The Effect of Virtuality on Work Engagement through Social Presence: Moderated Mediation Effect of Team Members’ Perception of Identity entrepreneurship

Abstract: This study aims to verify the effects of virtuality in workplace and social presence on work engagement and the moderated mediating effects of leaders’ identity entrepreneurship perceived by team members. An online survey was conducted on remote workers and 300 questionnaires were analyzed. The research findings confirmed that social presence mediated the relationship between virtuality and work engagement. Furthermore, the moderating effect of leaders’ identity entrepreneurship of the leader was significant in the relationship between virtuality and social presence. As hypothesized, the moderating effect of the leaders’ identity entrepreneurship perceived by the team members was confirmed. Based on the result of this study, this study proposes the necessity of social communication among team members in a remote work environment with high virtuality. The implications of the findings for promoting such communication are discussed and the limitations of the study are considered along with future research directions.