The Role of e-Leadership on the Productivity of Virtual Work in Higher Education

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 pandemic may further decline productivity of the workforce in the future especially in higher education. This article aims to verify the significance of e-leadership as organizational factor, digital collaboration as job factor, and digital mastery as personal factor on the productivity of virtual work in higher education. Online survey and causal analysis were conducted for supporting this article. It's about 847 academic and non-academic staffs who were participating as the respondents. PLS based Structural Equation Modelling were utilized for structuring and calculating the collected data. The result of statistical analysis reveals that e-leadership affects positively and significantly but indirectly on the productivity of virtual work. Digital mastery and digital collaboration play moderating role in determining effect of e-leadership on work productivity. For maintaining and leveraging the productivity of employee in doing virtual work, the organization should direct leadership of academic managers as transformational leadership approach for developing digital mastery and encouraging digital collaboration. © 2021 IEEE.