Learning in virtual student teams: an examination of shared leadership

Abstract

This study explores the factors that contribute to shared leadership and its association with knowledge acquisition in virtual teams. Through the proposed multilevel model, we examined team empowerment at the team level and perceived virtuality at the individual level as the predictors of a team member’s perceived shared leadership, which then fuels the learner’s knowledge update and intention to learn. We tested our research model using 341 graduate students from 48 student project teams in the context of online project-based learning. This research offers substantive contributions to the team learning and leadership literature in the context of online team-based training.