The advantage of information visibility:
enhanced organizational transparency and employee
engagement
Author: S.T.J. de Ruiter (10728775)
Master’s Thesis - Graduate School of Communication
Master’s Program Communication Science: Corporate Communication Supervisor: P. G. A. Van der Rijt
Date: 23.06.2020 Wordcount: 7693
Abstract
In this fast changing world of work, employees are one of the most fundamental stakeholders to make an organization profitable and successful. Earlier studies indicate that transparency is an important demand of these employees within different types of organizations. Transparency in organizations is being more open to employees and involving them in everyday practices where information visibility can be a prerequisite for transparency to occur. Information visibility is categorized as making information available, accessible to employees and approved to share (Stohl, Stohl & Leonardi, 2016). Besides information visibility as a possible condition for transparency, there are also possible consequences for the engagement of employees. When an organization creates more openness by enhancing transparency through organizational communication, does this in turn enhances the engagement of employees?
This study examines the relationships between information visibility, transparency and engagement within an existing organization. An online survey was completed by 124 employees to provide answers. Results show that the attributes availability and approval lead to a more positive attitude on transparency and moreover, the relationship between these attributes and engagement is mediated by transparency. Unfortunately, accessibility had no influence on transparency and engagement, and moreover, no mediated relationship was found. This finding is equal for all contract types. Therefore, information visibility is an important indicator for proper organizational transparency and enhances employee engagement.
Keywords: Corporate Communication, Information Visibility, Transparency, Engagement, Contract type, Organizational Communication.
Introduction
In this fast changing world of work, employees are one of the most fundamental stakeholders to make an organization profitable and successful. An organization should listen to their employees and their needs regarding the workplace (Kelleher, 2009). Earlier studies indicate that transparency is an important demand of these employees within different types of organizations (Christensen & Cheney, 2015; Kelleher, 2009; Rosenfeld & Denice, 2015).
Transparency is seen as a valued term in previous literature. It is perceived as a social value within the workplace (Christensen & Cornelissen, 2015). Moreover, transparency is also a popular concept in other research such as studies on politics and governments (Hollyer, Rosendorff & Vreeland, 2011), health care (Horne, 2012), marketing (Attia, Blackwood, Guarda, Marcus & Rothman, 2016) sustainability (Fernandez-Feijoo, Romero & Ruiz, 2014) and leadership (Carasco-Saul, Kim & Kim, 2015).
Being more transparent is being more open, involving employees in organizational activities and processes where information is stored and shared (Ter Hoeven, Stohl, Leonardi & Stohl, 2019). Storing and sharing information indicates information visibility and this could be an important predictor for transparency to update employees on organizational visions, activities and results (Christensen & Cornelissen, 2015). The digital age offers organizations opportunities to strengthen transparency. For instance, online communication affords organizations to present more information towards their employees and update them more frequently (Leonardi, Huysman & Steinfeld, 2013).
However, in contradiction to the great amount of studies on transparency (Christensen & Cheney, 2015; Rawlins 2009; Rosenfeld & Denice, 2015), not many studies have paid attention to the definition of information visibility and how it relates to transparency (Ter Hoeven et al., 2019). Previous studies focused more on the relationship between information visibility and knowledge sharing (Gibbs, Rozaidi & Eisenberg, 2013), employee well-being
(Long, Hall, Bermbach, Jordan & Patterson, 2008) and supply chain management (Delen, Hardgrave & Sharda, 2007).
In this study, information visibility is categorized as a prerequisite for transparency where employees can see and locate information. On the other hand, transparency is more of a perception of how the organization involves employees within organizational processes through organizational communication. An organization cannot be transparent when it does not make information visible, thus information visibility should get more attention in research since it is a prerequisite for an organization to be transparent (Ter Hoeven et al., 2019).
Besides information visibility as a possible condition for transparency, there are also possible consequences. Earlier studies focused on transparency that could lead to various organizational benefits. For instance, transparency positively influences trust and credibility (Rawlins, 2009), ethical behavior (Huang, 2018), legitimacy (Rosenfeld & Denice, 2015), cooperation level (Houser, Levy, Padgitt, Peart & Xiao, 2014) and work-life enrichment (Jiang & Men, 2017). Transparency is not a strategy per se, but it is much more a practice that creates a transparent culture where the organization can express their social responsibility (Baum, 2005). By creating openness and honesty within organizations, other stakeholders such as employees will adapt to this openness and honesty, which in turn could lead to more engagement (Carasco-Saul et al., 2015; Jiang & Men, 2017). In addition, the employee engagement survey by the Harvard Business Review (2013) showed that 70 percent of the employees were more engaged when management frequently update them about the companies’ strategy and processes.
As mentioned above, the relationship between information visibility and transparency has not yet been clearly investigated. This study will strive to fill this gap dependent on a business case within an existing organization. By doing so, this research contributes to scholarly research within information visibility and transparency, since not many studies distinguished
these concepts and have empirically tested the potential relationship. This study challenges the relationship between the two concepts. Moreover, this study builds upon literature on organizational consequences of transparency on engagement. The concepts of transparency and engagement are much more studied on the basis of governmental institutions (Cucciniello & Nasi, 2014; Haro-de-Rosario, Sáez-Martín & del Carmen Caba-Pérez, 2018) and leadership (Bamford, Wong & Laschinger 2013; Jiang & Men, 2017). This research will fulfil the gap between these concepts within the workplace. Additionally, this study combines all three concepts.
Furthermore, the results of this study are socially relevant in the sense that organizations can learn from these findings and incorporate recommendations in their everyday practices. The call for transparency within the workplace (Christensen & Cornelissen, 2015; Harvard Business Review, 2013) asks for a clear strategy by managers of organizations. This study gives more insight in aspects of organizational communication and how this may effect an employees’ perception of organizational transparency. Moreover, this study indicates to what extent it is important to manipulate information visibility to accomplish organizational transparency and it shows how it relates to engagement. This leads to the following research question:
RQ: To what extent does the perception of organizational information visibility predict the perception of the organizations’ transparency and in turn predict employees’ engagement?
In this paper, first previous literature on information visibility, transparency and engagement will be discussed which leads to the proposed hypotheses. Then, the research design and participants will be introduced and thereupon the results will be presented. The paper will end with a discussion of the results and suggest limitations and recommendations for future research.
Theoretical Background
In this section, literature on information visibility, transparency, engagement and contract type is discussed. Also, the relationships between the concepts are argued and hypotheses are presented.
INFORMATION VISIBILITY
It can be assumed that literature indicate visibility as a concept with different understandings and in different contexts (Delen et al., 2007; Goswami, Engel & Krcmar, 2013; Leonardi, 2015; Mao & DeAndrea, 2019; Mansourian, Ford, Webber & Madden, 2008). For example, studies on supply chain management focus on information visibility as sharing of valuable information with stakeholders (Delen et al., 2007) or as the availability of relevant information including variety, quality and connectivity of information, which increase operational efficiency (Goswami et al., 2013). Leonardi (2015) on the other hand, utilized information visibility to indicate “who knows what” and “who knows whom” within organizations. Information visibility was in this study more about observing knowledge on social media platforms. Moreover, it is also perceived as a concept that indicates accessibility. Mansourian et al. (2008) studied information visibility in combination with information seeking on the web. In their research, they found that participants were aware of the possibility of missing information online and that the reactions of the users were different, based on the perceived volume of missed information. In a more recent study by Mao & DeAndrea (2019), information visibility involves the perceived ease of accessing messages on the internet by employees.
In addition to different conceptualizations of information visibility, a number of researchers perceived visibility more as an affordance (Evans, Pearce, Vitak & Treem, 2016; Leonardi et al., 2013; Treem & Leonardi, 2013). Affordances are ‘perceptions of an object’s utility’ (Treem
& Leonardi, 2013, pp. 145) and the affordance of visibility is the struggle to locate information. So, visibility is not seen as binary or as an outcome, but more as an affordance with different gradations. Visibility can variate with high or lower levels instead of being visible or not visible. This is very interesting, because in this definition information visibility is not only independently observable but it is also a person’s perception. Employees within an organization are in possession of different contracts and have different job titles who can have different perceptions of information visibility (Leonardi et al., 2013). Therefore, it is important to see visibility as an affordance and include the perceptions of different employees.
Furthermore, visibility is in this literature closely linked to accessibility or findability where social media technologies are used to make information visible, such as knowledge, and therefore reduce the amount of effort to find information (Evans et al., 2016). Social media and other new technologies within the workplace make it possible to note and display organizational communication, which was almost impossible to do without these new technologies. The arrival of these new technologies calls for even more and in depth research into information visibility.
The absence of a clear definition encouraged researchers Stohl, Stohl & Leonardi (2016) to conceptualize information visibility. They combined different previous definitions and organized information visibility on the basis of three attributes: “the availability of information, approval to disseminate information and the accessibility of information to third parties” (p. 124). Availability includes inscription and storage. This involves data into some form (e.g. written documents) that is made available by an organization for their employees to see. Approval is more about the license to make information visible grounded on the pressure in the institutional environment including legal obligations, norms and social consciousness. Lastly, accessibility refers to the struggle of collecting information and interpreting this, which involves effort, directory knowledge, skills and classification (Stohl et al., 2016).
Despite this new conceptualization of information visibility, it was still not clear how this concept could be empirically measured. Therefore, Ter Hoeven et al. (2019) developed an Information Visibility Scale on the basis of the three named attributes. This scale cannot only measure information visibility, but it is also useful to separate information visibility from transparency (Christensen & Cheney, 2015), which will be discussed later on.
In the next section, previous studies on transparency will be discussed. Moreover, transparency will be defined and the relationship between information visibility and transparency will be discussed.
TRANSPARENCY
In contradiction to information visibility, transparency is a much more popular concept in previous studies (Christensen & Cheney, 2015; Rawlins 2009; Rosenfeld & Denice, 2015). Christensen & Cheney (2015) even label transparency as “one of the most cherished and celebrated, yet unquestioned, ideals and aspirations of contemporary society” (p. 70). Transparency is frequently classified as openness (Rawlins, 2009) and moreover as a “multifaceted construct that describes organizational effort to accurately reveal information and actions, both positive and negative in nature, for the purpose of enhancing the reasoning ability of stakeholders” (Ter Hoeven et al, 2019, pp. 12). It involves accountability, the relevance of communicated information, secrecy and participation (Rawlins, 2009).
Besides, transparency is widely studied within different fields of research. It is especially popular in the field of politics and governmental institutions (Birchall, 2011; Islam, 2006; Valverde & Moore, 2019). Birchall (2011) suggests that the emergence of transparency leads to a negative connotation for secrecy in politics, where citizens ask for transparency and no more secrecy. Politicians are forced to make a choice between the two, but in politics this is an impossible choice to make and certainly not preferred. Politicians should find a balance in
the tension between transparency and secrecy instead. This study shows the negative side of transparency, but other studies show a positive effect to a larger extent, for example on public-private infrastructure partnerships (Valverde & Moore, 2019) and good governance (Islam, 2006).
Furthermore, many researchers focus on the call for transparency in terms of more and better transparency (Rawlins, 2009). This call for transparency is also a popular judgment within other fields such as healthcare (Fraser et al., 2018), public relation and marketing (Ikonen, Luoma-aho & Bowen, 2017), corporate social responsibility (Christensen, Morsing & Thyssen, 2011) and scholarly research (Puhan et al., 2012). For example, within organizational studies, the obstacles organizations face regarding accountability calls for a greater amount of transparency (Valverde & Moore, 2019). Accountability is closely related to transparency in the sense that its common pursuit indicates a quest for good governance (Christensen & Cheney, 2015). Organizations are accountable for their behavior, because people can observe them and evaluate their actions.
INFORMATION VISIBILITY AND TRANSPARENCY
Before the construction of the information visibility scale, earlier studies used information visibility and transparency interchangeably and did not define these concepts separately (Ellison, Gibbs & Weber, 2015; Leonardi & Treem, 2012). Stohl et al. (2016) were not surprised by this since both concepts indicate the ability to see. Information is visible when a person is able to see it and something is transparent when it can be simply seen and accessed. Stohl et al. (2016) solve the confusion between these two concepts and give a twofold explanation: “first, visibility is not a valued term in the same way transparency is, and, second, visibility is an empirical phenomenon” (p. 125). So, the authors see visibility more as an element that can be observed and transparency more of a person's perception or judgment.
In addition, the visibility of information can be manipulated in which organizational activities can be made more or less transparent (Ter Hoeven et al., 2019). For example, when information is locked away by an organization, a person does not have the ability to see the information and therefore information is less visible. By not having the information, the judgment on this organization will be that the organization is not transparent. On the other hand, when information is visible, the organization is considered transparent when this information is used to increase openness and accountability (Ter Hoeven et al., 2019). In an earlier study on employees in China (Men & Hung-Baesecke, 2015), they found that distributing information on social media and face-to-face interactions are both powerful in constructing organizational transparency. With both types of organizational communication, managers have the opportunity to build a relationship with their employees, where there is also the option for the employee to react on communicated information. Through dialogue, employees experience more trust and willingness to listen by managers and therefore perceive the organization as transparent (Men & Hung-Baesecke, 2015). So, one can state that information visibility via organizational communication platforms leads to a higher level of transparency.
Stohl et al. (2016) counter this traditional view of a linear relationship between information visibility and transparency and introduces a transparency paradox. This paradox entails that improving information visibility can lead to more opaque information which will lead to a lesser degree of transparency. Making more information visible can ultimately lead to information overload. By creating information overload, there is so much information that needs to be scanned that it will take too much time and the actual information that is necessary for employees is somewhere in the clouded space. So, a certain level of information visibility will counter the linear relationship with transparency and more and more information will lead to a lesser degree of transparency which results in a curvilinear relationship between the two concepts (Stohl et al., 2016).
In contradiction, Ter Hoeven et al. (2019) confirmed the positive and linear relationship between visibility and transparency in their study. Moreover, all three attributes of visibility can be independently judged in a way that they each can influence organizational transparency to a different degree (Ter Hoeven et al., 2019). Therefore, the degree of presence and the causal consequences of these attributes may be different. For example, data may be available in an organization’s system, but an employee may not have been approved to see and use this information. When the employee is approved to see the information, it is still possible that the employee is not able to interpret the information - which lowers the level of accessibility and will very likely have a more negative effect on transparency. So, an employee may have a positive perception of availability, but when the perception of approval and accessibility is more negative than availability is, than the influence on transparency could be different for the attributes.
Ter Hoeven et al. (2019) also discuss that accessibility has a stronger connection to organization transparency than availability and approval. This means that availability and approval are prerequisites for an organization to be transparent, but when an organization puts effort in accessibility, it will have an even more positive effect on transparency (Ter Hoeven et al., 2019). Moreover, accessibility is also highly correlated with the participation item on the Overall Transparency Scale, which implies the ease of finding information and involvement of the organization (Rawlins, 2009). This suggests that the attributes of information visibility are independently important and can have different effects on transparency. Therefore, information visibility will be studied on the basis of these three attributes separately. Since information visibility can be manipulated and transparency is more of an outcome thereof, it is proposed that:
H1b Approval is positively related to transparency. H1c Accessibility is positively related to transparency.
VISIBILITY AND ENGAGEMENT
Engagement is an extensively studied concept in previous literature and is mostly identified as a trait or a psychological state (Van Zoonen & Banghart, 2018). The definition widely used in literature is: “a positive, fulfilling, work-related psychological state characterized by the dimensions of vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Balducci, Fraccaroli & Schaufeli, 2010, p.143). Most literature talks about engagement as an outcome where different processes within organizations have an influence on engagement, such as workplace bullying (Goodboy, Martin & Bolkan, 2017), age identity, work centrality and perceived social support (Macdonald & Levy, 2016).
Literature also discusses work communication and the influence on engagement (Karranges, Johnston, Beatson & Lings, 2015; Van Zoonen & Banghart, 2018). Since work communication in the digital age is mostly utilized in an online environment, work communication can also be categorized as information that is visible for employees to see and respond to. Via online work communication tools, information is stored and shared (Van Zoonen & Banghart, 2018) and this implies availability and accessibility. For example, work communication is available for every employee via a social platform and approved because every employee has their own account to see the information and can be accessible when instructions are taught to interpret the information.
Work communication improves (supervisor) relationships within the workplace and this plays an important part in the maintenance and improvement of employee engagement (Karranges et al., 2015). Van Zoonen & Banghart (2018) take a step further and discuss that work communication on social media leads to engagement in a way that work communication
not only represents employee engagement but also constructs employee engagement. If an organization makes information widely visible, a feeling of belongingness of employees is created and a closer relationship is experienced with their management, which leads to more engagement (Mishra, Boynton & Mishra, 2014). Therefore, it is proposed that:
H2a Availability is positively related to engagement. H2b Approval is positively related to engagement. H2c Accessibility is positively related to engagement.
TRANSPARENCY AND ENGAGEMENT
Earlier, transparency is discussed as a valued term that can lead to certain (positive) outcomes. In the light of engagement literature, transparency is also a popular concept where this relationship is examined within the field of governmental communication (Cucciniello & Nasi, 2014; Haro-deRosario et al., 2018). For example, communicating with citizens about policies (transparency) encourages citizens to participate in a discussion which ultimately leads to engagement (Haro-deRosario et al., 2018). Within organizations, more transparency about organizational processes could also lead to higher engagement of employees.
More literature within workplace engagement focuses on transparency as an element of leadership (Bamford et al., 2013; Baum, 2005; Carasco-Saul et al., 2015; Houser et al., 2014; Jiang & Men, 2017; Men & Hung-Baesecke, 2015). Transparency is seen as openness and honesty (Bamford et al., 2013), where it results in employees contributing to the greater good (Houser et al., 2014). Moreover, Carasco-Saul et al. (2015) indicated a positive relationship between transparency and engagement, where transparency is an important factor for leadership effectiveness on engagement and Jiang & Men (2017) discovered that transparency within organizational communication leads to trust and credibility which in turn enhances engagement.
When management does not contribute to transparent organizational communication, employees can have a feeling of underappreciation of their work activities and are concerned about their future within the organization. In contradiction, when employees of the organization are involved in organizational processes, then they are expected to feel appreciated and more engaged. So, in this study, it is also expected that transparency by managers (via trust and credibility) leads to more employee engagement. Furthermore, Kelleher (2009) states that transparency is a need of employees and by listening to their employees, organizations have a more employee-centered strategy which leads to engagement, and moreover, competitive advantage. When employees themselves indicate that their own engagement is higher when there is more transparency within the organization, it is quite certain that transparency will, therefore, affect engagement. Dependent on these previous studies, it is proposed that:
H3 Transparency positively influences engagement.
VISIBILITY, TRANSPARENCY AND ENGAGEMENT
Since the relationship between information visibility and transparency is already proposed above and the relationship between transparency and engagement is also argued, it is possible that transparency serves as a mediator between information visibility and engagement. Jiang and Men (2017) already indirectly indicated this mediation relationship in their study: When an organization wants to be transparent about their activities, they use organizational communication platforms to distribute information where employees feel more involved and show more active participation. This state of mind ultimately will lead to engagement. It is very likely that employees feel a degree of trust and involvement when certain information is shared with them. In this way, proper internal communication will therefore lead to a transparent culture of the workplace (Mishra et al., 2014), where employees feel more secure to respond to organizational communication and engage in conversations about organizational processes.
In this way, organizations first make information visible, then they are perceived as transparent and consequently this leads to higher engagement of employees. Therefore, it is proposed that:
H4a The relationship between availability and engagement is mediated through transparency. H4b The relationship between approval and engagement is mediated through transparency. H4c The relationship between accessibility and engagement is mediated through
transparency.
THE DIFFERENCES IN CONTRACT TYPES
The literature discussed above proposes a positive linear relationship between information visibility, transparency and engagement. But is this relationship the same for every employee? It is possible that employees with different contracts have different perceptions and judgments about these concepts.
Recent studies indicated the differences in work attitudes, feelings and outcomes by different contract types (Dawson, Veliziotis & Hopkins, 2017; De Cuyper, Notelaers & De Witte, 2009; Tziner & Shkoler, 2019). Previous studies mainly distinguish employees with permanent contracts (full-time and part-time), and temporary contracts (on-call workers and flexworkers), this categorization is also used in this study. Temporary workers are for example more stimulated by extrinsic motivation and in general more susceptive for organizational incentives than employees with a permanent contract (Tziner & Shkoler, 2019). In addition, temporary workers are mainly associated with negative attitudes and outcomes (Dawson et al., 2017; De Cuyper et al., 2009). For example, temporary contracts are associated with lower quality of work, depreciation of work and a low acquisition level of skills (De Cuyper et al., 2009). Temporary workers experience more risk and lower well-being than permanent workers, because they experience a lower amount of satisfaction with job security (Dawson et al., 2017).
Therefore, temporary workers experience more negative emotions than permanent workers. It is possible that the different levels of engagement by employees are also explained by different matters such as in this case, transparency.
Moreover, in the previous section it was discussed that transparency gives employees a sense of appreciation and involvement, which is close to more security. These positive outcomes are more related to employees with a permanent contract considering literature (De Cuyper et al., 2009). Permanent employees are more physically and mentally present at the organization they work for, where it is likely that they are therefore more exposed to information and perceive the organization as more transparent. Employees with a permanent contract will invest heavier in work-related activities, and thus put more effort in their work (Tziner & Shkoler, 2019). It is likely that this effort leads to even more value in terms of satisfaction and fulfillment (Tziner & Shkoler, 2019). Together with their heavier level of work investment – effort -, this results in a higher level of positive feelings such as appreciation and involvement, which permanent workers express even more in their engagement. The relationship between transparency and engagement for temporary workers on the other hand, is not expected to be negative, but weaker than for permanent employees. They will still experience a positive influence of transparency on engagement, but to a much lesser extent.
So, the relationship between transparency and engagement can be different for the two contract types where the engagement of permanent employees is stronger connected to their perception of transparency. Therefore, it is expected that contract type has a moderation effect on the relationship between transparency and engagement:
H5 The relationship between transparency and engagement is stronger for permanent employees than for temporary employees.
Beneath, the model of this study is presented.
Figure 1. Conceptual Model Method
Research Design
To examine an association with employees’ perception of visibility, transparency and work engagement, data was collected through a cross-sectional online survey within an organization focused on telecom and energy, centered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This organization preferred to remain anonymous in this study, so the organization is further mentioned as Company X. The survey was included into the current engagement survey, which is send every quarter where the UWES-9 scale for engagement is part of already. The survey was translated into Dutch since this is the native language of the participants and in this way they understood the questions better. The complete survey can be found in Appendix I. Because the survey was sent at one point of time, the costs of this modality have remained low.
Data collection and participants
In total, 273 employees received an invitation to complete the survey between 19th of March and 2nd of April 2020. Every employee of the organization received an invitation to complete the survey, so the sampling method is volunteer sampling. This sampling method was chosen,
because this would result in a bigger population. Employees were stimulated by the management team to fill in the survey multiple times via email and work chat groups. Due to the coronavirus, it was more difficult to reach every (temporary) employee, since most of the employees were working from home and some of the temporary employees were not working at all. The survey was completed by 124 employees, 80 of which were permanent employees and 44 temporary employees. The response rate was therefore 46%.
The respondents completed the survey individually and were able to reflect their own perceptions of visibility, transparency and their engagement within the company through a self-report. At the beginning of the survey, there was an informed consent that the respondents had to accept before continuing the survey.
Variables and measures
Visibility. Visibility is the independent variable of this study. In this study, the Short Information Visibility Scale of Ter Hoeven et al. (2019) is used. This main variable is divided into three attributes: availability, approval and accessibility, discussed below. Despite the recommendation of Ter Hoeven et al. (2019) to use the longer scale for measuring the subdimensions, in this study the short scale is used, because the survey would otherwise be too long for the participants and there is still much value attached to the subdimensions since they are very diverse.
Availability. The first attribute focuses on documenting and saving information. The information that a company wants to make available must be inscribed in such a way and must be stored in an information database or platform. For example, one item measures if Company X keeps records of relevant information that lead to critical organizational decisions. This concept is operationalized within a three items scale.
Approval. The attribute approval refers to the allowing of sharing information when Company X is obligated to share the information or when the information has social benefits.
This concept is also operationalized within a three items scale where one item measures if Company X shares information when it is socially responsible to do so.
Accessibility. The last attribute involves the struggle in accessing information and the interpretation thereof. For example, one item measures if Company X makes sure that important information can be easily acquired. This concept is, as well as the other concepts, operationalized within a three items scale.
The exact items of the Short Information Visibility Scale can be found in Appendix I. The responses vary on a five-point Likert scale from ‘Strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘Strongly agree’ (5). Within each item, the option ‘Don’t know’ (6) was added. This option was created because some employees may be relatively new to the company, are less aware of the information visibility of the company and have not yet developed a perception of the information visibility. Furthermore, by creating a do not know option, employees will not feel obligated to answer a specific question and therefore randomly answer the question. Before analyzing the data, the scores on the item ‘don’t know’ were categorized as missing values.
A principal axis factoring analysis was conducted for each attribute with oblique rotation (direct Oblimin) to test the correlation. The Keiser-Meyer-Olkin measure shows that there is a sampling adequacy of .62, which is acceptable. Only one factor had an eigenvalue over Kaiser’s criterion of 1 and explained 52.68% of the variance. This factor had a poor reliability (Cronbach’s α: .55). The Keiser-Meyer-Olkin measure shows that there is a sampling adequacy of .60, which is acceptable. One factor was found with an eigenvalue over Kaiser’s criterion of 1 and explained 53.30% of the variance. This factor had a poor reliability as well (Cronbach’s α: .55). Lastly, The Keiser-Meyer-Olkin measure shows that there is a sampling adequacy of .55, which is acceptable. Only one factor had an eigenvalue over Kaiser’s criterion of 1 and explained 50.82% of the variance. This factor had a poor reliability (Cronbach’s α: .51) When the second item was deleted, the Cronbach’s α was .59, so variable 4.2 was deleted
for constructing this variable. The factor loadings of the items can be found in Appendix II (table 1 - 3).
Considering the low values of the reliability measures, a principal component factor analysis was computed for all the three attributes together, measuring information visibility in general. The Keiser-Meyer-Olkin measure shows that there is a sampling adequacy of .77, which is good (Appendix II, table 4). Three factors had an eigenvalue over Kaiser’s criterion of 1 and explained together 57.88% of the variance, but the reliability of every factor was very poor, so the original scale (Ter Hoeven et al., 2019) was used for further analyses.
For every attribute, a scale was constructed based on the average answer and the values of this scale ranged from 1 up to 5. Respondents’ perception (N= 121) of organizations’ information visibility in terms of availability was medium (M= 2.5, SD= .58). The scores on approval (N= 122) was a little above average (M= 2.8, SD= .53) and on accessibility (N= 123) also average (M= 2.6, SD= .77).
Transparency. Transparency is measured by the four items of the ‘Overall Transparency scale’ by Rawlins (2009). The responses vary on a four-point Likert scale from ‘Strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘Strongly agree’ (5) and ‘Don’t Know’ (6). The last option was added for the same reason as for visibility and the scores on the item ‘don’t know’ were categorized as missing values.
A principal axis factoring analysis was conducted for transparency with oblique rotation (direct Oblimin) to test the correlation. The Keiser-Meyer-Olkin measure verified the sampling adequacy for transparency, KMO = .73. There was one factor that had an eigenvalue over Kaiser’s criterion of 1 and explained 54.38% of the variance (Appendix II, table 5). This factor had an acceptable reliability (Cronbach’s α: .72). After constructing the variable for transparency based on the average answer, this scale ranged from 1 up to 5. Respondents’ perception (N= 115) of organizational transparency was average (M=2.6, SD= .60).
Work engagement. Work engagement is the dependent variable in this study and is measured by the nine items of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale - UWES-9 (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). The responses vary on a six-point scale from ‘Never’ (0) to ‘Always’ (6). For this variable, the option ‘Don’t know’ was left out, because work engagement is a psychological state which is expected to be present within every employee (also new employees).
A principal axis factoring analysis was conducted for engagement with oblique rotation (direct Oblimin) to test the correlation. The Keiser-Meyer-Olkin measure shows that there is a sampling adequacy of .93, which is superb. Only one factor had an eigenvalue over Kaiser’s criterion of 1 and explained 72.39% of the variance (Appendix II, table 6). This factor had an excellent reliability (Cronbach’s α: .95). For engagement, a scale was constructed based on the average answer and the values of this scale ranged from 1 up to 6. Respondents (N= 124) were often engaged during work (M= 4.48, SD= 1.10).
Contract type. The variable contract type is a moderating binary variable in this research. This variable indicates whether an employee is in possession of a permanent or temporary contract. The responses on this variable differ between ‘temporary contract’ (0) and ‘permanent contract’ (1).
Results
Before conducting the analyses for the hypotheses, the dataset was explored by examining if the concepts were normally distributed within regression analysis. Luckily, every concept was normally distributed.
Organizational Visibility
A multiple regression analysis was computed to test hypotheses H1a, H1b, H1c. The reason for choosing this method is twofold. First, through a multiple regression the relative relationship
between the attributes is examined to see which attribute has the strongest effect. In addition, the influence of one attribute is examined when the other attributes are kept constant.
The model as a whole is significant, F(3,108) = 16.24, p < .001. Availability (b*= .28, t = 2.99, p = .003), and approval (b*= .32, t = 3.49, p = .001) significantly predict transparency, but the effect of accessibility is not significant (b*= .10, t = 1.02, p = .311). These variables together explain 31,1% of the variance in transparency (R2 = .31). In this model, approval has
the strongest effect on transparency (Appendix III, table 1). So, hypothesis H1a, H1b are supported in this analysis and H1c is rejected. These results can be found in Appendix III tables 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3.
A multiple regression analysis was also performed for hypotheses H2a, H2b and H2c. The model as a whole is significant, F(3,116) = 5.37, p = .002. Availability (b*= .21, t = 2.07, p = .041), and approval (b*= .23, t = 2.29, p = .024) significantly predict engagement, but the effect of accessibility is negative and not significant (b*= -.35, t = -1.02, p = .731). These variables explain 12,2% of the variance in engagement (R2 = .12). In this model, approval has the
strongest effect on engagement (Appendix III, table 2). Therefore, H2a and H2b are supported in this analysis. H2c is rejected since the relationship is not significant and also negative.
Transparency
Hypotheses 3 indicated a causal relationship between transparency and engagement. The regression model was significant F(1,113) = 19.33, p < .001. Transparency has a positive significant association with engagement, b* = 0.38, t = 4.40, p < .001, 95% CI [0.38, 1.00] and explains 14,6% of the variance in engagement (R2 = .15). For every higher level of transparency,
the level of engagement increases with .69. Hypothesis H3 is therefore supported. The results of the simple regression analyses can be found in Appendix III, table 3.
Hypotheses H4a, H4b and H4c address the mediating effect of the perception of transparency on the relationship between the three attributes of visibility and an employees’ engagement. For these hypotheses, a multiple regression analysis via PROCESS was used (Hayes, 2012). The other two variables were integrated in the analyses as covariates.
There was a significant indirect effect of availability on engagement via transparency when controlling for approval and accessibility, b = .14, 95% BCa CI [.02, .31]. The model contains an indirect effect of 14%. Therefore, H4a is supported.
Figure 2.1. Mediation model including Availability, Transparency and Engagement. * = p < .05, ** = p < .01, *** = p < .001.
Moreover, the indirect effect of approval on engagement via transparency is also significant when controlling for availability and accessibility as covariates, b = .18, 95% BCa CI [.05, .34]. The model contains an indirect effect of 17,7%. Therefore, H4b is also supported.
Figure 2.2. Mediation model including Approval, Transparency and Engagement. * = p < .05, ** = p < .01, *** = p < .001.
Lastly, the indirect effect of accessibility on engagement via transparency, when controlling for availability and approval, is not significant, b = .04, 95% BCa CI [-.04, .14]. The model contains an indirect effect of 3,6%, which is a small insignificant effect. Therefore, H4c is rejected. This result is not surprising, since H1c and H2c were both rejected.
Figure 2.3. Mediation model including Accessibility, Transparency and Engagement. * = p < .05, ** = p < .01, *** = p < .001.
When involving transparency as a mediation variable, the direct relationship between the attributes availability and approval and engagement disappears. Therefore, the results suggest that there is a full mediation for availability and approval and the relationship between the attributes and engagement is spurious. There was no support for a mediation relationship between accessibility, transparency and engagement. The results of the three analyses can be found in figures 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 and in Appendix III (tables 4.1 - 4.6).
Contract type
Finally, the moderation effect of contract type was tested within the relationship between transparency and engagement. H5 proposed that there was a stronger relationship between transparency and engagement for permanent employees. The overall model is significant and shows that 46% of the variance is explained by the three predictors, F(3,111) = 31.92, p < .001 (R2 = .46).
However, the multiple regression analysis including moderation reveals that there is no statistically significant interaction effect between contract type and transparency on engagement, b* = 0.02, t = .18, p = .857, 95% CI [-0.02, 0.89] (Appendix III, table 5). This means that the relationship between transparency and engagement is not significantly different for permanent employees than temporary employees and contract type is no moderator. Therefore, the last hypothesis is rejected.
Discussion
Discussion of Results
The goal of this study was to examine the relationship between information visibility, transparency and engagement by answering the following research question: To what extent does the perception of organizational information visibility predict the perception of the organizations’ transparency and in turn predict employees’ engagement? This study utilizes the Information Visibility Scale, which is constructed in recent literature by Ter Hoeven et al. (2019). By doing so, this study contributes to the existing literature on information visibility in combination with transparency and engagement.
Results show that the attributes availability and approval predict employees’ perception of transparency, supporting previous research (Men & Hung-Baesecke, 2015; Ter Hoeven et al., 2019). Therefore, organizations should improve information visibility of organizational communication when they strive to accomplish transparency. Moreover, results also show that availability and approval are important indicators for engagement, which is in line with previous studies on work communication (Karranges et al., 2015; Van Zoonen & Banghart, 2018). Information visibility is, therefore, a valuable tool to enhance employees’ engagement. On the other hand, Ter Hoeven et al. (2019) expected that accessibility had the strongest effect on transparency, but in this study, accessibility had no influence on transparency or engagement. Moreover, approval was the strongest predictor for transparency and engagement.
This means that when an employee is approved to see certain information, it has a stronger effect on transparency and engagement than when an employee perceives information as available or accessible. An explanation for this result could be related to the factor analysis where one item was excluded from the accessibility scale and therefore not the strongest variable.
Transparency was also a strong indicator of engagement, as expected by various scholars (Carasco-Saul et al., 2015; Haro-de-Rosario et al., 2018; Houser et al., 2014; Jiang & Men, 2017; Men & Hung-Baesecke, 2015). By experiencing more transparency through organizational communication, employees will develop a feeling of trust and credibility, which in turn enhances engagement (Jiang & Men, 2017). This study verifies that a higher level of transparency is indeed a good predictor for employees’ engagement.
In the mediation analyses, the direct relationship between availability - engagement and approval - engagement disappeared and the indirect relationship through transparency occurred. Thus, these relationships are perfectly mediated by transparency, which is in line with earlier expectations and literature (Mishra et al., 2014; Jiang & Men, 2017). Proper internal communication in terms of information visibility leads to a more positive perception of transparency and in turn enhances engagement of employees. Unfortunately, there is no relationship found between accessibility, transparency and engagement.
In contradiction to the expectations of this study, the difference in contract type did not moderate the relationship between transparency and engagement. Previous studies confirmed more negative attitudes and outcomes for temporary workers such as lower well-being and lower work effort (Dawson et al., 2017; De Cuyper et al., 2009; Tziner & Shkoler, 2019). The stronger relationship between transparency and engagement for permanent employees was expected, but did not occur. Moreover, the relationship for temporary employees was positive. This means that for every contract type, the relationship between transparency and engagement
is approximately the same. This result can be positive for management, because they can maintain the same approach to enhance transparency through information visibility for both contract types.
Finally, the overall research question can be answered. Attributes availability and approval lead to a more positive attitude on organizational transparency and the effect of accessibility is still questionable. Therefore, it is important for organizations to be aware of the quality of their organizational communication in terms of information visibility, because it can improve their goal to be transparent. Moreover, when an organization puts more effort into information visibility within organizational communication, it will also enhance employees’ engagement if they perceive the organization as transparent. This finding is noteworthy, because it indicates that information visibility can lead to more positive (in)direct outcomes that are not straightforward at first. Furthermore, this relationship is not necessarily different for temporary or permanent workers.
Limitations and future research
A few limitations are noteworthy when observing this study. One limitation is that the distribution of the sample within the two conditions was not equally divided; there were significantly more permanent employees (N= 80) in comparison to temporary employees (N= 44). Moreover, the complete quantity of the sample was quite small and only one organization is examined. It is imaginable that results can differ within different organizations and future research should measure this study within different organizational fields. For example, in discussing literature, Birchall (2011) discussed the negativity of organizational transparency within political organizations. It is possible that within this field of practice, transparency leads to lower engagement. In addition, the transparency paradox (Stohl et al., 2016) should also be taken into account when no linear relationship between information visibility and transparency
can be found. Certain organizations may struggle with information overload which leads to a lesser degree of organizational transparency. Therefore, it is important for future research to focus more on the different degrees of information visibility from different organizations and to measure the possible differences in outcomes such as transparency and engagement and the relationships between the concepts. In this way, it will create more insight into different effects of information visibility within different fields.
There are also more options to create even more insight into different effects when respondents complete the survey multiple times or in a more experimental setting. Then, it is possible to create more understanding of the dynamics of the different concepts. By studying these concepts longitudinally, more insight can be created, e.g. does engagement in turn influence information visibility or does transparency influence information visibility as well?
Furthermore, this study used the Information Visibility Scale (Ter Hoeven et al., 2019) which has only just been constructed. The first limitation is that the factor and reliability analyses were not excellent, especially for the attribute accessibility. Against recommendation by the authors, the short scale was used to measure the three attributes individually to examine the differences in effects. Moreover, the composition of the three attributes was also not perfect. The factor analysis with all items showed that items of different attributes correlate more than other items of the same attribute. Future research should, therefore, give more attention to the composition of the items within the short information visibility scale in comparison to the ‘normal’ information visibility scale. In addition, the scales of all variables were translated into Dutch. The scales of organizational transparency and engagement were already translated and verified by scholars, but the information visibility scale was not. Therefore, the researcher had to translate the scale which can also have influenced the interpretation and the construction of the scale. Future research should, in addition, pay attention to the correct translation of the scales in different languages.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this study contributes to scholarly research to empirically test the recent construction of the Information Visibility Scale within an existing organization and to measure the relationship between information visibility and transparency. Moreover, this study also contributes to the consequences of transparency in terms of engagement within the workplace. Therefore, more insight is created in the two- and three-part relationship with transparency and engagement.
In addition, this study contributes to managerial practice. Employees or other stakeholders often request more organizational transparency and when organizations try to fulfill this request, they have difficulty finding processes and procedures to become more transparent. They simply do not know where to start. This study addresses this problem by showing that the attributes of information visibility are important ways to improve organizational communication, which leads to transparency, and moreover, engagement. Specifically, organizations should focus on the approval dimension where legal obligations, norms and social consciousness are important indicators. Subsequently, availability is important where the inscription and storage of information should be well formulated and organized. At last, the amount of effort for employees to access information should be minimized and skills to interpret the information must be taught.
Regardless of the limitations, this study has shed light on information visibility in a more empirical and influencing manner. Striving for organizational transparency and engagement is not solely based on proper organizational communication through information visibility, but it is certainly an important indicator.
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Appendices Appendix I
Survey Company X in Dutch
Informed consent
Beste,
Hierbij wil ik je uitnodigen om deel te nemen aan een onderzoek dat wordt uitgevoerd onder verantwoordelijkheid van de Graduate School of Communication, onderdeel van de
Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Het onderzoek waar ik je medewerking voor wil vragen is getiteld: “Visibility, Transparency & Engagement’. In de online survey zullen er een reeks vragen gesteld worden over deze onderwerpen en wat jouw percepties zijn over Company X rond deze onderwerpen. Aan dit onderzoek kunnen enkel medewerkers van Company X deelnemen. Doel van het onderzoek is het genereren van meer inzicht in de percepties van Company X medewerkers over deze onderwerpen.
Je geeft toestemming om deel te nemen aan dit onderzoek wanneer je de algemene
voorwaarden op de eerste pagina accepteert. Het onderzoek duurt ongeveer 5 tot 10 minuten.
Omdat dit onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd onder de verantwoordelijkheid van ASCoR, Universiteit van Amsterdam, heb je de garantie dat:
1. Je anonimiteit is gewaarborgd en dat je antwoorden of gegevens onder geen enkele voorwaarde aan derden worden verstrekt, tenzij je hiervoor van te voren uitdrukkelijke toestemming hebt verleend.
2. Je zonder opgaaf van redenen kunt weigeren mee te doen aan het onderzoek of je deelname voortijdig kunt afbreken. Ook kun je achteraf (binnen 24 uur na deelname) je toestemming intrekken voor het gebruik van je antwoorden of gegevens voor het onderzoek.
3. Deelname aan het onderzoek geen noemenswaardige risico’s of ongemakken met zich meebrengt, geen moedwillige misleiding plaatsvindt, en je niet met expliciet
aanstootgevend materiaal zult worden geconfronteerd.
4. Je uiterlijk vijf maanden na afloop van het het onderzoek de beschikking kunt krijgen over een onderzoeksrapportage waarin de algemene resultaten van het onderzoek worden toegelicht.
5. Het management van Company X zal op geen enkele manier consequenties verbinden aan de deelname van medewerkers of niet-deelname van medewerkers aan het
onderzoek.
Voor meer informatie over dit onderzoek en de uitnodiging tot deelname kun je te allen tijde contact opnemen met de projectleider: Sanne de Ruiter (stjderuiter@gmail.com).
Mochten er naar aanleiding van je deelname aan dit onderzoek klachten of opmerkingen bij je zijn, dan kun je contact opnemen met het lid van de Commissie Ethiek van de afdeling
Communicatiewetenschap, per adres: ASCoR secretariaat, Commissie Ethiek, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020 525 3680;
ascor-secr-fmg@uva.nl. Een vertrouwelijke behandeling van je klacht of opmerking is daarbij gewaarborgd.
Ik hoop je hiermee voldoende te hebben geïnformeerd en dank je bij voorbaat hartelijk voor je deelname aan dit onderzoek dat voor mij van grote waarde is.
Met vriendelijke groet,
Sanne de Ruiter
Company X verklaart hierbij op duidelijke wijze te zijn ingelicht over de aard en methode van het onderzoek, zoals uiteengezet in de bijlage van dit onderzoek (de informed consent).
Company X stemt geheel vrijwillig in met deelname aan dit onderzoek. Company X behoudt daarbij het recht deze instemming weer in te trekken zonder dat Company X daarvoor een reden hoef op te geven. Company X beseft dat ik op elk moment mag stoppen met het onderzoek.
Company X wordt volledig geanonimiseerd in het onderzoek en zal hierdoor niet bij bedrijfsnaam worden genoemd in alle delen van het onderzoek (hoofdtekst, bijlagen en databestanden).
Als de onderzoeksresultaten van de medewerkers worden gebruikt in wetenschappelijke publicaties, of op een andere manier openbaar worden gemaakt, dan zal dit volledig
