Leadership Challenges in the Context of "Flexible Working" and Its Implication to a Virtual Workplace: Case Study of a China's Publishing House

This research aims to explore what challenges the management leaders face when dealing with flexible working employees in a remote working environment, based on the case of one of China's biggest publishing houses—People's Literature Publishing House. Through primary research that targets the managers and employees of the Publishing House, 63 valid questionnaires were collected. The survey was conducted to testify six pairs of variables, specifically the relationship between leaders' communication (independent variable) and employee performance (response variable), between leaders' mental support and employee performance & psychological health, between the use of technology and leadership effectiveness, and between leaders' promotion of flexible organizational culture and employee performance (e.g. engagement, productivity, creativity). The research findings show that leaders' effective communication, mental support, and promotion of flexible organizational culture are great challenges for leaders to manage the employees who work in the virtual environment and improve overall employee performance. The survey results are of great value to the virtual workplace as leaders should emphasize their skills and abilities to deal with flexible working employees, e.g. empowering, effective online communication, and motivating employees in the remote working environment, etc.