The Why of Abandonment: Effects of Team Diversity and Leadership Type on the Disbandment and Stagnation of Online Medical Teams

Abstract

Medical teams (MTs) online could provide more comprehensive and rapid services to patients through the collaboration among physicians. Numerous doctors have participated, but parts of MTs disband or stagnate after a period, so this pressing issue is in need of relief through exploring the reasons. Effects of team diversity, leadership types and their interaction on the team disbandment and stagnation were studied. This study comprehensively examined a sample of 1,071 MTs online, the total MTs on January 10, 2018, and we crawled the data from a leading OHC in China. Logistic regression was utilized. Results revealed team state would be influenced by team diversity and its interaction with leadership type, so the combination pairwise of the leadership and team diversity could reduce the abandonment possibility. Implications in theory and practice about the dealing with the abandonment crisis in online health community, and limitations are discussed.