Communication and Leadership Trustworthiness in Virtual Teams: An Empirical Comparison of the US and China

This paper examines the influence of culture, self-disclosure and communication media on perceptions of trustworthiness of the leadership of a virtual team using a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG). We obtained data from two main sources: a survey sent to the virtual team members in the US and China and archival data from the log-files of the MMOG. Based on a unique data set of 2245 participants from 319 virtual teams, this study shows that perceptions of leadership trustworthiness are affected by culture, high self-disclosure and intensive use of communication media. Furthermore, we posited and found that the relationship between two dimensions of self-disclosure and trustworthiness as well as the usage of synchronous or asynchronous communication media and trustworthiness is moderated by culture. Our study sheds light on the influence of computer-mediated communication on team leadership trustworthiness in virtual team environments and the moderating role of culture.