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As remote work arrangements have gained in popularity, workforce dispersion has become increasingly widespread. Little research to date has examined how physical distance influences leader-follower communication effectiveness or leader performance. Building on top of transformational leadership theory, this paper explores how perceived leader performance is influenced by leadership style, physical distance, and communication effectiveness between leaders and followers. A survey of 138 followers, reporting to a total of 41 leaders, was conducted and data were analyzed at the individual follower-level using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) technique. Our model explained 45% of the variance in communication effectiveness and 67% of the variance in perceived leader performance. Consistent with past empirical findings, transformational leadership was associated more strongly with perceived leader performance than transactional contingent reward leadership. Communication effectiveness was also a strong predictor of leader performance, and furthermore acted as a mediator of leadership behavior on performance. Surprisingly, distance had no influence on either communication effectiveness or perceived leader performance. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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Since the emergence of the knowledge-based view of the firm in the mid-1990, researchers have made considerable effort to untangle the complexity of how individuals create, capture and realize value from knowledge. To date, this burgeoning field has offered rich and yet diverse insights involving contextual, process and outcome factors that influence individual level knowledge transfer. Concomitantly globalization and advancing technologies have extended virtual work arrangements such as virtual teams and virtual communities on the internet and considerably extended the knowledge base upon which individuals can draw when creating, acquiring, sharing and integrating knowledge. Research on individual level knowledge transfer has also embraced these virtual environments spawning new insights. Hence the objective of this paper is to assess current state of research and identify potential avenues for future research at the intersection of these two dimensions. The authors focus specifically on knowledge transfer research at the individual level instead of the team or firm level and within virtual settings. Applying a process view of knowledge transfer, they synthesize existing findings and discuss issues surrounding the inputs, processes, and outputs. The synthesis reveals both strengths and gaps in the literature. Accordingly, the authors offer directions for future research that may address the gaps and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of individual level knowledge transfer in virtual settings.