Perceptions of leadership emoji use in virtual teams: A cross-cultural study

This research explores cross-cultural differences in perceptions of leadership emoji use and its implication for managing virtual teams. Two randomized controlled experiments tested for the effects of using emojis in computer-mediated workplace communication. Participants from four countries (N = 1488) were randomly assigned to a control or treatment group and asked to read workplace scenarios with or without emoji presence. Leadership perceptions as well as organizational measures, including civility and PO-fit were extended to all participants post-study. GLOBE leadership styles were used to predict the impact of emoji use on our study variables in hierarchical linear modeling. We found leadership emoji use to have a significant effect on several leadership perceptions across our sample. Leadership emoji use significantly increased perceptions of warmth for all countries except South Africa but led to negative perceptions of competence when ‘strong’ emojis (i.e., heart-shaped eyes) were used. German participants were the only country group to be positively impacted by leadership emoji use on organizational outcomes. The stronger emojis used in scenario 2, led to amplified effects as compared with those observed in study 1. Our findings have implications for diversity management and global leadership communication across virtual teams.