<p>The study presents a three-level meta-analysis examining the relationship between motivation and performance in virtual teams, based on 30 effect sizes from 19 quantitative studies involving 16,681 teams. A three-level random effects model yielded a pooled mean correlation of r = 0.304, a psychometric meta-analysis pooled correlation of r̂ = 0.278, and an estimated true-score correlation of <i>ρ</i> = 0.262, suggesting a modest but reliable relationship between the constructs. We observed substantial heterogeneity (I² = 85.2%), which indicated variability in true effects across research contexts. The moderator analysis, which is the primary contribution of the study, revealed that the strength of the motivation—performance relationship varied systematically across team type, duration, scope, geographic location, occupation, team size, and sample size. This shows the effects varying substantially by context. We observed that in the cross-level models, most heterogeneity resulted from between-study differences (40–46%) and within-studies (38–45%), accounting for a significant share. For publication bias and robustness, we checked the funnel plot, Egger’s regression, trim-and-fill, PET-PEESE and fail-safe N. The stability of findings across study exclusions was confirmed by the Sensitivity analysis. We identified a consistent positive association that is reliable, despite constant variability across studies, as indicated by the cumulative meta-analysis. The results indicate that motivation is a reliable but context-dependent contributor to virtual team performance, whose effect is amplified by high accountability, sustained interaction, and structured task demands. The findings also highlight the significance of investigating study-level moderators in future research.</p>