The effect of goal orientations on the relation
between employee voice and team performance
Amsterdam, June 29, 2015
Bachelor’s Thesis Business Administration
Author: Laurens Hop
First supervisor: R. van Geffen Second supervisor: S. Pajic Student number: 10259953 Academic year: 2014-2015 Semester 2, Block 3
2 Statement of originality
This document is written by Laurens Hop who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that this text and work presented in this document is original and the no sources other than mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision and completion of the work, not for the contents.
3 Table of Contents Statement of Originality……….2 Abstract………5 1. Introduction……….6 2. Literature Review………...10 2.1 Proactive behaviour………10 2.2 Voice………..11
2.2.1 The choice of whether to voice or remain silent………...12
2.3 Goal orientation………...14
3. Conceptual framework………...16
3.1 Goal-oriented voice on team performance……….17
4. Methodology………....20 3.1 Research design………...20 3.2 Sample………21 4.3 Data collection……….22 4.4 Measures………23 5. Results………...…………..27 5.1 Descriptive statistics………...27 5.1.1 Sample characteristics………...28 5.2 Reliability………..29 5.3 Correlations………..30 5.4 Regressions………...31
5.4.1 Regression analysis of main effects……….31
5.4.2 Regression analysis with moderators included………32
6. Discussion……….34
6.1 Hypotheses………....34
6.2 Implications of the study……….37
6.3 Limitations………....38
6.4 Future research………40
7. Conclusion………...43
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Appendix I: Accompanying survey letter Employee...………..51 Appendix 2: Accompanying survey letter Co-worker.………52
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Abstract
Although voice is seen as a powerful expression of proactive behaviour, little attention has been paid to the motives for engaging into voice. On top of that, previous research is in need of knowledge regarding voice in teams related to team performance. This study aims to find out which motives to voice enhance the relationship between voice and team performance by adopting a goal orientation approach. According to previous research, the expectation raises that engaging in voice positively influences team performance. Moreover, this study
hypothesizes that learning orientation positively moderates the relationship between voice and team performance. Whereas it expects that performance orientation negatively moderates this relationship. The hypotheses are tested through an internet-mediated dyad study with 73 valid participants. None of the hypotheses were accepted, which suggests that other moderating variables have a stronger effect on the relationship between voice and team performance. This study provides a lot of starting points for future research derived from the results, which raise several questions.
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1. Introduction
Nowadays, a top-down approach for innovative strategies is seen as outdated and obsolete (Detert & Burris, 2007). Instead, an internal approach has been introduced a few decades ago with the resource-based view (RBV) as one of the leading theories. The resource-based view of the firm has been developed and advanced by Penrose (1959), Rumelt (1984), Wernerfelt (1984), Barney (1986, 1991), Amit and Shoemaker (1993), and others. This view focuses on the internal side of the firm’s organization and opposes that the competitive advantage of a firm lies primarily in the application of its bundle of unique resources and capabilities. Wernerfelt identifies a resource as a strength or weakness of a particular firm, for instance: brand name, skilled employees, machinery, capital, patents and so on (1984). Furthermore, this is being complemented more specifically by Caves (1980) who states that resources could be subdivided in tangible and intangible resources. Recently, human capital has received a lot of attention. This resource is found to have a significant impact on the intellectual capital of the organization. On top of that, this intellectual capital in organizations is seen as one of the most important assets in its strategic environment (Wright et al., 1994; Snell et al., 1996).
Moreover, several studies have shown that a positive link can be made between HR practices and superior firm performance (Arthur, 1994; Huselid, 1995; Delery & Doty, 1996). Therefore, the focus is growing on the human capital and the firm’s employees. The input of employees has the potential to improve the processes and to change the current conditions of the firm and is seen as an important driver of innovation (Liang, Farh & Farh, 2012). On top of that, Newcombe (2012) states that input of employees is becoming a critical factor in order to sustain economic growth of the firm.
As one would expect, organizations are aiming for proactive employees to strengthen their human capital since the input of employees has been pointed out to be extremely
7 valuable. Crant (2000) illustrates proactive behaviour as future-oriented and self-initiated. This is further complemented by Morrison (2011) who states that proactive behaviour describes the extent to which employees come up with suggestions and ideas that affect the organization’s performance and sometimes its survival. Since proactive behaviour of
employees becomes more and more important, so is research regarding this topic. One aspect of proactive behaviour is employee voice, speaking up in the organization with the intend to improve the organization’s processes. This type of behaviour reveals problems in the
organization that could potentially threaten the organization by making notion of them in voice exertion.
However, the choice of employees whether or not to voice is based on potential benefits and risks. Voicing can bring benefits as it intends to improve the organization, for instance regarding innovation, creativity and process efficiency, which results in better performance of the firm (Morrison, 2011; Grant, Parker & Collins, 2009). On the other hand, voice can have negative implications for other employees. For instance, highlighting problems can cast co-workers in a negative light, while ideas for change could result in friction within teams or could create more work for one’s co-workers (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998; Milliken, Morrison & Hewlin, 2003). Therefore, employees will carefully consider these consequences prior to deciding whether to voice or remain silent (Milliken et al., 2003). These conflicting outcomes of voice as stated above, raise the importance of further research regarding the effects of voice, both negative and positive, on the employee’s peers, the relationship of the employee with those peers, and the overall level of harmony within the work unit (Morrison, 2011, p 397). This shows that employee voice is a phenomenon that asks more specific attention. Furthermore, Whiting et al. state in their research that teams with higher levels of voice behaviour may experience lower levels of cohesion and higher levels of conflict, which are two factors that are likely to decrease the overall team performance. They suggest that
8 future research ‘investigates on the relationship between team-level voice behaviour and team-level performance’ (2012, p. 176). Combining these findings outlines the importance for firms to gain further knowledge concerning this relationship since working in teams is widely applied in the organization of firms and employee voice is seen as severely important for the firm’s economic growth. Furthermore, when looking more in-depth in the employee voice topic, studies have focussed primarily on the consequences and implications of voice behaviour (Morrison, 2011), but little is known about the reasons why employees engage in voice which might be as important as the consequences since employee voice is something firms tend to stimulate in order to reap the overall benefits. These motives for voicing is an area which have not received a lot of attention so far and therefore uncovers an interesting literature gap. Hence, this study will fill this gap in the literature and provide more
information about the motives of employees engaging in voice by addressing the following research question:
Which motives enhance the relationship between voice and performance?
This study will reason from two goal orientations as leading voice motives proposed by Dweck and colleagues, namely a learning orientation goal and a performance orientation goal (Licht & Dweck, 1984; Dweck, 1989; Dweck & Leggett 1988; Heyman & Dweck, 1992). This is in line with other researchers (DeShon et al., 1999; Bunderson & Sutcliffe, 2003; DeShon, Kozlowski, Schmidt, Milner & Wiechmann, 2004; Pieterse, Kippenberg and Van Ginkel, 2010) who confirm that, so far, little empirical work has examined goal
orientation in teams. To provide a conforming answer, a survey will be held among the Dutch employed citizens with varying age, gender, education levels and personal values. With the results of the survey, managers and organizations gain deeper insights in how to stimulate and manage voice behaviour in such a way in order to improve and sustain team performance which will help the firm excel.
9 Subsequently, this paper will be followed up by a literature review, describing and exploring the topic more in-depth. After that, the conceptual framework will be illustrated, which results in the presentation of the hypotheses belonging to this research. Thereupon, the research design and methodology will be discussed, followed by the results obtained from the survey. Finally, the paper will come to an end with a discussion of the research and a brief conclusion.
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2. Literature review
This part of the paper focusses on the existing literature regarding the research question in order to gain a deeper insight in the research topic. In the first place, the literature based on proactive behaviour and employee voice will be addressed, including the benefits and risks that comes with the phenomenon. Secondly, the motives to voice, will be discussed from a goal orientation perspective. After that, performance will be addressed converting this to team performance and performance in the working group environment. Finally, a brief conclusion will be formulated emphasizing the importance of this research.
2.1 Proactive behaviour
Nowadays, reacting and adapting to present conditions is no longer seen as the leading
strategy in organizations. Instead, according to Crant (2000), organizations aim to hire skilled personnel who feel comfortable in taking initiative in improving and changing current and future situations. This shows the growing shift of reactive approaches to a more proactive strategic approach as this is essential for the current success and effectiveness of organizations (Crant, 2000). In general, proactive behaviour is defined by Crant (2000) as follows: ‘taking initiative in improving current circumstances or creating new ones; it involves challenging the status quo rather than passively adapting to present conditions’ (p. 436). According to
Morrison, behaviours that can be characterized as self-initiated, aimed at improving the situation or oneself and future oriented, can be identified as proactive behaviours (2011). There are different forms of proactive behaviour subdivided in five dimensions by Grant and Ashford (2008) namely: impact, frequency, timing, tactics and form. As an addition to that, LePine and Van Dyne identified four relating forms of proactive behaviour, these are personal
11 initiative, issue selling, taking charge and voice (1998). As an aspect of proactive behaviour, this paper continues to focus on voice.
2.2 Voice
As mentioned before, voice is one specific form of proactive behaviour. This type of
behaviour have been explained by several researchers. Premeaux & Bedejan describe voice as ‘openly stating one’s view or opinions about workplace matters, including the actions or ideas of others, suggested or needed changes, and alternative approaches or different lines of
reasoning for addressing job-related issues’ (2003, p. 1538). However, in this paper the focus will be on voice as an instrument for process and organizational improvement since the main question addresses team performance as a key variable. Therefore, a definition of the term voice which emphasizes the improvement will be considered to fit the research question more properly. According to Morrison, voice is ‘the discretionary communication of ideas,
suggestions, concerns, or opinions about work-related issues with the intent to improve organizational or unit functioning’ (2011, p. 375).
Voice aims to improve organizational conditions and processes. To fully understand the dynamics of voice, three types of voice will be introduced as proposed by Morrison (2011, p. 398), namely: suggestion-focused voice, problem-focused voice and opinion-focused voice. However, Liang, Farh and Farh came up with a slightly different description of the dynamics of voice. They state that voice could be subdivided in promotive voice and prohibitive voice. At first, employees speaking up to improve processes and practises currently active in the organization is explained by promotive voice. It aims to achieve a future ideal as it tends to improve the overall functioning of the firm and therefore challenges the status quo (2012). Secondly, the other subgroup of voice named prohibitive voice
12 seriously harm the organization. This mainly focuses on unrevealed problems that need to be detected before they can threaten the organization (Liang, Farh & Farh, 2012; Rusbult, Farrell, Rogers & Mainous, 1988).
The contrary concept of voice, is silence. This is the flipside of voicing as employee silence can be defined as the withholding of suggestions, ideas and information consciously that could be of importance for the organization (Brinsfield & Greenberg, 2009). However, this study merely focuses on voice as the proposed research question seeks to identify what motives to voice results in betewcombeter team performance, therefore all types of voice will be taken into consideration.
2.2.1 The choice of whether to voice or remain silent
When an employee is about to express voice behaviour, several things should be carefully taken into consideration. This is because voice behaviour is not appreciated by everyone as this could be experienced as threatening for their position in the organization. In some cases, managers express their disapproval since some experience voice behaviour as something negative, this may even lead to punishment of the employee for speaking up (Grant, Parker & Collins, 2009). Therefore, the decision whether to engage in voice or remain silent, largely depends on the perceived safety of doing so. The consequences for co-workers coming forth out of voice behaviour is often due to the tendency to blame people in the organization as a response to problems instead of identifying and solving the underlying cause (Deming, 1986 in Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008). Therefore, many employees choose to remain silent when it comes to important work-related issues (Morrison & Milliken, 2000 in Tangirala &
Ramanujam, 2008). Research has proven that 85 percent of the participants interviewed choose to remain silent about some of their work-related concerns (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008). Employees tend to remain silent when the perceived safety is considered low (Ashford,
13 Rothbard, Piderit & Dutton, 1998) or when they feel that management or co-workers are not likely to enact upon the information (Morrison, 2011). Engaging in voice could have negative outcomes for the employee, for instance, losing the possibility for a salary raise or promotion (Siebert, Kraimer & Crant, 2001), or damaging the public image (Milliken, Morrison & Hewlin, 2003).
On the other hand, expressing voice behaviour can lead to positive outcomes as well. Tangirala, Kemdar, Venkataramani and Parke (2013) state that employees are more likely to speak up when they prioritized the interest of the group. When focussing on the bright side of voice behaviour, speaking up could result in workgroups successfully responding to
unexpected situations (Venkataramani & Tangirala, 2010). On the same time, voicing can result in visibility, promotion opportunities and personal evaluation (Liangh, Farh & Farh, 2012). Greenberger and Strasser advocate that it could even lead to better work motivation as voicing reduces stress levels due to an employee’s feeling of control of situations (1986). Milliken, Morrison and Hewlin complete the potential benefits by noting that employees are more likely to develop a positive attitude towards voice when they associate voice behaviour with above mentioned benefits. This eventually increases the likelihood that they will engage in voice over again (2003). Thus, when assessing whether to engage in voice or remain silent, employees constantly weight costs, risks and benefits of voice exertion (Morrison, Milliken, 2003). This emphasizes the need for a working environment in which employees feel
comfortable and free to speak up (Morrison, 2013).
In sum, employee voice can be a powerful expression of behaviour as it could lead to serious benefits for the employee and the organization since it aims to improve current work-related issues, processes and conditions. However, the flipside of the coin reveals that if not being expressed with proper care, co-workers or managers could feel threatened as their position in the organization might get harmed. The employee engaging in voice should
14 therefore constantly weight costs, risks and benefits when assessing whether to engage in voice or remain silent.
In order to find out which motives to voice result in better team performance, a goal orientation perspective will be used as illustrated by Dweck and her colleagues. These goal orientations will be addressed in the next paragraph.
2.3 Goal Orientation
The goal orientation construct finds its origin in the goal orientation theory (Licht & Dweck, 1984; Dweck, 1986, 1989; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Elliot & Dweck, 1988; Heyman & Dweck, 1992). This can be explained by the underlying goals that people adopt and pursue in achievement situations (Dweck & Legget, 1988). Previous studies have shown that it
seriously influences individual behaviour and performance in the work environment (Porath & Bateman, 2006). With a mastery goal orientation, people attempt to acquire new skills, learn, and develop their competences by mastering new situations (Preenen, Van Vianen & De Pater, 2014). Traditionally, a distinction is being made between performance orientation goal and a learning orientation goal.
In this study the definition proposed by Button, Mathieu and Zajac regarding performance goal and learning goal will be used (1996). They describe the adoption of a performance goal as ‘individuals that strive either to demonstrate, and thereby gain favourable judgements of, their competence via task performance or to avoid negative judgements of their competence’. On the other hand, when a learning goal is being adopted it can be
identified as ‘individuals that strive to understand something new or to increase their level of competence in a given activity’ (Preenen, Van Vianen & De Pater, 2014, p. 26). The two goal orientations were originally considered as two opposing poles (Dweck, 1986), but researchers have argued that individuals mostly have multiple goals that compete with each other (Button
15 et al., 1996). Moreover, Button and colleagues state that a learning and performance goal orientation are best described as two largely independent and separate dimensions (1996). Thus, in essence individuals can be high or low in both orientations at the same time.
A learning goal generates task strategies that are similar to attaining an understanding of the task as the individual is eager to learn and strives to increase their level of competence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). It is associated with the belief that ability can be developed with effort and practice, this is in line with the mastery orientation as one strives to master particular skills (Porter, 2005). Moreover, Porter sees effort as a way to increase someone’s ability which leads to higher performance (2005). As a consequence, when someone is high on learning orientation, a deep level of information processing is being applied (Dupeyrat & Mariné, 2005). A performance orientation, in turn, stimulates task strategies that maximize the chance of demonstrating high ability in order to gain favourable judgements on their competence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). It is associated with the belief that ability is fixed and can’t be changed. Therefore, individuals higher in performance orientation aim to generate immediate performance by solely focussing on those aspects of the task that are perceived to be related to this performance. Porter (2005) states that they often don’t devote effort in tasks in which they see they have low levels of ability since they see little utility in it. This is in line with Fisher and Ford (1998) who say that performance-oriented individuals favour low-effort task-execution strategies than individuals lower in performance orientation because they understand performance as flowing from ability rather than effort.
LePine (2005) and Porter (2005) have shown that the average levels of individual members’ goal orientation of both learning and performance goal orientations are related to team functioning. This in respect to relationships with concepts as team efficacy, team commitment, team adaption and backing-up behaviour. Team performance will be addressed in the next section as the conceptual framework and the hypotheses will be introduced.
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3. Conceptual Framework
Previously, the existing literature regarding voice as a form of proactive behaviour have been explored, same as goal orientation which will be used as starting point in respect to the voice motives. At first, the expectations regarding a learning orientation motive to voice in relation to team performance will be stated. All the expectations will be followed by the
accompanying hypotheses. Secondly, a performance orientation motive to voice will be adopted and the expectation of this orientation in relation to team performance will be illustrated. Finally, the expectation regarding the direct relation between voice behaviour and team performance will be stated.
3.1 Goal-oriented voice on team performance
As mentioned in the literature review, this study will focus on the learning goal orientation and the performance goal orientation as voice motives as identified by Dweck and her colleagues (Licht & Dweck, 1984; Dweck, 1986, 1989; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Elliot & Dweck, 1988; Heyman & Dweck, 1992). Nowadays, proactive behaviour is seen as one of the most important behaviour characteristics of employees as this fosters change in employees, creativity and innovativeness (Grant, Parker & Collins, 2009; Liang, Farh & Farh, 2012) and is therefore seen as an important driver of an organizations success (Newcombe, 2012). Voice is seen as a powerful form of proactive behaviour which aims to improve organizational and unit processes and functioning which leads to better team performance (Morrison, 2011). Over the past decades, teams rather than individuals have become critical for decision making and performance in organizations (Hamilton et al., 2003; Woolley et al., 2010). Moreover, Hamilton and colleagues even state that teams have become the mainstay for the organization of work during the past 30 years (2003). Therefore, making these teams perform at their best
17 is one of the main activities of the organization’s management, since teams are one of the key building blocks of organizations. To further complement the concept of team performance, previous studies have shown that goal orientations seriously influence individual behaviour and performance in the work environment (Porath & Bateman, 2006). Therefore, this study will investigate whether either learning-oriented or performance-oriented voice will lead to positive team performance.
As derived from the literature which have been reviewed before, exerting voice behaviour has the intention to improve processes and functioning of units and organizations (Morrison, 2011). Hence, the expectation comes forwards that individuals in teams engaging in voice behaviour will have a positive influence on team performance. The following hypothesis is derived from these assumption.
Hypothesis 1: Voice behaviour in teams will result in higher team performance.
A learning-oriented individual is eager to learn and strives to increase its competences and abilities with the belief that this can be accomplished by making effort (Dweck &
Leggett, 1988; Porter, 2005). Porter even states that ‘Effort is seen as a way of increasing one’s ability and, in turn, one’s performance’ (2005, p. 811). Research suggests that team efficacy, that is the extent to which a team can successfully perform its work tasks, predicts team performance (Gully, Incalcaterra, Joshi, & Beaubien, 2002). Moreover, Porter states that learning orientation should be positively related to efficacy, as learning-oriented individuals should positively react to work events and achievement situations (2005, p. 813). This origins in the fact that people high on learning orientation strive to improve and apply their
18 orientation results in higher team performance. Voice behaviour is expected to positively contribute to performance, since exerting voice has the intention to improve processes and functioning of the organizations and units. Thus, the following hypothesis is formulated.
Hypothesis 2: A learning orientation will positively moderate the effect of voice on performance.
On the other hand, a performance-oriented individual strives to gain favourable judgements on their competence by stimulating task-execution strategies that maximizes the chance of demonstrating high ability (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). An individual high on performance orientation beliefs that ability cannot be changed and is therefore considered as fixed. Nevertheless, Porter (2005) amplifies this by stating that ‘they often see little utility in devoting effort on tasks in which they perceive they have low levels of ability’ (Dweck, 1989 in Porter, 2005, p. 811). Pieterse, Kippenberg and Ginkel come up with a different view, they say that people in teams are more willing to collaborate with other team members similar to themselves. They continue by concluding that diversity in performance orientation in teams leads to lower team performance as this reduces the quality the interaction of team members (2011). Thus, a performance-oriented individual in a group which differs in members that have different goal orientations will decrease team performance. Furthermore, this implies that individuals high on performance orientation that engage in voice will result in poor team performance since teams are not constructed on basis of goal orientations. Therefore, the following hypothesis is stated.
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Hypothesis 3: A performance orientation will negatively moderate the effect of voice on performance.
Finally, a conceptual model is composed to clarify and support the hypotheses. This is shown in figure 1.
Figure 1 – Conceptual Framework
Voice Team performance
Performance orientation/ Learning orientation
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4. Methodology
In the previous sections, the existing literature related to the research question and the
conceptual framework, which includes the hypotheses, have been discussed. In the following section, the design and method used to test these hypotheses will be addressed. In the first place, the research design will be discussed, in this case a survey. This will be followed by the research sample and ends with the measures used in the survey.
4.1 Research design
The research is characterized as descriptive, its objective is to gain an accurate profile of events, persons or situations (Saunders et al., 2011, p. 171). In this research a survey will be used, which is perfectly in line with the nature of the research design. This survey will be questionnaire-based. By using this questionnaire-based survey, all the data will be collected needed to test the hypotheses which are based on the theory. More specifically, the survey is a dyad study, which makes co-workers rate each other, this results in interesting findings. According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, by using the survey strategy it is easy to compare the answers from a large group of people, making it a valuable strategy for this research (2011, p.177). As the main goal of the research is to find out which motives for voicing foster team performance, the hypotheses will be derived from the goal orientation theory introduced by Dweck and colleagues (1984; 1986). In order to achieve reliable results, a large sample need to be constructed consisting of people with different characteristics that provide a good representation of the whole population. One of the advantages of using a survey, is that a large amount of people can be reached in respectively little time.
Furthermore, using a survey is also an affordable way (Saunders et al., 2011, p.177) and relatively easy to analyse because statistics can be used (Saunders et al., 2011). Furthermore,
21 Saunders et al. argue that questionnaires work best with standardised questions that will be interpreted the same by every participant, making it easier to compare the answers given. (Saunders et al., 2011, p.419). This research have not been done before, so no example of the used research method of past studies can be used to justify the research method. On the other hand, limitations of the survey design should be taken into consideration. Firstly, the amount of questions that can be included in the survey can be seen as a serious drawback, because people are reticent to filling out large surveys (Saunders et al., 2011, 179). However, this research is not likely to be compromised by this drawback as the data can be collected by including a minimal amount of questions in the survey. Secondly, Saunders et al. state that ‘questionnaires offer only one chance to collect the data as it is often difficult to identify respondents or to return to collect additional information’. This suggests that the data collection method must be designed carefully (2011, p. 423).
Furthermore, the questionnaire is self-completed and internet-mediated. This results in speeding up the process as the questions can be most quickly completed by the participants themselves, because scaling and ranking is used in the survey. By doing this, little resources in terms of time and money are needed in order to fulfil the required data. Moreover, self-administered surveys save a lot of time and allow to enter the data automatically. On top of that, as the participant is filling out the questions by himself, self-completed questionnaires guarantee anonymity, which is an important driver of gaining access to the data (Saunders et al., 2011, p. 223). Reliability will also be improved because participant bias will be reduced (Saunders et al., 2011, p. 192).
4.2 Sample
To answer the research question, it is important to focus this research on the employed Dutch citizens. This means people below 15 years old will be excluded from the sample as they are
22 not seen as the Dutch working population (CBS, arbeidsdeelname; kerncijfers, 2015). Since this research will make use of a dyad study, it is important that employees with the presence of co-workers will be identified in the sample population. This reasons from the fact that one valid participant consists of one employee and one co-worker valuing the employee.
Participants filling out the survey without the co-workers part will be considered as useless. In order to be able to generalize the results, a reliable sample needs to be drawn from the
population. The larger the size of the sample, the lower the likely error in generalizing the results to the population (Saunders et al., 2011, p. 265). Therefore, the data collection part will be team-based. In order to generate a larger sample, all 5 students researching this topic will share their collected data. The characteristics of the respondents differ in age, education and most importantly, field of work, since this study focusses on the work environment. All respondents are employed in the Netherlands and are working with co-workers. Furthermore, all respondents should master the Dutch language sufficiently, either as mother tongue or second language, in order to successfully complete the questionnaire.
4.3 Data collection
As stated above, the questionnaire is internet-mediated. The website www.qualtrics.com is used to develop the questionnaire, simply because of the wide range of options for different types of questions and its ease of using. Because the data does not need to be entered manually, this method saves a lot of time (Saunders et al., 2011, p. 423). On top of that, no printing costs are incurred, so this method also saves money (Wright, 2005). Because the method is internet-mediated, the reach is good. By using this method, the geographical constraint gets eliminated as it makes it easy to reach people from all over the world and this can be done in relatively a short amount of time. However, this study only focusses on the Dutch employees so the geographical distance is limited. Furthermore, people will be
23 approached through Facebook by sending e-mails. My personal network will be used for doing this. On top of that, other people in my network will be asked to send the questionnaire through theirs. However, using the internet to collect data can lead to a systematic bias due to people exerting in self-selection. This is the case because people have a choice, they can choose whether they want to participate in the survey or wish to ignore the request (Wright, 2005). Saunders and colleagues (2011) state that a survey should be constructed attractively in order to increase the rate of response. Therefore, the layout of the survey is made attractive and compatible for smartphones as this eases the filling out process in this highly technical society. On top of that, an introduction letter is included to clarify the purpose of the survey and why the help of the participants is needed. Also, a statement of anonymity is included same as a brief notion at the end of the survey to thank the respondent for participating as suggested by Saunders and colleagues (2011).
4.4 Measures
The survey itself aims to test the variables presented in the hypotheses. These variables should be operationalized sufficiently. In order to ensure reliability and validity, pre-existing scales proposed by researchers are used. These scales are derived from previous studies regarding different fields of research.. These questions will be translated to the Dutch language since this study focusses on the Dutch working population Traditionally, they are proposed by the researchers in English. In order to exclude bias and enhance validity, fellow researchers will check these translations to make sure that the participants will have no troubles completing the questionnaire. , the chance of bias will be reduced as different points of views regarding the translations will be taken into consideration. Translating the scales from English to Dutch have to be done with proper care and patience. Sander and colleagues state that lexical, idiomatic and experiential meaning of the words should be carefully taken into consideration
24 in order to ensure that the exact meaning of the words, group of words and equivalence stays preserved.
This study uses different concepts to test the hypotheses. Voice in the first place, will be tested by asking the question: “How many work-related suggestions did you do last month to improve existing processes?”. This variable does not need a particular scale and is a one-item measure. Goal orientations however, will be tested by using the scales suggested by Button and colleagues (1996). Both the performance orientation and learning orientation are measured by 8 items each. They are measured by making use of a 5-point Likert scale. The performance variable is tested using the scale proposed by Black and Porter (1991). To stay in line with the other tested variables, again a 5-point Likert scale is used. The scale regarding performance consists of 5 items which are transformed to performance in a team context as it origins from measuring overall performance. To clarify the above, an overview will be presented regarding the different scales including the measures:
Performance goal orientation (Button et al., 1996):
I prefer to do things that I can do well rather than things that I do poorly.
I’m happiest at work when I perform tasks on which I know that I won’t make any errors.
The things I enjoy the most are the things I do the best.
The opinions others have about how well I can do certain things are important to me. I feel smart when I do something without making any mistakes.
I like to be fairly confident that I can successfully perform a task before I attempt it. I like to work on tasks that I have done well on in the past.
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Learning goal orientation (Button et al., 1996):
The opportunity to do challenging work is important to me.
When I fail to complete a difficult task, I plan to try harder the next time I work on it. I prefer to work on tasks that force me to learn new things.
The opportunity to learn new things is important to me. I do my best when I’m working on a fairly difficult task. I try hard to improve on my past performance.
The opportunity to extend the range of my abilities is important to me.
When I have difficulty solving a problem, I enjoy trying different approaches to see which one will work.
Team performance (Black & Porter, 1991):
The quality of the team's work The achievement of team goals
The team members' ability to get along The ability to work effectively as a team The ability to finish team tasks on time
However, a comment needs to made. While testing for the reliability of the scales, measuring the Crohnbach’s alpha, it turned out that the reliability of the scale would
significantly increase if the last item of the Learning Orientation scale would be deleted. Up front the Crohnbach’s Alpha was 0.703 but would significantly increase to 0.757. Therefore, while using this sample, the last item of the learning orientation scale will be excluded in order to enhance reliability and validity. The excluded item reads as follows: ‘When I have difficulty solving a problem, I enjoy trying different approaches to see which one will work.’
26 This may be the case because people may not actively realise they make use of different approaches to tackle problems.
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5. Results
The previous section discussed the research design and methods used in this research. This paragraph will address the results of the research starting with some descriptive statistics, followed by reliability measures. Thereafter, the results of the regression analysis will be presented.
5.1 Descriptive statistics
Approximately 350 people were approached to participate in the survey. Eventually, 113 filled out the employee questionnaire and 87 the co-worker questionnaire. The low response rate is mostly due to the fact that participants were asked to send the co-workers part of the questionnaire to one of their co-workers, it seems like most of them found this too much of an effort since they did not even try in most of the cases. This is one of the major causes of the low response rate. A dyad study asks a lot of the participants since there are a couple of actions they need to execute like finding a co-worker willing to co-operate for instance, the majority simply feels like this is too much of a hassle.
However, the final result was a valid n of 73 participants. This is due to unmatched questionnaires between employee and co-workers and due to uncompleted questionnaires. To clarify, 73 matches of employee and co-worker, that filled out the questionnaire completely, could have been linked to each other successfully. Thus, with a response rate of
approximately 20.9% there are a lot of values missing in the dataset. This study simply excluded the missing and uncompleted data. But, this is only one option for dealing with the missing data. One could choose to replace the missing values by the mean or values based on the responses of the questions of others. However, this could negatively affect the results.
28 This effect increases once more data gets replaced, in this case this means a lot so this option should simply be ignored (Pallant, 2007).
5.1.1 Sample characteristics
According to the sample’s characteristics, 48.63% of the valid respondents were identified as female and 51.37% as male. The study aimed to sufficiently represent the Dutch population which consists for 49.80% of men and 50.20% of women. Which implies that women are slightly underrepresented.
Furthermore, the data distribution regarding the employees and co-workers is shown below. However, the data covering age distribution is not fully completed, one particular participant in the employee section did not fill out which age category he or she belongs and is therefore excluded. As a consequence, 72 employees are considered as valid regarding the age distribution for the employees’ sample. The sample’s age distribution differs from the Dutch population especially in the category below 20 which is 22.9% for the whole
population. This is due to the fact that this research focusses on the working population and this is less represented by people in the below 20 category.
Table 1: Age distribution
Age category <20 20-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 >60 Sample employees (n=72) 9.7% 65.3% 2.8% 6.9% 13.9% 1.4% Sample co-workers (n=73) 9.6% 63% 9.6% 5.5% 12.3% 0%
When looking more closely to the educational distribution presented below, a very low percentage of people having an MBO or high school education level are represented. This is further emphasized by the extremely large representation of HBO and University educated people. The Dutch population consists for approximately 21% out of people HBO or
29 university educated. Whereas for the employees this equalizes 86,3% and 89% for the co-workers sample, which is excessive. This is most expectantly due to the data gathering process since the data for this research was gathered by 5 bachelor students from the University of Amsterdam. For gathering the data, the personal network of these students is mostly used for gathering participants. This explains the high representation of post-graduate students with a high education as the majority of their personal network is most likely to consist of highly educated people.
Table 2: Education level distribution
Education level High School MBO HBO University
Sample employees (n=73) 8.2% 5.5% 31.5% 54.8% Sample co-workers (n=73) 5.5% 5.5% 23.3% 65.7% 5.2 Reliability
Prior to analysing the data, the reliability of the variables were tested. The Crohnbach’s alpha was measured to assess reliability. According to Field, this can be seen as the most common measure for scale reliability (2009). In general, when the Crohnbach’s alpha is above 0.7 then items are considered as sufficient and reliable.
At first, voice quantity is a one-item measure and therefore is not sufficient for the Crohnbach’s alpha measure. As already stated in the method section, one item in the learning orientation scale got excluded in order to enhance reliability. Therefore only 7 items are remaining instead of 8. The Crohnbach’s alpha for the other variables are presented below:
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Table 3: Reliability and descriptives
n=73 Crohnbach’s
alpha
Nr. of items Mean Variance Std.
Deviation Team Performance 0.719 5 20.36 5.538 2.353 Performance Orientation 0.686 8 30.37 13.486 3.672 Learning Orientation 0.757 7 28.15 8.546 2.923
As stated before, a variable is considered reliable when it has a Crohnbach’s alpha exceeding 0.7. In this case, performance orientation faces a slightly lower amount. However, Pallant (2007) states that it is common to find a Crohnbach’s alpha below 0.7 if the variable consists of less than 10 items. On top of that, this scale is derived from previous research and have been identified as a reliable and valid variable (Dweck, 1986; Porter, 2005). Therefore the variable will be considered as sufficient and reliable since the Cronbach’s alpha only slightly differs from the common standard of 0.7 and since previous researchers widely accepted the variable.
5.3 Correlations
Prior to testing the hypotheses, some correlations will be explored between the variables. These correlations are shown in table 4. Due to the fact of having a small valid sample (n= 73), a level of significance of 0.1 will be used. The table shows some interesting findings. It seems that performance orientation (r = 0.095) is slightly positively related to team
31 performance but far from significant. Interestingly, performance orientation correlates
negatively with voice quantity (r = -.345) and is highly significant (p = 0.003), however this relation is not further investigated in this study. Performance orientation and learning
orientation, in turn, slightly correlate but insignificantly (r = 0.100). The correlation between learning orientation and voice quantity (r = 0.194) turns out to be significant using the adjusted α (= 0.10). Once again no significant correlation effect is found considering team performance, learning orientation’s correlation with team performance is very tiny (r = 0.41) and very insignificant (p = .733). At last, voice seems to slightly correlate with team
performance but is identified as insignificant (p = .453)
Table 4: Correlations 1 2 3 4 1 Voice quantity 1 2 Performance orientation -.345** 1 3 Learning orientation .194* .100 1 4 Team performance 0.89 .095 .041 1 Note: n=73, *p<0.10, **p<0.01 5.4 Regressions
To investigate whether goal-oriented-voice and regular voice have a positive effect on team performance, a linear regression will be executed.
5.4.1 Regression analysis of main effects
In this paragraph the results will be presented that indicate if there is a significant difference between team performance when voice is engaged, compared to team performance when no voice is exerted. In the first place, the direct effect between the independent variable voice
32 and dependent variable team performance will be tested. A linear regression will be executed in order to test hypothesis 1: “Voice behaviour in teams will result in higher team
performance”. The results of this regression analysis is presented below in table 5.
Table 5: Relation between voice and team performance
n = 73 β p
Voice .089 .435
Note; Dependent variable: Team Performance
The first model (R² = .008) shows there is no significant relationship between voice and team performance (p > .05, n = 73). The coefficient of determination suggests that only 0.8 percent of the variance in team performance can be explained by one’s level of voice, which is extremely low. Thus, hypothesis 1 is rejected since the relationship between voice and team performance is far from significant.
5.4.2 Regression analysis with moderators included
Now the results will be presented that indicate if there is a significant difference between team performance with and without the expression of voice, influenced by performance orientation and learning orientation. The hypotheses that will be tested are as follows: Hypothesis 2 says that learning-oriented voice will result in higher team performance whereas hypothesis 3 is saying that performance-oriented voice will decrease team performance. Again a linear regression is used to test the hypotheses. The results are presented in table 6 and 7 respectively.
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Table 6: Moderating effect learning orientation on team performance with voice
n = 73 β p
Voice .546 .601
Learning orientation .129 .627
Interaction effect -.495 .656
Note; Dependent variable: Team performance
The R² of the test (R² = .011) implies that only 1.1 percent of the variance in team performance can be explained by voice with the effect of learning orientation. Hypothesis 2 suggests that learning-oriented voice results in higher team performance. Unexpectedly, hypothesis 2 is not supported as there is no significant relation found of the influence of learning orientation (p = .656, n = 73).
Table 7: Moderating effect performance orientation on team performance with voice
n = 73 β p
Voice -.262 .762
Performance orientation .035 .895
Interaction effect .382 .639
Note; Dependent variable: Team performance
For hypothesis 3, the test (R² = 0.029) implies that only 2.9 percent of the variance in team performance can be explained by voice with the effect of performance orientation, Hypothesis 3 suggests that performance-oriented voice decreases team performance. Unexpectedly, hypothesis 3 is not supported as there is no significant relation found of the influence of performance orientation (p = .639, n = 73).
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6. Discussion
In this section, the findings of the research will be discussed including supported hypotheses, unsupported hypotheses and additional findings. These findings could contribute to the existing literature by comparing these findings with previous research. This is followed by practical implications and theoretical contributions of the research. Eventually, the limitations of the study will be discussed same as suggestions for future research.
6.1 Hypotheses
First of all, this study hypothesized that voice would directly increase team performance. This assumption was made according to the existing literature stating that voice aims to improve processes and functioning of the organization and units (Morrison, 2011). And therefore, would have a positive influence on team performance (Ashford, 1998; Argote & Ingram, 2000; Morrison & Milliken, 2000) . It turned out that no significant relation was found to support this hypothesis. As a consequence, this finding contradicts previous research. However, no research investigating whether voice directly influences team performance has been conducted before.
One important factor that have not been taken into consideration in this study and which is not widely investigated so far, is the counter party concerning voice, namely
management. One can speak up frequently but when managers and employees do not agree on the level of voice then most likely nothing will happen and therefore will not result in the improvement of performance (Burris, Detert & Romney, 2013). Consequently, the results could have been different if this variable would have been integrated in this study, focussing only on the part of voice the management agrees with. Burris, Detert and Romney even state that the alignment of the managerial and employee perceptions of the employee’s voice is a
35 big determinant of the outcome. Nevertheless, when both manager and employee agree on a lower level of employee voice, research has proven that this would result in higher
performance ratings of employees if managers feel they receive useful discretionary input (Whiting et al., 2008). Van Dyne and colleagues support this with their findings implying that supervisory ratings of employee voice were positively related to the evaluations of
employee’s overall performance (Van Dyne et al., 1998). This means that when management positively rates an employee’s engagement of voice their overall performance will be rated higher as well. Thus overall, this suggests that voice could still be an important driver of performance but the context need to be right in order to give it the chance to improve
processes and functioning in organizations and units. Thus, this suggests that managers who agree with employees on the voice level, will enact upon the suggestions and ideas put forward by employees which would result in a higher appraisal of performance. In this context the management’s alignment with the employee on the voice level is seen as the moderator. However, additional insights are needed in order to make such implications regarding this underemphasized moderator on the relation between voice and performance. These suggestions for directions of future research with new contexts will be discussed later on in the discussion section.
The second hypothesis this study proposed was that learning-oriented voice would increase team performance. This was proposed according to existing literature that states that efficacy, which is related to learning orientation, predicts team performance (Gully, Incalterra, Joshi & beaubien, 2002; Porter, 2005). Unexpectedly, there was no significant relation found between voice and team performance with the effect of learning orientation.
As stated above, the alignment of managerial and employee perceptions of employee voice could possibly be an important determinant in the outcome of voice. This potential explanation might hold regarding the effect of learning orientation and performance
36 orientation as well, since the proposed link between voice exertion and team performance is the key building block of this study. Moreover, when looking more closely to learning
orientation, we found a significant positive correlation effect between learning orientation and voice (r = .194, α = 0.1). This suggests that having a learning orientation has a positive
influence on voice behaviour. As a consequence, employees would choose to engage more in voice. Taken the prior in consideration regarding the managerial perceptions regarding employees’ voice, this in the end could possibly result in higher performance. However, this study can’t make any implications as further extended research regarding this context is mandatory. The data collected and context of the proposed model is not sufficient.
The last hypothesis proposed that performance-oriented voice decreases team performance. This was based on previous research stating that diversity in performance orientation in teams leads to lower team performance as this reduces the quality of the interaction of team members (Pieterse, Kippenberg & Ginkel, 2011). Unexpectedly, no significant support was found for the effect of performance orientation on team performance with voice. However, Porter ended up with the same unexpected result.
He suggests that performance is a potential moderator of performance orientation (2005). As stated before, a performance-oriented individual strives to gain favourable judgements on their competence by stimulating task-execution strategies that maximizes the chance of demonstrating high ability (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). The suggestion made by Porter could possibly be the case since performance-oriented individuals rather work on tasks they excel in. Also because a performance-oriented individual beliefs ability is fixed and therefore can’t be changed (Porter, 2005). This suggests that high performance would foster performance orientation. In this case, individuals high on this orientation will feel more comfortable while working on their tasks and allows them to work on those tasks that result in direct performance even more. Their assumption that ability is fixed will be further
37 emphasized. However, no such implications can be made since this study is not focussed to answer this question, therefore additional research is needed.
In sum, no significant relation was found between voice and team performance
directly. Furthermore, no evidence was found to support that the effect of learning orientation and performance orientation on team performance with voice would result in an increase or decrease respectively. This could be due to factors concerning the context of voice, for instance managerial perceptions of voice. Even though no significant relations were found, this study could be of practical use. This will be addressed in the next paragraph.
6.2 Implications of the study
Little is known about these motives why employees exert voice behaviour. As an addition to that, research asked for more insight concerning voice in a work environment focused on teams as this has become the mainstay for the past decades. This research, therefore, aims to fill the research gap concerning these motives to voice and the relation to team performance. Unexpectedly, none of the hypotheses were supported. However, results gathered from the data can be interpreted usefully.
Even though no significant relation was found between voice and performance, with and without the effect of learning and performance orientation, this doesn’t mean voice behaviour eventually influences team performance. Now no direct effect is found between voice and team performance, this result suggests that the focus should merely be on the interpretation and implication of voice, thus the process right after voice behaviour. This finding could be of great importance for organizations as the awareness raises to carefully convert and implement voice. Only then voice could contribute to overall performance. This suggests that other factors in the context of voice behaviour should not be overlooked, for instance managerial perceptions of employee voice.
38 Furthermore, it turns out that learning orientation and performance orientation don’t fit the hypothesized model. However, this does not mean that they should not be taken into consideration. Learning-oriented individuals react differently to work related situations than performance-oriented individuals. Linking this to voice, both orientations correlated
significantly to voice. This suggests that by properly managing goal-oriented employees, voice behaviour could be stimulated or discouraged. However this research is not sufficient to answering this questions and therefore additional research is needed in order to extend
literature regarding this subject. This research did not find the results it was expecting to find, however, these results provide a good basis for new directions of future research which could be of great importance for organizations. This is being discussed after the next paragraph, the limitations of this research will be addressed first.
6.3 Limitations
One of the most principal drawbacks of this study is the low amount of respondents that participated in the questionnaire. Only 73 valid respondents were gathered, which is very poor. Saunders and colleagues already stated that the larger the sample size the higher the chance of uncovering a specific mean difference which is statistically significant (2011). Furthermore, one could generalize the results of the research more easily with a larger n. Perhaps, the results would have been different if more respondents were found to participate.
The method of collecting the data is also something that could be improved. Most of the people were approached through email, which partly caused the low response rate. Because of the dyad study, participants had to find a co-worker to fill out a questionnaire concerning evaluating the former. People simply feel like this is too much of an effort. On top of that, by making use of an internet-based survey, systematic bias is most likely to occur due to the process of self-selection. One has the choice whether or not to fill out the survey
39 (Wright, 2005). On top of that, because of the self-selection, only people that are motivated to fill out the survey are most likely included and are therefore causing bias in the sample since this is no correct representation of the population. Unfortunately, some biases cannot be completely prevented from occurring. However, in the future, it would be better to approach organizations, for instance, that want to co-operate and want to lend some employees to fill out the survey, this would also minimalize drop outs and will minimalize the bias of self-selection.
When looking more closely to the sample, the undergraduate higher educated group was severely overrepresented due to the usage of the personal network of the data collectors who belong to this category as well. Thus in the future, a more representative sample
regarding the Dutch working population is desirable. Perhaps foreigners from other countries need to be included as well in order to make the results more generalizable internationally, however the downside of this approach is that the costs would most likely increase
significantly.
Furthermore, this study measures on one point in time only, aiming to find a relation between voice and team performance. When someone engages in voice, a whole process will be set into work, it needs to be implemented and assessed by management before it will be taken into practice. Therefore, voice behaviour will not result in organizational benefits right away. Due to this longitudinal process, it is hard to directly link voice to team performance by only measuring one point in time as the results of voice are not identifiable on the short run. Therefore, a longitudinal study would be desirable. This need for future research will be discussed in the next paragraph.
40 6.4 Future research
In the paragraphs above, some introductions have been made regarding future research. Firstly, no significant relation was found between voice and team performance. One possible explanation that was proposed for the insignificancy was that managers and employees must agree on the level of voice before managers would enact upon it. Only in this case could speaking up result in higher team performance. Thus, this suggests that the alignment of managers on the voice level with the employees would play an important role as a moderator on the relation between voice and performance. Burris, Detert and Romney (2013) state that researchers are too focussed on the side of the employee considering voice and are paying less to no attention to the managers’ side of voice. This is an interesting gap in the literature since voice can only be useful to the organization when it will be processed. As an addition to that, no study explores how these perceptions concerning voice are formed and more interestingly, how they develop over time and how these are influenced by contextual factors. Maybe these perceptions will ease when someone works for a longer time in one particular organization as one would feel more comfortable. Or on the other hand, one’s perception towards voice would maybe harden as they could become reluctant to change and feel threatened by those who engage in voice. All these suggestions are proposed by Burris and colleagues. Thus, future research regarding these mostly unknown areas should be investigated by making use of a longitudinal study in order to extend the current knowledge regarding voice. Once this gets more clear, managers could act upon this knowledge and would be able to manage voice more sufficiently.
Furthermore, no study focusses on the process of how voice gets interpreted and processed in order to enhance improvements to the organizations’ functioning. It would be very interesting for organizations to know what causes voice to be processed efficiently and maybe more importantly, how to effectively take these voice incentives into practice. Most
41 studies are merely theory-based and state findings retrieved from other research. Nearly no study focusses on how to implement these findings and how they should be taken into practice. Therefore, more practice-based studies would be useful to guide organizations in how to manage input retrieved from employees that have engaged into voice in order to improve organizational functioning eventually resulting in higher performance.
When looking more closely to the goal orientations embedded in this study, results suggests that performance predicts performance orientation in the team context rather than the other way around. This is supported by additional research from Porter who advocates that this could be worthwhile to explore for future research regarding performance orientation, since the moderating effect of task performance on performance orientation have not been extensively treated. Moreover, research stated that performance-oriented individuals would excel in teams consisting only out of performance-oriented individuals. This context have not been researched before. It may be worthwhile for future research to explore whether
performance-oriented voice in performance-oriented teams would result in higher team performance.
Learning orientation, in turn, have shown that learning orientation positively correlates with voice and is considered significant (with α = 1). This could be a feasible starting point for future research. If it turns out that there’s a significant relation between learning
orientation and voice, then this could be useful for managers. Because this suggests that when learning-oriented employees get managed properly, they are most likely to engage into voice more often which could benefit the organization in the long run.
Last but not least, most of the research has been cross-sectional. This results in confident conclusions regarding causality. The next step would be to collect data at multiple points in time. This is in line with the findings of this study, since it takes a longer period of time to find out whether particular voice incentives have increased team performance. This
42 would not only allow a better assessment of cause and effect, but also changes of voice over time can be studied more carefully, including its positive and negative effects. This will provide a more dynamic source of knowledge of voice.
43
7. Conclusion
This study’s main objective was to extend existing literature and to provide deeper insight in the relationship between voice behaviour and performance. This was done in the work environment of teams since this has become the mainstay the past couple of decades. It strived to do so by looking at the direct relationship between employee voice and team performance, and by looking at this relationship influenced by learning orientation and performance orientation. The research was executed using a dyad study among the Dutch working population, making extensive use of the internet by constructing an internet-based survey.
Unexpectedly, no significant relations were found regarding the hypotheses. Voice seems not to be directly linked to team performance, neither of the goal orientations had an effect on this relation. This might be due to the low amount of respondents. However, this study found some interesting results which provide a feasible starting point for future research. For instance, future studies regarding how to successfully convert and implement input retrieved from voice in order to enhance performance. This process have not been researched extensively and therefore additional knowledge to this concern would positively contribute to existing literature.
Overall, this study suggests that voice is not directly related to team performance and to performance in the greater extent. This proposes that other contextual factors taking place after the expression of voice come into action before it could affect performance. For
managers, this emphasizes the need for proper managing this input retrieved from voice. However, only suggestions can be made regarding the previous, since future research is needed to investigate these constructs to a greater depth.
44
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