How should a newcomer speak up? The relation between the newcomer’s voice and acceptation by team members, moderated

How should a newcomer speak up? The relation between the newcomer’s voice and acceptation by team members, moderated

by prior team performance.

Master thesis HRM

University of Groningen

David Elzinga, S2670550

Supervisor: Onne Janssen

1 ABSTRACT

This thesis examined the effect of newcomer voice on the social and task-based acceptance of the newcomer in work teams and the possible moderating effect of prior team functioning on this relationship. A distinction was made between promotive voice and prohibitive voice. By using the social persuasion theory, four hypotheses were formed about the effects of the voice types, and the moderating variable prior team performance, on the social and task-based acceptance of the newcomer. Data was gathered by means of a survey, which resulted in a sample of 108 respondents. The results show that promotive voice is positively related to task- based acceptance, but no direct effects of prohibitive voice on newcomer acceptance were found. The moderating variable prior team performance seemed to have an important effect on the relationship of the voice types and acceptance. The positive relationship of promotive voice and social acceptance was marginally significant, only when prior team performance was low.

Also, the negative relationship of prohibitive voice with both social and task-based acceptance is significantly more pronounced when prior team performance was high rather than low. This research contributes to the existing literature by showing that the voice type of a newcomer can be of influence for his or her acceptation and shows the importance of prior team performance as a moderator for this effect.

Keywords: Newcomer, Promotive voice, Prohibitive voice, Prior team performance, Social

acceptation, Task-based acceptation.

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INTRODUCTION

In order to be flexible and adapt to the ever-changing environment, organizations increasingly organize their work within team structures (Guzzo & Shea, 1992; Thoms, Dose & Scott, 2002).

Because of this, the number of teams working within organizations has rapidly grown in the last years and is expected to further increase in the future. Also the fluidity, the rate of change in team membership over time, has increased (Arrow & McGrath, 1995). The increased amount of membership change is due to two changes in the labor market (Muoio, 2000). First, a variety of non-standard work arrangements has become a normal feature of modern organizations, in order for organizations to stay flexible and be able to adapt (Vough, Broschak & Northcraft, 2005). Employees used to be hired for an indefinite length of time, but now workers can be employed under many different work arrangements (such as contract work, on-call or temporary work), which often do not last long. Second, the “War of Talent”, referring to an increasingly competitive environment for recruiting and retaining talented employees (Tarique

& Schuler, 2010), has led to a situation in which skilled employees can switch jobs easily to obtain the best working arrangements (Muoio, 2000). A logical consequence of this increased fluidity is that teams become changing units and therefore, members are introduced to newcomers within their team more often.

When we look at the literature about the influence of a newcomer on a work team, a

paradox is found. On the one hand, there is literature that states that “fresh blood” can bring in

new ideas and suggestions which would improve the teams’ creativity, ability to innovate and

their overall performance (Ziller et al, 1962; Rink et al., 2012). On the other hand, there is quite

a lot of literature that states that teams do not necessarily accept or fully merge the newcomer

into the team (Moreland & Levine, 1982), which hampers the team performance (Van der Vegt

et al., 2010; Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007).

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In a meta-analytic study in which studies of multiple decades are reviewed, Rink et al (2012) concludes that teams indeed have trouble with accepting the newcomer and not fully utilize the unique knowledge that could potentially improve the team performance. Workers experience “less fun” when working with a newcomer, membership change is likely to lower the team cohesiveness and social integration (Arrow & McGrath, 1993; Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007), and newcomers are accepted less than full members, even when the newcomer tries to conform to the team norms (Pinto et al., 2010).

The low acceptation and integration of newcomers could have serious consequences for the team in terms of performance. For example, teams do not only ignore the ideas of a newcomer, but also see him or her as unnecessary when he or she is not accepted (Rink et al., 2010). Also, lower social integration leads to less job satisfaction within the team, and it is known that lower job satisfaction and motivation leads to lower performance (Arrow &

McGrath, 1993; Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007).

It is therefore important to identify moderating factors that could tackle the integration problems of newcomers, so that the team will listen to the newcomers’ idea’s, fully utilize the newcomers’ knowledge and in this way improve the team performance and creativity. A few of such factors, which enhance the integration of newcomers, are already identified within the literature. For example, studies show that a newcomer is accepted more when: he or she is socially similar to the group rather than socially distinct (Joardar et al., 2007; Ziller et al., 1960), the current members feel that they are of higher status so that the newcomer is not perceived as a possible threat for their function (Perretti & Negro, 2006), or when the newcomer is assertive and actively asks for information about the collective tasks and activities (Hansen & Levine, 2009; Burke et al., 2010).

In this thesis I will look at another moderating factor that could possibly be of influence

for the acceptation of a newcomer, namely the newcomer voice. Newcomers differ in what they

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bring to the team, but they also differ in the way how they bring it. It is possible, and not yet systematically investigated before, that the way in which a newcomer gives feedback or raises suggestions to his or her teammates can be of influence for how the newcomer is accepted and the messages are received.

Relatively recently, a distinction within the voice literature has been made between two types of different voice: promotive and prohibitive voice (Liang et al., 2012). Promotive voice is defined as suggestions an employee makes regarding opportunities to improve the future functioning of the organization, whereas prohibited voice is the employee’s communication intended to address current problems or concerns that could, if not changed, be harmful for organizational functioning (Liang et al., 2012).

Using the social persuasion theory (McGuire, 1985), we propose that promotive and prohibitive voice might be differentially related to the acceptance of newcomers within teams.

In the context of newcomer voice, the social persuasion theory suggests that the content of a

message and the way a message is framed and spoken, is of influence for the recipient reaction

to the persuasive attempt (McGuire, 1985). Therefore, people presumably react differently to

promotive and prohibitive messages (Liang et al., 2012), which in turn could have an influence

on the acceptance of the newcomer. Promotive voice for example is, as discussed, about

positively valenced ideas and suggestions for improving and enhancing the team’s functioning

and performance. Because of the positive improvement message, teammates might perceive the

newcomer with promotive voice as pro-active and a positively-minded person, which leads to

positive evaluations of the person and high acceptance. In contrast, prohibitive voice is

negatively valenced and is about pointing out current failing procedures and the newcomer

might therefore be viewed as a complaining and negatively-minded person, which leads to

negative perceptions and low acceptance. It is therefore interesting and relevant to investigate

the effects of the two types of voice in a newcomer setting.

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A factor that could possibly have an important impact on the relation between the two types of voice and newcomer acceptance is the way how the team was functioning before the newcomer arrived. Research has shown that prior team performance is important for newcomer acceptance in general. When a team is performing badly, they are more open to changes and new views on the current problems, and therefore accept newcomers more easily (Cini et al., 1993; Haunschild et al., 1994). But it could be that the effect of prior team performance on newcomer acceptance differs per voice type of the newcomer. When a newcomer using promotive voice makes constructive suggestions about how the team can be productive in the future, this might be appreciated, and probably even more when the team is performing bad rather than good. When a prohibited newcomer makes critical comments about current procedures and outcomes, then prior team performance might also have an influence, but in a different way; when the team is performing well, the criticism will probably be rejected and the newcomer will be seen as a complaining nag and outsider. But when the team is performing badly, and a critical newcomer with prohibitive voice makes concrete suggestions about how the team can fix current problems and failed procedures, then it could be that the newcomer is seen as “just what we need!” and is more than welcome, instead of being seen an outsider.

Although one can make arguments that the type of voice of a newcomer could be of

influence for the acceptation, the link between newcomer acceptance and employee voice (let

alone the distinction between promotive and prohibitive voice) has not been thoroughly

investigated yet. This thesis therefore contributes to the voice and the newcomer literature by

examining the influence of a newly made distinction between promotive and prohibitive voice

in a newcomer setting. Furthermore, this thesis applies the social persuasion theory in a

newcomer acceptance context, which is a setting in which this theory has never been

investigated before and therefore gives us possible new insides in how this theory can be used

and applied. Therefore, the thesis contributes to the voice literature, the newcomer acceptation

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literature and the social persuasion literature. However, this research not only contributes to our

scientific knowledge, but also has important practical implications: it broadens our

understanding of how a newcomer is best accepted within a team, which is known to be an

important factor for the team’s overall functioning (Arrow & McGrath, 1995; Dineen & Noe,

2003).

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THEORY & HYPOTHESIS

Task-based and social acceptance of newcomers

Newcomer acceptance is defined as a state whereby a group recognizes the newcomer as a full member, valuing the newcomer for his or her task competencies and the participation in the social network of the group (Joardor et al., 2007). Acceptation and thus social integration of newcomers are of importance for the team’s functioning. When a group is socially integrated, teammates experience friendliness, cohesion (Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007; Vegt, Bunderson &

Kuipers, 2010), optimal knowledge utilization and job satisfaction, which facilitates better task performance (Rink et al., 2010; Forbes & Milliken, 1999).

As the given definition of acceptance already indicates, two forms of acceptance can be distinguished. Task-based acceptance, which is about accepting the newcomer on the task competence and contribution dimension (like valuing the newcomer for being a relevant asset of the team) and social acceptance, which is about accepting the newcomer on the social dimension (experiencing pleasure while working with the newcomer). Both dimensions are of importance in order to fully accept the newcomer within a team and are thus assumed to be relevant for the team’s performance (Joardar et al,, 2007).

Social persuasion theory and newcomer voice

The social persuasion theory is a communication theory that deals with messages

designed to influence others by modifying their beliefs or attitudes (McGuire, 1985). The theory

states that, when little information is available, people often use heuristics for making social

judgments (Briñol & Petty, 2009), which are mental shortcuts for quick social decision making

or evaluation of others when we have little information. The ‘first impression’ of a person is an

example of such heuristics. When we see someone for the first time and that person leaves a

good impression on you, we have the tendency to generalize this specific evaluation to the

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person as a whole. This is why a fist impression of a person influences the judgment we make about the skills and abilities of a person (Olivola & Todorov, 2009).

The social persuasion theory is especially relevant in the context of newcomers, because team members do often know little about the newcomer yet, and are therefore more likely to make judgments about a person based on heuristics. The way how a newcomer speaks (the voice type) is a significant part of the little information the teammates have about the newcomer.

The judgment that the teammates make about the newcomer will therefore mainly be based on how the newcomer speaks and behaves within the group, which makes the voice type an important factor for the acceptance of the newcomer.

Following the social persuasion theory and the heuristics this theory describes, it is expected that the two voice types, promotive and prohibitive, provoke different reactions by the recipient. Promotive voice is about pointing out opportunities to improve and enhance team functioning and performance. It includes constructive improvement suggestions expressed in a positive tone, is spoken in a constructive way, and has a future-oriented long-term focus (Liang et al., 2012; Qin, DiRenzo, Xu, & Duan, 2014). It is about what “could” be done, with intentions to get good results. According to the social persuasion theory, the positive tone and the constructive way of talking is likely to lead to a good first impression, which will lead to positive general evaluations of the newcomer by other team members. In teams where teammates work together intensively, the effect of the first impression is expected to fade because members will in time form a more adequate image of the newcomers’ attributes.

However, in jobs where collaboration between members is less intense or when a lot of members work part-time, the impact of the first impression may last quite long because members do not see the newcomer often enough to form a new image.

The positive and constructive tone of promotive voice also contributes to the activation

of another heuristic which may lead to a positive evaluation of the newcomer, namely the

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principle of social liking. The social persuasion theory states that a simple but strong determinant of how we judge the skills and capabilities of a person, is whether we like this person (or not) (Fennis & Stroebe, 2016). Experimental research shows that we have the tendency to assign positive actions of someone we like to their internal attributes, and positive actions of people we do not know or dislike to other external factors (Regan, Straus & Fazio, 1974). Besides that, people also have the tendency to like a person who speaks positively and brings good news (Fennis & Stroebe, 2016). Because of the constructive and positive nature of promotive voice, it can be assumed that a newcomer using this type of voice is relatively easy to like, and therefore more positive attributes will be assigned to him or her. Thus, following the principles of the first impression and liking highlighted by the social persuasion theory, it is therefore expected that newcomer promotive voice is likely to be accepted by other teammates relatively easy.

Promotive voice might lead to acceptance on both the task-based and social side. When giving promotive voice, the newcomer takes initiative and expresses ideas and suggestions about how the team can function and perform better in the future. Due to the positive and constructive tone by which newly given ideas and suggestions are voiced, teammates might, view the newcomer as innovative and competent and a valuable new asset to the team (principle of first impression) which might lead to task-based acceptance. Promotive voice may also foster the social acceptance of the newcomer because it gives the impression that the newcomer is an open and positively minded person, which makes the newcomer likable and presumably a good colleague to do a project with.

Prohibited voice, on the other hand, is expected to lower the acceptance of a newcomer

within the team. This type of voice is problem focused in nature (Morrison, 2011) and framed

in a negative way. It is about preventing negative outcomes and pointing out that colleagues

and current team practices are functioning sub optimally or even failing (Liang et al., 2012).

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While the intention of prohibited voice is actually the same as promotive voice, trying to improve team functioning and performance, emphasizing the current negative aspects and the things that are wrong often evokes negative reactions because other team members feel negatively evaluated by the newcomer (Liang et al., 2012; Van Dyne et al., 1995; Levin, Schneider & Gaeth, 1952). A newcomer expressing prohibitive voice is therefore harder to like.

Also, the negative and critical nature of prohibitive voice may lead to a more negative first impression and therefore a negative evaluation of the whole person. So, again through following the social persuasion theory and the principle of first impression and liking, newcomer prohibitive voice may have negative consequences for both the task-based and social acceptance. Newcomers’ prohibitive voice express negative thoughts about current processes, procedures, or practices in the team, and does therefore imply indirect (or direct) critique on fellow teammates. Teammates might not agree with the given negative feedback, which will lead to disagreements and perhaps even conflicts and might result in low task-based acceptance of the newcomer (Liang et al., 2012; Van Dyne et al., 1995). Also the social acceptance of newcomer prohibitive voice might be lower, because the newcomer might be seen by his or her fellow teammates as a negative and complaining person, leading to low social integration and acceptance.

The above reasoning leads to the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Newcomer’s promotive voice is positively related to team members’ social acceptance (H1a) and task-based acceptance (H1b) of the newcomer.

Hypothesis 2: Newcomer’s prohibitive voice is negatively related to team members’ social

acceptance (H2a) and task-based acceptance of the newcomer (H2b).

11 The Moderating Role of Prior Team Performance

Research has shown that prior team performance is an important determinant for the acceptance of a newcomer. When a team is performing badly, team members indicate the arrival of a new member as more pleasant and accept the newcomer relatively easy (Cini et al., 1993;

Haunschild et al., 1994). For example, research states that successful and well performing teams showed a strong outgroup bias to possible newcomers, whereas bad performing teams did not have such biases and were open to newcomers (Haunschild et al., 1994). It seems like bad- performing teams are more open to new impulses because they have less to lose than well performing teams. Well performing teams might be reserved in welcoming a newcomer because a newcomer brings uncertainty and change (Rink et al., 2010). Bad-performing teams however are often more willing to change and might see a newcomer as an opportunity for improvement.

Based on the above, one can assume that bad-performing teams will accept newcomers more easily and this might therefore moderate the relationship between newcomer voice and acceptance. As such, it is interesting to examine how the moderating effect of team performance might differ across the two distinct types of newcomer voice. When a team is performing badly, a newcomer with promotive voice will give the team insight in possible opportunities and innovations about how they can enhance their performance in the future. Logically, teammates may appreciate the newcomer’s constructive ideas for the future, which should lead to higher social and task-based acceptance.

Based on the social persuasion theory, as discussed, newcomer promotive voice might

via the heuristics of good first impression and liking lead to positive evaluations of the

newcomer (Briñol & Petty, 2009; Liang et al., 2012; Fennis & Stroebe, 2016). But when a team

is performing bad, it might be possible that the teammates assign, through the mentioned

heuristics, even more positive and extreme attributes to the newcomer because of his good

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suggestions (“this new guy knows how we can improve in the future!”), which lead to higher acceptance. Therefore, the following is hypothesized:

Hypothesis 3: The positive relationship of newcomer promotive voice and team members’

social acceptance (H3a) and task-based acceptance (H3b) of the newcomer is more strongly pronounced when prior team performance is lower rather than higher.

Low prior team performance might also have a positive moderating effect on the negative relationship between newcomer acceptance and prohibitive voice. It is expected that, when a team was performing bad before the newcomer came, the negative effect of prohibitive voice on the newcomer acceptance by fellow teammates might be reduced. A low performing team is namely facing challenges like harmful or failing work practices, which is exactly what a prohibited voiced newcomer tries to appoint and tackle (Liang et al., 2012). The direct feedback on current practices that go wrong might therefore be perceived as less negative when a team performs poorly, than when a team performs well. Newcomer prohibitive voice is then less likely to be received as annoying complaints, but rather as feedback that might solve the current problems the team is dealing with. Following the discussed heuristics of the social persuasion theory, the critique of the newcomer might then lead to less negative first impressions and less conflicts. This could lead to higher social and task-based acceptance of the newcomer. The hypothesis is as follows:

Hypothesis 4: The negative relationship of newcomer prohibitive voice and team members’

social acceptance (H3a) and task-based acceptance (H3b) of the newcomer is less pronounced

when the prior team performance is lower rather than higher.

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Figure 1 shows the conceptual model which will be tested within this thesis:

Figure 1: conceptual model Prohibited

voice newcomer

Prior team performance

Social acceptance of newcomer And

Task-based acceptance of newcomer Promotive

voice newcomer

-

+

14 METHOD

A critical incident study is used to test the hypotheses. This is a type of study in which participants are asked to give information, based on their memory, about a specific incident or event they experienced in the past (Kaulio, 2008). In this study, questions are asked about an event where the participant experienced the addition of a new member within his or her work team. A survey is made and distributed within my LinkedIn-network by means of Qualtrics Survey Software. The introduction of the questionnaire clearly states which criteria have to be met in order to participate in this study: the participant must be over eighteen and has to have worked within a work team which experienced membership addition or replacement between one and a half and half a year ago. Not more than one and a half year ago because after that time, the memory of the participant about how the newcomer was back then is probably vague and therefore time-biased, and not less than half a year ago to make sure the participant knows enough about the newcomer to evaluate him or her. Also, the respondents were promised complete confidentiality and anonymity. Because there are people within my network who do not speak Dutch, an English version of the survey was made and distributed as well.

Eventually, the survey is filled in by 108 people who fully met the conditions (N=108).

The average age of the respondents is 29.5 (SD = 10.7), 52% of the sample consists of females (SD = .5), an average team size of 17 (SD= 23.83) and the average team tenure is 4 years (SD=

3.42). Because my LinkedIn-network mostly consists of people my own age, a lot of young

people (mainly students) filled in the survey. This explained the young average age and also

means that the sample is mostly based on people with a side-job and a relatively short tenure,

instead of a fulltime job and long tenure. The average age of the newcomers of whom the

respondents filled in the questionnaire is 27.8 (SD = 8.76), with an average team tenure of 0.7

years (SD = .33) and 61% of the newcomers are female (SD = .49).

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Measures. All the used scales in this study were originally in English. The translation- back-translation method has been used for the Dutch version of the scales, in order to keep the scales as reliable as possible (Brislin, Lonner & Thorndike, 1973).

Promotive voice. Promotive voice was measured using the 5-item scale developed by

Liang et al. (2012), but with a few adjustments. First, one item of the promotive voice scale was deleted (“proactively develops and makes suggestions for issues that may influence the unit”). Because the item is about dealing with issues a team is facing, we argued that this item is more about measuring prohibitive voice instead of promotive voice and is therefore removed from the scale. Second, all the positive evaluative words which indicate a possible effect of promotive voice (like proactive, constructive, honest) were removed, because I merely want to measure voice rather than the (potentially) positive effects of voice on task-based and social acceptance by other team members. This resulted in a 4-item scale for promotive voice, on a 7-point scale (ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree”, to 7 = “strongly agree”). The first question was “Gave suggestions for new projects which the newcomer argued to be beneficial for the team”, the second was “Gave us suggestions on how, according to him/her, we could improve procedures within the team”, the third “Provided suggestions that, according to him/her, would help the team achieve its goals”, and the forth was “Gave suggestions on how the team, according to him/her, could improve their performance.”

Prohibitive voice. Just like promotive voice, a 5-item scale developed by Liang et al.

(2012) was used to measure prohibitive voice. All the evaluative words which indicated a

potentially possible effect (like proactively, dare and honestly) were removed here as well, in

order to merely measure prohibitive voice. This resulted in a 5-item scale for promotive voice,

on a 7-point scale (ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree”, to 7 = “strongly agree”). The first

question was “Addressed team members about undesirable behaviors when he/she felt that this

behavior was hampering the team performance”, the second was “Spoke up about problems

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that, according to him/her, could be harmful to the team performance”, the third “Gave his or her opinion about procedures that, in his/her opinion, would harm the team performance, even if that would embarrass others”, the fourth “Pointed out problems, even when this hampered his/her relationships with other teammates”, and the fifth was “Expressed coordination problems within the work team.”

Social and task-based acceptance. For measuring the two types of acceptance of a

newcomer, the ten-item scale developed by Joardar et al. (2007) was used. The first five items measure the social acceptance of the newcomer (two example items: “We like to invite newcomer to social events”, “The newcomer fits into our group socially”), the last five measure task-based acceptance (two example items: “We like to work with the new member”, “The newcomer is valuable to our team”). Both the scales were measured on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree”, to 7 = “strongly agree”.

Prior team performance. For measuring the moderating variable prior team

performance, the ‘Dissatisfaction with the status quo’-scale developed by Yuan and Woodman (2010) was used. Slight changes are made to make the questions team-focused, instead of organization-focused which was the case in the original scale (two example items: “Many things within my team needed improvement”, “I was dissatisfied with the achievements of my team”). This scale ranges from 1 = “strongly disagree”, to 7 = “strongly agree”. The questions were, however, about dissatisfactions, which means that a “strongly disagree” would indicate that you are ‘not dissatisfied’. In order to align this scale with the other scales, all the items were mirrored so that “strongly disagree” would actually mean that the participant was dissatisfied with the team’s performance.

Control variables. Finally, there are a few control variables. Respondents were asked to

provide information about their gender (1 = ‘Male’, 2 = ‘Female’) team tenure (number of

years), the number of members within their team, and the newcomers’ gender (1 = ‘Male’, 2 =

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‘Female’), age and team tenure (1 = ‘half a year ago’, 2 = ‘one year ago’, 3 = ‘one and a half year ago’).

Data analysis

For testing the hypothesis, the statistical program SPSS was used. First, like said, the scale prior team performance was recoded in order to align all the variables: a low score indicates negativity or disagreement and a high score indicated positivity or agreement. Before the scales were constructed, a reliability analysis was conducted for all the scales by calculating the Cronbach’s Alpha. After that the items were merged into scales by using the Mean.x function (with total amount of items -1) in order to deal with the (scare) missing data: if a respondent accidentally forgot to fill in one item of the scale (but not more than one) SPSS corrects this by filling in the average number of the other items from that respondent on that scale. In this way the respondent can still be included in the study, which is necessary in order to keep the number of respondents high enough to get reliable results.

After the scales were made a preliminary analysis was conducted to provide descriptive statistics and correlations among the items. After that, two linear regression analysis including a moderation (using standardized variables) were conducted to test the hypotheses. One with social- and the other with task-based acceptance as dependent variable. Promotive voice, prohibitive voice and the control variables were added in the model to test hypothesis 1 and 2.

After that, hypothesis 3 and 4 were test by adding the moderation variable prior team

performance and the two-way interactions between prior team performance and promotive and

prohibitive voice.

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RESULTS Preliminary analysis

The descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of all the variables of this study are shown in Table 1. The most important findings of Table 1 will be discussed. First, all the formed scales of this thesis may presumed to be reliable because of the Cronbach’s Alpha scores are ranging from .78 (prior team performance) to .94 (both the acceptance scales).

Age of the newcomers is positively related to the tenure of the respondent (r=.26, p<.01), because people often work with people of their own age. Also, age of the respondent is positively related to tenure (r=.63, p<.01) because age rises together with team tenure. More importantly, age of newcomer has a significant correlation with both promotive voice (r=.30, p<.01) and prohibitive voice (r=.26, p<.01). This indicates that an older new employee possibly dares to speak up more about future projects and current failing procedures. Age also has a negative association with social acceptance (r= -.20, p<.05).

Furthermore, the positive association between promotive and prohibitive voice (r=.52, p<.01) indicates that when a newcomer expresses one type of voice it is likely that he/she will also express other type of voice. This is the same for social and task-based acceptance. When the newcomer is accepted on one dimension, there is a high chance that the newcomer is also accepted on the other dimension (r=.76, p<.01).

Other interesting relations are the negative association between team size and promotive voice (r= -.20, p<.05), the negative association between promotive voice and prior team performance (r= -.27, p<.01), and the positive association between promotive voice and task- based acceptance (r=.25, p<.01).

Finally, a positive relation between the gender of the respondent and promotive voice

was found (r=.19, p<.05). Women seems to express more promotive voice then men do (mean

score on promotive voice females = 4.35, males = 3.74)

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Becker (2005) recommended to only include the control variables in the main analysis

that have significant correlations with the dependent or moderator variables. That is why the

variables gender of the newcomer and the tenure of the respondent will not be included in the

main analysis, because they do not have any meaningful correlations with other variables.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics, Intercorrelations and Cronbach’s Alpha.

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1 Gender respondent 1.52 0.50

2 Age respondent 29.52 10.77 -.15

3 Tenure respondent 4.06 3.42 -.11 .63**

4 Team size 17.2 23.83 -.19* .08 .07

5 Gender newcomer 1.61 .49 .18 -.09 -.06 .01

6 Age newcomer 27.85 8.76 .02 .36** .26** -.03 -.16

7 Tenure newcomer (in years) .70 .33 -.02 .06 .06 -.12 .01 0.23*

8 Promotive voice 4.06 1.61 .19* -.02 -.05 -.20* .07 .30** .22* (.92)

9 Prohibitive voice 3.52 1.34 .09 .00 .10 -.02 -.07 .26** .14 .52** (.86)

10 Social acceptance 5.54 1.18 .05 .02 .05 .10 .16 -.20* .04 .05 -.06 (.94)

11 Task-based acceptance 5.56 1.08 .08 .08 .10 .13 .15 -.10 .07 .25** .06 .76** (.94)

12 Prior team performance 4.47 1.47 .08 -.03 .02 .17 .08 -.04 -.01 -.27** -.11 .06 .03 (.78)

Notes. N =108. * p < .05, **p < .01. Cronbach’s Alpha on diagonal. Gender variables: 1 = Male 2 = Female.

Main analysis

Two separate regression analyses were conducted to test the hypothesis, one regression with social acceptance as the dependent variable (DV), the second with task-based acceptance as dependent variable. Both analyses are shown in Table 2, in a way that the first three models show the results of the first regression analysis and the models 4, 5 and 6 show the results of second regression.

Hypothesis testing. Hypothesis 1 and 2 can be tested using model 2 and model 5 of Table 2, because these models show the effect of promotive and prohibitive voice on the two types of acceptance, controlled for the other variables in the models. Hypothesis 1 supposed that promotive voice would be positively related to both the social acceptance (H1a) and the task- based acceptance (H1b) of the newcomer. A positive relation was found between promotive voice and social acceptance (b=.11, p=.25), but as the high p-value and the small amount of explained variance (R

=.08) in this model indicate, this effect was too small to be significant.

Therefore no support was found for H1a.

H1b, however, was supported by this data. Promotive voice seems to have a significant and positive effect on task-based acceptance (b=.22, p<.01). So when a newcomer is talking in a positive way and more frequently suggests opportunities for better future work performance, team members seem to appreciate the contribution of the newcomer and therefore more strongly accept him of her on the task-based dimension.

Hypothesis 2 supposed that prohibitive voice would be negatively related to both the

social acceptance (H2a) and the task-based acceptance (H2b) of the newcomer. Both the

relations were indeed found to be negative, but just like H1a, these effects were too small to be

significant (prohibitive voice and social acceptance, b= -.11, p=.30, prohibitive voice and task-

based acceptance, b= -.08, p=.38). Therefore no support was found for H2a and H2b.

Table 2. Regression analysis

Social acceptance Task-based acceptance

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

Model 6

b (SE) b (SE) b (SE) b (SE) b (SE) b (SE)

Intercept 5.75**(.37) 5.83**(.60) 5.83**(.66) 5.16**(.09) 5.09**(.52) 4.99**(.58)

Promotive voice .05(.09) .10(.09) .10(.09) .17*(.10) .22**(.08) .21**(.08)

Prohibitive voice -.11(.10) -.10(.10) -.12(.10) -.07(.10) -.08(.09) -.08(.09)

Gender respondent .12(.24) .05(.23) .11(.21) .05(.20)

Team size .01(.01) .48(.36) .01*(<.01) .01(<0.1)

Age newcomer -.03*(.01) -.03*(.01) -.03*(.01) -.03*(.01)

Tenure newcomer .44(.38) .49(.37) .33(.33) .39(.33)

Prior team performance

.03(.08) .04(.07)

Promotive voice X Prior team

performance

-.24

(.14) -.14(.12)

Prohibitive voice X Prior team

performance

-.18(.14) -.20

(.12)

R

.01 .08 .20 .05 .12 .23

F-change ^{.63 1.88 4.76** 2.59}

^2.11

^4.27**

Notes. N=104.

Social acceptance as DV,

Task-based acceptance as DV.

p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01.

For testing Hypothesis 3 and 4, we have to look at the models 3 and 6, in which the moderating variable and the two-way interaction effects are added. Hypothesis 3 supposed that the positive relationship of newcomer promotive voice and team members’ social acceptance (H3a) and task-based acceptance (H3b) of the newcomer are more strongly pronounced when prior team performance is lower rather than higher. The two-way interaction variable of promotive voice and prior team performance (Model 3) has a marginally significant negative effect on the relation between promotive voice and social acceptance (b= -.24, p<0.1). The negative coefficient of the interaction signifies that the relationship between promotive voice and social acceptance was more positive (or less negative) when the team performed poorly rather than well. Simple slope tests reveal that when a team was performing well before the newcomer came, promotive voice has a negative relationship, although not significant, with social acceptance of the newcomer (b= -.20, p=.39). In contrast, when a team was performing more weakly before the newcomer arrived, promotive voice of that newcomer has a positive relationship, and marginally significant, with social acceptance (b= .50, p=.06). This interaction effect is also demonstrated in the first graph of figure 2. Here one can see that a highly voicing newcomer is better socially accepted within a team that was performing badly rather than good.

This result is in line with the hypothesis and therefore H3a was marginally supported by this data.

The two-way interaction effect of promotive voice and prior team performance on task- based acceptance, which is used to test H3b, was found to be insignificant (b= -.14, p= .25).

This interaction effect can be seen in the second graph of figure 2. Simple slope tests show that

when a team was performing well before the newcomer came, promotive voice has a positive

relationship, although rather small and not significant, with task-based acceptance of the

newcomer (b=.14, p=.51). However, when a team was performing more weakly before the

newcomer arrived, promotive voice of that newcomer did have a positive and significant

24

relationship with task-based acceptance (b= .55, p>.05). This effect matches the expectations of H3b: it seems that promotive voice of a newcomer is more strongly related to task-based acceptance when the prior team performance is low rather than high.

Figure 2: interactions hypothesis 3

Figure 3: interactions hypothesis 4

Hypothesis 4 supposed that the negative relationship of newcomer prohibitive voice and team

members’ social acceptance (H4a) and task-based acceptance (H4b) of the newcomer is less

pronounced when the prior team performance is lower rather than higher. Model 3 shows that

the two-way interaction effect of prohibitive voice and prior team performance has a negative,

but not significant, effect on social acceptance (b= -.18, p=.19). However, simple slope tests

25

reveal that when a team was performing well before the newcomer came, prohibitive voice has a negative and marginally significant relationship with social acceptance of the newcomer (b=

-.43, p=.06). When a team was performing more weakly before the newcomer arrived, prohibitive voice of that newcomer has a weaker negative relationship, and not significant, with social acceptance (b= -.11, p=.68). These effects can also be seen in the first graph of figure 3 and are in line with H4a.

Finally, the two-way interaction effect of prohibitive voice on task-based acceptance

was found to be marginally significant (b= -.20, p= .1). Once again the simple slope clarifies

this result by showing that when a team was performing well before the newcomer arrived,

prohibitive voice has a strong negative relationship, and significant, with task-based acceptance

of the newcomer (b= -.41, p<.05). When a team was performing more weakly before the

newcomer arrived, prohibitive voice of that newcomer has a less strong and not significant

negative relationship with task-based acceptance (b= -.19, p= .42). These effects are graphically

displayed in the second graph of figure 3. It seems that the negative effect of prohibitive voice

on task-based acceptance is indeed less pronounced when a team was performing bad rather

than good, and therefore H4b is also supported by this data.

26 DISCUSSION

This thesis examined the effect of newcomer promotive and prohibitive voice on the social and task-based acceptance of the newcomer in work teams. Unlike what was expected, newcomers who expressed promotive voice were not significantly more accepted on the social dimension.

Promotive voice however did have a significant positive relationship with the newcomers’ task- based acceptance. This suggests that when a newcomer speaks with a positive tone and constructively addresses future opportunities, the teammates view the newcomer as competent and a valuable new asset to the team. But this does not necessarily mean that the team also values and accept the newcomer on the social dimension. This however seems to change when the prior performance of the team was low: the results show that when the team was performing poorly before the newcomer arrived, a newcomer is more highly accepted on the social dimension compared to when the team was performing well.

The results also show that prohibitive does not have a direct negative relationship with social and task-based acceptance. The effect of prohibitive voice on acceptance, however, seems to be related to the prior performance of the team: when a team was performing well before the newcomer came, prohibitive voice of a newcomer has a marginally significant negative relationship with social acceptance and a significant negative relationship with task- based acceptance.

Theoretical implications

This thesis has several theoretical implications. First, it contributes to the newcomer literature

by showing that also the voice type of a newcomer is of influence for the way a newcomer is

accepted within the group. Only one significant direct effect on acceptance was found, the

relationship of promotive voice on task-based acceptance, but the results showed that the two

voice types seem to have multiple positive and negative significant relationships with social

and task-based acceptance when prior functioning of the team was also taken into account. This

27

research therefore shows that also the voice type of a newcomer can be of influence for his or her acceptance.

Further, this study also contributes to the understanding of the recently made distinction between the two voice types, promotive and prohibitive voice (Liang et al., 2012) and points out its relevance in a newcomer setting. On the one hand, this result confirms and justifies the general distinction that Liang et al. (2012) made between the two voice types since the two types of voice can separately be of significant influence, for example the significant relationship of promotive voice with task-based acceptance. Moreover, this research showed that there is a clear link between the voice type of a newcomer and the prior performance of the team. For example, the positive relationship of promotive voice and social acceptance was marginally significant, only when prior team performance was low. Also, the results show that the negative relationship of prohibitive voice with both social and task-based acceptance, is significantly more pronounced when prior team performance was high rather than low. So this thesis also contributes to the voice literature by showing that prior team performance is an important moderating factor for the two voice types, and should therefore also be taken into account in further voice research.

Finally, the thesis also used the social persuasion theory in a new setting and therefore broadens our understanding of the implications of this theory. This theory is about how to influence others and convince people by using heuristics (McGuire, 1985; Briñol & Petty, 2009), and is therefore often used in fields like communication and marketing (Fennis &

Stroebe, 2016). This study however used the theory in a newcomer acceptance setting. We

found a positive direct effect of promotive voice, but did not find a direct negative effect of

prohibitive voice. Prohibitive voice however did have a negative relationship with both social

and task-based acceptance, but the results were not strong enough to be significant. It may

therefore be that a negative tone and critique on current practices does not necessarily lead to a

28

bad first impression or disliking the newcomer, and therefore does not have such a negative effect on acceptation. The positive and direct effect we found was the positive relationship of promotive voice with task-based acceptance. Like expected by using the social persuasion theory, it could indeed be that we like a promotive voiced newcomer more, because of the positive and constructive tone. Then, via the social liking principle, we assign positive skills and attributes to someone we like and therefore also see the newcomer as a valuable new asset to the team. We also found that the prior team performance is a moderating factor for the influence of the voice types. So apparently, the social persuasiveness of a newcomer and his or her acceptance depends of the earlier performance of the team.

Practical implications

It is widely known that acceptation and integration of new members are of big importance for the overall team functioning. A coherent and integrated team experiences friendliness, optimal knowledge utilization and higher job satisfaction (Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007; Vegt, Bunderson

& Kuipers, 2010; Rink et al., 2010; Forbes & Milliken, 1999). By investigating whether voice type plays a role in how a newcomer is perceived by other members, this research contributes to our existing knowledge of how a newcomer is best accepted within the group. The results suggest that a newcomer is better accepted on the task-based dimension, when he or she is expressing promotive voice. This means that in general, a team appreciates the newcomers’

constructive ideas for the future, and therefore see him or her as a valuable contribution to the

team. Managers who try to tackle integration problems, might therefore be wise to focus on

constructive idea generating as a tool to enhance the groups acceptation. A brainstorm session

for example, where newcomers are given a stage to share their ideas for future projects, might

according to the results help to let the group members see the possible contributions of the

newcomer to the team, which then enhances the newcomers task-based integration within the

29

group. We also learned that promotive voice could be of importance for social acceptance, but only when the earlier team performance was low.

Like expected, the negative relationship of prohibitive voice with both social and task- based acceptance was less pronounced when the earlier performance was low rather than high.

Managers who would like to change current ways of working by adding a critical voiced newcomer, might therefore be wise to do this when the team was performing bad rather than good. No big integration problems are expected for the newcomer who tries to solve the current poor situation, since prohibitive voice did not have a strong effect on acceptation when the prior performance was low. It seems that, when a team is performing bad, teammates might acknowledge that things need to change, and are therefore more open to newcomers who have critique on the current procedures.

Limitations and future research

Firstly, there is a limitation regarding the way of measuring the newcomer voice. The data about the voice type of the newcomer within the team and the newcomer acceptance by the team was, due to limited time and resources, only gathered by asking one person of the workgroup. This means that there might be a same source bias within the data. Also, the personal relationship between the respondent and the newcomer could have influenced the data. It might namely be that this specific respondent found the newcomer constructive (promotive voice), but other group members could have found the newcomer somewhat more critical (prohibitive voice).

For future research, all the team members (or at least more than one) should be asked to fill in

the survey about the newcomer. The voice type of the newcomer should then be determined by

the average judgment of the whole group. The same is true for the acceptance variables and the

prior team performance. So multiple sources should be used to create the variables, in order to

get the most reliable data.

30

Additionally, a critical incident study has been used to gather the data, and time biases can be of influence by this type of research. Respondents were asked to fill in questions about when the newcomer joined the team (between 0.5 and 1.5 year ago), which means that time biases could have influenced the reliability of the data.

Also, the number of respondents who participated in this study was relatively small (N=108). The survey was originally filled in by around 130 people, but many people did not complete the survey or fully met the criteria. As shortly discussed already, all the slopes of the important relationships between the variables were in the hypothesized direction, but only one slope was found to be significant, and two slopes marginally significant. The low number of respondents and therefore low statistical power could be the reason of this low significance.

The total number of respondents should therefore be higher in future research, in order to more clearly see the influence of the separate voice types on social and task-based acceptance.

Finally, as discussed in the data analysis, many of the respondents of this research were

students. A typical attribute of students is that they do not have fulltime jobs, but side-jobs. This

means that students see their colleagues less often, and it might be that students therefore

evaluate the newcomers more based on heuristics. Since the effect of voice is argued to be more

of influence when we have little information about a newcomer (because we use more heuristics

then), it might be that the effect of voice is more pronounced when people work in side-jobs

than in fulltime jobs, because of the difference in information about the newcomer. To test

whether this is really the case, future research about the influence of voice should include more

full-timers within the sample and explore whether there is a difference in voice influence for

part-time and fulltime employees.

31

CONCLUSION

This research contributed to our understanding of newcomer acceptance, by examining whether

the type of voice the newcomer expresses is of influence for the social and task-based

acceptation of this newcomer within work teams. Promotive voice of the newcomer seems to

have an important influence on the task-based acceptation by the group. Also, when the prior

performance of the team was low, promotive voice seemed to be important for social

acceptance, and prohibited voice is perceived as less negative. This study was the first to

investigate the influence of the two voice types in a newcomer setting, and both the types seem

of importance for social or task-based acceptance. This thesis therefore contributes to the voice

literature, and hopefully opens the door for further research about voice in a newcomer setting,

to further understand how and when newcomers will best be accepted by other group members.

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