nigerian society.

Data were collected with structured and semi-structured questionnaire from 316 participants who signed up for online affiliate marketing programs in Nigeria. The data were analysed with descriptive statistics, while the hypotheses were tested with partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The outcomes indicate insignificant conflict in the interface between remotely working from home and the discharge of family care responsibilities among married Nigerian women. Also, the women derive significant job satisfaction from virtual work settings. Outcomes from the semi-structured interviews indicate that Nigerian women receive more support in indoor household chores than outdoor household chores while performing virtual work duties from home locations with housemaids being the highest source of such support.

This study extends work–life balance literature from the traditional work environments to the emerging virtual work settings in Africa by providing empirical evidence that the emerging virtual work settings do not result in work–family conflict but rather yield significant job satisfaction among Nigerian women.

Responding to calls to examine trust beyond the scope of the objectivist paradigm, the purpose of this paper is to qualitatively examine the trust relationship between leaders and followers in virtual work settings. Based on results, trust was operationalized based on extant theory (e.g. ability, honesty, integrity, benevolence; Mayer et al., 1995). Given the high degree of technology mediated communication prevalent in the workplace today, it was interesting that the authors also found evidence for followers’ perceptions of a leader’s level of media savvy (adeptness at using appropriate media dependent on the message being sent) as a salient phenomenon that appears to influence followers’ trust of their leaders in a virtual work environment. Other variables that influenced leader–follower trust relationships also emerged, including leader and follower personal characteristics, depth of relationship and time. These variables and their relationships are discussed in consideration of the existing trust literature with specific consideration of the context of virtual interactions. Implications and future directions are also discussed.

The paper opted for an exploratory study using the open-ended approach of grounded theory, utilizing open-ended survey data from 137 working professionals (after data cleaning and eliminating incomplete responses). This study was an inductive, theory-building effort focused on analyzing participants’ views of their own experiences in interacting with their leaders in a virtual work environment. The authors utilize methods of grounded theory research that guide a researcher to recognize the theory that emerges from the data (Locke, 2002; Strauss and Corbin, 1998), which included microanalysis and open coding, followed by axial and select coding.

The authors found evidence for followers’ perceptions of a leader’s level of media savvy as a salient phenomenon that appears to influence followers’ trust of their leaders in a virtual work environment. Other variables that influenced leader–follower trust relationships also emerged, including leader and follower personal characteristics, depth of relationship and time.

With any qualitative study, there are limitations to the generalizability of the sample to other populations. Although the authors developed considerable evidence to support the proposed relationships offered here, the authors are working with what is still a new and unexplored context: the virtual world. Perhaps the leader’s media communication skills moderate or otherwise impact the relationships found here and as supported by Mayer et al. (1995) and Mayer and Gavin (2005). Therefore, it would be of interest to examine possible differences in trust of the leaders by manipulating the media through which leaders communicate with their followers.

Given the findings, the authors believe the leader can communicate positively on follower development in a virtual setting, subsequently enhancing follower trust levels. The implications are also apparent on a much smaller scale: the relationships between leaders and followers. One common theme was that leaders should not completely eliminate face-to-face interaction in order to first develop and then maintain trust in a virtual work environment. This indicates the necessity for managers to not only develop a technical competence with computer technologies, but also the ability to render an appropriateness judgment in terms of what messages are most appropriate for what medium.

Given the popularity of virtual settings, much interpersonal communication is now electronically mediated. However, even with the expansion of the virtual context, the authors still know little about how various forms of technology mediated communication by affect leader–follower relationships. Therefore, it is of interest to researchers and practitioners to examine the impact of virtual settings on interactions and relationships, specifically between the leader and follower.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study leadership in varied contexts, in this case the virtual workplace. Relatively few research papers have examined this context, thus creating originality and value.

The study assessed the impact of technostress creators, work–family conflict and perceived organisational support (POS) on work engagement for employees operating within the virtual and hybrid work settings. The idea is to redefine the antecedents of work engagement in work settings that are characterised by excessive technology and work–family conflict.

Data gathered from 302 academics and support staff employees at a selected university in South Africa were utilised to assess the abovementioned relationships via variance-based structural equation modelling.

The combined effect of technostress, work–family conflict and POS on work engagement indicates that work–family conflict is a critical component in the relationship between technostress and work engagement. Although POS is seen as a job resource that lessens stress, the study found that the influence of work–family conflict is stronger than that of POS; hence, a negative influence is reported on work engagement. Despite the presence of support, overwhelming technostress creators and work–family conflict issues increase demands and influence work engagement negatively.

The results noted that, in hybrid and virtual work settings, managers can drive employee engagement by focussing on designing more favourable work–life balance (WLB) policies, providing adequate information communication technology (ICT) support, fostering aspects of positive technology and defining the boundaries between work life and family time.

The managers need to realise the detrimental effects of both technostress and work–family conflict on work engagement in virtual and hybrid work settings. Expanding the personal and job resources of individuals in hybrid and virtual settings is critical to enable them to meet the additional work demands and to manage the strain imposed by technostress. Instituting relevant organisation support has proved to be inadequate to address the challenges relating to technostress and work–family conflict. Therefore, introducing WLB policies that assist employees to set clear boundaries between work and family time to avoid burn out and spillover is critical. This is especially important when dealing with technostress creators in the remote work setting. Additionally, providing adequate ICT support as well as training related to use of different devices and software should be part of the organisational culture.

A manageable and reasonable workload should be maintained bearing in mind the complexity and ambiguity associated with the hybrid work setting. Managers should make allowances for employees to adjust managers' schedules to accommodate personal obligations, as well as adjust employees' workloads to accommodate family responsibilities. As for the coping strategy of technostress and work–family conflict, considering the positive effects of the supportive work environment is important.

This study provides a model on the interaction of the redefined antecedents (technostress and work–family conflict) of work engagement in high-tech environments such as virtual and hybrid work settings.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate boundary spanning tactics in a cross-organizational virtual alliance and discuss the analytical value of “digging” into technology for excavating boundaries and understanding their dynamic and emergent features.

Although boundaries, their role and implications have been extensively investigated across a variety of online settings, the results are inconclusive as to the features of technology that create, dissolve or re-locate boundaries. This is attributed to the fact that in most cases technology is addressed as a black box – a discrete artefact of practice – without seeking justification for the inscribed functions that enable or constrain use. The paper overcomes these shortcomings by analysing digital trace data compiled through a virtual ethnographic assessment of a cross-organizational tourism alliance. Data comprise electronic traces of online collaboration whose interpretive capacity is augmented using knowledge visualization techniques capable of revealing dynamic and emergent features of boundary spanning.

Boundary spanning in virtual settings entails micro-negotiations around several types of boundaries. Some of them are either enforced by or inscribed into technology, while others are enacted in practice. Knowledge visualization of digital trace data allows “excavation” of these boundaries, assessment of their implications on distributed organizing of online ensembles and discovery of “hidden” knowledge that drives boundary spanning tactics of collaborators.

In cross-organizational collaborative settings, boundary spanning represents an enacted capability stemming from the intertwining between material and social/collective agencies. Consequently, boundaries surface as first class design constructs, directing design attention not only to features inscribed in technology (i.e. user profiles, registration mechanisms, moderation policies) but also the way such features are appropriated to re-shape, re-locate or dissolve boundaries.

An empirical data pool compiled through virtual ethnographic assessment of online collaboration is revisited and augmented with knowledge visualization techniques that enhance the interpretive capacity of the data and reveal “hidden” aspects of the collaborators’ boundary spanning behaviour and tactics.

“Organizational identification” refers to a perception of “oneness” with an organization. The purpose of this paper is to provide a model of organizational identification for virtual team workers and examine the role of cultural dimensions in a virtual setting. Specifically, it poses individualism‐collectivism and uncertainty avoidance as potential situational contingencies that may affect the determinants of an organizational identification relationship in a virtual work setting.

The proposed research framework delineates how cultural dimensions relate to virtual work‐associated individual (interpersonal trust, need for affiliation) and environmental (spatial and cultural dispersion, ICT‐enabled communication) factors and organizational identification. Several testable propositions emerge.

This study provides a foundation for empirical studies that examine the linkages among organizational identification, virtual work, and environment‐related factors and cultural variables.

This study has particular implications for managing virtual teams, as well as specific suggestions for a typology of virtual team members. The typology supports a consideration of expected levels of organizational identification, depending on virtual team member types.

Scholars have devoted very little attention to exploring what factors drive or impede organizational identification in cross‐cultural virtual teams. This paper attempts to fill that void by linking the immediate determinants and the contingency role of cultural variables or organizational identification in the context of virtual work.

This paper aims to explore how women’s compassionate leadership behaviors relate to physical isolation, trust building and turnover intention in virtual work environments in Nigeria.

The authors collected quantitative data through two-wave surveys from 428 respondents in virtual work environments across public and private organizations in Nigeria. The proposed hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The outcomes from the test of hypotheses suggest that women’s compassionate managerial leadership behaviors negatively relate to physical isolation among virtual workers. Conversely, a positive link was found between women’s compassionate managerial leadership behaviors and trust building. Further, an inverse association was found between women’s compassionate managerial leadership behaviors and turnover intention among virtual workers.

Based on the findings, organizations may consider deploying more women managers to virtual work schedules to address trust, isolation and turnover intention challenges. Also, HR practitioners may consider training male managers in virtual work on how to restructure their relationships with subordinates to reflect compassionate attributes so that subordinates can feel safe sharing their worries with them for timely support. Policy-wise, relevant government agencies that are saddled with the responsibility of emancipating women from career-inhibiting patriarchal practices in Africa (i.e. confining women to the house) should encourage women to embrace the homeworking model, which holds great career potential for women.

As a response to the current calls for research on the suitable leadership style for virtual work environments, this study empirically demonstrates that women’s innate compassionate leadership behaviors significantly address physical isolation, trust and turnover intention challenges in virtual work settings. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that explores the link between these variables. As such, this study substantially enriches the literature on gender in management.

The COVID-19 pandemic has, besides the health concerns, caused an unprecedented social and economic crisis that has particularly hit service industries hard. Due to extensive safety measures, many service employees have to work remotely to keep service businesses running. With limited literature on leadership and virtual work in the service context, this paper aims to report on leadership effectiveness regarding employees' work performance in virtual settings brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drawing on the input–process–outcome (IPO) framework, this research investigates the effectiveness of leadership on service employees' work performance mediated by work-related tension, autonomy, and group cohesiveness. Furthermore, this study explores moderating effects of the service provider's digital maturity. To test the derived model, the authors collected survey data from 206 service employees who, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, unexpectedly had to transform to a virtual work environment. The authors analyzed the data using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results indicated that it took task- and relation-oriented leadership behavior to maintain service employees' work performance in a virtual environment during crisis situations. Further, results indicated mediating effects of service employees' individual job autonomy and team cohesiveness; surprisingly, work-related tension did not impact employees' work performance. Results offered service businesses guidance on how to effectively lead in times of crisis when service employees predominantly work in virtual environments.

This is the first empirical study to show how leadership affects service employees' work performance in a virtual work environment during crisis times. Thus, the study contributes to the scarce literature on the impact of leadership in service firms that have to operate in such a setting.

The paper uses the dramaturgical perspective for conceptualising trust development within temporary virtual teams. The underlying assumption is that temporary teams do not have the luxury of time that, according to the traditional trust theories, enables familiarity among team members and promotes trust development. Yet, in these teams, trust needs to develop quickly and it is important that it lasts throughout the short duration of the project lifecycle. Using the metaphor of a theatre, a dramaturgical perspective on trust relationships is adopted and is used to present actors, co‐actors and audience as all playing a key role in scripting, staging and performing virtual plays. The dramaturgical perspective provides an illustrative approach for uncovering the interactions between key players. As it is argued, these interactions elicit the process of trust development within the temporary setting of virtual teams, constituting a type of trust relationship that is mutually negotiated and jointly constructed. This type of trust is called “situated” and emerges from the scripted, pre‐scripted, co‐scripted, re‐scripted and unscripted computer‐mediated interactions of virtual players. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore hybrid work spaces, combining open-plan, team-based offices with virtual work and leadership, in relation to the main leadership and team challenges virtual project environments encounter.

In a review of virtual team literature, virtuality is defined and its main challenges to project leadership are identified. Based on the literature, several semi-structured interviews with project team managers within telecom and IT-consultancy were conducted. Using an exploratory approach, the authors introduce some new leadership concepts and functional benefits of open-plan offices important for virtual project environments.

The findings suggest that project managers encounter several new kinds of challenges while leading virtual projects. Co-location of the project team during certain stages in open-plan, team-based offices may meet some of these challenges. The authors claim that spatial arrangements and their embodied subjective experiences make an impact on the effectiveness of virtual project teams.

This paper develops new conceptual thinking of how office facilities may contribute to productive virtual project teams. Further empirical studies in other settings are needed to generate generalizable findings.

The paper discusses and provides arguments for real estate and facility managers, as well as project and team leaders, for the importance of open-plan offices for virtual project teams.

The paper combines and benefits from different discussions on workspaces, virtual team and leadership. Furthermore, the paper introduces the notion of spatial leadership beyond the mainstream leader-centric approach to point out the importance of physical workspace of virtual teams and how the workspaces can perform leadership functions.

Research testing a complex process model, incorporating moderating and mediating mechanisms associated with virtual team (VT) performance, remains rare. This paper aims to introduce trust climate as a crucial boundary condition for high performance in VTs. It also aims to propose a moderated‐indirect model such that the relationship between team goals and task performance is mediated by task cohesion and the relationship between team goals and task cohesion is moderated by trust.

Hypotheses are tested using a longitudinal design with a sample of 50 teams.

The proposed moderated‐indirect model is confirmed. The model explains the indirect relationship between team goal setting and performance transmitted through task cohesion, which is dependent on the level of trust climate.

Although hypotheses were tested in a longitudinal setting, common source bias might be a potential problem for some of the observed relationships. Future research could build on this model for further investigations on more complex theoretical models for VT performance.

This research suggests that managers should emphasize the development of team trust at early stages of collaboration in a VT to reach high performance outcomes.

For VTs, trustful working environments should become even more important in the future, supporting team members' satisfaction in working in VTs.

Through this study, a complex process model for VTs was developed and trust climate established as a prominent context factor for VT success.