Interplay of paradoxical virtual leadership and psychological contract violation – impact on organizational citizenship behavior

Abstract

PurposeThe daunting task of managing knowledge workers virtually has not always yielded positive results. This empirical work discusses the impact of Virtual Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behavior. The study investigated how Psychological Contract Violation moderates the relationship between Virtual Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior.Design/methodology/approachData was collected from 392 IT engineers working in software companies in India. The cross-sectional data was analyzed using Warp-PLS software, IBM SPSS and IBM Amos.FindingsThe results support the proposition that virtual leadership is negatively associated with Organizational citizenship behavior, at sub-dimension levels except obedience. The moderating role of psychological contract violation is also established by the results.Practical implicationsVirtual leaders should demonstrate collaborative behaviors to generate organizational citizenship behavior among team members. Leaders should be imparted training to enable them to adapt themselves to virtual environment. This study highlights the paradoxical nature of virtual leadership and opens the possibilities for future research.Originality/valueThe study is one of the first to report a negative association between Virtual leadership and Organization citizenship behavior. There is uniqueness in the use of the “Contingency theory of leadership” to explain the difficulties faced while managing a virtual team.