Investigating the Effect of Managers’ Digital Emotional Intelligence on the Dynamics of Virtual Teams
Keywords:
Digital emotional intelligence, managers, virtual team dynamics, digital leadership, team collaboration and coordination.Abstract
Digital transformation and the increasing expansion of virtual teams have fundamentally changed the nature of organizational management and have further highlighted the role of managers in guiding human interactions within digital environments. In this regard, managers’ digital emotional intelligence has received attention as one of the key factors in maintaining cohesion, interaction, and dynamics within virtual teams. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of managers’ digital emotional intelligence on virtual team dynamics, using an applied approach based on transparent statistical methods. In terms of purpose, the present study was applied, and in terms of implementation method, it was descriptive-correlational. The research data were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire based on a five-point Likert scale. The statistical population included managers and members of active virtual teams in service-oriented and knowledge-based organizations and companies who had experience working in digital and remote work environments. The sample size was determined to be 230 participants using Cochran’s formula, and sampling was conducted through the simple random sampling method. The validity of the instrument was confirmed through content validity, and its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (0.89). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman’s correlation test, and multiple linear regression in SPSS version 26. The results showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between the dimensions of managers’ digital emotional intelligence, including digital self-awareness, emotional management and self-regulation, emotional flexibility, and team collaboration and coordination, and virtual team dynamics. The regression findings also indicated that team collaboration and coordination and digital emotional management played the greatest role in explaining virtual team dynamics. Overall, the findings of this study emphasize that strengthening managers’ digital emotional intelligence can serve as an effective strategy for improving the performance, cohesion, and sustainability of virtual teams and can provide an appropriate basis for managerial decision-making and organizational policymaking in digital work environments.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Mohammad Hossein Mohebali (Corresponding author); Soheila Hassanzadeh , Mozhgan Mostafaei , Alireza Kasraiyan , Seyed Hadi Nabavizadeh Chakari , Meysam Hasani Estalkhi (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
