MOTIVATION
Master thesis, MscBA, specialization Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
January 27, 2017 SJOERD GREEVEN Studentnumber: 2027666 Floresplein 9a 9715 HH Groningen Tel.: +31(0)634237174 e-mail: sjoerdgreeven@gmail.com Supervisor: Prof. dr. F.A. Rink
Second Supervisor: Prof. dr. J.I. Stoker
EFFECT OF LEADERSHIP SUCCESSION AND GOAL ORIENTATION ON EMPLOYEES’
SELF-EFFICACY AND MOTIVATION
Abstract
Introduction
“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe
in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.” —Sam Walton
The presented quote underlines that good leadership can play an important role in the self-esteem of people and their subsequent performances. Yet, in a worldwide benchmarking study it was shown that more than half of the human resource professionals indicated that they believed it will be more difficult to find skilled leaders in the future (Bernthal & Wellins, 2006). According to this study, the possible actions of an organization in this quest are looking for increasingly expensive new leaders on the market, do nothing and thus become less competitive or look for potentials in their own organization and train them to be a leader. More than half of the organizations, worldwide, choose the last option and try to find new leaders through the usage of formal succession plans (Bernthal & Wellins, 2006 ; Fegley, 2006). This shows that, nowadays, succession planning is a popular way to identify and generate leaders. However, the selection of future potentials, inevitably, results in the rejection of other employees. What kind of effect does this rejection of employees have on their self-esteem? As said before, a leader has an important role in strengthening the self-esteem of employees.It would be paradoxical that the process of searching for a leader, a leader who should increase self-esteem of employees, in fact results in a decrease of self-esteem of employees. Therefore it is important to shed a light on how succession planning is perceived by employees who are not singled out as a successor. Hence, I will investigate whether succession planning has consequences for the self-efficacy and motivation of employees. More specifically, I will examine whether the relation between successorship information, self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation is dependent on the goal orientation of employees.
succession were mainly focused on the components that are of influence in realizing leadership for the potential successors. For example, there were studies in the situational favorability for leaders (Gorden & Rose, 1981), whether the successor is an industry in or outsider (Jalal & Prezas, 2012), and the importance of mentoring a successor (Groves, 2007).
However, researchers did not investigate the effects amongst the many individuals who were not singled out as a potential successor, the non-successors (Hutzschenreuter, Kleindienst & Greger, 2012). The few studies that did address this issue, demonstrate that this omission is crucial as top performers in organizations are strongly dependent on ‘the rejected many’ as supporting actors (Delong and Vijayaraghavan, 2003). Furthermore, Delong and Vijayaraghavan (2003) point out that in order to foster continuity and long term organizational performance ‘the rejected many’ are a stabilizing factor in the organization, because they provide crucial support to the top performers of an organization (Huselid et al, 2005). Thus, the creation of leaders is important, but the average performer should not be ignored (Beechler & Woodward, 2009).
are not chosen. The feedback employees receive in the case of succession planning is, hence, rather implicit since they do not receive this information directly from their supervisor. It is interesting to know whether this implicit feedback results in similar negative attitudes as explicit negative feedback in performance appraisals does.
Theory
Self-efficacy is a concept which has often been a subject for research . Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief (confidence) that he or she has the capability to perform a specific task (Bandura, 1994). Although self-efficacy is often equated with self-confidence, the two concepts are quite different. Self-confidence refers to a more general belief across a wide variety of different situations, whereas self-efficacy refers to the believe one can deal with a specific task situation (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Self-confidence is a trait which remains relatively stable. Self-efficacy, on the other hand, is in constant change since people develop their skills over time which they can use to deal with specific tasks. Self-efficacy is a meaningful concept since it affects several employee outcomes. For example, self-efficacy is associated with employee motivation (Bandura, 1994), learning and achievement of employees (Campbell & Hacket, 1986) and coping with difficult career-related tasks (Stumpf et al, 1987).
Given that self-efficacy is changeable over time, it becomes relevant to know what factors influence it. Four informational sources are considered to be determinants of self-efficacy. These factors are vicarious experience (observing similar others that succeed or fail a specific task), verbal persuasion (telling people they have certain capabilities), performance attainment (personal performance accomplishment) and psychological states (Vianen, 1999).
positive feedback, their employee outcomes stay the same (Pearce & Porter, 1986). This could be explained by the fact that employees consider themselves as above average performers (Meyer, 1975 ; Mowday, 1983). Positive feedback is thus considered as ‘confirmation’ of their own abilities and their behavior will remain unchanged (Meyer et al, 1965 ; Pearce & Porter, 1986). Negative feedback is often considered to be unjust, since these employees believe that they perform better than they are accounted for (Pearce & Porter, 1986). Therefore, these employees are prone to attribute this externally and do not feel accountable for the blame. This form of external attribution results in employees blaming the organization as a whole, which causes a negative attitude towards the organization (Mowday, 1983).
Previous studies have shown how employees deal with feedback and displayed the potential consequences on the self-efficacy and performances of employees. Yet, there is less knowledge on how employees respond to successor information. Successor information differs vastly from feedback from performance appraisals, since it is not a form of direct feedback and it exists independently from normal forms of feedback. Non-successors notice that some employees are being considered as successors, and conclude that they are not chosen. The feedback is therefore more implicit than explicit since they don’t directly receive feedback about their abilities, but conclude this themselves. In addition, it is possible for these non-successors to have received positive feedback on their performance appraisals. Successor information can thus be seen as another form of feedback which is merely focused on potential abilities as a leader, whereas performance appraisals focus on past task contributions.
employees of an organization is seen as ‘high potential’ (Gelens, 2013). The objective is to systematically develop and socialize these employees and therefore enlarge their contribution to the organization’s success (Silzer & Church, 2010). Recent studies in talent management programs have mainly focused on the consequences of such programs on high potentials (Malik & Singh, 2014). Researchers that did look into the effects on low potentials showed that they experience lower justice (Gelens, 2013), show less work effort (Gelens, 2014), have lower job satisfaction (Gelens, 2014) and less organizational commitment (Marescaux, De Winne & Sels, 2013).
The fact that these forms of workforce differentiation can lead to negative employee attitudes of low-potentials, despite their possible positive feedback on performance appraisals, could be caused by the tendency of employees to compare themselves to one another. According to research of Pearce and Porter (1986), any appraisal system that provides data on how one employee is valued comparing to another, direct or indirect, will result in some loss of positive feeling on those who are not among the top performers. From social comparison research, it is shown that employees are prone to compare themselves to others to estimate where they relatively stand (Greenberg et al, 2007). This potentially causes a twofold in the group: the employees who feel advantaged to some extent and another group that feels set back (Greenberg et al, 2007). Employees tend to overestimate their abilities in comparison with colleagues and believe that they are among the top-performers of the team (Ilgen et al, 1979). Therefore, when employees receive ‘satisfactory’ ratings in performance appraisals, these ratings could still be experienced as negative feedback, since they expected even better feedback (Ilgen et al, 1979).
performance, their self-efficacy could be lowered by normative comparison with those who are chosen as a successor.
H1: A follower’s perceived low potential to be a leadership successor will be negatively related to his or her self-efficacy.
Leadership succession can lower self-efficacy and may therefore function as a self-fulfilling prophecy, such that non-successors start performing worse and act in line with their superior’s expectations about their capabilities. Prior research showed that employees become increasingly disengaged to the extent superiors lack faith in their potential (Liden et al, 1993). An explanation for this can be found in the expectancy of work motivation theory. The Pygmalion effect suggests that higher expectations of superiors result in higher motivation and, thus, in better performance (Eden, 1984). According to Eden (1984): “Expectancy raising does not replace hard work; rather, it creates the motivation to work harder”. However, the opposite of the Pygmalion effect can also occur, a Golem-effect in which lower expectations of superiors result in lower motivation and performance of subordinates. (Kierein & Gold, 2000). These two effects can be explained by the Galatea effects, which entails that the expectancy of a supervisor influences an individual’s own expectancy (Eden, 1984). There are different forms of expectancy distinguished in previous research. Trait expectancy which are “beliefs about self-competence in achievement situation in general” and state expectancy “Beliefs about future achievement in specific ability-related situations” (Cited from Eden, 1984). Both types of expectancy are important, since when individuals lack faith in being able to perform, they become less motivated (Korman, 1976).
remain motivated even though their tasks contain adverse conditions and uncertain outcomes. In contrast, employees with low-efficacy for a certain task are less likely to keep up their motivation and tend to cease their performance prematurely and thus fail on the task (Bandura, 1994). Following this line of thought, it can be expected that non-successors have lower motivation for leadership tasks, since the supervisor and the non-successors themselves lack confidence in their leadership abilities. However, the expectancies of supervisors do not only influence the specific task self-efficacy of an employee. According to Bandura (1977) self-efficacy tends to generalize to other situations. A lack of confidence in an individual’s future leadership potential could therefore also affect the self-efficacy of this individual in general. For this reason, I expect that the general intrinsic motivation of non-successors declines through their lower self-efficacy
H2: Self-efficacy mediates the negative relationship between followers’ perceived low potential to be a leadership successor and followers’ motivation
it is interesting for organizations to know if some individuals remain motivated and for what reasons. Differences among employees in work behavior and interests is frequently observed. An example can be observed in how employees deal with task difficulties. Some employees see task difficulties as a challenge to overcome, while others will be more pessimistic and lack faith in potential improvement. The response to feedback can also differ among employees. Some employees see feedback as useful information to enhance their performance, whereas others see feedback as a personal attack that diminish their self-esteem (VandeWalle, 1997). An individual’s goal orientation can give an explanation for such differences.
develop their competencies and want to expand their abilities in challenging situations and (b) performance goal orientation, in which individuals try to demonstrate their competencies and seek positive judgments and avoid negative ones. Individuals with a learning goal orientation tend to hold an incremental theory. These individuals focus on developing themselves and therefore choose tasks that are challenging for them. They believe that ability can be developed through effort and experience.
In contrast, individuals with a performance goal orientation tend to hold an entity theory. In their view, ability is a fixed attribute and do not believe that increasing effort will increase performance, instead they believe that high effort indicates low competence, since those with a high ability would not have to exert so much effort in order to perform (Dweck, 1999). Individuals with a performance orientation have a desire to do well and to be positively evaluated by others (Farr et al, 1993). Goal oriented employees also differ in how they deal with negative situations. Learning goal oriented employees consider negative feedback as valuable and use it to enhance their performance, while performance goal oriented employees interpret negative feedback as a personal attack(Lin & Chang, 2005). Performance oriented employees are doubtful of their possibility to enhance their performance and are therefore disposed to avoid further challenge (Lin & Chang, 2005; VandeWalle et al, 2001). A learning goal orientation is, hence, more often associated with beneficial employee outcomes than a performance goal orientation (Phillips & Gully, 1997; VandeWalle et al, 1999).
Furthermore, as stated earlier, I expect that social comparison with the chosen few will likely cause non-successors to feel lower levels of self-efficacy (Litt, 1988). However, A learning-oriented employee is more focused on the self and wants to acquire new skills, master new situations and improve one’s own competence (VandeWalle, 1999). Therefore, learning-oriented employees tend to focus less on the performance of others. Thereby, individuals with a learning goal orientation are likely to focus more on the successful aspects of past performance (Farr et al, 1993) . Considering this research, the self-efficacy among non-successors with a learning goal orientation will not be affected, because those individuals have an inward focus regarding performance.
In contrast to learning-oriented employees, performance goal oriented employees typically do evaluate such feedback on the basis of social comparison criteria and mainly define success in terms of outperforming others and demonstrating superiority (Phillips & Gully, 1997; Elliot, 1999; Farr et al, 1993; Janssen & van Yperen, 2004). So when an employee, other than him- or herself, is appointed as a successor, performance-oriented employees fail their goal to outperform others. Since performance-oriented employees tend to hold an entity theory, they may not be convinced that they can improve their performance in order to be a successor in the future (VandeWalle et al, 2001). Furthermore, as discussed earlier, social comparison can lead to lower levels of self-efficacy (Litt, 1988). Since performance-oriented employees tend to compare themselves more with others I believe that non-successors with a performance goal orientation have lower levels self-efficacy then non-successors with a learning goal orientation.
learning goal orientation on self-efficacy, because their self-efficacy will not be enhanced by favorable social comparison.
Method
In this study I examined the relationship between leader information about a follower’s successor potential and that follower’s subsequent work motivation. This study additionally aims to test (a) a proposed mechanism underlying this relationship (i.e. self-efficacy) and (b) the moderating role of a follower’s goal orientation in this relationship. To test these ideas, I adapted an experimental scenario design from Steffens et al (2015).
One-hundred-and-fifty-nine people with work experience participated in the present online experiment for a small reimbursement after being recruited via Prolific Academic. Twenty-eight participants failed to complete an attention check as instructed (“Please select “disagree”) and eleven more failed the manipulation check (see below) which led to a final sample of one-hundred-and-twenty respondents. Participants’ age ranged from 19 to 60 years ( M= 29.72, SD = 7.77) and their work experience from one to 40 years (M = 8.36, SD = 7.95; 1 not specified). Of the 120 participants, eighty were male and forty were female.
Baseline information.
Participants first received some baseline information. They were asked to imagine the organization they work for is looking for a new team-leader and everyone is able to apply. In the scenario all participants were first provided with positive feedback about their past performance in their current job position and notified that there would be a change in leadership. This was done to ensure that any of the effects obtained are solely caused by the successor information, which refers to the perceived potential they have to be promoted to a future leadership role, and not confounded with responses to past performance appraisals. This part of the scenario reads as follows:
“Imagine that you have been working in a job that you have been enjoying for several years. You work alongside a number of colleagues in your team who are in similar positions. On the whole you believe that you are doing well in your job. Your leader always evaluated your work very positively. Your leader accepted a higher position at a different department within your organization and will leave the current position in a few months’ time.
Directly after having received this information, participants were asked to reflect on what they would feel or think in response to the situation. The variables intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy were measured (for an elaborate description of these variables, see the measures section below).
Manipulation of Succession Information.
Hereafter, participants were randomly assigned to either the high potential or low potential successor condition. Participants in the low successorship potential condition were told:
that you are not seen as a likely future leader of the team. So your leader does not believe that you should potentially rise to a leadership position”
Participants in the high successorship potential condition, initially received the same information, but the last section was changed into:
“The day after the team meeting, your team leader informed you that you are one of the two candidates. Clearly the leader sees you as a potential successor for the role, meaning that you are seen as a likely future leader of the team. So your leader believes that you should potentially rise to a leadership position”.
The manipulation was tested directly after the scenario by asking the following question: “It is clear from the above work situation that my team leader (1) endorses me as a potential leader, (2) Does not endorse me as a potential leader.
Dependent Measures.
Self-efficacy. To measure self-efficacy, I adapted an 8-item scale developed by Chen et al.
(2001) On a 7 point likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” participants had to respond to items such as; “If I was in this work situation, I think I would be able to successfully overcome many challenges”. Respondents had to fill in the scale twice, one before the successor manipulation and one after the successor manipulation resulting in α = .88 for the self-efficacy scale before the successor manipulation and α = .95 after the successor manipulation.
Intrinsic motivation. To measure intrinsic motivation (both before and after the successor
information) I adapted a 3 item scale on intrinsic work motivation from Hackman and Lawler (1971) and added two more questions; α = .89 . On a 7 -point scale (ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” participants responded to the items such as; “I would feel great satisfaction in performing well for the team”.
Measurement of Moderator.
enjoy challenging and difficult tasks at work where I’ll learn new skills”); α = .88 and (b) performance goal orientation (five items, e.g.; “I would rather prove my ability on a task that I can do well at than to try a new task”); α = .73.
Control variables.
I also controlled for four potential confounding variables. Specifically, I controlled for age, gender and years in fulltime employment since previous research shows that those variables affect the work motivation responses of individuals (Furnham et al, 2009). These variables play an important role in what is important for an employee in his daily activities and therefore contribute to what motivates that employee (Staw et al, 1986) Furthermore, I controlled for ambition for a leadership position. Not every employee has the desire to become a leader in the future (Vianen, 1999). Employees that do not have this desire, might react differently to a recognition as high or low potential. When a certain employee would not have the desire to attain a leadership position, the assumption would be that they would be less affected by a rejection.
Results
Data analyses
The data were analyzed in SPSS Statistics 23. I computed a dummy variable to distinguish successor high potentials from successor low potentials. In order to check for internal reliability I computed a Cronbach’s alpha for all measurement scales. For the within-subject study I conducted a 2 x 1 factorial repeated-measures ANOVA design in order to compare respondents outcomes before and after the manipulation. Mediation and moderation was tested by ANOVA linear regression using the process tool of Hayes (2013), after standardizing all predictor variables in the model in order for the interaction to be interpretable (Aiken et al, 1991). For the multiple mediation model I analyzed the total indirect effect and the specific indirect effects after bootstrapping (using 5000 samples) as recommended by Preacher and Hayes (2008). If the 95% confidence interval for the parameter estimate does not contain zero, the indirect effect is statistically significant and mediation was demonstrated (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) .
Within-subject results
The reasons for doing a within-subject study were twofold. Firstly, it enabled me to
Results can be found in table 1 and indicated that people’s self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation were affected by successorship information over and above regular performance feedback. That is, their initial responses to performance appraisals (in terms of self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation),
changed significantly after also receiving successorship information, respectively F(1,118)=19.194, p < .001 for self-efficacy and F(1, 118)= 10,61, p < .05 for intrinsic motivation.
Additionally, further analysis showed that respondents who were regarded as non-successor scored significantly lower on self-efficacy and intrinsic work motivation compared to the prior baseline, respectively (MD = -.89, SE = 0.21, 95%Cis = .48, 1.30, p < .001, Cohen’s d = .82 and MD = 1.27, SE = .22, 95%Cis = .84, 1.7, p < .001). Respondents who were regarded as successors did score higher on these measures compared, but the effects were smaller and less significant for self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation, respectively (MD = .29, SE = .11, 95%CIs = .088, .51, p< .05, Cohen’s d = .45 and MD = .41, SE = .16, 95%CIs = -.72, -.10, p < .05). This confirms that differential responses to successorship information are mainly due to a drop in efficacy and motivation among the non-successors – not due to an enhancement in this regard among the non-successors.
Between-subject results
did not have a significant statistical influence on the model this respondent is included in the analysis.
I ran all main analyses without the control variables age, gender and leadership ambition since they do not correlate significantly with intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. The results of the ANOVA are presented in Table 4.
The between-subject study revealed that successorship potential had a significant direct influence on self-efficacy (providing support for H1, β = .54, 95%CIs = .39 .69, t(120) = 7.07, p < .001), and on intrinsic motivation (β = .69, 95& CIs = .49 .89, t(120) = 6.76, p < .001) . However, the results did show that the effect of successor information on intrinsic motivation was partially mediated by self-efficacy, which supports H2. More specifically, the direct effect of successor potential on intrinsic motivation became smaller β = .27, 95%CIs = .09, .44, t(120) = 2.94, p < .001 when I accounted for the indirect effect through efficacy. In particular, successor potential was significantly related to self-efficacy, β = .54, 95%CIs = .39, .69, t(120) = 7.08, p < .001, and self-efficacy was significantly related to intrinsic motivation β =.75, 95%CIs = .57, .94, t(120) = 8.00, p < .001. The combination of these two significant relationships resulted in a significant indirect relationship β = .41, 95%CIs = .27, .55, p < .001.
Discussion
This research has been conducted to answer the question whether successor information affects the intrinsic motivation of employees within an organization and if this effect is caused by the self-efficacy of employees. Furthermore, the research investigated whether the effect of successor information on motivation is dependent on an individual’s learning and performance goal
orientation.
Supporting the first hypothesis, the results indicated that participants who were seen as low successor potentials had lower self-efficacy than participants seen as high successor potentials. In addition, the self-efficacy of participants decreased vastly after being given negative successor information in the experimental manipulation in regard to their self-efficacy before the experimental manipulation. Notably, the increase of self-efficacy of the high successor potentials was remarkably smaller than the decrease of self-efficacy of low successor potentials. This result clearly shows that the discouraging effects of being regarded as a ‘low successor potential’ are stronger than the encouraging effects of being regarded as a ‘high successor potential’. This finding is not surprising, given that early psychological research already illustrated that negative situations have larger impacts on people’s behavior than positive situations (Baumeister et al, 2001). Further analysis partly confirmed hypothesis 2: negative successor information causes a lower intrinsic motivation because a decrease in the self-efficacy of participants. But the results do not support the third hypothesis that an employees’ learning goal orientation will buffer this negative effect, whereas a followers’ performance goal orientation will further strengthen it.
Implications for theory and practice
high potentials (Malik & Singh, 2014). Yet this research shows that being regarded as having little successor potential can lower self-efficacy, and therefore decrease motivation, more so than that being regarded as having high successorship potential will increase self-efficacy and motivation. Given that in most organizations only twenty percent of the employees will be considered as high potentials (Gelens et al, 2013), the effects in a real organization may be quite impactful. After all, there is clear evidence that a decrease in self-efficacy and motivation can have severe harmful effects on the performance of individuals and therefore on the organization (Blau, 1993 ; Phillips & Gully, 1997).
From both a scientific and an organizational point of view, it would be advisable to focus on more inclusive methods in which all employees are provided with the possibility to develop
themselves. If organizations, despite of the disadvantages, want to continue successor policies in order to find potential leaders, it would be interesting to look at how to minimize the effect of successor information on self-efficacy and motivation. This particular research has shown that goal orientation is not a potential buffer for the self-efficacy. However, there are a few potential buffers organizations can act on if they wish to implement succession planning. For example, prior research has shown that social inclusion can buffer the negative impacts of being regarded as a low potential within an organization, such that an employee’s successor potential becomes trivial for an
employee’s organizational commitment when employees feel socially included by their fellow co-workers (Steffens et al, 2015).
Future research and limitations
Moreover, this research only focused on a specific moment instead of a longer period of time, yet a longitudinal research would be relevant for several reasons. Firstly, it could be that the consequences of successor information are overestimated, since participants are asked to indicate their self-efficacy and motivation directly after receiving feedback. Self-efficacy is not a stable construct that remains constant over time, but is rather a dynamic construct that changes after new experiences (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1979). For an organization it would be important to know whether the self-efficacy is affected for a longer period of time after receiving successor information. Prior research does not state how long employees are affected by negative feedback. However, previous studies do state that negative situations not only have a stronger influence than positive situations; these negative experience also tend to linger in the individual’s mind(Baumeister et al, 2001). Longitudinal research would therefore give us more insights in the long-term consequences of succession planning for an organization.
Whereas learning goal oriented employees could eventually enhance their performance and regain self-efficacy, performance goal oriented employees may stay affected by negative successor information since they are not convinced that they are able to develop themselves. The long-term effect thus needs to be taken into account in this study.
Conclusion
This study enlarged our knowledge on the consequences of succession planning. This study aimed to outline not only the consequences for high potentials, but more importantly to address the effects on low potentials. The research has proved that negative successor information negatively affects an individual’s self-efficacy and motivation. In addition, this research showed that the discouraging effect on low successor potentials is remarkably stronger than the encouraging effect on individuals that are regarded as high successor potentials. The question therefore remains whether succession planning actually benefits an organization as a whole.
Note
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Tables and Figures
Table 1: Means (Standard Deviations in Parenthesis) , Mean differences and Cohen’s d for Self-efficacy and Successor Potential and Intrinsic Motivation and Successor Potential
Means (SD) depending on Experimental Condition
Mean differences between Low and High Successorship Potential Cohen's d Low Successorship Potential High Successorship Potential Pre Self-efficacy 5.86 (.72) 5.87(.71) .01 .01 Post Self-efficacy 4.97(1.35) 6.16(.59) 1.19** 1.14 Mean Differences Between Pre and Post Self-efficacy
-.89** .29* Cohen’s d .82 .45
Pre Intrinsic Motivation 6.04 (.82) 5.74 (1.02) .03 0.32 Post Intrinsic Motivation 4.77 (1.41) 6.15 (.79) 1.38** 1.21 Mean Differences
Between Pre and Post
Intrinsic Motivation 1.27** .41* Cohen’s d 1.10 .45 *p < .05. ** p <.01
Table 2 means, standard deviations and intercorrelations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1 Successorship Potential .55 .50 .53** .51** -.03 .02 .18* -.06 -.08 .22**
2 Intrinsic Motivation 5.53 1.30 .74** .32** .19* .13 .13 .13 .17
3 Self-Efficacy 5.63 1.16 .31** .30** .17 .10 .10 .30**
4 Learning Goal Orientation 5.78 .89 .50** .04 .10 .11 .40**
5 Performance Goal Orientation 5.10 .932 .20* -.03 -.07 .36**
6 Gender .667 .473 -.02 -.06 .19* 7 Age 29.72 7.77 .89** .05 8 Work Experience 8.36 7.95 -.02 9 Leadership Ambition 21124214 4.18 .724 - Note. *p <.05, **p<.01
Successorship Potential was coded (1=high-potential;0=low-potential); Gender was coded (1=male;0=female); Intrinsic
Table 3: VIF of all variables in the model
Variables VIF
Successorship Potential 1.54
Self-efficacy 1.72
Performance Goal Orientation 1.59
Learning Goal Orientation 1.71
Interaction variables
Performance Goal Orientation X Successorship Potential
1.44
Learning Goal Orientation X Successorship Potential 1.43 Control variables Gender 1.13 Age 5.05 Work Experience 5.11 Leadership Ambition 1.39
Table 4. Hierarchical Regression Analyses Assessing the Impact of Follower Successorship Potential on Intrinsic Motivation mediated by Self-efficacy and the Impact of the Interaction effects of Successorship Potential X Performance Goal Orientation and Successorship Potential X Learning Goal Orientation on Self-efficacy
Step 1 (DV= Intrinsic Motivation) Step 2 (DV=Intrinsic Motivation) Step 3 (DV=Self-efficacy)
b SE 95% CIs t b SE 95%CIs t b SE 95%CIs t
Main effects
Successorship Potential .69 .10 .49, .89 6.76** .27 .09 0.09, .44 2.94** .54 .76 .39, .69 7.08**
Self-efficacy .79 0.9 .62, .96 9.05**
Performance Goal Orientation .15 .09 -.03, .33 1.7†
Learning Goal Orientation .28 .09 .11, .46 3.16**
Interaction Effects
Successorship Potential -.13 .09 -.31, .05 -1.46
X Performance Goal Orientation
Successorship Potential -.01 .09 -.19, .16 -.16
X Learning Goal Orientation Model
df 118 117 114
∆R² .28** .30**
R² .28** .58** .41**
Appendix A
Theory and measures supplementary analyses
I added a number of measures that I considered important in the context of my study.
First, I added two perceived justice measures. Perceived organizational justice is the subjective perception of fairness by an individual regarding a certain organizational decision (Colquitt et al, 2001). Justice measures could be an alternative mechanism through which successor information influences intrinsic motivation. Justice perceptions indicate the extent to which participants attribute successorship information to the organization (rather than to the self).This is an important issue to address since, Mowday (1983) suggests that employees are more likely to blame external factors rather than their own performance when they are in a negative situation.
are not seen as potential successors think that they receive an unfair treatment compared to those who are seen as successors.
Measurement and Results
To measure overall justice perceptions, I adapted a 6 item scale from Ambrose and Schminke (2009). On a 7-point scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” participants responded to items such as; ”In this work situation, I think was treated fairly by my organization”; α = .86. This overall justice measure is warranted because there is an increasing acknowledgement that specific types of justice may not accurately capture individuals’ justice perceptions (Ambrose & Arnaud, 2005 ; Tornblom & Vermont, 1999). That is, although individuals can identify what type of injustice determined their position, their responses to these specific types of justice are not distinguishable from responses to a more general sense of injustice(Lind, 2001 ; Shapiro, 2001). Yet to measure more proximal justice responses, I also attained trust in the leader, through an adapted version of a 6 item scale from Podsakoff et al (1990). On a 7 point scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” participants responded to items such as: “I have complete faith in the integrity of my team leader”; α = .94
I tested two mediation models that separately included the mediating effects of organizational justice and trust in leader in the relationship between successor potential and intrinsic motivation (as alternatives for self-efficacy). The results (Table 5) showed that the effect of successor potential on intrinsic motivation was, as expected, partially mediated by perceived organizational justice. More specifically, the direct effect of successor potential on intrinsic motivation, b = 1.38, 95%CIs = .97, 1.78, t(117) = 6.76 p < .01, became smaller and less significant when I accounted for the indirect effect through organizational justice b = .56, 95%CIs = .13, 1.01, t(117) = 2.55, p < .05. In particular, successor potential was positively related to organizational justice, b=1.75, 95%CIs = 1.32, 2.18, t(117) = 8.08, p < .001 and organizational justice was positively related to intrinsic motivation
b=.46, 95%CIs = .31, .61, t(117) = 6.14, p < .001. The combination of these two significant
Furthermore, successor potential was also partially mediated by a followers’ trust in leader. The direct effect of successor potential on intrinsic motivation became smaller when I added trust in leader to the model b = .57, 95%CIs = .24, .90, t(117) = 3.45, p < .001. Specifically, successor potential was positively related to trust in leader, b = 1.36, 95%CIs = .88, 1.83, t(118) = 5.67, p < .001 and trust in leader was positively related to intrinsic motivation, b = .60, 95%CIs = .48, .71, t(117) = 10.58, p < .001, resulting in an indirect effect of successor potential on trust in leader of b = 81, 95%CIs = .40, 1.23, p < .001.
Finally, I also tested the three mediating variables, self-efficacy, organizational justice and trust in the leader altogether in one multiple mediation model. Previous researches showed that employees tend to attribute negative situations to external influences (Pearce & Porter, 1986 ; Mowday, 1983), I therefore expect that the effects of the justice perceptions will be the strongest. More specifically, research displayed that when employees receive negative feedback they blame the organization as a whole (Mowday, 1983). The trust in the leader could be less affected by giving successor information comparing to negative feedback in performance appraisals, since the leader does not give the negative successor information directly. My assumption was, thus, that negative successor information will primarily be attributed to justice perceptions of the organization as a whole. The results (table 7) showed, however, that trust in leader has the strongest influence on intrinsic motivation. The indirect of self-efficacy remains strong, while the indirect effect of organizational justice becomes insignificant.
relevant to look at how successor information influences the turnover intentions of the employees. When employees perceive that they have little room for development their turnover intentions increase, while their turnover intention decrease when there is room for development (Acker, 2004). Successor information can therefore contribute to the conviction of employees whether they are able to develop within an organization. Therefore, I expect that the turnover intentions get stronger when individuals are regarded as non-successor and they get lower when individuals are regarded as successor.
Moreover, the relationship between successor information and turnover intention may also be influenced by the moderator I was interested in; an individual’s goal orientation. Individuals with a learning goal orientation are expected to score relatively high on the turnover rates, irrespective of being chosen as a successor, as they are constantly on the lookout for challenges through which they can gain more experiences and enlarge their abilities (Lin & Chang, 2005). Turnover intentions are expected to be even larger if individuals with high learning goal orientations are turned down as a successor. If they are not provided with the opportunity to develop themselves and improve their abilities they are more prone to leave the organization (Lin & Chang, 2005; Acker, 2004).
Measurement and Results
Turnover intentions were measured with an adapted version of a 3 item scale from Landal and
Hammar (1896). On a 7 point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” participants responded to items such as: “If I would be in this work situation, I would leave the organization as soon as I found a better job”; α = .93.
qualified by an interaction between successor information and performance goal orientation (rather than learning goal orientation, which was not significant p = .37) on turnover intentions, β = .42, 95%CIs = .077, .76, t(108) = 2.42, p < .05. The two-way interaction plot is depicted in Figure 1. A high performance goal orientation strengthened the turnover intentions, regardless of whether people were seen as successor potentials or not (p = 0.17) By contrast, a low performance orientation reduced the turnover intentions of low successor potentials substantially (p < .001)1.
Discussion supplementary analyses
Supplementary analysis have shown more interesting results, demonstrating that decreases of intrinsic motivation can also partly be explained by a decrease of organizational justice
perceptions and the trust in the leader of the participants. A multiple mediation model showed that the decrease of intrinsic motivation can actually primarily be explained by a decrease of a followers’ trust in their leader (rather than by self-efficacy).
1 Furthermore, I conducted a three-way interaction in order to test the joint effect of Performance Goal Orientation, Learning Goal Orientation and Successor Potential on Turnover Intentions. The interaction effect was marginally significant, β=.28, 95%CIs = -.01, .56, t(107) = 1.94, p=.054. The plot (see appendix) shows that employees who score low on
The supplementary analyses also demonstrated low successor potentials particularly scored higher on the turnover intentions than high successor potentials, when they had a low performance goal orientation. Those with a high goal orientation thus remained determined to remain within the organization, regardless of the successor information they received.
Implications for theory and practice
The supplementary analyses clearly suggest that employees attribute successor information not only to the self, but also to the leader and the organization as a whole. Particularly, the trust in the leader was affected by successor information. This is partly according to expectations, since prior studies showed that employees attribute negative situations to external influences (Mowday, 1983). However, trust in leader had a greater influence than organizational justice, whilst earlier research showed that employees mainly blame an organization as a whole after negative experiences (Pearce & Porter 1986 ; Mowday, 1983). Moreover, this study and previous studies shows that lower justice and trust perceptions can result in negative employee outcomes within an organization (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001 ; Dirks, 2000). If employees lack faith, they devote more energy to ‘covering their backs’ which distracts them from their performance (Mayer & Gavin, 2005). On the other hand, if employees have faith in their leader, they are more willing to share sensitive information with their leader (Mayer et al, 1995). Additionally, when employees have confidence in their leader a social exchange relationship can emerge in which employees are motivated to reciprocate leaders care and consideration, which motivates them to go the extra mile (Konovsky & Pugh, 1994). Furthermore, justice perceptions give employees the perception that the organization protects and/or promotes their interests, which results in higher attachments to the organization of those employees
(Konovsky, Folger & Cropanzano, 1987).
employees believe that the procedures of a leader were fair, they have more trust in their leader although outcomes might be disadvantageous (McFarlin & Sweeney, 2002). Fair procedures could thus buffer the negative effect of successor information on the trust in the leader. Employees perceive a procedure as fair when the procedures are free from bias, determined, based on accurate information and openly communicated (Slan-Jerusalim & Hausdorf, 2007).
Secondly, to be perceived as trustworthy by employees it is important for a manager to demonstrate a concern for the welfare of others (Mayer et al, 1995). Rejecting the majority of employees as successor might raise the perception that the organization is not showing consideration for all employees, but rather for the chosen few. Profit sharing is a practice that reflects managerial benevolence and organizational justice and therefore contributes to the employees’ perception that the organization is showing consideration for all employees (Coyle-Shapiro et al, 2002 ; Appelbaum, 2000). Accordingly, profit sharing programs enhance trust,
commitment and perceived organizational justice (Coyle-Shapiro et al, 2002). The effect of successor information on organizational justice and trust could thus be buffered by profit sharing programs that may demonstrate employees, despite of their rejection, that the organization has their interests at heart.
Thirdly, although previous factors can reduce the effects of successor information, they will not dissolve negative effects completely. Hence, studies on repairing trust relationships could give organizations useful insight in how to restore the trust that subordinates have in their leader. According to research of Shapiro (1991) it is important that a certain action that reduced the trust in a relationship is explained by the one who is responsible for that action. In case of succession
planning, the supervisor should justify his/her choice for the pick. The adequacy of the explanation is critical in determining whether trust in the leader can be restored (Shapiro, 1991).
problematic. The ‘rejected many’ give crucial support to the top performers and they are therefore important for the continuity and long-term performance (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2003). It is thus of importance to prevent draining of low potentials. Room for development and opportunities to take training are seen as important factors for an employee in their willingness to remain in an organization (Acker, 2004 ; Gaertner & Nollen, 1989). Amongst non-successors the perception could arise that they lack opportunities to develop themselves. However, developing does not necessarily mean that one has to become a future leader. Developmental activities could for example also be the opportunity to attend a on the job training, which results in lower turnover intentions (Benson, 2006). Employees perceive those opportunities as benefits and are less likely to leave an organization if that means they have to give up their benefits (Shaw et al, 1998). Along these lines the assumption would be that the relationship between negative successor information and turnover intentions could thus be buffered by offering other developmental activities.
For this research I used the distinction between performance goal and learning goal orientation. From this study can be concluded that turnover intentions after receiving successor information differ dependent on an employees’ performance goal orientation. In order to obtain more understanding in how performance goal oriented employees deal with successor information a closer look into performance goal orientation would be recommendable. VandeWalle (1997)
proposed a distinction between individuals with a performance goal orientation who seek positive judgements (performance-approach orientation) and those who tend to avoid negative ones
(performance-avoidance orientation). Using this distinction could have given more information about which employees act different after receiving successor information. Elliot and Church (1997) found that a performance approach orientation among employees can be beneficial for job performance since these employees tend to exert effort to receive positive judgement. Reducing effort after facing difficulties seems to be more characteristic of performance-avoidance orientation (Elliot, 1999). The higher turnover intentions amongst successors could therefore be most suitable for employees with a performance-avoidance goal orientation since they try to avoid challenging tasks. Furthermore, it would especially be interesting to investigate these two types of performance goal orientation in earlier proposed longitudinal research. Performance-prove oriented could, just as learning goal oriented employees, enhance their performance after negative successor information as they tend to exert effort to receive positive judgement in the future (Elliot, 1999). After enhancing their
performance they could regain their self-efficacy, just as the assumption for learning goal oriented employees is, whilst performance-avoidance oriented employees do not improve their performance and stay affected by negative successor information.
Table 5. Hierarchical Regression Analyses Assessing the Impact of Follower Successorship Potential on Intrinsic Motivation mediated by Organizational Justice
Step 1 (DV= Intrinsic Motivation) Step 2 (DV=Intrinsic Motivation) Step 3 (DV=Organizational Justice)
b SE 95% CIs t b SE 95%CIs t b SE 95%CIs t
Main effects Successorship Potential 1.38 .20 .97, 1.78 6.76** .56 .22 .13, 1.01 2.54* 1.75 .22 1.32, 2.18 8.08** Organizational Justice .46 .08 .31, .61 6.13** Model df 118 117 118 ∆R² .28** .17** R² .28** .45** .60**
Note. N=120; Unstandardized coefficients are reported. † p < .10. * p < .05. ** p <.01
Table 6. Hierarchical Regression Analyses Assessing the Impact of Follower Successorship Potential on Intrinsic Motivation mediated by Trust in Leader
Step 1 (DV= Intrinsic Motivation) Step 2 (DV=Intrinsic Motivation) Step 3 (DV=Trust in Leader)
b SE 95% CIs t b SE 95%CIs t b SE 95%CIs t
Main effects Successorship Potential 1.38 .20 .97, 1.78 6.76** .57 .17 .24, .90 3.45** 1.36 .24 .88, 1.83 5.67** Trust in Leader .60 .06 .48, .71 10.58** Model df 118 117 114 ∆R² .28** .35** R² .28** .63** .46**
Note. N=120; Unstandardized coefficients are reported. † p < .10. * p < .05. ** p <.01
Table 7: Indirect effects of successor potential to intrinsic motivation through Trust in leader, organizational justice and self-efficacy.
Bootstrap BCA 95&CI
Mediator Estimate SE Lower Upper
Self-efficacy .23 .13 .04 .59
Organizational trust .09 .10 -.08 .31
Trust in leader .49 .27 .13 1.14
Table 8. Hierarchical Regression Analyses Assessing the Impact of Successorship Potential on Turnover Intentions and the impact of the Interaction effects of Successorship Potential X Performance Goal Orientation, Successorship Potential X Learning Goal Orientation, Performance Goal Orientation X Learning Goal Orientation and Successorship Potential X Learning Goal Orientation X Performance Goal Orientation on Turnover Intentions
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
b SE 95% CIs t B SE 95%Cis t b SE 95%CIs t
Main effects
Successorship Potential -.67 .15 -.97, -.36 -4.37** -.68 .15 -.98, -.39 -4.49** -.82 .16 -1.15, -.50 -5.02**
Performance Goal Orientation .44 .18 .09, .78 2.48* .55 .18 .19, .91 3.02** .51 .18 .15, .86 2.81**
Learning Goal Orientation -.02 .18 -.37, .33 -.12 -.11 .20 -.50, .28 -.55 -.10 .20 -.49, .28 -.43
Leadership Ambition .21 .17 -.13, .55 1.24 .26 .17 -.07, .60 1.57 .29 .17 -.04, .62 .09† Age .15 .33 -.49, .80 .47 .18 .32 -.45, .82 .57 .19 .32 -.44, .82 .61 Gender .18 .15 -.12, .49 1.18 .12 .15 -.19, .43 .77 .15 .15 -.15, .46 1.00 Work Experience -.01 .30 -.62, .59 .47 -.06 .30 -.66, .53 -.22 -.13 .30 -.72, .45 -.45 Interaction Effects Successorship Potential .51 .17 .18, .84 3.03** .42 .17 .08, .76 2.42*
X Performance Goal Orientation
Successorship Potential -.31 .17 -.65, .02 -1.82 -.17 .19 -.54, .20 -.90
X Learning Goal Orientation
Performance Goal Orientation .05 .14 -.23, .33 .36 .03 .14 -.25, .30 .18
X Learning Goal Orientation
Successorship Potential .28 .14 -.01, .56 1.94†
X Learning Goal Orientation X Performance Goal Orientation
Model
df 109 108 107
∆R² .23** .06* .02†
R² .23** .30** .32**
