Despite the pervasiveness of self-managing virtual teams, organizations find it particularly challenging to motivate virtual team members to exhibit and manage their leadership behaviors. This study contributes to virtual team leadership literature by specifically shedding light on how distinct awareness forms enabled by information technology (IT) signal important cues to virtual team members to self-lead, that is, self-direct their leadership behavior in their team. Our results reveal that IT-enabled disclosure awareness is key to inducing several leadership behaviors: directive leadership, supportive leadership and interpersonal helping. Further, for directive leadership and interpersonal helping, the relationship is contingent on IT-enabled task knowledge and IT-enabled presence awareness. At low IT-enabled task knowledge awareness or high IT-enabled presence awareness, virtual team members who perceived IT-enabled disclosure awareness employed directive leadership and interpersonal helping. Opposite results were found at high perceived IT-enabled task knowledge awareness and low perceived IT-enabled presence awareness. This research highlights the critical role played by specific awareness forms enabled by IT in motivating virtual team members to engage in self-leadership.

尽管自我管理的虚拟团队无处不在，但组织发现激励虚拟团队成员展示和管理其领导行为特别具有挑战性。这项研究通过专门阐明信息技术（IT）支持的不同意识形式如何向虚拟团队成员自我领导（即自我指导其领导行为）的重要线索发出信号，从而为虚拟团队领导文学做出了贡献。我们的结果表明，基于IT的披露意识是引发几种领导行为的关键：指导性领导，支持性领导和人际互助。此外，对于指令领导和人际帮助，这种关系取决于IT支持的任务知识和IT支持的存在意识。在具有较低的IT支持的任务知识意识或较高的IT支持的存在意识的情况下，感知IT支持的披露意识的虚拟团队成员会采用指令领导和人际帮助。与之相反的结果是，人们对IT支持的任务知识的认知度较高，而对IT支持的存在感的认知度较低。这项研究强调了IT支持的特定意识形式在激励虚拟团队成员进行自我领导方面所起的关键作用。