Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study is to identify how leadership and team behaviors impact the willingness of individual team members to persist in World of Warcraft raid teams working on end-game progression fights. Methodology: This study, through a phenomenological approach using an online survey, personal interviews, and observations, looked at how leadership and team behaviors impact persistence in end-game progression fights within the World of Warcraft. The design of this phenomenological study was emergent and responded to needs for exploration as they arose. The process was iterative because the researcher collected and analyzed data, collected and analyzed additional data based on the emergent data, and continued repeating the process until a point of theoretical saturation was reached. Findings: An evaluation of the collected survey and interview data, supported by personal observations by the researcher identified three major themes as contributing to an individual's reason for persisting with a raid team within the World of Warcraft. These themes are categorized as relationships, common goals, and challenges. Participants expressed these ideas as being reasons they would join a particular team, but also as contributing to their reasons for leaving, or failing to persist with a team. Conclusions: Individuals expect friendly relationships to result from joining a group or team within World of Warcraft and that it is up to the individual team member to develop those relationships as long as the leadership establishes an environment for the relationship to grow. Team members' willingness to persist toward team goals is dependent on the success of the relationships with others on the team. Recommendations: Further research is advised: (a) additional exploration of the impact of bad apples (from Felps et al.'s research) on virtual teams including teams in immersive environments, (b) exploration of the applicability of the theory of working alliance from a psychotherapy setting to team and group development, and additional research into (c) relationship development and (d) conflict resolution within virtual teams may help in addressing the specific needs and challenges of working in a virtual team. *An orcish phrase meaning "Victory or death"; often used as a battle cry.