Master’s Thesis
STATUS HIERARCHIES:
The Effect of Status Distance on Team Performance -
a Moderated-Mediation Model
Drs. Yeliz Cantimur
2012-2013
ABSTRACT
Teamwork has become more and more important in the past decades. However, teamwork also causes differentiation to occur along several dimensions. In this paper, the relationship between hierarchical differentiation and team performance is examined, in which task interdependence and coordination are considered important factors. Literature findings on the relationship between hierarchies and performance have been mixed. Therefore, in this paper task interdependence is considered as a moderating variable. It is proposed that higher levels of task interdependence make the positive relationship between hierarchy steepness and team performance stronger when mediated by coordination. This paper contributes to the existing literature on hierarchies and team performance, and a field study among 43 work teams was conducted. Even though the multitude of literature reviews found a positive relationship between hierarchy steepness and coordination, this field study did not find any significant relationship between the two variables. Overall, no significant relationship could be detected among any of the study variables. This research was the first to study hierarchical differentiation and its effects on team performance in an organizational setting. The small sample size may also contribute to the findings being differential from literature reviews. Even though future research on this topic is recommended, this paper has contributed theoretically and practically to existing literature.
Keywords: status, hierarchy steepness, task interdependence, coordination, team
INTRODUCTION
Effective teams are the real drivers of high organizational performance (Katzenbach & Smith, 1992). Teamwork has become an important feature of organizational design, and there are many definitions of it. Most of these consider the fact that the sum of the individual parts is greater than the whole of these parts combined. Moreover, teams consist of individuals who possess complementary skills, and commit themselves to a common purpose and performance goal, for which they hold themselves mutually accountable (Katzenbach & Smith, 1992). It can be said that teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results.
it a ‘recipe for living that has been evolved, tested, and winnowed through hundreds of generations of human social history’ (Halevy, Chou, Galinsky, & Murnighan, 2012, p. 34).
Research on hierarchical differentiation and coordination has shown that steeper hierarchies have a positive effect on team coordination. Functionalist theories state that steeper hierarchies will increase efficiency and facilitate coordination (Anderson & Brown, 2010). By providing social order, hierarchy fulfills human’s desired need for order, structure, and stability, making it an appealing form of social relations. It is preferred over other forms of social order (e.g., egalitarian) since hierarchy is particularly effective at facilitating coordination within social groups as it provides clear lines of direction and deference (Magee & Galinsky, 2008). Hierarchies are seen as a fundamental form of social organization that allows teams to achieve higher levels of coordination, leading to higher levels of performance (Halevy et al., 2011; Magee & Galinsky, 2008).
Research on hierarchical differentiation and team performance has shown mixed effects of steeper hierarchies on team performance. Most research suggests the relationship is positive, but there have also been studies that indicated a negative effect of steeper hierarchies on team performance. This calls for the need of a variable that would moderate this relationship. Contingency theories would also suggest it is necessary to consider a moderating variable in this relationship. Contingency theories propose that it depends on the situation what organizational structure or approach will work best (Anderson & Brown, 2010). This paper will consider the level of task interdependence as a moderating variable and propose that it has a positive effect on the relationship between steep status hierarchies and team performance. Task interdependence indicates a need for contribution and participation from most, if not all, members of a team or work unit (Halevy et al., 2011, p. 40). Simply put, a task cannot be completed individually, but it needs input from most – or all – members of the team to be completed successfully. In this paper, the importance of task interdependence will become clear in the relationship between hierarchical differentiation and coordination, as well as hierarchical differentiation and team performance. Task interdependence can be regarded a crucial factor in these relationships, and is considered to be an explanatory mechanism underlying the effects of the abovementioned study variables.
been investigated extensively. As there has been extensive research on hierarchies, especially in the past decade, a theoretical contribution of this paper could be the extended research of a specific moderating variable – task interdependence – on the relationship between hierarchies and performance, as research on task characteristics has been rather limited. As was mentioned, status is a relative construct, it represents an individual’s social standing among others within a social system, based on influence, prominence, and respect. Status relates each individual to the other individuals in the social system, it determines the relative space between team members, and can be meaningful in determining how status affects team settings (Christie & Barling, 2010). Most research focused on status at the individual level of analysis, emphasizing the psychological consequences (e.g., Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003), antecedents (e.g. Anderson et al., 2001) or signals (Tiedens, 2001) of high and low rankings. This paper takes the analysis to the team level and tries to determine how inequality of status can be seen as a team structural variable. Up until now, questions about when and
why hierarchies enhance or diminish performance are still largely missing. Furthermore, it
remains to be investigated whether team coordination accounts for the relationship between steeper hierarchies and team performance. In this paper, coordination is considered as a natural mechanism that links hierarchical differentiation to team performance in organizational settings. This paper contributes due to the fact that this research will be conducted in organizational settings, and previous research has only focused on sports teams. Also, there has been extensive research on status at the societal level, but organizational settings have sofar been neglected. As hierarchies emerge everywhere, managers need to take into account the level of task interdependence in teams when implementing hierarchical status structure in teams or when making status asymmetries salient. A better understanding of when, how and why hierarchy falicitates team functioning and performance should allow managers to structure organizational units in ways that optimize success (Halevy et al., 2011, p. 44).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
authority is vested in some official positions more than others (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Mills, 1956; Mintzberg, 1979; Tannenbaum, 1962), or they can emerge informally, since differences in status and influence naturally develop among peers working together (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Bales, Strodtbeck, Mills, & Roseborough, 1951; Blau, 1964).
Effects of hierarchy steepness on coordination
2011) Overall, hierarchy facilitates coordination by offering psychologically prominent and stable solutions to shared problems (Halevy et al., 2012).
The moderating effect of task interdependence on coordination
Hierarchy creates a strong psychological situation that introduces compelling expectation about ranking behaviors (Cooper & Withey, 2009; Halevy et al., 2012; Pfeffer & Davis-Blake, 1989). There is a stronger need for this when interdependence of other team members is high. Halevy et al. (2012) conducted a field study with NBA professional basketball teams and compared these to baseball teams. The difference in both sets of teams, is that baseball players actually play individually, while cooperation among basketball players is key to success (Halevy et al., 2012; Keidel, 1987).
In addition to this, research on cultural differences shows that many national cultures are characterized by high collectivism and high power distance, whereas there is not a single country that is characterized by high collectivism and low power distance (Hofstede, 1980). Cultures that emphasize interdependence (high collectivism cultures) often view hierarchy as more legitimate and fair than cultures that are considered individualistic. Therefore, hierarchical differentiation is most likely to increase team performance when it exists in an environment that emphasizes interdependence (Halevy et al., 2012). This leads to the first hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1: Task interdependence moderates the relationship between hierarchy steepness and coordination, such that hierarchy steepness is more positively related to coordination when team members are interdependent on their tasks.
Effects of hierarchy steepness on team performance
and final issue arising when working in teams is intra-team coordination. Hierarchies facilitate an orderly division of resources and influence among team members, using such means as allowing or denying different individuals access to resources and the rights to perform certain behaviors (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Berger et al., 1980; Leavitt, 2005; Magee & Galinsky, 2008, Mintzberg, 1983), which in turn increases team performance due to higher levels of efficiency.
Although there seems to be much evidence of a positive relationship between hierarchical differentiation and team performance (e.g., Anderson & Brown, 2010; Halevy et al., 2011; Halevy et al., 2012; Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2008), other studies show that the effects of steep hierarchies on team performance can be negative. One field study that found a negative effect of steeper hierarchies on performance was performed by Ivancevich and Donnelly (1975), where it was found that salespeople in three large organizations that worked in a taller organization performed worse that those working in a flatter organization (Anderson & Brown, 2010, p.63). Other studies found null effects of hierarchical differentiation on team performance. Blinder and Morgan (2007), Haslam, McGarty, Brown, Eggins, Morrison, & Reynolds (1998), McCurdy and Lambert (1952), and McCurdy and Eber (1953) all found in their experiments that teams with leaders did not outperform teams without a leader (Anderson & Brown, 2010). This indicates that hierarchical differentiation – the presence of a leader – did not affect the outcomes of the teams.
The moderating effect of task interdependence on team performance
Hypothesis 2: Task interdependence moderates the relationship between hierarchy steepness and team performance, such that hierarchy steepness is more positively related to team performance when team members are interdependent on their tasks.
Effects of coordination on team performance
It has been indicated that hierarchies, once formed, shape the direction and magnitude of control and influence in teams. Regardless of the kind of organization, successful team performance almost always requires coordination (Barnard, 1938; Halevy et al., 2012; Olson, 1965). Efficient team functioning requires that team members both prioritize team goals over individual goals, and engage in a coordinated manner to achieve them (Halevy et al, 2012). Overall, the effects of coordination on team performance are positive (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992; Hoch, Pearce, & Welzel, 2010; Kraut & Streeter, 1995; Lewis, 2003; Nidumolu, 1995). There are at least two forms of coordination in teams: the administrative coordination of routine tasks, and the management of knowledge and skill dependencies, i.e., determining where expertise is located, needed and accessed (Hoch et al., 2010). Team coordination aims to coordinate individual team members’ prior work expertise via situated interaction patterns and practices in order to make the individual team members’ expertise accessible to the team as a whole. ‘Coordination is aimed at the cognitive, and implicit synchronization of the prior expertise of the team members’ (Faraj & Sproull, 2000; Hoch et al., 2010, p. 107). By coordinating these activities, the expertise of the team as a whole will develop and increase performance. Hierarchy can enhance performance, particularly in cases of high task interdependence, through its effects on team-level processes. One of the effects meant here is promoting coordination. Hierarchical differentiation, and promoting coordination in highly interdependent tasks, is likely to lead to higher team performance (Halevy et al., 2011). In this paper, it is therefore proposed that the positive relationship between hierarchy steepness and team performance is explained by higher levels of coordination. It is also proposed that this relationship will be stronger when the level of task interdependence within teams is higher. This leads to the third and final hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3: The moderating effect of task interdependence on the relationship between hierarchy steepness and team performance is only mediated by coordination at higher levels of task interdependence.
Figure 1: The Conceptual Model – moderated mediation
METHOD Sample and procedure
The hypotheses to be tested in this paper concern team-level relationships only, leading to a team level analysis. Data were obtained from 284 employees in 43 work teams. The organizational work teams in the sample operate in different task contexts. The data were gathered in 31 organizations, ranging from universities to city councils, employment agencies to energy companies and retail businesses. In most of the teams, some hierarchical differences between team members existed, and the work teams included member roles such as consultants, administrative employees, and operational employees. A work team was defined as a supervisor and five or more team members who shared common objectives, performed interdependent tasks, and were jointly accountable for collective outcomes (Cole, Walter, & Bruch, 2008; Kozlowski & Bell, 2003; Van der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005). The data were collected by four Master students, who approached the work teams via personal contacts and asked the supervisors to participate by providing them with the relevant information of the research and offering to report on the team dynamics of their teams. When a supervisor agreed to participate, he or she informed the team members and provided the students with the names of the team members, in order to customize the questionnaires to each individual team member. Two different types of questionnaires were subsequently conducted in the presence of the student: a supervisor questionnaire and a team member questionnaire. After this, each team member received a second questionnaire which would be collected by the student one week later. This separation of the two questionnaires was done in order to minimize artificial
Steepness of the Status Hierarchy
Task
Interdependence
co-variation of the study variables, so that not everything was measured at once. The supervisors had a separate questionnaire. Participation was voluntary and confidentiality was guaranteed.
The supervisor questionnaire was primarily used to collect data on team performance, while the team member questionnaires focused on peer ratings through the inclusion of round robin items and self report design of the team members. In order to remove common method variance concerns, each team leader independently evaluated their team performance. For the individual team members, the round robin items and self-report were used to remove common method variance concerns. Team members rated each other on status, and the indicated level of task interdependence and team coordination.
Two hundred seventy-four team members returned the questionnaires (of a possible 284), leading to a response rate of 96%. The average team size of the participating work teams was 6.60 members (s.d. = 2.35). Of the team supervisors, 67% were male, and the mean age of the team supervisors was 46 years (s.d. = 11.42). Eighty-six percent of the supervisors had at least a vocational qualification. The average tenure of the team supervisors was 4.49 years (s.d. = 4.17). Of the team member respondents, 54% was male, and the mean age of these respondents was 39 years (s.d. = 11.45). Educational levels varied within the sample: 32% of the respondents had a high school degree, 67% had at least a vocational education. The average tenure of the team members was 3.87 years (s.d. = 4.13).
Measures
Hierarchy steepness. This variable was measured using peer rating, with a round
Task interdependence. This variable was measured with five items taken from Van
der Vegt, Emans & Van de Vliert (2001), regarding the level of task interdependence the members of the work team were experiencing. More specifically, team members were asked to indicate whether they agreed with the following scale items: “The other team members and I are dependent on each other for information and resources needed to perform our jobs well”, and “My tasks require me to cooperate and discuss them with other team members in order for us to perform our jobs well”. These five scale items were rated on a seven-point response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). This scale forms a reliable representation of task interdependence, Cronbach’s alpha was .75. The individual member scores were averaged to form an overall score for the variable ‘task interdependence’ and then aggregated to the team level.
Coordination. This variable was measured with five scale items based on the level of
coordination between work team members. The first two items were developed by Lewis (2003), and the rest of the items were taken from Janicik & Bartel (2003). More specifically, team members were asked to indicate whether they could relate to the following scale items: “Our team works together in a well coordinated fashion”, and “Within our team, misunderstandings on who does what and when almost never happen”. These five scale items were rated by each team member on a seven-point response scale ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). This scale forms a reliable representation of intra-team
coordination, Cronbach’s alpha was .84. The individual member scores on these five items were again averaged to form an overall score for the variable ‘coordination’ and then aggregated to the team level.
Team performance. To measure team performance, the supervisor of each team was
asked to compare the performance of his or her work team with other work teams of similar compositions and tasks on the following criteria: reaching goals, meeting deadlines, speed of work, quality of the work, productivity, and effectivity. This was used as a broad measure of team performance, and was developed by Ancona & Caldwell (1992), and Van der Vegt, De Jong, Bunderson, & Molleman (2010). Supervisors provided their responses on a seven-point response scale ranging from 1 (far below average) to 7 (far above average). This scale formed a reliable representation of team performance, Cronbach’s alpha was .87. The individual responses of the supervisors were averaged in order to form an overall score for the variable ‘team performance’.
previous research has shown that team size can be related to team performance (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992), team size was controlled for in all the analyses. The information regarding the size of the team was collected using the supervisor questionnaire. Furthermore, the mean level of status can differ between teams. Some teams in an organization will be ranked higher in levels of status than other teams, and since the data in this research was derived from sources ranging from low-status teams to high-status teams, this too needed to be controlled for in the analyses. Research has indicated that competition drives intergroup relations among high-status teams, whereas collaboration is a driving force in lower-status teams. Furthermore, higher-status teams reported fewer instances in which they were accused of incompetence when working with lower-status teams, resulting in lower levels of negative emotions and behaviors. On the contrary, lower-status teams showed increasing levels of negative emotions and behaviors when working with higher-status teams under the same circumstances (Chattopadhyay, Finn, & Ashkanasy, 2010). Lastly, the team tenure of the team members needed to be controlled for when conducting the analyses, since this is expected to have an effect on the ranking of fellow team members with regard to status. The amount of status received by individuals in a team can fluctuate over time. Persons who have extraversion as a personality trait are often dominant and assertive, which can generate positive performance expectations by the other team members at the beginning of the team’s collaboration. However, extraverts also have the tendency to have poor listening skills and be unreceptive to others, which in time can limit their effectiveness at interdependent group tasks (Barrick, Stewart, & Piotrowski, 2002; Bendersky & Shah, 2013; Fragale, 2006). This means that the expectations of the fellow team members may exceed the actual contributions of these members, leading to a change in status allocation over time.
Analyses
RESULTS Descriptive statistics
Table 1 presents means, standard deviations, and zero-order Pearson correlations among the study variables. The results of this linear analysis showed that coordination was not linearly related to hierarchy steepness (r = .20, n.s.), and that coordination was not correlated with team performance (r = .24, n.s.). Contrary to what was found in existing literature, the study results found that task interdependence is negatively related to coordination (r = -.31, p < .05). Hierarchy steepness was not correlated with coordination (r = .20, n.s.) or with team performance (r = .21, n.s.). None of the control variables were significantly related to team performance or coordination.
Hypothesis testing
All hypotheses were tested at the team level of analysis, using moderated ordinary least square regression (OLS). Hierarchy steepness, task interdependence, and the interaction between hierarchy steepness and task interdependence were regressed in a series of analyses.
TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics and Pearson Zero-Order Correlations Among the Study Variables
Variables Mean S.D. 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Team size 6.60 2.35
2. Team tenure (years) 3.86 2.51 .02
TABLE 2
Regression Analyses Results and Conditional Indirect Relationships
Intra-team coordination Team performance
Predictor Model 1 Model 1 Model 2
B SE B SE B SE Controls Team size .02 .09 .07 .12 .07 .12 Team tenure -.13 .09 -.21 .12 -.16 .12 Mean status .23 .10 .00 .13 -.07 .14 Main effects Hierarchy steepness .08 .09 .16 .12 .13 .12 Task interdependence -.26 .10 .12 .13 .20 .14 Two-way interactions Hierarchy steepness x -.01 .10 -.05 .13 -.05 .13 Task interdependence Mediator .20 .14 Coordination ΔR2 .00 .00 .05 R2 (Adjusted R2) .27 (.15) .15 (.00) .19 (.03)
Conditional indirect relationship
Moderator Value 95 % Confidence Interval (BCA)
-1 SD -.033 .223
M -.017 .177
+1 SD -.036 .255
Note. N = 43. Unstandardized regression coefficients are presented.
Hypothesis 1 stated that task interdependence moderates the relationship between hierarchy steepness and coordination, such that hierarchy steepness is more positively related to coordination when team members are interdependent on their tasks. The results showed that no significant prediction of this (ß = -.01, n.s.). Figure 1 shows the interaction plot for Hypothesis 1. As can be seen in Figure 1, there is no interactive effect of hierarchy steepness and task interdependence on coordination. Thus, Hypothesis 1 will be rejected.
FIGURE 1
Interaction plot Hypothesis 1
FIGURE 2
Interaction plot Hypothesis 2
As mentioned in the method section of this paper, an additional analysis was used, the moderated-mediation macro of Preacher et al. (2007). This analysis confirmed the findings of the previous analysis. The bootstrapped 95% confidence interval around the indirect effect contained zero at low, mean, and high levels of task interdependency (see Table 2). Table 2 shows the regression analyses results and the conditional indirect relationships of the study variables.
DISCUSSION Findings
As it was mentioned in the introduction, the research of hierarchy steepness on team performance yielded mixed findings. Most research stated there was a positive relationship between hierarchy steepness and team performance, but some research found the opposite was true. In literature, task interdependence was found to have a moderating effect on this relationship. This field study investigated whether this was true for organizational settings, leading to the second hypothesis, that the positive relationship between hierarchy steepness and performance will be stronger when team members are independent on their tasks. However, results showed that hierarchy steepness was not correlated with team performance. Like several other past studies (i.e., Blinder & Morgan, 2007, and Haslam, et al., 1998), it seems that hierarchical differentiation has null effects on team performance. An explanation for this can be that the sample teams perform tasks that are at a similar level, requiring low levels of differentiation for the best levels of performance.
The final hypothesis was concerned with the overall effect of task interdependence on the relationship of hierarchy steepness and performance, when mediated by coordination. It was indicated here that intra-team coordination would only mediate the relationship at higher levels of task interdependence. It was found in the field study that hierarchy steepness was not correlated with coordination or team performance. Overall, as the literature on the investigated topics was mixed, and this research’s findings led to inconclusive evidence of any relationships among the study variables, it is still a topic worth considering for further, more in-depth research.
Theoretical implications
Furthermore, it still remains to be investigated whether team coordination accounts for the relationship between steeper status hierarchies and team performance. This research attempted to answer this question, but contradicting results were found between the literature and the field study in organizational settings. Therefore, the effect of coordination in the relationship between hierarchies and team performance remains a subject for further investigation.
Practical implications
A practical contribution of this paper is the fact that the field study was done in organizational settings rather than a sports setting (as has been investigated in the past). Unfortunately, as the research in the sports setting found confirming evidence that task interdependence moderates the relationship between steeper hierarchies and team performance, this research did not find evidence to support this in organizational settings. However, this paper does contribute practically by providing managers insight into the literature findings on when, how and why hierarchies facilitate team performance, which they can use to optimize their team’s success. As hierarchies emerge spontaneously, status can be ascribed to the wrong persons, which can be detrimental to the team’s goals and performance. Combining existing literature with the idea that “the performance of work groups depends in part on their levels of hierarchical differentiation” (Magee & Galinksy, 2008, p. 385) leads to organizations being able to enhance their teams’ performance by designing systems of hierarchical differentiation that fit with the local work environment (Halevy et al., 2011).
Strengths & limitations
One of the strengths of this research is the usefulness of obtaining insight into situations of which one may have little knowledge. Since this research was conducted in real-life organizations, the findings from the field study reflect actual practices in organizations. In the past, research has focused on sports settings (Halevy et al., 2012), but organizational settings had thus far been neglected.
while the team members received questionnaires that included round robin and self-report items. Therefore, the individuals participating in this study did not only report on themselves, but also on the other members of the team. This method is more inclusive than using only one method of data collection.
A limitation of this research is the fact that the sample was relatively small, due to the time limit of the study. Also, the data was gathered in many different organizations (e.g. nursing homes, law firms, universities, consulting firms), leading to many different professions and task contexts. Future research could focus on one type of organization (e.g. only study teams in the same types of organizations, with the same professions) to see if this would support the proposed hypotheses from this paper. In addition to this, a more longitudinal research could be done within organizations, to determine whether there actually are causal effects regarding the abovementioned relationships as they are described in literature.
Regarding the questionnaires, results from these are always subject to the interpretation of the participants. The information is gathered directly from each participant – which is considered a strength – however, different perceptions of the items can lead to different answers. Another – more objective – form of research may be conducted in the future (e.g. an experiment) to see if this alters the results.
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