ANTECEDENTS OF PROACTIVE BEHAVIOR
Master thesis, MSc BA Change Management
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
June 10, 2013
NIEK KROEZE Student number: 1904892
Assessors at the university:
Dr. C. Reezigt (supervisor, assessor) Drs. F.D. Streefland (assessor)
Supervisors at the field of study:
P. van Schaijk Msc
ABSTRACT
Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to examine the contextual factors that influence proactive behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach. Two types of proactive behavior (taking charge and issue selling) were taken to determine their contextual factors. 30 interviews were conducted to see whether factors are applicable for proactive behavior in general.
Findings. Results demonstrate that job autonomy, relationship quality & work group norms influenced individuals in showing proactive behaviors.
Practical implications. With this knowledge, managers have multiple variables which they can change to effect proactive behaviors in organizations.
Originality/value. The paper contributes to an existing research base by extending the knowledge on how to encourage people to show proactive behaviors.
Keywords. issue selling, taking charge, proactive behaviors, antecedents of proactive behavior.
Paper type. Master thesis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION ... 4
2 LITERATURE REVIEW ... 6
2.1 ISSUE SELLING ... 6
2.2 TAKING CHARGE ... 7
3 METHOD ... 8
3.1 CASE SELECTION ... 9
3.2 DATA ANALYSIS ... 9
3.3 SELECTION OF RESPONDENTS ... 10
3.4 PROTOCOL ... 10
3.5 CASE DESCRIPTIONS ... 11
4 RESULTS ... 13
4.1 ISSUE SELLING ... 13
4.1.1 Results ... 13
4.1.2 Enfolding literature ... 18
4.2 TAKING CHARGE ... 21
4.2.1 Results ... 21
4.2.2 Enfolding literature ... 27
5 RESULTS ON FACTORS INFUENCING GENERAL PROACTIVE BEHAVIOR ... 30
6 LIMITATIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH ... 33
7 LITERATURE ... 34
8 APPENDIX ... 39
8.1 INTERVIEW PROTOCOL ISSUE SELLING ... 39
8.2 INTERVIEW PROTOCOL TAKING CHARGE ... 39
8.3 LIST OF STATEMENTS USED IN BOTH STUDIES ... 41
8.4 EXAMPLE OF INTERVIEW: CASE 6, PROJECT MANAGER ... 42
8.5 LIST OF CONCEPTS ON INTERVIEW CASE 6, PROJECT MANAGER ... 48
1 INTRODUCTION
Although literatures on proactive behaviors have grown rapidly, they have grown largely in isolation from each other (Parker & Collins, 2010). Most research on proactive behavior has been phenomenon-driven; researchers have noticed a particular behavior and then developed theory and collected data to describe, predict, and explain it as a distinct phenomenon (Bindl
& Parker, 2010). For example, issue-selling research rarely references the proactive behaviors of feedback-seeking, social network-building and taking charge. Accordingly, the study of proactive behavior has not integrated. Therefore scholars know much about the antecedents of specific proactive behaviors, but know little about the possible universal antecedents that might have influence on proactive behavior.
The fact that most research has been phenomenon-driven suggests that researchers should focus on the antecedents that might be general and common across multiple proactive behaviors. Exploratory research in the same environment can help scholars to see basic antecedents that may pertain to proactivity more generally, regardless of its specific manifestations. This doesn’t suggest that all research on specific proactive behaviors can be collapsed into the study of general proactive behavior. Rather, it’s valuable to examine similarities across different proactive behaviors to draw lessons for understanding both the specific manifestations and the general phenomenon of proactivity, and to enable scholars to pursue research in specific areas with a sense of the general antecedents.
The aim of this research is thus on merging proactive behaviors rather than splitting between them in the interest of identifying common patterns in the antecedents of proactive behavior, hence,
Which contextual factors influence individuals in proactive behavior in general?
Parker & Collins (2010) categorized proactive behaviors in higher order categories. They suggest three higher-order categories, each with a different target of impact. First, proactive work behavior includes those behaviors aimed at taking control of, and bringing about change in the internal organization environment. Examples include taking charge (Morrison &
Phelps, 1999), voice (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998), the implementation items of individual innovation (Scott & Bruce, 1994), and problem prevention (Frese & Fay, 2001). Second, proactive strategic behavior includes those behaviors aimed at taking control of, and causing
Dutton, 1993). Third, proactive person-environment fit behavior includes those self-initiated behaviors that aim to achieve greater compatibility between one's own attributes (skills, knowledge, values, preferences) and the organizational environment. An example is actively seeking feedback about performance such as through inquiry or monitoring (Ashford, Blatt, &
VandeWalle, 2003).
Diverse studies show that communicating issues to (top) management is important for the performance of companies and therefore it is eligible to have an environment where employees feel free to bring issues at the table of their manager (Dutton et al., 2001). The term that describes this phenomenon is called issue selling. Issue selling is the voluntary, discretionary behavior organizational members use to influence the organizational agenda by getting those above them to pay attention to an issue (Dutton and Ashford 1993). This study examines the contextual factors that influence issue selling.
Studies on effectiveness in the workplace support the idea that we should extend the use of our human capital by encouraging employees to behave in a proactive way which in turn can improve organizational performance (Bateman & Crant, 1993, Becherer and Maurer 1999).
The other type of proactive behavior which will be investigated is called taking charge.
Taking charge behaviors, as used in this study entail voluntary and constructive efforts, by individual employees, to effect organizationally functional change with respect to how work is executed within the context of their jobs, work units, or organizations (Morrison and Phelps, 1999). Whereas Issue Selling is more focused on the external environment since it tries to influence strategy and higher level goals, Taking Charge is more focused on bringing about change in the internal organizational environment.
This thesis focuses on one type of proactive behavior from the internal environment (taking charge) and one type of proactive behavior from the external environment (issue selling).
Afterwards a comparison between those two will be made based on the results found in order to determine if antecedents of proactive behaviors could be generalized.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Issue Selling
Issue selling is first coined by Dutton and Ashford in 1993. Issue selling is different from other concepts in which individuals also communicate upwards in the organization. Concepts like whistle blowing, voice, principal organizational dissent and product or innovation championing are examples of this. It also differs from the more general concepts of employee involvement or participation. Whistle-blowing, voice and principal organizational dissent is about speaking out against their superior. Whistle blowing is more about making notion of illegal behavior or deliberately mislead of people inside and outside the organization (Near en Miceli, 1986), Voice is a way to express dissatisfaction (Withey and Cooper, 1989) and Principal organizational dissent is about speaking out about violations of justice, honesty or economy (Graham, 1986). The motivation to sell issues is broader than the motivation of these other examples. Possible issue sellers choose to speak out about a certain issue that, based on their personal conviction, belongs on the manager’s agenda.
Middle managers play an important role in the issue selling context (Dutton & Ashford, 1993). Since they are more concerned with the daily work and maintain regular contact with shop floor personnel or operational managers below (e.g., Izraeli, 1975), they get lots of information about what is happening in the company. Therefore middle managers are capable of making good decisions based on the information they have. However, they are (most of the time) not empowered to make decisions on strategic issues and they must leave that to their superiors, top management (Izraeli, 1975). By proposing and defining important strategic issues for top managers, middle managers provide important contributions to a firm’s strategic direction, and thereby influence organizational effectiveness (Wooldridge & Floyd, 1990).
How, where and when they ‘sell’ these issues to top management is dependent on certain factors. This study focuses on how the context is read to assess its favorability for raising issues. A few studies have been performed so far on factors that encourage issue selling in organizations.
Dutton et al. (1997) suggests that issue selling is important in enhancing or diminishing an individual’s image in the eyes of others. Middle managers compete to get time from top managers to get attention for a specific issue. However this could also be a risk because they
managers guide top managers by selling the right issues and this might create a positive image of the middle manager. On the other hand, it also could be that selling an issue is not a success because the top manager finds it inappropriate or negative. This could result in negative consequences for the middle manager. Thus, an issue well sold might yield the seller enhanced visibility and positive reputational status in the minds of top management, while a failed selling attempt might have negative consequences (Dutton et al., 1997). Since issue selling is important for organizational performance and given the possible personal consequences, middle managers most likely attempt to ‘read’ the context and find it favorable or unfavorable to sell an issue. It’s like a capability that a middle manager needs to develop to read the context and determine if its favorable or unfavorable to sell an issue.
This study explores what middle managers find a favorable or an unfavorable context to sell an issue to their superior. It’s not interesting to describe typical issue selling behavior but it’s more about the psychology behind issue selling. An organization will never be able to adapt the context if they don’t understand the thinking process that a middle manager goes through before selling an issue. Hence, the following question emerges:
Which contextual factors influence Issue Selling?
2.2 Taking charge
There is a major gap in the availability of studies on the taking charge concept. Morrision and Phelps (1999) defined the concept but only looked at the contextual factors ‘top management openness’ and ‘work group norms’. Chiaburu and Baker (2006) did a little more extensive study to contextual factors of taking charge: they incorporated ‘propensity to trust’, ‘employee exchange ideology’, ‘output control’ and ‘process control’ in their research. All factors, except for ‘process control’ predicted taking charge behaviors. Thus far only predefined contextual factors have been tested against taking charge behaviors but no one ever did a case study on this concept before. A case study is a research strategy that focuses on understanding the dynamics present within a single setting (Eisenhardt, 1989). Therefore the object of this study is to enrich current literature by determining contextual factors that influence taking charge by looking the ‘dynamic present’.
This study focuses on how the context is read to assess its favorability for taking charge. Frese and Fay (2001, p. 141) point out that personal initiative, a form of proactive behavior, “is not always welcomed by supervisors...initiative ‘rocks the boat’ and makes changes. Since people tend not to like changes, they often greet initiative with skepticism.” However, change is
important for organizational performance and given the possible personal consequences, middle managers most likely attempt to ‘read’ the context and find it favorable or unfavorable to take charge. It’s like a capability that a middle manager needs to develop to read the context and determine if its favorable or unfavorable to take charge.
Zooming-out on the taking charge literature and looking at literature on the proactivity topic, a lot of propositions could be made before we enter the field. Many studies have described already some contextual factors in the proactive behavior domain. These contextual factors are defined by scholars for the different types of proactive behavior. Examples of types of proactive behavior are how someone actively adjusts to new job conditions (Ashford & Black, 1996), expresses voice (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998), sells critical issues (Dutton & Ashford, 1993) and uses one initiative (Den Hartog & Belschak, 2007). Possible contextual factors that influence these behaviors are job autonomy, co-worker trust and supportive supervision (Parker et al., 2006). It might be worthwhile to look deeper into these types of proactive behavior to determine all constructs or concrete contextual factors that influence proactive behaviors, however that isn’t required before entering the data gathering phase. The factors seen thus far from the proactive behavior literature in general might be applicable on taking charge behaviors but an open view with regard to this type of proactive behavior would be good as well. Hence, the following research question is posted:
Which contextual factors influence individuals in Taking Charge?
3 METHOD
The main question of this research is “which contextual factors influence proactive behavior?” A case study will be conducted for two types of proactive behavior: issue selling and taking charge. By capturing real-life events at the source, it is possible to recognize patterns across both studies.
The setting for the study was in a contractor company in the Netherlands. Two different regional departments, which operate as separate companies, were involved in the study: one department is used for the issue selling study and one for the taking charge study. Over the recent years the company experienced fierce competition and the financial crisis of 2009 and
2011 made governments and companies cut costs in building projects. The company is required to work more efficiently than they do now otherwise layoffs would be necessary.
A reorganization took place or is about to take place in the departments of the company. The company is going to downsize from 240 to 160 employees. A new managing director was appointed just before the reorganization and he restructured the team set-up is about to do so.
3.1 Case selection
Cases were selected based on project groups. These project groups are fixed groups with the same goal and function. Multiple cases are used in this case study to achieve external validity.
Cases are selected based on project teams in one company. On one hand this could be defined as a limitation of this study but on the other hand the project teams are led by different people, they do not work together, they are not based on the same location, projects differ in financial and employee size, and they create different products. Of course project teams are all in the construction business however in different disciplines of it.
3.2 Data analysis
Standard practices for qualitative data analyses were employed, following the guidelines of Eisenhardt (1989). Besides the within-case analysis cross-case analysis will be applied as well. For the within-case analysis a list will be created of all the possible factors that, according to the interviews, influenced issue selling & taking charge based on concrete examples that were given by middle managers (see appendix 8.5). These three or four lists of concepts (one for each interview) were compared and only concepts that were confirmed by a colleague passed the test and were used as outcome of the case. Hence, a possible factor will be rejected when a colleague in the case does not confirm the factor. After the within case analysis a cross-case analysis is performed in which one case is compared with another to determine similarities and differences. Based on the differences each case was assessed again to find evidence for a specific concept. At least support from two different cases will be required to determine a factor as supported. Support from two cases is required in order to secure the generalizability of the specific factor. That implies that when a factor will not be confirmed by two cases, the factor does not have sufficient evidence to assume the factor is of influence on a type of proactive behavior.
3.3 Selection of respondents
Each case consisted of one project manager and two or three other middle managers for issue selling cases (case 1-5) and each case consisted of one project manager and three or four other middle managers for the taking charge cases (case 6-8). The project manager is more senior than the middle managers, however the project manager is not part of company’s top management. There are two hierarchal layers above the project manager and hence tree above the other middle managers. The middle managers typically led groups varying from 6 to 24 people with an average of 9 people.
In the issue selling cases, five different project teams are involved, each with its own project leader and 2 or 3 middle managers. The study sample consisted of 5 project groups within total 26 middle managers. Only 16 managers, selected randomly, were involved in this study.
From each project group at least 2 members (who are also middle managers) and the project manager were required to participate in the study. The mean age for the sample managers was 39 years and their average company tenure was 14 years. The sample consisted of 16 males and 0 females who were, on average 2, 2 levels away from the company managing director.
Interviews were conducted in person during the fall of 2012, averaging in length from 1 hour to 1:30 hour.
For the taking charge cases, three different project teams are involved, each with its own project manager and 3 or 4 middle managers. The study sample consisted of 3 project groups within total 19 middle managers. Only 13 managers, selected randomly, were involved in this study. From each project group at least 3 members (who are also middle managers) and the project manager were required to participate in the study. The mean age for the sample managers was 38 years and their average company tenure was 15 years. The sample consisted of 13 males and 0 females who were, on average 2,7 levels away from the company managing director. Interviews were conducted in person during the winter of 2012-2013, averaging in length from 1 hour to 1:30 hour.
3.4 Protocol
For the issue selling study, four sets of questions were asked (see appendix 8.1). The first set of questions asked which issues they recognize now and recognized in the past. Since it was not the goal to write down issues or examples of issues, the next set of questions, which were
of statements about the general characteristics of organizational context. The list of statements was created based on a study that has been done in the company to discover which organizational issues were happening at a specific moment in winter 2011.
For the taking charge study, four sets of questions were asked (see appendix 8.2). The interview starts with a short list of statements on which employees respond with yes or no on taking charge behaviors. The lowest score is 0 and the highest is 10 based on the number of
‘yes’ given. To not just dive directly into possible contextual factors, secondly some time was spend with the interviewee to discover possible new ways of working, recognized improvements and faulty processes. It is about recognizing improvements and the attitude towards improvements. Factors that the employee thinks were of influence to take charge were thoroughly questioned. The last set of questions is a list of statements that consists of questions regarding antecedents in the proactive behavior domain, which are already described in other studies. The purpose was to test whether the interviewee could give an example for one of these factors. If he can, it might be a contextual factor, which was incorporated in this study. The list of statements was created based on a study that has been done in the company to discover which organizational issues were happening at a specific moment in winter 2011.
3.5 Case descriptions
Case 1 (issue selling). The project team in this case is relatively new in the organization. The most experienced respondent just worked one year in his job. Two of three have a bachelor education. The project manager is not part of the management team.
Case 2 (issue selling). The project team of the second case had several setbacks in the past couple of years. One of the middle managers didn’t communicate enough about the financial status of the project and it did cost the company an enormous amount of money. Besides this, two middle managers in this team can’t participate in the project because there is no work for them at the moment of writing. The project manager just works one year for the company and the project manager is not part of the management team.
Case 3 (issue selling). This project team consists of people who have lots of experience in their jobs. They work hard and make many hours a day. They have an own vision on how the work should be done and do not agree with the overall company vision. The project manager is member of the management team of the company.
Case 4 (issue selling). This project team works together for a long time. People do have own responsibilities and tasks. In average they work 23 years for this company. Three of four, including the project leader do not share the company’s vision and love working according to the old ways of working. The project manager is a member of the company’s management team.
Case 5 (issue selling). The project manager is member of the company’s management team.
The whole team fully agrees with the company’s vision. They all have a lot of experience in their type of work.
Case 6 (taking charge). Based on observation and personal response on the first short list of statements, this team comes across as a bit conservative and traditional. In a short survey people were asked to judge themselves on taking charge behavior. This team scores a 2.8 on that scale. Furthermore this team experienced a major setback in the last year. They participated in a project with two other companies but they didn’t create a planning together.
This resulted in a huge financial problem, which turned out in a negative company result at the end of the year. This had a huge impact on the project team and the project leader literally said that they are more careful now to try out new things. The average age is 41 years old and they had an average of 17 years of experience.
Case 7 (taking charge). The project team of the second case is lower educated than the other teams. Only one member was higher educated. This resulted in a very ‘practical’ vision on work. Try and error is a common approach for new ideas, however, most of the time work was done as it was always done. The team graded themselves a 3.8 on the taking charge scale. The average age is 40 years old and they had an average of 16 years of experience.
Case 8 (taking charge). The members of project team 3 were a bit younger than people from the other cases and they were higher educated. The average age is 33 years old and they had an average of 11 years of experience. They score themselves a 4.8 on the showing taking charge behavior scale.
4 RESULTS 4.1 Issue Selling
4.1.1 Results
The results below answer the question “which contextual factors influence Issue Selling?”
Relationship quality. In 5 of 5 cases respondents could give examples of situations in which the quality of the relationship was important in selling an issue. Overall the relationship quality was mentioned in 16 out of 17 interviews, which shows the importance of this factor.
“I believe that I really hear what concerns my employees because I work amongst them” Case 1, project manager
“Because I knew the project leader quite well, I know I could come up with the idea to change the way of presenting the project plan.” Case 4, middle manager
“Make communication a bit more human, pay attention to an individual!” Case 2, middle manager
“I created a team in which people could be themselves. Also towards me. That really helped in getting the difficult issues on the table.” Case 5, project manager
Case 1 Case 2
Case 3
Case 4
Case 5
No.
Ment.
1. Relationship quality 3/3 4/4 3/3 3/4 3/3 16
2. Speaking up will not make a difference
3/3 2/4 2/3 2/4 9
3. Supportive culture (it’s not usual to sell issues)
2/3 3/4 2/4 2/3 9
4. Felt responsibility 2/4 3/4 2/3 7
5. Fear of losing job 3/4 2/4 5
6. Geographical distance 2/4 3/4 5
7. Supportive culture (raise a bar) 3/3 3
8. Lack of tenure 3/3 3
9. Management openness 3/4 3
10. Hierarchical structure 2/4 2
“I’m in the shack every morning at 6:30am. That’s where you build a connection with the guys. Besides that you get huge respect and gain commitment.” Case 3, project manager
Many more terms were coined during the interview sessions, which are considered as manners to improve the quality of the relationship. Possible ways that were indicated are showing personal interest in the employee, showing interest in the work of the employee, and honesty and appreciation.
Speaking up will not make a difference. In four of five cases people indicated that a reason why they don’t sell issues to their managers is because they believe that speaking up will not make a difference.
“Management must acknowledge and carry out issues that were indicated. The [x]issue has never been acknowledged by them and therefore why would I again put speak out about other issues?” Case 1, middle manager
“For that project I indicated the things that did go wrong over and over again but project manager didn’t listen. He didn’t even confess afterwards that I was right. That doesn’t encourage me to sell issues.” Case 2, middle manager
“When I indicated that management cuts cost in the wrong area, they didn’t listen. It just didn’t help I put that on the table.” Case 3, middle manager
“In case of the car problems, you know nothing will change. Nowadays the company wouldn’t invest in these extras. Therefore I’m not planning to sell this issue. We have to deal with it” Case 4, middle manager
In their examples they showed that they regularly sold issues to a manager but the manager never came back on it. This raised a belief that speaking up will not make a difference and therefore they don’t try it again since they don’t know what the manager will think of it.
Supportive culture (it’s not usual to sell issues). An unsupportive culture is a culture in which it’s not common to sell issues but confirm to company standards/policies/regulations.
Four out of five cases mentioned that an unsupportive culture is a reason why people didn’t do something with an issue that has been played up.
“Before I started selling issues I felt like I had take a step out of my personal comfort zone. But also the culture in the company gave me the feeling that it was not usual to ask questions about issues. That made it more difficult to step out of your comfort zone.” Case 1, project manager
“My boss didn’t solve the issue immediately but the problem needed a solution very urgent. I could go my bosses boss however decided not to do because it’s not accepted that you sell issues by not letting your boss know.” Case 2, middle manager
“The culture in this company is that everyone works on his own. In my project team I changed that because I require my employees to share their vision with me on work.
That demands something from my people but also from me because I’m in a harmful position sometimes. However, now employees know that I want their feedback on things or issues, it made it a lot easier for them to come to me and say what they think.” Case 5, middle manager
Felt responsibility. In three of five cases people indicated the responsibility to solve the issue themselves or to work around it was bigger than selling the issue to their manager.
“In that case I find the project leader responsible for indicating the financial terms were bad and that we shouldn’t close the deal. I don’t want to take care of everything!” Case 2, middle manager
“I see myself as conductor of construction work. When I start working on things, I make sure that I can finish things off. I don’t go to my boss with issues. I fix them myself. That’s my work.” Case 4, middle manager
“When things started to get out of control I should have called my CEO but I didn’t.
It’s because of the responsibility you feel that you want to fix things yourself instead of involving your boss. That feels weak.” Case 2, project manager
“Making people owner of specific problems was one of the major lessons I learned over the last years. As soon as they become owner, they don’t have to look at me each time an issue arises, no, they are able to fix things themselves!” Case 5, middle manager
Fear of losing job. In two cases people mentioned fear of losing their job as a factor that withholds them from selling issues to their managers. Interestingly, in both cases there were
problems with the acquisition new of new projects. In project teams were people were more optimistic about the projects that were coming up, fear of losing their job wasn’t mentioned as criterion why people kept their mouths shut. However, all cases indicated that this might play a role in selling the issue to their manager.
“That’s where I decided to keep my mouth shut and don’t say anything to my boss. Let him find that out himself. I could be the next one who will be fired if I tell him.” Case 2, middle manager
“One of my guys once told me that he in that situation decided to tell me nothing. I didn’t respond on that immediately but after a week or so I decided to go back to him and apologize that I gave him the impression that he could lose his job if he told me about it. From that moment I changed my attitude against my direct personnel. I don’t want them to have that kind of fear.” Case 4, project manager
Geographical distance. The last factor that was confirmed by another case was the geographical distance of the middle managers and the people above them. Middle managers suggest that because the geographic working location of middle management and top management is different, middle management isn’t able to hop in the office every now and then to do some chitchatting with senior management. Also in terms of visibility, the middle manager has a disadvantage compared to someone who works in the same office as the senior manager does.
“In project X, which was actually in the same city as where one of the directors lives, they refused to come to the work site to just have a chat with us about what was going wrong here. Because you simply not easily go to headquarters to sell your issue, I think it would be much better if one of the managers just visits us.” Case 2, middle manager
“I always work on remote locations and not on headquarters. Because of that I don’t see and speak top management regularly. If I worked at headquarters, the informal setting makes that you are inclined to talk about issues with top management.” Case 4, middle manager
Interestingly enough, his boss said
“A remote office is not a problem. Not for me, and not for my managers. I think, the issues I should know, come to me in another ways: by phone or email.” Case 4, project manager
Contextual factors with not enough support
Supportive culture (raise a bar). In one case 3 out of 3 people mentioned that raising a bar stimulates issue selling. Because you raise a bar, people will aim for higher standards than they are used to work according to. This makes that issues quicker come up than usual because people don’t know how to handle in a specific situation (because they have never faced it before). Remarkable is the fact that 3 out of 3 respondents named this factor as a significant contextual factor. With regard to facts as tenure, age and management connection, they are not so special. However, the director of the company constantly mentions this project team as highly successful in what they do.
“I literally said to *case 5, middle manager* that I demand a minimum of a 7.5 on the quality of work he delivered. I know that this is somewhat subjective; however, it was clear that I raised a certain bar for him which he could strive for. Then the issues became clear to me because I demanded something from him that he couldn’t meet.”
*Case 5, middle manager* replied to this comment:
“I agree with *case 5, project manager* that demanding quality raised a couple of issues with the budgeting. However after we had these conversations, I knew what his plan was and I understood where we were going. Now I demand the same from my personnel and this certainly raises question for each project we do. But raising a bar certainly makes that people are going to ask questions.”
Lack of tenure. Tenure is mentioned in one other case as a factor of why not so much is done on Issue Selling in the early stage of someone’s working career for a company. Only people working in one project team were relatively new to the organization and they all indicated that it’s hard, especially in the beginning, to go to your boss to sell issues that are going on at the moment.
“In the beginning it was absolutely difficult to go to my boss and/or his bosses to ask questions about issues that I faced. I think it’s because you’re new to the company and you don’t want to show that you don’t know everything yet.” Case 1, project manager
“Because I was new to the job it was difficult for me to determine what the norms were in my team. I just didn’t know how to handle in specific situations. Should I contact my boss? Should I fix things myself? Should I just do nothing? I didn’t know.
In the beginning I should have told my boss more about the specific problems of that team but it was difficult to do that because I was new.” Case 1, middle manager Management openness. Management openness is only mentioned in one case as a factor.
Management openness is defined as the senior management willingness to listen to someone’s situation. Only in one case this was mentioned as a serious factor that withholds people from selling issues to senior management.
“I’m not going to tell him anything anymore. He just don’t have time for me and he won’t listen.” Case, 2 middle manager
“He’s always very, very busy. I’m not going to disturb him with more issues. That makes everything more and more complicated.” Case 2, middle manager
Two statements can be made here: first of all, the people that mentioned this as a problem were all part of the ‘problems’ project team which in the last two years had a couple of challenges and a few of them failed in execution and cost the company a lot of money.
Hierarchical structure. In one case two people mentioned the rigid and hierarchical structure in the company. Every task has its own responsibilities and therefore it’s not possible/usual to take up an issue if it’s not formally you’re responsibility to speak-out.
“The structure of the company is bureaucratic. You are required to follow each process in detail … - … everyone in this company is specifically responsible for one thing, which results in a rigid structure. And that is a disaster.” Case 4, project manager
4.1.2 Enfolding literature
The existence of trusting relationships promotes issue selling in two ways. First, Ling et al.
(2005) indicates that when a relationship is trusting and friendly, it contributes to a sense of security. This strengthens the belief that an issue will be considered seriously which in turn
generalized actors playing broadly defined roles” (Asford, 1998). Second, trusting relationships create a sense of psychological safety that, in turn, reduces perceived image risk.
Dutton et al. (1997) found that potential sellers viewed a poor relationship with a target, as possible image risk.
The second most found contextual factor is the belief that speaking up will not make a difference. The examples showed that middle managers regularly sold issues to a senior manager but the senior never came back on it. This raised a belief that speaking up will not make a difference and therefore middle managers decided that they would not try it again since they don’t know what the manager will think of it. As mentioned earlier, selling issues comes with a possible risk of damaging the image (Dutton et al., 1997). Milliken et al. (2003) showed twenty-five per cent of the respondent in their research showed these feelings of futility played a role in speaking up about concerns or problems. The most mentioned concern in that research had to do with the feeling that speaking up was not worth the effort and would not make a difference.
An unsupportive culture is a culture in which it’s not common to sell issues but confirm to company standards/policies/regulations. Four out of five cases mentioned that an unsupportive culture is a reason why people didn’t do something with an issue that has been played up. Ashford (1998) refers to this factor as norms favoring issue selling. When such norms exist, they encourage people to sell issues. If selling is known to be “ okay,” then sellers should be less concerned about image risk (Ashford and Northcraft, 1992) and people know better when and how to sell an issue. Ashford (1998) proved that norms favoring issue selling is significantly negatively related to image risk, which is in turn negatively related to willingness to sell a specific type of issue, namely gender equity issues.
The fourth most mentioned contextual factor is about the felt responsibility of the seller. Most often people decide not to sell an issue because they feel responsible for solving the issue themselves. Unfortunately other scholars, with regard to issue selling, have not yet confirmed the felt responsibility factor, however Frese et al. (1996) argue that felt responsibility relates to employee initiative. And Graham (1986) proposed that the decision to respond to an issue of principle is heavily dependent on perceived responsibility. So, feeling responsible to solve the issue themselves and not sell it to their boss could play a role in the decision to sell the issue or not.
Dutton et al. (1997) names downsizing conditions and fear of negative consequences as the two top most reasons of context un-favorability. The negative consequences, mentioned in their study, ranged from a fear that one’s personal image would be damaged to a direct fear of losing one’s job. This study doesn’t support that ‘all’ fear of negative consequences is of importance for the decision to sell issues except when lay-off is expected. Than people decide to keep their mouths shut.
In a study of Bouquet and Birkinshaw (2008) they claim that being further from home usually means being less well connected to local networks, less able to understand local norms, and less able to be sure how much to trust what people may say. Knowing that the relationship quality and having a supportive culture is important in issue selling (Ling et al. 2005 &
Milliken et al., 2003), the geographical distance could play a role in the decision to sell an issue. Interestingly, in this case the manager feels that a remote office is not a problem.
However, as a study of Gammelgaard (2009) turns out as well, managers who quite often physically visit headquarters, which in this case the manager did, are more locally responsive through the establishment and maintenance of local relationships. Therefore, the manager’s response is rejected as valid argument against the proposition that the geographical distance is of influence for selling issues.
Contextual factors with not enough support: supportive culture (raise a bar), lack of tenure, management openness & hierarchical structure.
Another aspect of a supportive culture is about raising a bar. Respondents mentioned demanding higher standards as factor that influenced the decision to sell issues. Higher standards in this case had everything to do with strengthening the quality of work and realizing work in a shortened timeframe. Support is found for the positive role of job stressors like time pressure and situational constraints in motivating employees to engage in proactive behavior at work (Fay & Sonnentag, 2002; Ohly et al., 2006). For example, Ohly and Fritz (2010) found support for the assumption that employees perceive time pressure as challenging, and that challenge appraisal in turn promotes proactivity at work. Therefore there is some support for this factor, however this study found not enough support for this factor.
Therefore this requires further investigation.
A lack of tenure was mentioned in only one case. Interestingly enough this was the case in
factors of issue selling, they already pointed out this factor as of influence on Issue Selling. 32 percent of their respondents mentioned this factor as reason why people not speak up about concerns. They showed that this factor is of influence on issue selling, however this study doesn’t support their findings.
Top management openness is one of the most mentioned factors in literature nowadays. The issue-selling literature suggests that the “perceived attitudes and mindset of top management as the recipients of issue selling attempts shape when and what issues will be sold by middle managers” (Dutton & Ashford, 1993). With respect to employees in lower organizational levels, Schilit and Locke (1982) also suggested that top management’s openness contributes to an individual’s motivation to sell issues. Dutton et al. (1993) proposed that individuals may perceive the activity of issue selling as being less risky and having a higher perceived probability of success if top management is seen as being open and supportive. For example Mullen & Kelloway (2009) proved that top management openness is of influence in willingness to raise safety issues. The reason why this study didn’t provide enough support for this factor could be that respondents of this study didn’t perceive top management as open for middle management. Since this study is performed in one organization, this should be considered as a limitation of the study and it might be that this contextual factor is of significant influence on issue selling.
The last factor mentioned in only one case was the limitation of a hierarchical structure.
More than half a century ago, Festinger (1950) noted that structuring groups into hierarchies automatically introduces restraints against free communication, particularly criticisms by low- status members toward those in higher-status positions. Research by Athanassiades (1973), among others, suggests that this is a form of instrumental, self-protective behavior. It appears that employees are most likely to filter information that they convey upward when they want to move up in the company (which they do not want to jeopardize). In Milliken et al. (2003) study on issue selling amongst others they confirm that this factor influences the decision to show issue selling. Thus, although not enough support was found in this research for this factor, literature indicates that a hierarchical structure influences the decision to show issue selling behaviors.
4.2 Taking charge 4.2.1 Results
The results below answer the question “which contextual factors influence Taking Charge?”
* As defined in the method section: cases where only one respondent mentioned the factor as relevant were not included in the results as significant because the specific example that the employee used wasn’t confirmed by someone else.
Job autonomy given / felt responsibility. The factor that respondents mentioned most often was job autonomy. In 3 out of 3 cases (13 out of 13) respondents mentioned this factor as a reason why they took charge. When people feel more autonomous in their work they are more inclined to show taking charge behaviors.
“I gave my foreman quite a few responsibilities because otherwise it’s too much to manage for one person. I had to let go the things he was working on and give him some space to operate in.” Case 6, middle manager
“I try to give my people as much freedom as possible to arrange the jobs themselves.
Of course we discussed beforehand what they should do. This approach forces me to let things go because it makes you dependent on your people. That is difficult sometimes ... but also exciting.” Case 7, middle manager
“I knew that it wasn’t my responsibility but I want this to be right otherwise I would get into trouble later in the project.” Case 8, middle manager
This factor is called ‘job autonomy given / felt responsibility’. Dependent on how you look at Case 6 Case 7 Case 8 No.
Ment.
1. Job autonomy / felt responsibility 4/4 5/5 4/4 13
2. Bond of trust 2/4 4/5 3/4 9
3. Feedback & appreciation 3/4 5/5 2/4 9
4. Support for change from co-workers 1*/4 5/5 3/4 8
5. Clear vision 3/4 2/5 2/4 7
6. Work group norms 1*/4 4/5 2/4 6
7. Support for change from leaders 2/4 2/5 2/4 6
8. Helping colleagues 2/4 1*/5 3/4 5
9. Small compact organization 2/4 0/5 1*/4 2
earn by getting more autonomy should be felt. To provide readers of this thesis practically applicable factor, ‘job autonomy given’ is suggested as relevant contextual factor.
Bond of trust. In 3 out of 3 cases (9 out of 13) respondents mentioned a trustful relationship with their manager as important in their decision to take charge. Most people put trust under the umbrella of having a good relationship with the person involved. But in each case they mentioned trust as important factor on which a relationship should be based.
“I build relationships of trust. For example, if the person knows that he is expected to arrange something, he also knows he is responsible and most of the time he will take charge of it. You need to trust people before you can let it go.” Case 6, project manager
“When you correct a mistake a proper relationship and trust is necessary. You can say everything to anyone but don’t make it personal. It’s about what happened and not about the person itself. *middle manager* knew that he was wrong the last time when the ground was frozen. Because we trust each other I can say to him what I honestly think about the situation without hurting people.” Case 7, project manager
“When you trust your boss it’s easy to go to him and propose him a change or already implement the change yourself. I wouldn’t go to our former CEO and tell him what he can do best in the current marketplace however with *name managing director* I don’t have any problems with that. It’s because I already know *name manager 1* but no one trusted *name manager 2*.” Case 6, middle manager
Feedback & appreciation. In 3 out of 3 cases (9 out of 13) respondents mentioned feedback and appreciation they get from their supervisor as encouraging to make things better the next time. Based on feedback they got people decided to take charge the next time.
“Feedback on work is appreciation for employees. Someone wants to be checked. That makes them confident in doing it again or not.” Case 8, middle manager
“I evaluate a lot with my people. However, when they did a good job they think they know everything after the evaluation but in practice each case is different. That makes it difficult. But evaluation is very helpful to let people do work for you without you’ve said what they should do.” Case 6, middle manager
“I see that my boss regularly gives my colleagues of Preparation proper feedback on the work they delivered. This is very constructive and helps the guys of preparation to be more proactive on the issues outside their field of work.” Case 7, middle manager Support of co-workers. In 2 out of 3 cases (8 out of 13) respondents mentioned support from co-workers as reason why they took charge over certain problems or improvements. When people know in advance what kind of reactions they can expect from co-workers when initiating change, they feel more confident to take charge.
“Make sure you have support for your ideas: work together, than it’s not only your problem anymore. When you know you have support for your ideas you’re more inclined to take charge.” Case 6, project manager
“I always try to find as much support as possible before I implement a new idea. I wanted to optimize the administration on a project. I discussed that with all the people involved and together we optimized it. Later a got the golden shovel (award) for it.”
Case 7, middle manager
“I try to create support for changes. I see other constructors do that as well. They come to me and ask me what I think of it.” Case 8, middle manager
Clear vision. In 3 out of 3 cases (7 out of 13) respondents mentioned that having a clear vision from top management makes it easier to take charge over certain improvements/problems. People seem to want to know which direction the company is heading to otherwise people sit back and wait.
“Sometimes you have the feeling your boss said A and does B. for example with the sell of the asphalt machine. They first say that we’ll have our own machine but a few weeks later they tell you something different. That makes it not easy to optimize the machine according to what the team requires. I don’t put that much energy in the new machines anymore.” Case 6, middle manager
“The company policy constantly changes and that makes that I sometimes doubt the decisions I make … This is the fourth time in three years that the managing director was replaced … The last managing director wanted us to do everything right at once.
The current director wants that if we sell a 5,5 we deliver a 5,5.” Case 7, middle
“There is no support from top-management. It would be great if they sometimes join construction meetings but I think they won’t. They are only there for themselves and not to support their people. That makes taking initiative not very interesting because you know it will not make sense. One day we do X and the other day we do Y.” Case 7, middle manager
Workgroup norms. In 2 out of 3 cases (6 out of 13) respondents mentioned work group norms as significant factor on which they decide to take charge. Work group norms, as they point out, show that having a culture in which change is common, people are inclined to take charge more often.
“Taking charge of something could imply that you’re the one that gets blamed when things go wrong in construction projects because we always concern project result above company result.” Case 7, middle manager
“We do things because they are always done that way. ‘Change’ is not something which is common in this company. If you want to try something new, that’s fine but make sure that it will not cost more and that your colleagues are not involved. This withholds me to come up with new ways of working.” Case 8, middle manager
Support from supervisor. In 2 out of 3 cases (6 out of 13) respondents mentioned that support from their supervisor in terms of the change they would like to make is important in the decision they need to make when taking charge. The results point out that when employees know in advance that their supervisor will support them, they will be more inclined to take charge.
“We were about to start with LPS, local positioning system. … The system required certain expertise that we didn’t have. I already asked a distributor if we could get training for this before I asked [name of project manager]. I knew he would agree because I always likes these new gadgets.” Case 6, middle manager
“For really small jobs we don’t go to the building site to look what the client exactly wants. Calculators don’t think it’s necessary. I didn’t agree with them (note from author: and the project manager supported his idea) because when we made an offer for a specific job without a visit at the site we often run into cost issues afterwards. I wanted to change that so I told them the problem and now we visit each site before we accept the job and other colleagues do this as well”. Case 7, middle manager
Helping colleagues. In 2 out of 3 cases (5 out of 13) respondents mentioned that it encourages employees to take charge when supervisors or colleagues help their subordinates/peers in their jobs till they can manage it themselves.
“Last time a colleague asked if I could help him with a problem he had. Of course I helped him because I find it my responsibility to help him.” Case 8, middle manager
“When you do the job together for a while, someone learns how it really works and you have basically no failure costs because you do the job together. When I taught him how it worked he was capable of doing it all by himself.” Case 6, middle manager
“I always try to determine what colleagues need to take change of a case without my help. I’m basically helping them in advance to do some administration or calculation for them. Afterwards I saw that showing that you appreciate what the other did gave them confidence in doing it the next time by themselves. For one piece of work I did some administrative tasks for the person so that he could focus on other things. The next time, when he was in control over all the other things the administrative tasks were not a problem.” Case 6, middle manager
Not enough support
Company size. In 1 out of 3 cases (2 out of 13) respondents mentioned company size as factor upon which they decide to take charge. They indicate that if a company is too big, that it will be more difficult to make a change than when a company is smaller.
“This company is just too big to change things. That’s the reason why I sometimes accept things as they are and not even try to change it.” Case 6, middle manager
“We don’t know why we can’t change things. It’s just that people decide on this from which they don’t have the knowledge of. Take for instance the material management.
Management decided to sell all the machinery because we don’t have work for it all the time. But now I have to rent a piece from a central team that takes up way more than before. A lot of paperwork needs to be done which is also expensive.” Case 6, middle manager
4.2.2 Enfolding literature
Not much research has been done on the topic of taking charge. This research points out several contextual factors that influence taking charge.
The most frequently mentioned factor is job autonomy. Job autonomy is named by a lot of scholars as factor that influences proactive behavior, including personal initiative (Frese et al., 1996). Also Rank, Carsten, Unger & Spector (2007) had shown that job autonomy predicts proactive work behaviors. Also Morrison and Phelps (1999) pointed out that felt responsibility predicts taking charge behaviors.
The second most frequently mentioned contextual factor is a bond of trust. A good relationship between leader and employee should promote a climate of trust, in which employees dare to engage in change-oriented, self-initiated behaviors. (Bindl & Parker, 2010).
In support of this, leader member exchange (LMX) has been positively related to individual innovation behaviors (Janssen & van Yperen, 2004). Both empirical and prescriptive studies agreed that trust in supervisor is one of the critical predictors of employee engagement in behaviors beyond their role requirements (Aryee et al., 2002; Mayer et al., 1995; Mayer and Gavin, 2005) in which taking charge is an example.
The third most frequently named factor is feedback and appreciation. Supervisors use control mechanisms when engaging employees in activities (Ouchi, 1975). One of those mechanisms is output control. Output control refers to the extent to which a supervisor relies on results when monitoring, evaluating and rewarding employees. Another mechanism is process control. Process control refers to the extent to which a supervisor relies on procedures and behaviors for monitoring, evaluation, and rewarding purposes (March and Simon, 1958).
Output control has a positive relationship with taking charge, process control doesn’t have a relationship with taking charge (Chiaburu & Baker, 2006). That implies that when feedback is given on results that feedback could influence taking charge behaviors but if feedback is given on procedures and behaviors that doesn’t influence taking charge. Not enough support was found in this study for this separation because there were also examples found in which employees got feedback on their behaviors that also resulted in taking charge behaviors.
Feeling supported by coworkers positively relates to various proactive behaviors at work (Griffin et al., 2007; Kanfer et al., 2001). A study of wire makers, Parker, Williams, et al.
(2006) showed that trust in coworkers was associated with a more flexible role orientation, which in turn predicted (self-reported) proactivity. Support for this factor is not found in the
taking charge literature, however this factor is considered as relevant since 61% of the respondents confirmed this as a relevant factor.
The fifth most mentioned factor is a clear vision that the supervisor should have on where the company should go to. Vision describes the difference between the ideal situation and the current situation, in which it could be a motivational factor for proactive behavior (Parker et al. 2010). Griffin et al. (2010) found that people whom feel confident that they are able to carry out a broader and more proactive role, beyond prescribed technical requirements, predicted greater employee proactive work behavior over time. Although support for this factor is found in proactive behavior literature, support for this factor is not found in the taking charge literature.
The sixth factor found is work group norms. Research on innovation (Bunce & West, 1995;
Scott & Bruce, 1994), as well as work on issue selling (Ashford et al., 1998), suggests that work group norms that support and encourage change will also motivate employees to take charge. Baer & Frese (2003) refer to this construct as a climate for initiative. The climate for initiative refers to formal and informal organizational practices and procedures guiding and supporting a proactive, self-starting, and persistent approach toward work. A climate for initiative moderates the relation between process innovations and company performance such that a high level of climate for initiative is associated with a positive relation and a low level of climate for initiative is associated with a negative relation (Baer & Frese, 2003). If there are work group norms that support change, employees should be more likely to take charge because they will regard doing so as a way to gain group approval (Scott & Bruce, 1994).
Further, they will regard taking charge as less costly (Ashford et al., 1998), because supportive norms imply less risk of group disapproval or rejection. Supportive group norms also imply a higher likelihood of success, because coworkers will not stand in the way of the change effort and may even actively facilitate it (Ashford et al., 1998).
From the moment Morrison and Phelps (1999) launched the concept of taking charge, they found that top-management support is supporting taking charge behaviors. When employees perceive that top management supports constructive efforts to bring about improvement, they may be more confident that taking charge will be effective and less concerned about potential costs (Morrison and Phelps, 1999).
influences taking charge behavior. By helping people to do the right thing right, encourages them to do it the next time completely on their own. It suggests that people need a helping hand first so that they will take charge for it themselves the next time. Not enough support was found for this argument since the taking change literature is relatively small. In literature helping behavior itself is described as type of proactive behavior just like taking charge. A possible explanation that partially supports the statement that helping behavior also influences taking charge behavior is what Scotter & Motowidlo (1996) call “interpersonal facilitation”.
Interpersonal facilitation encompasses a range of interpersonal acts that help maintain the interpersonal and social context needed to support effective task performance in an organizational setting. With this definition they focus on the well being of the organizations while most of the helping behavior dimensions focus on the individual employee. They argue that interpersonal facilitation encourages people to engage in proactive behaviors. This partially explains that helping colleagues positively influences taking charge behaviors, however further investigation is required to determine whether helping behavior can be named a contextual factor.
Not enough support
One case mentioned that company size does make sense in the decision to take charge or not.
Because only one case came up with this statement, the statement was rejected as possible factor that influences taking charge (to achieve external validity confirmation of a factor from 2 cases was demanded). However we know that small firms do differ from their larger counterparts in terms of faster implementations of the competitive actions they initiated (Chen and Hambrick, 1995). This finding is consistent with the flexibility and rapidity commonly ascribed to small firms (Fiegenbaum & Karnani, 1991; Mac-Millan, 1980) and with the burden large firms suffer as a result of their structural complexity, bureaucracy and heavy information-processing systems. This partially confirms the statements that change is more difficult because of speed and flexibility but it doesn’t tells us that fact is weighed in the decision to take charge. Taking charge behaviors include a “calculated, deliberate decision process” (Morrison & Phelps, 1999), which can be motivated by work characteristics as well as by person-related variables (Fay & Frese, 2001; Morrison & Phelps, 1999; Parker Williams, & Turner, 2006). It could be that a smaller organization does influence the decision to take charge because of speed and flexibility reasons that a small organization offers but further investigation is required to prove this.
5 RESULTS ON FACTORS INFUENCING GENERAL PROACTIVE BEHAVIOR
Looking back at the studies performed it is not easy to generalize results from the issue selling study and the taking charge study. In this study found support for three factors that influence both types of proactive behavior.
Contextual factors that both influence proactive behavior
Issue selling study Taking charge study
Felt responsibility Job autonomy
Relationship quality Bond of trust
Supportive culture (it is not usual to sell issues)
Work group norms
Speaking up will not make a difference Small compact organization
Job autonomy (taking charge study) and a felt responsibility (issue selling) can probably be matched. The job autonomy factor is seen from a supervisors (sender) perspective in because the way you encourage people to take charge is giving them more autonomy. Felt responsibility on the other hand is seen from the employee (receiver) perspective. Having more responsibilities implies that you would sell issues more often. In this case terminology is interchangeable and one could say that by giving someone more autonomy people are inclined to take charge or sell issues because they feel responsible. Therefore it is proposed that job autonomy influences individuals in showing proactive behaviors.
In the issue selling study relationship quality was found as significant factor that influenced issue selling behavior. Ling et al. (2005) proved that when a relationship is trusting and friendly, it contributes to a sense of security, which in turn strengthens the belief that an issue will considered seriously. Respondents indicated in the taking charge study that a bond of trust influenced taking charge behaviors. Therefore it is proposed that trusting relationships promotes individuals in showing proactive behaviors.
