The Effect of Empathy on Team Members' Moqi in Virtual Teams: A Moderated Mediation Model

Xuan Yu; Luxiaohe Zhang; Meilin Liu; Bin He

doi:10.2147/PRBM.S414860

The Effect of Empathy on Team Members' Moqi in Virtual Teams: A Moderated Mediation Model

Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2023 Jul 12:16:2619-2633. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S414860. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Xuan Yu¹, Luxiaohe Zhang^{1

2}, Meilin Liu³, Bin He⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Economics and Management, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, Sichuan, People's Republic of China.
² School of Foreign Languages, Xi'an Shiyou University, Xi'an, Shannxi, People's Republic of China.
³ Antai College of Economics & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
⁴ School of National Governance, Southwest University, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.

Abstract

Purpose: Moqi can help team members facilitate communication without all interlocutors present, so the researchers speculate it can be an efficient communication tool for virtual teams to compensate for its lack of synchronous communication and in-person contact. However, the only study on the predictors of team members' moqi believed that shared understandings could only arise from team tasks. Based on social exchange theory, the current study emphasizes the social and emotional benefits exchanged among team members and explores moqi-making among virtual team members through a lens of relationship-building.

Methods: With a two-wave time-lagged survey design, a total of 381 team members from 86 virtual teams in China participated in the study. Hierarchical regression analysis was performed to test the hypotheses.

Results: Results confirmed that virtual team members' empathy is conducive to their experiences of high-quality interpersonal relationships (HQIR) and moqi. Relationship closeness positively moderates the link between empathy and experiences of HQIR and the mediating effect.

Conclusion: This study helps unveil the significance of compassionate communication and life-giving connections in cultivating virtual team members' moqi and offers meaningful insights for facilitating virtual collaborations.

Keywords: empathy; high-quality interpersonal relationship; moqi; relationship closeness; virtual teams.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Southwest Petroleum University 2023 Humanities and Social Sciences General Fund Project, number 2022-2023RW022; Sichuan Applied Psychology Research Center, number CSXL-23328; Engineering Research Center of Integration and Application of Digital Learning Technology at Ministry of Education, grant number 1221023; “Innovative Research Project” for postgraduates of Chongqing Technology and Business University, number yjscxx2022-112-25; Luzhou Social Public Security Research Center, number SHAQ202209; 2022 Annual project of Sichuan Party History and Party Construction Research Center, number DSDJ22-14; 2022 Annual Project of Regional Public Management Informatization Research Center, number QGXH22-05; and Chengdu Social Science Planning project, number 2022CS053.