CONSIDERATION AND JOB SATISFACTION
HOW COHESIVENESS AND PERCEPTION EXPLAIN JOB SATISFACTION BEYOND INDIVIDUAL LEADER – FOLLOWER INTERACTION
Master thesis, MSc BA Change Management and MSc Human Resource Management Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen
January 20th, 2015
Word count: 12,097
J.D.J. ROELAND
Contact information: student number s0752282, Jacob Catsstraat 32, 9716 GD Groningen, Phone number +31 617660213, email jan@roeland.nl
Supervisor Dr. H. Grutterink
Second supervisor Drs. M. Fennis-Bregman
1 CONSIDERATION AND JOB SATISFACTION
ABSTRACT
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction ... 3
2. Theoretical background and hypotheses ... 7
2.1. Development and understanding of consideration ... 7
2.2. Issues regarding the predictive capability of consideration ... 8
2.3. Cohesion as a mediator ... 9
2.4. The consideration leader and job satisfaction... 12
3. Methodology ... 13
3.1. Sample and data collection procedures ... 13
3.2. Measures ... 14
3.3. Analysis ... 15
4. Results ... 17
4.1. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations ... 17
3
1. INTRODUCTION
In his review of the earliest studies on leadership behavior, Korman (1966) drew his conclusion: Despite the fact that “Consideration” and “Initiating Structure” have become almost bywords in American industrial psychology, it seems apparent that very little is now known as to how these variables may predict work group performance and the conditions which affect such predictions. (p. 360)
After half a century, the world has changed drastically but this question is still very much alive. Researchers realize that many important questions about how leadership behavior affects individual or group aspects still remain unanswered (Braun, Peus, Weisweiler, & Frey, 2013; DeRue, Nahrgang, Wellman & Humphrey, 2011; Dinh et al., 2014; Piccolo et al., 2012). In the 1950s, researchers like Hemphill, Fleishman, Halpin, Shartle and Winer did the first research on the effects that leaders’ behavior had on followers and on organizational effectiveness. In the first two decades the resulting Ohio State University two-factor model dominated leadership research (Lambert, Tepper, Carr, Holt, & Barelka, 2012). This model divided leadership behavior into two categories: task-oriented behavior named ‘initiating structure’ and relation-oriented behavior named ‘consideration’. To make better predictions regarding the effects of leadership behavior, scholars started to develop additional theories. Since then a proliferation of overlapping leader behavior typologies and theories has emerged (DeRue et al., 2011; Piccolo et al., 2012). Although there have been thousands of studies on the effects of leadership behavior, it is still unclear how the different constructs predict organizational performance (Blickle et al., 2013; DeRue et al., 2011) or how they relate to each other (Piccolo et al., 2012), depriving us from benefits they could bring.
One of the highly important factors that is affected by leadership behavior is job satisfaction. Edwards and Cable (2009) define job satisfaction as the “pleasurable emotional state associated with one’s job” (p. 657). Job satisfaction is a widely studied construct that influences employees’ intention to stay in the organization (Edwards & Cable, 2009). A high level of job satisfaction also indicates organizational effectiveness (Daley & Pope, 2004; Gruneberg, 1976) and leader effectiveness (Piccolo et al., 2012). Moreover, job satisfaction is positively related to life satisfaction (Judge & Watanabe, 1993). Job satisfaction is also related to turnover and absenteeism, and to commitment of employees to their organization (Agho, Price, & Mueller, 1992). According to Kaplan and Norton (2001) satisfaction is critical for improving internal organization processes. Therefore, it is important to manage job satisfaction and understand how leadership behavior predicts job satisfaction.
4 after it was first introduced, consideration was widely acknowledged in literature. However, consideration was limited in its predictive capabilities (Bass, 1999; Judge et al., 2004; Piccolo et al., 2012). Furthermore, the effect that consideration had on job satisfaction was not always in agreement to expectations (DeRue et al., 2011). As a consequence researchers started to develop other theories that predicted a wider range of outcomes and consideration fell out of grace (Judge et al., 2004). It however, may have been discarded too easily. Consideration is still a robust construct that has an incremental predictive validity and can make a unique contribution in predicting job satisfaction (Fleishman, 1995; Judge et al., 2004).
There is a certain urge to understand how we can manage job satisfaction better. Our society is changing rapidly but all leadership behavioral theories that were developed after the devaluation of consideration still show inconsistencies (Braun et al., 2013; DeRue et al., 2011; Dinh et al., 2014; Judge et al., 2004; Piccolo et al., 2012). Current societal challenges such as globalization, an aging population and increasing social responsibility (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2012) increase the need for enhanced insights into understanding human resource practices (Burke et al., 2006). Our work and private lives are becoming more intertwined and if we want to ensure the welfare of our organizational members, we need to be able to manage job satisfaction. In order to eliminate inconsistencies in predictions, we should reevaluate what we know and what we do not know regarding the effects of leadership behavior. Perhaps – using the metaphor of Van Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013) regarding transformational leadership – go back to the drawing board in order to be able to cope with the current changes. Consideration therefore deserves careful scrutiny (DeRue et al., 2011; Judge et al., 2004; Lambert et al., 2012).
5 leadership mechanisms. If we want to understand leadership and its consequences, we need to take group related aspects into account.
Group cohesion is one of the most important aspects of teamwork processes that is related to satisfaction (Dionne, Yammarino, Atwater, & Spangler, 2004), and that also might be related to consideration. In literature, cohesion surfaces in different areas of research. Cohesion indicates how motivated members of a team are to remain on the team (Shaw, 1976). Group cohesion is defined by Festinger (1950) as “the resultant forces which are acting on the members to stay in a group” (p. 274). Cohesion is regarded here as the collection of all influences that motivate team members to stay together. Cohesion has already been related to leadership behavior (Dionne et al., 2004; Mullen & Copper, 1994; Pillai & Williams, 2004). It plays for example a role as a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and performance (Dionne et al., 2004). It presumably also plays a moderating role in the relationship between consideration and job satisfaction, although the outcomes are not entirely conclusive; Dobbins and Zaccaro (1986) found that in a high cohesive group, consideration was more positively related to satisfaction; J. F. Schriesheim (1980) described cohesion as a condition for consideration to affect job satisfaction. Considering cohesion as an outcome of consideration behavior might be illogical as consideration behavior is supposed to owe its effect to intense direct contact (Blickle et al., 2013) between leader and follower. Furthermore, as job satisfaction is already influenced by consideration directly, the need to think of possible mediating mechanisms that also affect job satisfaction might be less lucrative and therefore less motivating. However, consideration might also work in an indirect way, not only by strengthening the bond between a leader and his or her follower but also by stimulating followers to bond with each other. Consideration might even affect a team on a non dyadic level, bypassing the direct contact with followers and facilitating conditions that motivate followers to stay on the team. Therefore, cohesion could be viewed as an outcome of consideration behavior on a group level. In this study I will develop and discuss a conceptual model as presented in figure 1, where cohesion mediates the relationship between consideration and job satisfaction.
The goal of this study is to relate these constructs in an effort to get a better understanding of consideration and answer the research question: How does leaders’ consideration behavior affect job satisfaction of followers?
6 behavioral theories, and for assisting with bridging this large gap (De Rue et al., 2011; Judge et al., 2004; Piccolo et al., 2012). Filling this gap in literature is a necessity if we want to create a solid foundation for further development of our leadership behavioral knowledge. We need this knowledge in order to predict the outcome of our interventions aimed at raising job satisfaction.
Many leadership failures can be accredited to leaders’ inability or unwillingness to act considerate (Hogan, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2010). DeRue et al. (2011) stress the importance of understanding leader traits as well as leader behavior in order to create developmental programs that help leaders become more successful. However, they also acknowledge that research often takes a leader-centric perspective and disregards collective processes and social interaction. The aim of this study is not to aid developmental programs in training leaders to become more considerate or to help selection and recruitment practices to select considerate managers. The practical contribution of this study should be that it helps to understand how consideration affects collective processes that in turn affect job satisfaction. Many scholars have pointed out the importance of knowledge about leaders’ behaviors for effective management training and development programs (Bass, 1981; Bass, 1999; Braun et al., 2013; DeRue et al., 2011; Korman, 1966; Piccolo et al., 2012). In order to use management training and development programs as useful change interventions to raise employees’ job satisfaction, results of this study can be used to assess where to intervene and what will be affected.
In order to empirically test the hypotheses that the presented model is build upon, I will conduct quantitative research among 150 employees of a Dutch temporary employment agency.
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2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES 2.1. Development and understanding of consideration
Leadership behavioral research developed halfway the 20th century. Since the earliest studies in the nineteenth century of how people could organize the work that was performed within organizations, pioneers like Taylor, Fayol and Weber described how the workforce could be managed in order to increase organizational outcomes (Burnes, 2009). In order to predict the success of organizations’ leaders, researchers tried to identify characteristics that identified the ‘natural leader’ but failed to find a simple answer (Yukl, 2013). In the middle of the previous century, researchers became disappointed with this trait approach as it did not yield the expected results (Judge et al., 2004). They started to study leaders’ behavior instead of leaders’ traits as this was easier to relate to their effectiveness. Although people can have relatively fixed behavioral tendencies, the same traits can manifest themselves into different behaviors depending on the circumstances (DeRue et al., 2011). Bass (1981) concluded that the “trait approach was deemed to have proved fruitless” (p. 358) and leader behavioral research gained legitimacy.
The term consideration in leadership research was coined in the early 1950s. Based on a list devised by Hemphill and his associates, approximately 1,800 different aspects of leaders’ behaviors were analyzed and studied by a group of researchers at the Ohio State University. These aspects were initially grouped into nine categories or subscales but eventually only the 150 items that were assigned to one of those subscales, were used to create the ‘leadership behavior description questionnaires’, or LBDQ (Bass, 1981). These questionnaires were handed out to subordinates who were asked to determine the frequency of certain behaviors of their supervisors. These behaviors were defined into two broad categories, that is, initiating structure and consideration (Halpin, 1957; Stogdill, 1963). The initiating structure category was concerned with task related behavior such as maintaining standards, overseeing employees’ work, emphasizing the meeting of deadlines. These behaviors could be displayed simultaneously with behaviors from the consideration category. The level of consideration behavior indicated the extent to which a leader was concerned with the welfare of the members of his or her group. Bass (1981) described the essence of consideration:
Considerate supervisors expressed appreciation for good work, stressed the importance of job satisfaction, maintained and strengthened self-esteem of subordinates by treating them as equals, made special efforts for subordinates to feel at ease, were easy to approach, put subordinates' suggestions into operation, and obtained approval of subordinates on important matters before going ahead.
8 Many of these characterizations are reflected in the 15 items of the LBDQ, measuring the consideration behavior of leaders. These 15 items can be found in the appendix. The LBDQ has since then been the basis of many studies (Judge et al., 2004).
The claim that consideration affects job satisfaction has been made by many researchers (DeRue et al., 2011; Judge et al., 2004; Lambert et al., 2012). But what is the basis of their claim? Locke defines job satisfaction as the "pleasurable emotion state resulting from gratification or satisfaction about one's job… being caused primarily by the interaction of one's values and one's perceptions of the job and its environment" (Locke as cited in Daley & Pope, 2004, p. 132). Agho et al. (1992) give a simpler and more general definition, “the extent to which employees like their work” (p. 185). I will use this broad definition for the study at hand as theories regarding consideration also do not limit their scope to only certain aspects. Consideration affects satisfaction because of the strong interpersonal connection the leader has with a follower (Blickle et al., 2013; DeRue et al., 2011). Leaders with relational-oriented behavior are more empathetic and skilled to sense followers’ needs, take their followers’ needs into account; they show concern for followers and appeal to their emotions (Blickle et al., 2013; DeRue et al., 2011; Judge et al., 2004). Consideration behavior can also create mutual trust between a leader and a follower, and respect for the followers ideas and feelings (Korman, 1966). According to Lambert et al. (2012) the trust that consideration can create, is an important factor to raise job satisfaction. In contemporary literature, consideration operates through direct contact between leader and follower that fulfils followers’ basic emotional needs for interpersonal connectedness, which in turn increases followers’ satisfaction with their jobs (Blickle et al., 2013; DeRue et al., 2011; Fleishmann & Salter, 1963; Judge et al., 2004; Lambert et al., 2012). This relationship is displayed as the c’ path in figure 1.
Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between perceived consideration and job satisfaction.
2.2. Issues regarding the predictive capability of consideration
9 introducing other theories and with that leaving consideration as it was (Judge et al., 2004). However, there might be more to gain as consideration is not yet fully explored. As the predictions of job satisfaction are not unambiguous (Bass, 1981; DeRue et al., 2011), looking beyond considerations unidimensionality, looking beyond the mechanism of strong interpersonal connections, can still be rewarding.
Whether leaders aim their behavior towards individuals or towards groups, is a rising point of debate. This question regarding consideration behavior in particular is not new. In 1981 Bass already pointed out that the LBDQ measures the behavior towards individuals but might also be seen as measurement of behavior aimed at groups. Although theories regarding consideration have not developed beyond a dyadic approach, the LBDQ items seem very suitable to extend consideration to group interaction. For a respondent an item like “he is easy to understand” could be easier to relate to his or her personal experience than to the leader’s general capability of self expression. Although responding to an item like “he puts suggestions made by the group into operation” will still be based on their own perception, the behavior seems more aimed towards the entire team. Adding group directed behavior to the theory can help explain considerations effects.
Following up on the advice of Braun et al. (2013) and Burke et al. (2006) by incorporating group aspects into theories regarding consideration, adds two new factors to take into account. Firstly, leaders do not have to behave the same way towards all followers, and followers do not necessarily have to perceive the same leaders the same way (Bass, 1981; Graen & Schiemann, 1978). Managers’ behaviors can cause multiple outcomes for different followers. Followers sharing their perceptions and experiences with their peers, and followers interacting within their team can influence outcomes past the individual leader – follower relationship. In this way, the same leaders’ behaviors can affect followers in an indirect way. Secondly, as followers do not have to share the same perception of leaders’ behavior, speaking of ‘a considerate manager’ would be meaningless, as individuals can vary in their opinions on the level of consideration of the same leader. However, referring to a leader as a specific type of leader is not uncommon in literature, regarding consideration but also regarding other types of leadership behavior. Taking a more objective viewpoint on leaders’ behavior opens the possibility to look beyond personalized effects and take a more leader specific perspective. Extending leader behavior past the individual interaction, offers new possibilities to explain consequences of that behavior.
2.3. Cohesion as a mediator
10 been linked to leadership behavior such as transformational leadership and can help explain group and organizational performance (Bettenhausen, 1991; Dionne et al., 2004; Evans & Dion, 1991; Mullen & Copper, 1994; Swezey and Salas, 1992 ), for example by motivation of team members (Weaver, Bowers, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 1997) or because members are more cooperative and work more diligently (Korsgaard, Schweiger, & Sapienza, 1995). Work is better coordinated in highly cohesive teams (Dionne et al., 2004); cohesion has many beneficial outcomes for individuals, groups and organizations; teams with high cohesion have for example less absenteeism and members are more involved in team activities (Bettenhausen, 1991; Morgan & Lassiter, 1992). Therefore, cohesion is a group level construct with a considerable impact on organizational outcomes.
Cohesion can cause affective outcomes as it can create social bonds between team members who are motivated to stay together to satisfy their emotional needs (Carron & Brawley, 2000). Agho et al. (1992) even use “the extent to which employees have close friends in their immediate work units” (p. 186) to define cohesion itself. In turn, these friendships or social bonds within their team raise satisfaction with one’s job (Bettenhausen, 1991; Edwards & Cable, 2009; Jurgensen, 1978; Locke, 1976; Smith, Kendall,, & Hulin, 1969). In order to be affected by cohesion and experience a higher job satisfaction, one needs to perceive these social bonds. Cohesion therefore affects their job satisfaction according to the b path displayed in figure 1.
11 were synonymous for group or team cohesion (Bollen & Hoyle, 1990; Gully et al., 1995). Fourth and finally, causality is a complicating factor when placing cohesion into conceptual models (Bass, 1981; Yukl, 2013). For example, does a cohesive team improve internal coordination or does a team grow more cohesive if there is a better coordination? Perhaps cohesion is raised after a team sees that they are performing above average instead of the other way around? Van Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013) point out the potential problems that an incorrect perception of causality can have on defining constructs. Perhaps all these reasons can explain why results of cohesion studies are not always convincing and why it is only linked to consideration as a contextual factor.
Next to the direct effect on followers’ job satisfaction, I argued earlier that consideration can also have an indirect effect. For example, the personal attention given by a leader can increase the job satisfaction of one particular follower. This follower can in turn pass on his or her satisfaction to others, either by simply sharing their experience or by mimicking leader’s exemplary behavior, in turn causing job satisfaction by the interpersonal connection between both followers. The introduction of indirect effects creates the opportunity to introduce a mediator. Mediation is an indirect effect that explains the mechanism behind one specific relationship by introduction of one mediating variable. (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). I will reason two ways in which cohesion can mediate the relationship between consideration and job satisfaction. Firstly, it is possible that a follower translates his or her received personal attention towards the entire group for example by becoming more pleasant to work with or by feeling closer to others, consequently creating social bonds. The LBDQ item “he does little things to make it pleasant to be a member of the group” could illustrate how one individual follower becomes more cohesive to the group and in turn can make it more pleasant for others to belong to that group. Exactly explaining this relationship, displayed as the a path in figure 1, is challenging considering the subjective meaning that cohesion can have for each teams or individual. However, the generic mechanism could be described as a leader stimulating the social bonds within his or her team or organization by giving personal attention to followers and by conveying his or her value for good social relationships or friendships. Secondly, consideration displayed as group behavior can also enhance cohesion of a group. A leader does not necessarily have to focus on one individual but can stimulate group bonding in a more general way. The same LBDQ item “he does little things to make it pleasant to be a member of the group” could imply that the leader places a pool table in the canteen that can directly cause job satisfaction for some but can also have a group wide effect by bringing followers closer together. Therefore, both individual as well as group aimed consideration behavior can indirectly cause job satisfaction by mediation of cohesion that is perceived by followers.
12 Hypothesis 3b: The relationship between perceived consideration and job satisfaction is partly mediated by the perception of cohesion
2.4. The consideration leader and job satisfaction
By expanding the scope regarding consideration to group level, a new factor needs to be taken into account: a difference in perception. Team members do not have to share the same perception of the same leader and of his or her behavior. If job satisfaction only depends on the strong interpersonal connection that appeals to humans’ basic emotional needs for interconnectedness (the c’ path in figure 1), then followers’ perception of this interpersonal connection would suffice to explain the effect. Whether or not the leader displays the perceived behavior according to a more objective measure, is not relevant for the follower’s job satisfaction. However, if we introduce group aimed behavior and indirect effects then perceptions of other followers should matter. As the level of cohesion of a team depends on all the individual team members and their desire to stay a member of the group, a more general assessment of a leader’s behavioral style should predict cohesion better. This implies that consideration behavior is less related to the individual follower and more to the leader itself. Consideration behavior can affect followers who do not perceive this behavior, thus for whom the direct behavior itself is invisible. The LBDQ item “he finds time to listen to group members” can illustrate this. In case someone has a conflict with a colleague, a listening ear can be quite pleasant and this behavior is highly observable. However, the colleague who did not noticed the discrete vis-à-vis between his or her opponent and his or her manager can still benefit from the resolved crisis. The same perception of a leader’s consideration behavior can have a different effect on job satisfaction, depending on perceptions of other team members.
The mediation effect through cohesion (the a and b path of figure 1) should be less affected by followers perception than the direct effect that leaders’ consideration behavior has on followers’ job satisfaction (path c’ in figure 1). Leaders who show higher levels of consideration behavior in general, should show a better ability to affect job satisfaction mediated by cohesion compared to leaders with lower levels of consideration. The direct effect of followers’ perception should be indifferent to the general, less subjective level of consideration. Therefore, the effect of the mediated path, relative to the direct path, should be higher in groups with leaders who have higher levels of consideration compared to groups with leaders with lower levels.
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3. METHODOLOGY 3.1. Sample and data collection procedures
Empirical data for this study were gathered from the managers and employees of a Dutch temporary employment agency with approximately 450 managers and employees. The organization has a flat hierarchical structure. The employees work in one of the 65 teams – these are either departments at the head office or regional offices – and report to the department manager or office manager.
Prior to launching the survey I paid a personal visit to the management of the head office in order to introduce myself and this study. In this meeting we discussed the background of the organization and the possibilities to gather data. Due to the large amount of surveys that were held within the agency in the previous months, the inference of the employees needed to be kept to an absolute minimum. This meant that the number of measures to be taken also had to be minimized. Communication with the respondents was handled by the head office. The respondents received an URL to an online questionnaire, accompanied by a short description of the goal of the research and an instruction to fill in the questionnaire.
Respondents were told that their individual perceptions of leader behavior were to be examined within their team, and that it was important not to discuss the questionnaire with their colleagues. No additional information that could prime respondents was given. If they experienced problems or had additional questions, respondents were given the opportunity to contact me by phone. However respondents did not use this opportunity. It was not possible to send personalized invitations to the respondents. In order to be able to relate data to a specific team and manager, employees were required to enter their department or office names. To prevent multiple entries by the same respondent, the prevention of ballot stuffing in Qualtrics was used. Following confidentiality concerns, employees were ensured that no information about leader behavior they report would be made available to other employees, managers or the head office. Additionally, information that could relate behavior or other outcomes to a specific team was to remain confidential. This was done in order to minimize a possible leniency bias towards managers and towards the team, as well as to prevent the impression that their team was being rated or valued. With the intention of maximizing the number of respondents per team and to minimize missing data on individual questionnaires, it was communicated that the team with the highest percentage of completed questionnaires would be rewarded with a team event. This group incentive should not only motivate individual respondents but also motivate members of the teams to motivate each other.
14 years and number working hours per week 37 (SD=5.6). The number of employees for the teams that returned questionnaires was between 5 and 20. The average number of questionnaires that were returned by the teams was 5.4. There were 6 teams who returned only 1 questionnaire, 2 teams returned 10 questionnaires. In parallel to this survey, a survey was held among the managers of the organization. Several employees received the manager questionnaires by accident. I estimate that 50 of the returned questionnaires were sent by employees. These questionnaires could not be used for this study.
3.2. Measures
Perceived consideration. For this scale, the 15 consideration items of the original LBDQ scale
from the Ohio State University were used (Halpin, 1957). Some examples of these statements are “My supervisor treats all group members as his equals” and “My supervisor is easy to understand”; reverse coded questions looked like “My supervisor refuses to explain his actions”. A 5-point scale ranging from 1 = “Never” to 5 = “Always” was used. Cronbach’s alpha was 90. All the items of the employee surveys can be found in the Appendix.
Average perceived consideration. This value was calculated for each leader by adding up all the
perceived consideration scores of members within their own team and divided by the number of followers in that team. This information was used to determine the ranking of the teams.
Team ranking. Every team was ranked based on the average perceived consideration of its team
leader. The team with the leader who scored lowest on average perceived consideration was placed on the first position of the list. The team with the second lowest scoring leader was placed on the second place of this list and so on. The 43th position of the list was the team with the leader who had the highest average perceived consideration. These positions on these rankings were assigned to every individual respondent dependent on the team they were on. For example, for all respondents working for the leader with the highest average perceived consideration, the valued for this measure was 43.
Perceived cohesion. To assess the perceived cohesion, I used all 6 cohesion items from the scale
that Podsakoff, Niehoff, MacKenzie and Williams (1993) developed to measure a wide range of organizational characteristics. This same scale was also used by Pillai and Williams (2004) to measure the individual team members’ perspective of group cohesion in the context of transformational leadership behavior. An advantage of this scale is that it covers a wide range of aspects. Using a more narrow focused scale would increase the changes of not finding an effect. Examples of these questions are “Members of my group work together as a team” and “The members of my work group regard each other as friends”. Answers were given on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 7 = “strongly agree”. For this scale Cronbach’s alpha was .93.
Weight of the mediation. This value was calculated by dividing the B coefficient of the
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Job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was measured using 4 of the 6 items from Agho et al. (1992),
originally developed by Brayfield and Rothe (1951). The same arguments I used for the perceived cohesion scale, apply here: choosing a too narrow focus could decrease the chance of finding the intended effect. The following items were used: "I find real enjoyment in my job", "I am seldom bored with my job", "I would not consider taking another kind of job" and "I feel fairly well satisfied with my job". Possible responses were based on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”. Cronbach’s alpha was .88.
Control variables. Gender was included as a default control variable; males were coded ’1’ and
females ‘2’. The age of a respondent and tenure might be related to a certain leniency towards a manager (Bass, 1981). Age has also been related to job satisfaction (Kacmar & Ferris, 1989) in past research. Tenure, age and the number of hours respondents work at the organization could have an impact on how well employees know each other and therefore may affect the cohesion of a team. They could also reflect a general satisfaction with their work at the organization. Therefore I included questions regarding these control variables in the questionnaire.
3.3. Analysis
In order to test the first hypothesis I performed a hierarchical multiple regression analysis using SPSS. Of the 150 observations, 6 observations might be regarded as outliers as their standardized scores on consideration, cohesion or job satisfaction were 3 or higher. However, none of these observations had high scores on more than 1 variable, and no scores were from the same team At this stage, the scores were less contrasting with scores of respondents from the same team and looked genuine therefore I did initially not remove possible outliers from the sample.
I started with adding control variables to calculate their effect on job satisfaction. Next, the variables consideration and cohesion were entered to determine the improvement of the model. Afterwards, I determined the effect that consideration had on cohesion, also controlling for age, tenure, gender and hours on contract. In both cases the control variables explained less than one percent of the total variance and were not significant. Based on the recommendations from Becker (2005), I subsequently decided to exclude them from further analysis, as these variables can have a negative influence on the parameter estimates and statistical power (Becker, 2005). After the exclusion, I performed the hierarchical multiple regression again to determine the variance explained by the models. In order to estimate the size and significance of the mediation effect of cohesion on the relationship between consideration and job satisfaction, I used the method of Preacher and Hayes (2004; 2008) based on a nonparametric bootstrapping procedure. I performed the same analyses after deletion of the possible 6 outliers. This yielded similar results that are not further reported.
16 for employees with leaders who scored higher. To create the two samples, I calculated the average perceived consideration score for each leader based on the reports of their individual followers. I ranked all teams based on the average perceived consideration scores of their leaders. Teams were placed in order of their leader score, starting with the lowest score. All respondents who worked at one of the first 19 teams were added to the low consideration group, respondents working at one of the other 24 teams were added to the high consideration group. This cut-off at 19 was made because it divided both samples into two equally sized groups of 75 respondents. I performed all analyses again for both samples. In order to compare the samples, I determined the weight of mediation effect relative to the direct effect as this should display the relative importance of cohesion depending on the average perceived consideration of a leader. Furthermore, the model with mediation, relative to the direct model without mediation, should explain more or less variance in job satisfaction depending on the average perceived consideration. Therefore, the increased explained variance (∆R2) by adding perceived cohesion as a mediator should also indicate the value of cohesion in different context.
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4. RESULTS 4.1. Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations
Table 1 presents the means (M) and standard deviations (SD), and Pearson correlations for al variables. There was a significant correlation between age and perceived consideration (r=.25, p<.01) however, age did not significantly correlate with perceived cohesion or job satisfaction. Tenure also correlated to perceived consideration (r=.18, p<.05). Other control variables did not have correlations with the main research variables.
Table 1
Means, standard deviations and Pearson correlations between control and main variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 Gender 1.77 0.42 2 Age 26.49 4.44 -.10 3 Tenure 28.03 43.83 -.01 .43 ** 4 Hours on contract 37.45 5.62 -.25 ** -.08 -.13 5 Perceived Consideration 3.94 0.51 .13 -.25 ** -.18 * .07 (.90) 6 Cohesion 5.38 1.05 .03 -.03 .05 -.01 .22 ** (.93) 7 Job satisfaction 4.01 0.76 .08 -.03 .02 -.04 .29 ** .33 ** (.88)
Note. N = 150. Gender: male = 1, female = 2. Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities are in the diagonal..
* p<.05. ** p<.01 (2-tailed)..
4.2. Hypothesis testing
18 t(148) = 2.94, p = .004), as was expected. The first, second and third hypotheses are accepted. The results are shown in figure 2.
Figure 2. Coefficients c
ohesion mediating perceived consideration and job satisfaction
Note. N = 150.
** p<.01). *** p<.001.
In order to test the fourth hypothesis, new samples were created. The managers of the original sample scored an average of 3.94 (SD = .36) on perceived consideration. This sample was split into two new samples. The first sample (the low consideration group) contained all results gathered from the 75 respondents who worked for the 19 managers who scored lowest on average perceived consideration (M = 3.69, SD = .29). The second sample (the high consideration group) contained data from the remaining 75 respondents who worked for the 14 highest ranking managers (M = 4.18, SD = .25). All analyses were performed with 5,000 bootstrap resamples, the results of the effects are displayed in figure 3.In the low consideration group, perceived cohesion was found positively related to job satisfaction but not significant (B = .10, t(73) = 0.97, p = .337). The mediation effect was found not significant with a confidence interval of 90% (B = .04; CI = -.03 to .21). In the high consideration group, perceived consideration was positively associated with perceived cohesion but not significant (B = .77, t(73) = 1.97, p = .053). However, the mediation was found significant at a confidence interval of 95% (B = .18; CI = .01 to .47). .50** (.46**) .47* Perceived cohesion .10 Perceived consideration Job satisfaction .78** (.60**) .77 Perceived cohesion .23** Perceived consideration Job satisfaction
Low consideration group High consideration group
mediation .18* mediation .04
Figure 3. Coefficients high and low consideration groups Note. Low consideration group: N = 75. High consideration group: N = 75.
* p<.05. ** p<.01).
19 full sample. In this sample, the explained variance of the mediation model (R2=.16, p <.01) increased by ∆R2 =.08. In the low consideration group, adding cohesion as a mediator increased the explained variance by ∆R2 =.01 to a total R2=.14 but not significant. In the high consideration sample, the addition of cohesion could explain ∆R2=.12 (p <.01) more than the model without mediation (R2=.12, p <.01); the mediation model explained R2=.24 (p <.01) in variance. Results are displayed in table 2. Both B coefficients resulting from the bootstrap analyses and β coefficients from the normal hierarchical multi regression are provided to gain insights into the unstandardized effect and the contribution to explain variance.
20 Table 2
Mediation effects of perceived cohesion and differences in variation of the dependent variables between groups with low and high consideration leaders
Full sample Low consideration group High consideration group
Normal hierarchical regression models B SE β R2 B SE β R2 B SE β R2
1 Effect perceived consideration on perceived cohesion .46 .17 .22 .05 ** .47 .18 .29 .08 * .77 .39 .22 .05 e
2a Effect perceived consideration on job satisfaction .44 .12 .29 .08 *** .50 .15 .36 .13 ** .78 .25 .35 .12 **
2b Effect perceived cohesion on job satisfaction .24 .06 .33 .11 *** .18 .10 .21 .04 c .27 .07 .41 .17 ***
2c Effect perceived cohesion on job satisfaction a .20 .06 .28 .16 *** .10 .10 .11 .14 d .23 .07 .35 .24 ***
Effect perceived consideration on job satisfaction b .34 .06 .23 .16 ** .46 .16 .33 .14 ** .60 .24 .27 .24 **
∆R2 full mediation model as to the current (2a) model .08 ** .01 .12 **
Full sample Low consideration group High consideration group
Mediation paths (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) B SE B SE B SE
a Effect perceived consideration on perceived cohesion .46 .12 ** .47 .18 * .77 .39
b Effect perceived consideration on job satisfaction .20 .06 *** .10 .10 .23 .07 **
c' Direct effect after controlling for perceived cohesion .34 .12 ** .46 .16 ** .60 .24 **
c Total effect .44 .12 *** .50 .15 ** .78 .25 **
ab Mediation effect of perceived cohesion .09 .05 ** .04 .07 .18 .11 *
R2 full model .16 *** .14 ** .24 ***
F 13.91 5.87 11.35
Mediation effect (ab) / total effect (c) .20 .08 .23
21
5. DISCUSSION 5.1. Findings
The goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of consideration and its relationship with job satisfaction. In this research I returned to the drawing board and chased on an earlier claim stating that consideration behavior might also be aimed at groups, rather than at individuals only. Consequently, I argued that not only a direct relationship between one follower and one leader determined the outcome of follower’s job satisfaction but that this relationship was additionally – and therefore partially – mediated by cohesion.
According to expectation, I found a very significant effect of perceived consideration on job satisfaction that was in line with earlier findings in literature, in both size and significance. Also, the effect between perceived cohesion and job satisfaction was in size and significance similar to earlier findings.
According to expectation, I found a strong significant correlation between perceived consideration and perceived cohesion. To the best of my knowledge, cohesion has only been related to consideration as a moderator as described by Dobbins and Zaccarom (1986), and Schriesheim (1980). It is possible that due to the fact that this study measured the perceived cohesion rather than the actual cohesion, the respondents reported a higher cohesion because they felt more comfortable in the team, simply because they experienced a higher job satisfaction. In that case, the causality would be reversed. This is a not uncommon problem within leadership behavioral studies (Bass, 1981; Yukl, 2013). However, the scale used to measure perceived cohesion covers a wide range of aspects. In case of a reversed causality, job satisfaction has to affect several aspects of the scale at the same time rather than only creating a closer involvement with the team. Furthermore, the scale was intentionally chosen as it should also reflect cohesion of the group as it asks respondents to give a more objective account of the cohesiveness of the team. Job satisfaction would in a case of reversed causality also have to influence less perceptional aspect of cohesion. In line with Festinger (1950) I will not open the black box of cohesion but defend the notion of cohesion as a whole, namely, as a complete collection of different aspects that contribute to team members that desire to be a part of a team. In the case of consideration, cohesion can have a wide range of options to affect team members or the team as a whole. Limiting the effects of consideration to only specific aspects of cohesion, should also cause problems with its effectiveness as cohesion might work different for each team. Despite all complexities of cohesion, the results seem to be convincing.
22 2008) is that their bootstrap method only gives limited statistical output. There are no β coefficients given, only unstandardized coefficients, which makes it difficult to determine the variance explained by the model or by specific relationships. However, for this purpose the results of the normal hierarchical multiple regressions can still add value. The model with mediation explains double the amount of variance of what the traditional model can explain. Therefore it can be argued that the new mediation model significantly contributes to our understanding of how consideration’s effect on job satisfaction is mediated by cohesion.
In order to understand how cohesion mediates the relationship between consideration and job satisfaction, I proposed an additional characteristic of consideration that distances consideration from the follower and makes it less subjective. As the original model does not give a good explanation of the mediation by cohesion, the new model should improve the predictive capability. This is the case, especially if the leader has a high level of consideration in general, or perhaps it should be formulated as a higher objective level of consideration. After having reexamined the contribution of the mediation model and compared to the current not mediated model, it seemed that the mediation model explains more variance in the sample with high level consideration leaders in comparison to the sample with low level consideration leaders. This indicates that the mediation in particular helps to explain the effects of a more objective level of consideration. It’s important to acknowledge that the total explained variance in the high consideration group is significantly higher than in the low consideration group. Bass (1981) mentioned that followers sometimes have difficulties recognizing leader characteristics. It might be that with higher level consideration leaders, their characteristics are more obvious, explaining smaller deviations and better predictions. Looking at the weights of the mediation effects that resulted from the analyses based on the method of Preacher and Hayes (2004, 2008), paints a similar picture. This is no irrefutable evidence of a significant difference but it should at least make us question the validity of the existing model.
23 By using the LBDQ to define and determine what consideration is, we can clearly see consideration having invisible effects on its outcomes like job satisfaction. The unidimensional behavior that we recognize as the strong interpersonal connection might be a mere projection of a wider, by the LBDQ defined construct consideration. By looking at leaders from this perspective, the description ‘the consideration leader’ gains legitimacy. Instead of relation-oriented behavior, it is possible to discuss a relation-oriented leader. From this perspective, consideration can explain even more. Consideration might affect followers without any personal interconnection with team members. “He backs up the members in their actions” could for example keep members in the team and keep the team cohesive because the leader defends his or her follower to for example higher management. The item “he is willing to make changes” does linguistically not require any activities. However, being aware of leaders’ willingness to change can have a large impact on a group. This item reflects more ‘a relatively fixed behavioral tendency’, or trait.
By taking this perspective on consideration, a presumed moderator effect of cohesion (Dobbins & Zaccaro, 1986; Schriesheim, 1980) could be explained as results differ depending on the more general level of consideration of a leader. Whereas leaders considerations effect on job satisfaction is actually mediated by cohesion, based on only perceptions of consideration of single individuals might give this moderated perspective.
5.2. Practical implications
This research shows that consideration behavior is no isolated concept but that it influences the cohesion of a team. As cohesion can have a different appearance depending on the type of group, training and development programs for group leaders should also account for the specific group characteristics. Another implication from a change perspective is that interventions to affect operational and tactical manager in order to raise employees’ job satisfaction, should not solely depend on self and team assessments. Change managers should also look for consequences of leaders’ consideration that are not directly observed by members of the organization. The use of methods like 360 degrees feedback is already an improvement compared to the common but criticized single source measures. Using objective observations, as already suggested in the earliest behavioral research (Bass, 1981), should complement the assessments based on personal experiences. Furthermore, this research supports claims that scales to measure leader behavior should be improved. In order to succeed at formulating unambiguous scales, paying more attention to group level processes (Braun et al., 2013) and team characteristics (Dinh et al., 2014) is essential.
5.3. Limitations
24 with other constructs (Fleishman, 1995, 1998). Especially cohesion is a complex and composite construct that might have been oversimplified by this research. However, by not deviating far from earlier research and by using the same broad constructs and methods, the results of this study should not be less generalizable than similar studies in the field. Secondly, the fourth hypothesis cannot be proofed significantly as the conditions in the different samples probably also differ in other respect than in leaders’ consideration. Intuitively the predicted effect seems present although the sample size is modest. Larger sample sizes taken from different types of organizations should be taken in order to present findings that can be generalized. The value of this study should be that it questions the established theories and that it motivates to reexamine consideration. Thirdly, this study chooses the individual perspective to examine group level phenomena. Claiming that consideration is more leader inherent, demands a group level approach (Braun et al., 2013; Chun, Yammarino, Dionne, Sosik, & Moon, 2009). Also by only taking the perception of cohesion into account, we cannot clearly describe the effects of consideration. Furthermore, from this individual perspective, the assumptions of independence of observations might not be violated, there is more interaction between respondents that requires a model with a clear separation between individual and group level constructs. Fourthly, this study was conducted into a white collar environment. The pioneering research on consideration has been conducted in different types of organizations and more importantly, in a different era with a different culture regarding superior – subordinate relationships. Therefore, in order to compare this research to older research, differences in context have to be analyzed first.
5.4. Future recommendations
Currently, wide initiatives are taken to broaden our horizon (Dinh et al., 2014) of researching leadership behavior, or what I would refer to as researching the leadership domain. Large efforts are made to de-isolate leader behavior. By recognizing that leadership does not exist without group levels (Braun et al., 2013), a large gap for further exploration is created.
Perhaps traits and behavior are not as separated as they are used at this moment. However, our foundation of leadership theories was based on separate and isolated constructs with overlapping validities and questionable scales (Piccolo et al., 2012). This study ended with suggesting that the level of consideration behavior of a leader influences the effectiveness of a mediation model. New models can be created that do not owe their effectiveness to these contingencies. They should rather try to incorporate these factors. This research could for example be extended with consideration as a more objective group level construct that interacts with both group cohesion and the perception of cohesion.
25 also insights into the shared basis they have, untangling the current landscape of leadership behavioral theories.
5.5. Conclusion
26
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32
APPENDIX
Survey questions Perceived consideration
LBDQ items, The Ohio State Leadership Studies (Halpin, 1957)
Items
He does personal favors for group members.
He does little things to make it pleasant to be a member of the group. He is easy to understand.
He finds time to listen to group members. He keeps to himself. *
He looks out for the personal welfare of individual group members. He refuses to explain his actions. *
He acts without consulting the group. * He backs up the members in their actions. He treats all group members as his equals. He is willing to make changes.
He is friendly and approachable.
He makes group members feel at ease when talking with them. He puts suggestions made by the group into operation.
He gets group approval on important matters before going ahead.
Scale
5-points, never = 1, seldom = 2, occasionally = 3, often = 4, always = 5
Dutch translation
Mijn manager verleent teamleden persoonlijke gunsten.
Mijn manager doet kleine dingen waardoor het prettig wordt om bij het team te horen. Je kunt gemakkelijk begrijpen wat hij / zij bedoelt.
Mijn manager maakt tijd om naar teamleden te luisteren. Mijn manager is erg op zichzelf.
Mijn manager houdt rekening met het welzijn van individuele teamleden. Mijn manager weigert om eigen handelen uit te leggen.
Mijn manager handelt zonder met het team te overleggen. Mijn manager staat achter de teamleden.
Mijn manager behandelt alle teamleden als zijn / haar gelijke. Mijn manager is bereid om veranderingen door te voeren. Mijn manager is vriendelijk en benaderbaar.
Mijn manager zorgt er voor dat zijn / haar teamleden zich op hun gemak voelen als hij / zij met ze praat. Mijn manager voert voorstellen die het team maakt uit.
33 Perceived cohesion
Cohesion items from Podsakoff, Niehoff, MacKenzie and Williams (1993)
Items
There is a great deal of trust among members of my work group. Members of my group work together as a team.
The members of my work group are cooperative with each other. My work group members know that they can depend on each other. The members of my work group stand up for each other.
The members of my work group regard each other as friends
Scale
7-points, strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 7
Dutch translation
De mensen uit mijn groep werken samen als een team. De teamleden helpen elkaar.
De teamleden weten dat ze op elkaar kunnen rekenen. De teamleden komen voor elkaar op.
De teamleden beschouwen elkaar als vrienden.
Job satisfaction
Items from Agho, Price and Mueller (1992)
Items
I find real enjoyment in my job. I am seldom bored with my job.
I would not consider taking another kind of job. I feel fairly well satisfied with my job.
Scale
5-points, strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5
Dutch translation
