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Abstract

From the types of leaders to the behaviors associated with leadership, there is a constant debate on what exactly influences leadership emergence and which type of leadership seems to be more effective in a group. Currently, there has been very few studies that take these theories and apply them in the already well-established industry of video games. For this particular study, some theories of organizational behavior will be applied into the team-based 5 versus 5 Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game: League of Legends (Summoner’s Rift).

Using Taiwan as the population for sampling, most of the people who play the game fall into Silver and Gold ranks. Two different groups were assigned. A group that can communicate verbally and a group that could not. By doing so, we can contrast any type of behavior in leadership and its emergence as well as the teams’ performance depending on the type of communication.

As observed by the results of the study, though the type of communication can affect the flow of information among the members, it is not a determinant on whether or not the presence of a leader will emerge. On all occasions the person perceived to be as most competent emerged as a leader at some point in time during a match. During the matches, all teams that perceived leadership had more than 1 leader emerge and strategies changed. The teams that had leaders all performed better than the opposing teams on most aspects.

Keywords: Leadership Emergence, Competence, Communication, eSports, League of Legends

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