WHAT DRIVES LEADERS’ REGULATORY FOCUS?
Employee voice and chronic regulatory focus as antecedents of leader
regulatory focus.
Master Thesis
MSc Human Resource Management
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business July 2nd, 2019 Elisa Recker Student number: s3692086 Suikerlaan 1/45, 9743 DA Groningen +43 (0) 6 99 18 11 86 46 e.recker@student.rug.nl Supervisor: Dr. Tim Vriend
ABSTRACT
Employee voice has been identified as a major contributor to organizational performance, thus its antecedents have been widely studied. However, research in the area of consequences of employee voice on the chronic regulatory-leader regulatory focus relationship remain scarce. How leaders react to employee voice is central to understand its consequences for organizations. Therefore the present research examines the influence of employee voice on leader regulatory focus. It is hypothesized that the positive relationship between chronic promotion regulatory focus and promotion leader regulatory focus are strengthened by promotive employee voice. Moreover, it is hypothesized that the positive relationship between chronic prevention regulatory focus and prevention leader regulatory focus are strengthened by prohibitive employee voice. In order to test these hypotheses, an experiment at the lab of the faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen has been performed. However, outcomes of analyses that have been performed only partially confirm the hypotheses.
Keywords
1. INTRODUCTION
Employee voice, which is defined as the behaviour employee engage in to express their ideas and concerns about work-related issues, is of great value in organizations (Janssen & Gao, 2015). It is essential because it plays an important role in enabling to detect problems at an early stage, thus leading to opportunities for improvement (Detert & Burris, 2007). It is suggested that due to their position of power, leaders can encourage or discourage employees from expressing their ideas (Chamberlin, Newton, & Lepine, 2017; Janssen & Gao, 2015). As voice plays an essential role for organizations, leaders are implored to create environments in which speaking up is routine (Detert, Burris, Harrison, & Martin, 2013). Due to its
importance, scholars have much focused on the antecedents triggering employee voice (Janssen & Gao, 2015). Despite that previous work has provided valuable insights to antecedents of employee voice and what (de)motivates employees to speak up, questions relating to the effect of voice on leaders remain scarce (Burris, 2012). Thus, the relationship between employee voice and its consequences on leaders is important and needs to be studied.
Literature distinguishes two types of voice: promotive and prohibitive. Promotive voice is the emphasis on opportunities for improvement of organizational functioning (Chamberlin, et al., 2017). Prohibitive voice, on the other hand, emphasizes potential threat, problems that need to be solved to avoid harmful outcomes and points out dysfunctions at work
However, all individuals do not react and interpret information in the same way.
Regulatory focus theory, which is a concept that describes the way people interpret their goals and how they achieve those, is essential to understand the complexity of an individual’s behaviour and chosen strategies for goal achievement (Higgins, 1997). It involves two self-regulation tactics: promotion and prevention focus (Higgins, 1997). The former refers to tactics individuals take in order to approach their “ideal” end-state, which is reflected in the individual’s choice of eager strategies. The latter refers to tactics individuals take in order to approach their “ought” self, which is reflected in the individual’s choice of vigilant strategies to avoid pain (Johnson, Smith, Wallace, & Baron, 2015). In light of the above, since
individuals interpret information differently based on their regulatory focus, it is suggested that promotion oriented individuals are likely to react more to promotive voice because both concepts aim at achieving similar outcomes. Similarly, individuals that are prevention focused are likely to react more to prohibitive voice because of the similar desire to avoid mismatches.
Recent regulatory focus research has demonstrated that how a leader acts, which strategy he/she takes, depend on the leader’s general state of mind, thus leaders also adopt a regulatory focus in their leadership behaviour (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007; Sue-Chan, Wood, & Latham, 2012; Wu, McMullen, Neubert, & Yi, 2008). This concept is termed leader regulatory focus (Said, 2016). Leaders exhibit a promotion or a prevention focus (Sue-Chan et al., 2012; Wu et al., 2008). It is suggested that depending on whether an employee voices an idea in a
promotive or prohibitive way, its relation with the leader’s regulatory focus could impact the leader regulatory focus and thus encourage or discourage the leadership behaviour.
Sassenberg, Van Yperen, & Wisse (2014) that shed light on antecedents of leadership. Moreover, this research corroborates with the research of Johnson et al., (2015) by analysing whether and when chronic promotion/prevention focus is related promotion/prevention oriented strategies. Additionally, this research elaborates on research of Burris (2012) by analysing whether and when different types of voice impact leaders. Finally, this research contributes practically as it will give new insights for organizations in how leaders differ in their values and motives, how this impacts the strategies they take and how external factors may influence them. These new insights can help companies to understand which factors they have to take into account when hiring managers.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Regulatory focus theory
Higgins’ (1997) regulatory focus theory explains how people regulate their behaviour during goal pursuit. It extends the basic hedonic principle that people are motivated to approach pleasure and avoid pain. Regulatory focus suggest that there are important
differences in the process through which people approach pleasure and avoid pain (Higgins, 1997). The theory explains different ways of approaching the desired end-state: the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain (Higgins, 1997). Higgins’ theory relies on those end states to explain how and why people go toward those goals. An individual’s regulatory focus is concentrated on the desired end-states (avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure) and the approach used by the individual to reach the desired end-state. Different factors can motivate people to reach a goal, and to achieve this goal we self-regulate our methods. (Higgins, 1997). Johnson and colleagues (2015) mention that regulatory focus is generally considered a
promotion and prevention regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997). However, individuals can have different combinations of high or low levels of promotion and prevention foci. For example, some people may experience a high level of promotion and prevention foci because they had positive experiences with both motivational sets in the past (Kammerlander, Burger, Fust, & Fueglistaller, 2014). Similarly, some people may not exhibit any particular foci (Lanaj, Chang, & Johnson 2012).
Higgins & Brockner (2001) describe promotion orientation as individuals that
strategically try to match their behaviour to their ideal goal or standard (Higgins & Brockner, 2001). Promotion orientation is reflected in individuals that emphasize growth and
development. They are motivated by their ideal selves and the positive outcomes of their actions. The presence and absence of positive outcomes are salient for promotion oriented individuals. They center their behaviour on the hopes and aspirations about the positive outcomes which results in the motivation for accomplishments of maximal goals (Higgins & Brockner, 2001). Promotion focused people have a higher need for nurturance. As a result, they try to achieve personal growth and advancement as a result of being mainly concerned with approaching pleasure and gaining accomplishments (Higgins, 1997). For this reason, they will mainly look for ways in which the opportunity for a reward is the highest and the absence of a reward will be low (Higgins, 1997; Manczak, Zapata-Gietl, & McAdams, 2014). Research showed that when promotion focused individuals are presented with opportunities, they are likely to recognize them early on (Tumasjan & Braun, 2012). Promotion focused individuals have a tendency to choose eager strategies to achieve their goal (Molden & Higgins, 2008).
Higgins & Brockner (2001) describe prevention orientation as individuals that
attain goals that are associated with their ought-self (Higgins & Brockner, 2001). They strive to avoid pain and mismatch to duties and obligations (Higgins, 1997; Crowe & Higgins, 1997). The absence and presence of negative outcomes are salient for prevention oriented individuals (Higgins & Brockner, 2001). Thus, they are inclined to reach a goal because they are worried about outcomes that may have negative consequences (Johnson et al., 2015). By bringing themselves into alignment with the ought self, those individuals experience the pleasure of a nonloss (Higgins & Brockner, 2001). Vigilance drives prevention focused people, which results in prevention of losses and thereby missed opportunities for rewards (Higgins & Brockner, 2001).
2.2 The multilevel approach to regulatory focus
Regulatory focus operates at different levels (Johnson et al., 2015). The different levels of regulatory focus enable to understand which strategies individuals take depending on their overall goals. Thus, in order to predict which strategies and tactics an individual is likely to take, it is important to define which overall goals the individual has at the system level
(Johnson et al., 2015). In other words, the multilevel conceptualization of regulatory focus is a model designed to enable a better understanding of the complexity of an individual’s
behaviours and how an individual goes toward goal achievement. The multilevel approach to regulatory focus operates at three levels: the system level, the strategic level and the tactical level.
promotion oriented anticipates the pleasure of achieving career success and the pain of not achieving career success as a result of need for growth and advancement, whereas a
prevention focused individual will want to achieve career success because of the fear of lack of financial stability, for example (Johnson et al., 2015). Regulatory focus at the strategic level refers to the actual means and strategies the individual uses to achieve his/her goals (Johnson et al., 2015). The strategic inclination toward goals differ between promotion oriented individuals and prevention oriented individuals (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). A promotion oriented individual would use eager strategies that would enable him/her to accomplish “hits” and avoid errors of omission (i.e. a loss of accomplishment) (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). A prevention oriented individual would use vigilant strategies that are associated with prevention orientation (Johnson et al., 2015). Thus, different approach and avoidance strategies can be used for the same end goal (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). The tactical level refers to means that are situationally specific (Johnson et al., 2015). It is the
“instantiation of strategy in a given context” (Scholer & Higgins, 2008: 490).
An individual’s system level flows directly into the strategic level. What differentiates the tactical level from the strategic level is that the tactical level is the use of self-regulatory tactics in specific situation during goal striving (Johnson et al., 2015).
2.3 Conceptualization of chronic regulatory focus at the system level
Promotion and prevention orientation can be temporarily enhanced or reduced, but these are mainly ongoing patterns (Lockwood & Kunda, 2002). All people possess promotion and prevention foci, but different socialization experiences make one focus the predominant one in self-regulation (Higgins et al., 1994). Chronic regulatory focus is a self-regulatory pattern that has its origins in the development of an individual (Higgins & Silberman, 1998; Higgins et al., 1994) and it tends to stay the same throughout a person’s life (Stam, Van Knippenberg, & Wisse, 2010). Chronic regulatory focus is defined as the deeply rooted way of thinking and taking decision (da Costa, de Farias, & de Angelo, 2018; Kammerlander et al., 2014).
Summarized, chronic regulatory focus describes an individual’s enduring and intrinsic overall life orientation that is reflected in his/her behavioural pattern (Tuncdogan, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2015). It is thus a concept that corresponds to an individual’s system level (Johnson et al., 2015).
Higgins (1997) conceptualizes chronic promotion focus and chronic prevention focus by explaining which strategy an individual would opt resulting from his or her predominant regulatory orientation. According to his study, a strategy of approaching matches is more likely to be chosen by a chronically promotion focused person (Higgins, 1997). Individuals that are chronically promotion oriented are motivated by the need for growth and
advancement by concentrating on potential gains and by striving to maximize their
preferences. Even tough regulatory focus can be induced situationally, individuals tend to show predominance for one foci (Higgins, 1997).
According to the theory above, the strategic level depends on the individual’s system level, hence on chronic regulatory focus. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, leaders play a critical role in organization due to their prominent position and influence on followers (Johnson, King, Lin, Scott, Walker, & Wang, 2017). Understanding which strategies the leaders’ strategic level entails is important. First leader regulatory focus as a component of the strategic level will be defined, and then the influence of chronic regulatory focus on leader regulatory focus will be explained.
2.4 Conceptualization of leader regulatory focus at the strategic level
As mentioned above, the strategic level refers to how individuals achieve what they are aiming for, which means, methods and strategies they use to achieve those goals (Johnson et al., 2015). Similarly, how leaders achieve their goals, which means and methods they use for goal striving is suggested to correspond to the strategic level. A leaders’ chosen strategy for goal achievement and how to lead followers is termed leader regulatory focus (Said, 2016). Literature distinguishes two types of leader regulatory focus, namely leader promotion focus and leader prevention focus (Johnson et al., 2017).
to stimulate new ways of working (Hamstra et al., 2014) and to take risks and values change (Johnson et al., 2017).
There are several factors that drives promotion orientation. For example, Lanaj, Chang, & Johnson (2012) posit that several personality traits work as antecedents to promotion focus. It is suggested that the antecedents of promotion regulatory focus apply to promotion leader regulatory focus as well. According to the authors, personality traits like extraversion, positive affectivity, behavioural approach system, learning goal orientation, performance-approach goal orientation, conscientiousness, openness to experience, esteem and self-efficacy are positively related to promotion focus (Lanaj et al., 2012). Additionally, optimism is also positively related to promotion focus (Gorman et al., 2012).
A prevention focused leader will aim only for what is necessary to achieve and avoid anything that could lead to potential losses. Leaders who are prevention focused strive for minimal goals (Kammerlander et al., 2015), prefer to use vigilant and diligent strategies and behaviours to avoid a mismatch to desired end-states (Said, 2016; Johnson et al., 2017) and they aim at maintaining stability and the fulfillment of oughts (Hamstra et al., 2014; Said, 2016).
Lanaj and colleagues (2012) argue that several personality traits work as antecedent to regulatory focus. Those are, among others, anxiety, neuroticism, negative affectivity,
behavioural inhibition system, performance-avoidance goal orientation and conscientiousness (Lanaj et al., 2012; Gorman et al., 2012). According to those findings, it is argued that those personality traits leading to prevention focus also work as antecedent to leader prevention focus.
2.5 Hypotheses
Literature showed that the system level is defined as an individual’s overall life goals, how she or he perceives life (Higgins, 1997). Moreover, literature showed that chronic regulatory focus corresponds to an individual’s system level (Johnson et al., 2015). As mentioned earlier, the strategic level refers to which methods and strategies individuals use to achieve those goals (Johnson et al., 2015). Leader regulatory focus refers to the way leaders work toward goals and the strategies they take (Said, 2016), which is suggested to correspond to the leader’s strategic level. Below, the expected influence of the leader’s system level on his/her strategic level.
The chronic regulatory focus of a leader impacts the strategies the leader takes (Johnson et al., 2015). A leader that is chronically promotion oriented will want to achieve the maximal goal because of the anticipation of pleasure and the pain of not achieving it. This, according to Johnson and colleagues (2015), leads the leader to choose strategies that are of a promotion oriented nature because the promotion focus leads the leader to generally prefer eager strategies. Thus, a chronically promotion oriented leader is more likely to choose eager strategies which corresponds to promotion leader regulatory focus (Johnson et al., 2015). In other words, a leader’s chronic regulatory focus (system level) trickles down to his or her leader regulatory focus (strategic level). Moreover, research argues that two decision biases exist at the tactical level: risky bias and conservative bias (Johnson et al., 2015). A promotion focused individual would be more likely to take risks in a situation that offers the possibility to do so, hence a risky bias (Higgins, 1997). For the above mentioned reason, I propose the following:
Hypothesis 1: Leader chronic promotion focus is positively related to leader promotion regulatory focus.
2015). This leads the leader to choose strategies that are of a prevention oriented nature. Thus, a chronically prevention oriented leader is more likely to choose strategies that he or she is certain will work and will use only diligent strategies (Johnson et al., 2015). In other words, the leader’s chronic prevention focus (the system level) trickles down to the leader’s regulatory focus (the strategic level). At the tactical level, a chronically prevention oriented leader is likely to opt a conservative bias, hence he or she would be more likely to take the “safe road” and minimize the potential risks (Higgins, 1997). For the above mentioned reasons, I propose the following:
Hypothesis 2: Leader chronic prevention focus is positively related to leader prevention regulatory focus.
2.6 The trait activation theory
Guterman (2000) further argue that observing trait variance requires a weak to moderate trait-relevant situational information. Moreover, the strength of the situation also plays a role in the activation of the trait (Haaland & Christiansen, 2002). Lievens and colleagues (2006)
illustrate the trait-activation theory by giving the example that it would not be productive to assess an individual’s trait of aggression during a religious service because this situation would provide no or very little cue to elicit an aggressive behaviour. Similarly, Haaland & Christiansen (2002) give the example of an individual’s social skills. Those could be hardly tested when the individual is alone in a room entering data. However, the situation would prove to be relevant for the activation of the sociability trait if the individual were to deal with customers. Summarized, the trait activation theory increases our understanding of how traits relate to patterns of behaviour. Based on this theory, it could be argued that a situation that presents cues that are in line with the promotion/prevention chronic orientation of a leader could trigger a behaviour. In light of this theory, it could be explained why a leader reacts in a particular way as response to a situational cue. An employee voicing something to his/her leader could represent such a cue. This concept is explained below. Subsequently, the moderating effect of employee voice will be analysed.
2.7 Employee voice
According to the theory above, an individual can be influenced by situational cues that lead him or her to behave in a particular way. One of those situational cues could be an employee voicing a concern or a suggestion. The concept of employees raising ideas or suggestions is termed employee voice (Chamberlin et al., 2017).
Employee voice is described as a behaviour that employee engage in to express their ideas and concerns that should lead to better output (Lin & Johnson, 2015). It is a prosocial
describe employee voice as “the expression of challenging but constructive concerns,
opinions, or suggestions about work-related issues” (Janssen & Gao, 2015: 1854). Voice has a positive impact on organizational functioning because it identifies new and better ways of doing things and directs management’s attention to particular issues (Podakoff & Maynes, 2014). Organizations rely on employee voice to enhance organizational processes and effectiveness, hence employee voice are important for organizations (Lin & Johnson, 2015).
There are important consequences of voicing ideas or suggestions. Literature has argued that, on the one side, speaking up could lead to a negative response toward the voicing employee. Indeed, peers may feel threatened by someone who voices something as it could increase the workload and change current processes (McCLean, Martin, Emich, & Woodruff, 2018). Leaders may perceive voice as unwanted and unhelpful because they believe that when an employee voices something, it is more about self promotion than raising an issue for the collective interest and that such input is neither new or useful (Detert et al., 2013). Moreover, employees who speak up are often perceived as challenging the authority and complaining (Detert et al., 2013). Hence, employee voice is not always welcome to leaders. However, literature also states that employee voice has positive outcomes on peers and leaders.
Voicing an idea has the potential to come across positively to the leader as the employee went beyond his/her duties for the sake of the organization (Detert et al., 2013). However, the consequence of voice on peers and leaders depend on its nature. Literature distinguishes between prohibitive voice and promotive voice of employees. Below, an explanation of the differences between those two concepts are given.
Promotive voice describes the expression of new ideas that have the goal of improving the current and future processes (Kakkar, Srivastava, Tangirala, & Kamdar, 2016). Furthermore, Lin & Johnson (2015) define promotive voice as the expressions of concerns to improve the status quo of the firm. Promotive voices are oriented towards the future and look at the potentially positive outcome of a new idea (Chamberlin et al., 2017). The ultimate goal behind a promotive voice is to reach the ideal goal, which could make the organization more efficient, for example (Lin & Johnson, 2015).
problem the organization is facing are likely to be perceived more positively by others than employee who point out problems without providing a solution. Moreover, those employees are likely to be attributed as having prosocial motives and thus be perceived more positively than other employees than only point out problems (Podsakoff, Podsakoff, Whiting, & Maynes, 2012). However, as promotive can also be perceived as challenging because it aims at improving the status quo (Liang et al., 2012), Burris (2012) argues that ideas and
suggestion that challenge current processes may also be perceived negatively by leaders. Indeed, because a promotive voice can, implicitly or explicitly criticize a leader or the way things are done under the leader’s instruction (Burris, 2012), may lead to a negative
perception of the employee by the leader.
Prohibitive voice is “a mean of generating awareness of specific dissatisfying aspects of work, calling attention to problematic practices misaligned with the organization’s values, or actively objecting to the status quo based on a violation of standards of justice, honesty or economy” (Chamberlin et al., 2017: 19). It describes an employees’ expression of concerns about current work practices processes or employee behaviour that are harmful for the organization (Liang et al., 2012). It raises awareness on practices and is raised in order to move the company away from a feared state. The point of raising a prohibitive voice is the attempt to stop current practices to avoid a feared state (Chamberlin et al., 2017).
it may trigger negative affect thus leading to suspicion toward the voiced idea (McCLean et al., 2018),.
In line with the earlier theory of trait activation, it could be stated that employee voice works as an activation of a leader’s behaviour. Below, the hypotheses argumentation is given.
2.8 Hypotheses
As hypothesized before, chronic promotion focus is positively related to promotion leader regulatory focus and chronic prevention focus is positively related to prevention leader regulatory focus. According to Lievens and colleagues (2006), the presence of situational relevant cue may activate an individual’s behaviour. It is suggested that a leader’s behaviour may be activated in certain situations.
explains a behaviour on the basis of responses to trait-relevant cues found in a situation (Lievens et al., 2006). Thus, a promotion oriented leader will be likely to pay attention to the promotive idea because it represents a situational relevant cue which in turn triggers the leader’s behaviour to be promotion oriented..
Therefore, it is suggested that the alignment of promotive voice and chronic promotion focus represents a situational-relevant cue that activates the leader’s behaviour to be promotion focused. For the above mentioned reasons, I propose the following:
Hypothesis 3: The positive relationship between leader chronic promotion focus and promotion focused leadership will be stronger when employee promotive voice is high, rather than low
activation theory explains a behaviour on the basis of responses to trait-relevant cues found in a situation (Lievens et al., 2006). Thus, a prevention oriented leader will be likely to pay attention to the prohibitive idea because it represents a situational relevant cue which in turn triggers the leader’s behaviour to be prevention oriented.
Therefore, it is suggested that the alignment of prohibitive voice and chronic prevention focus represents a situational-relevant cue that activates the leader’s behaviour to be
prevention focused. For the above mentioned reasons, I propose the following:
Hypothesis 4: The positive relationship between leader chronic prevention focus and prevention focused leadership will be stronger when employee prohibitive voice is high, rather than low.
Below, the conceptual model of this study is presented (figure 1).
Figure 1: conceptual model of the study
3. METHODS 3.1 Participants and design
either a financial compensation or study points for participation. The total sample of the experiment consisted of 91participants divided into a prohibitive voice group (46 participants, 50.5%) and a promotive voice group (45 participants, 49.5%). Amongst the participants were 31 males (34.1%) and 60 females (65.9%). The average age was 23.2 years (SD=3.38).
In the experiment, I manipulated the independent variable “employee voice”. To test whether leaders differ in their reaction to employee voice, participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions where the employee voice was given.
3.2 Procedure
Participants participated in a thirty-minute online computer experiment in the FEB research lab. After receiving the information about the study and giving consent to the participation, participants had to answer a personality questionnaire. Subsequently, participants participated in a fictive scenario in which they were working as the head of Human Resources for the cyber security consultancy ‘CyberSec Owl Consulting’. Participants received a description of the fictitious company including which challenges the company’s is currently facing. To check whether participants had paid attention, the participants answered questions in which they had to recall several crucial aspects of the previously presented information. Following these checks, the ‘leaders’ had to answer several emails from
subordinates. The first five emails contained mundane information a leader might have to deal with on a daily basis such a requests for a day off, or re-scheduling a meeting with clients, to complex challenges that required a decision. The participants had to answer all e-mails
voicing an idea (Appendix A). Participants were randomly assigned to either an email containing a promotive or a prohibitive employee voice. In each email, Richard raised the same idea, but formulated in a different way. The experiment finished with questions for the manipulation check, questions about the demographics of the participants and an explanation of the experiment.
3.3 Measurement
All variables were measured using a seven-point likert scale ranging from one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly disagree).
Chronic regulatory focus. The questionnaire was based on Lockwood, Jordan, & Kunda’s (2002) work on regulatory focus. The purpose of this questionnaire was to find out what kind of chronic regulatory focus the participants showed (chronic promotion focus or chronic prevention focus). To check what kind of chronic regulatory focus the participants had, they had to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree to chronic promotion oriented regulatory focus or chronic prevention oriented regulatory focus statements. Examples are “I frequently imagine how I will achieve my hopes and aspiration”, or “In general, I am focused on preventing negative events in my life”. Reliability analysis showed an internal consistency of a= .89 for the chronic promotion focus scale and an internal consistency of a= .89 for the chronic prevention focus scale.
Leader regulatory focus. The leader regulatory focus scale was based on Neubert, Kacmar, Carlson, Chonko, & Roberts’ (2008) work on regulatory focus. An example item was “I would instruct Richard to take chances at work to maximize his goals for
Promotive and prohibitive voice. A promotive and prohibitive voice scale was used as a check of manipulation of the independent variable. The scale was based on Liang, Farh, & Farh’s (2012) work on promotive and prohibitive voice. An example item was “Proactively develops and makes suggestions for issues that may influence the unit”, or “Advises his colleagues against undesirable behaviours that would hamper job performance” as indication of how the participant would characterize Richard’s suggestion. Reliability analysis for the manipulation check for the promotive voice showed an internal consistency of a= .90. Reliability analysis for the manipulation check for the prohibitive voice showed an internal consistency of a= .80.
Control variables. There is a possibility that demographic characteristics of the participants would influence and thereby confuse the relations examined in this study. In order to reduce the likelihood, the following characteristics have been measured and controlled for: gender, age and chronic prevention/promotion focus.
Gender. As gender has an effect on leadership styles (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, & Engen, 2003), I controlled for gender.
Age. I addition, demographic information about age was also controlled for. According to Kotur & Anbazhagan (2014) age has an impact on leadership styles.
Chronic promotion & prevention regulatory focus. As those variables may have an influence on the relations examined, I controlled for chronic promotion and prevention regulatory focus.
3.4 Data analysis
Data analyses were performed using SPSS statistics 24. First, I first performed a One-Way ANOVA that enabled me to see whether my manipulations worked. The one-way ANOVA was used to determine whether there are any statistically significant differences between the means of the independent variables. Moreover, to test my main effects
of employee voice on the relationship between chronic regulatory focus and leader regulatory focus, I performed a moderation analysis using PROCESS macro model number one with 5000 bootstrap samples (Hayes, 2013) in SPSS.
4. RESULTS 4.1 Preliminary analysis
TABLE 1
Descriptive statistics and correlations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. Promotion regulatory focus 4.95 .85 (.77) 2. Prevention regulatory focus 4.59 1.07 .42** (.80) 3. Promotive voice 5.50 .97 .21* .19 (.90) 4. Prohibitive voice 4.67 1.05 .10 .26* .25* (.80) 5. Chronic promotion focus 5.47 .81 .20 .18 .31** .08 (.89) 6. Chronic prevention focus 4.32 1.17 .27** .42** .02 .11 -.06 (.89) 7. Gender 1.66 .48 -.14 -.17 -.01 -.13 .11 .09 8. Age 23.20 3.39 -.09 -.18 .06 -.03 -.13 -.04 -.04
Notes: N = 91, * p < .05, ** p < .01; M = Mean; SD = Standard deviation.
The means, standard deviations, intercorrelations and Cronbach’s Alphas are shown in Table 1. When looking at the variables of this study, it becomes clear that important
(r = .42, p < .01). Since literature states that there is a positive relationship between chronic promotion/prevention focus and promotion/prevention oriented strategies (Johnson et al., 2015), it is rather surprising that there is a positive correlation between chronic prevention focus and promotion leader regulatory focus (r = 27, p < .01).
Table 1 also presents the relationship between the control variables and the dependent variables: leader promotion focus and leader prevention focus. Gender (r = -.14, p > .05) and age (r = -.09, p > .05) are not at all associated with promotion regulatory focus. Similarly, gender (r = -.17, p > .05) and age (r = -.18, p > .05) are not associated with prevention regulatory focus. The other correlations are not significant and are therefore less relevant to mention.
4.2 Manipulation check
TABLE 2
One-Way ANOVA of promotive and prohibitive voice
Source ss df MS F p
Promotive
voice Between groups .83 1 .83 .88 .35
Within groups 84.08 89 .95 Total 84.91 90 Prohibitive voice Between groups .96 1 .96 .86 .36 Within groups 99.40 89 .1.11 Total 84.91 90
Note: ss = Sum of Squares; MS = Mean Square
To test whether my manipulation worked, namely whether the type of employee voice assigned had any effect, I conducted a one-way ANOVA.
results did not show a significant main effect for promotive voice (F (1, 89) = .88, p = .35). There was no statistically significant difference between the groups as determined by the one-way ANOVA analysis. Thus, the manipulation proved not to be successful.
4.3 Hypotheses testing
First, to test the first and second hypotheses, a linear regression was conducted. The results for the main effect of chronic promotion and prevention focus on leader promotion and prevention focus are shown in Table 3 and 4. Moreover, the results of the regression analysis of chronic promotion focus on leader promotion regulatory focus with promotive employee voice as the moderator are shown in Table 5. Furthermore, the results of the regression analysis of chronic prevention focus on leader prevention regulatory focus with prohibitive employee voice as moderator are shown in Table 6.
The first hypothesis predicted that leader chronic promotion focus is positively related to leader promotion regulatory focus. The results from the linear regression analysis showed in Table 3 provide support for hypothesis one (B = .24, SE = .11, t = 2.30, p < .05).
TABLE 3 Hypothesis testing Dependent variable: promotion leader regulatory focus
Predictor B SE t Control variables Age -.01 .02 -.56 Gender -.34 .18 -1.92 Chronic prevention focus .22** .07 3.03 Study variables Constant 3.57** .98 3.66 Chronic promotion focus .24* .11 2.30 R2 .16
Notes: N = 91; B = unstandardized regression coefficient; SE = Standard error; * p < .05. ; ** p < .01
TABLE 4 Hypothesis testing Dependent variable: prevention leader regulatory focus
Predictor B SE t Control variables Age -.05 .02 -1.63 Gender -.54* .20 -2.63 Chronic promotion focus .28* .12 2.33 Study variables Constant 3.27** 1.11 2.93 Chronic prevention focus .41** .08 4.94 R2 .30
TABLE 5 Hypothesis testing Dependent variable: promotion leader regulatory focus
Predictor B SE t Control variables Age -.00 .02 -.27 Gender -.37 .18 -2.05 Chronic prevention focus .21** .07 2.82 Study variables Constant 3.93** 1.13 3.49
Chronic promotion focus .14 .16 .86
Comparison condition 1 (promotive voice) with condition 2 (prohibitive voice) -.33 1.20 -.27 Interaction promotive voice on relationship between chronic promotion focus and promotion leader regulatory focus
.11 .22 .51
R2 .19
R2 Change interaction .00
Notes: N = 91; B = unstandardized regression coefficient; SE = Standard error; * p < .05. ; ** p < .01
TABLE 6 Hypothesis testing Dependent variable: prevention leader regulatory focus
Predictor B SE t Control variables Age -.04 .03 -1.44 Gender -.50* .21 -2.24 Chronic promotion focus .25* .13 1.99 Study variables Constant 2.28* 1.23 2.10 Chronic prevention focus .54** .13 4.15 Comparison condition 1 (promotive voice) with condition 2 (prohibitive voice) 1.27 .76 1.67 Interaction prohibitive voice on relationship between chronic prevention focus and prevention leader regulatory focus
-.24 .17 -1.40
R2 .32
R2 Change interaction .01
Notes: N = 91; B = unstandardized regression coefficient; SE = Standard error; * p < .05. ; ** p < .01
The fourth hypothesis states that the positive relationship between leader chronic prevention focus and prevention focused leadership will be stronger when employee
prohibitive voice is high, rather than low. Table 6 shows that it does not support hypothesis four. Table 6 shows that the interaction of prohibitive voice on the relationship between chronic prevention focus and leader prevention regulatory focus is not significant (B = -.24,
5. DISCUSSION
This study aimed to extend the theory regarding the effects of employee voice on leader regulatory focus by examining the moderating effect of employee voice on the relation between chronic regulatory focus and leader regulatory focus. In order to do so, first an empirical differentiation between two types of regulatory foci has been made: promotion regulatory focus and prevention regulatory focus. Besides that, a distinction has been made between two types of employee voice: promotive voice and prohibitive voice.
In general, the results only partially support the hypotheses mentioned earlier. Based on the existing literature of Johnson and colleagues (2015), it was hypothesized that leaders with a chronic promotion focus are likely to choose strategies that help them reach their ideal goal. Moreover, based on the literature of Johnson and colleagues (2015), it was hypothesized that leaders with a chronic prevention focus are likely to choose strategies that help them achieve nonlosses. One of my main findings is that I found support for hypothesis one and two: chronic promotion focus is positively related to promotion leader regulatory focus, and, chronic prevention focus is positively related to prevention leader regulatory focus. Hence, how a leader acts and which strategies he/she chooses is explained by his or her chronic prevention regulatory focus.
Based on the trait activation theory (Lievens et al., 2006), it was expected that in the case of a positive relationship between a leaders’ chronic promotion orientation and leader
than low. Furthermore, based on the same theory, it was expected that in the case of a positive relationship between a leaders’ chronic prevention orientation and leader prevention
orientation, an employee voicing something in a prohibitive way work as a behavioral trigger for a leader, as the suggestion from the employee is in line with his/her chronic prevention orientation and he/she is then likely to act positively upon the suggested idea as it presents a relevant situational cue. I also did not find support for hypothesis four: the positive
relationship between leader chronic prevention focus and prevention focused leadership will be stronger when employee prohibitive voice is high, rather than low.
5.1 Theoretical implications
Although I did not find support for all my hypotheses, my findings make several important research contributions. First of all, research stressed the important role of leaders in organizations as they show to be essential motivators for subordinates (Pieterse, Van
colleagues’ (2015) findings apply for leaders as well. Hence, the present finding corroborate with Johnson’s and colleagues’ (2015) findings.
Hypothesis three predicts that the positive relationship between leader chronic promotion focus and promotion focused leadership will be stronger when employee
promotive voice is high, rather than low. Moreover, hypothesis four predicts that the positive relationship between leader chronic prevention focus and prevention focused leadership will be stronger when employee prohibitive voice is high, rather than low. Unfortunately, the results do not confirm both hypotheses. There are two possible explanations for this. First, the manipulation showed to be not significant. Hence, participants did not recognize which kind of employee voice they were faced to and subsequently were not able to act upon it, even if their chronic regulatory focus was in line with the voided idea. Moreover, participants were in a fictive leadership position working for a fictive organization. Therefore, the participants did not really have to implement the voiced idea and they did not feel as responsible for the outcomes of the implementation of the idea and they thus might have felt less responsible for the consequences. Taken together, in order for a manipulation of employee voice to work in an experimental design, the scenarios the participants are presented with must be more concise and clear. Hence, the message must be to the point.
5.2 Practical implications
Practically, this study gives companies essential understandings of the concepts of chronic regulatory focus and leader regulatory focus. This is essential for organizations to understand, as leadership effectiveness is critically contingent upon a leader’s ability to motivate his or her subordinates toward a collective goal (Kark &Van Dijk, 2007). Hence, leaders play a critical role in organizations as subordinates look up to them and they
communicate to followers on how to behave (Neubert, Carlson, Kacmar, & Chonko, 2008). Thus, it is highly important for organizations to understand how leaders function and which strategies they are likely to take in the organization and subsequently influence their
followers. Understanding how leaders are chronically oriented is essential for organizations to be able to attract the right managers that fit in the organizational culture. Finding the right manager with the right mindset has important consequences as the subsequent strategies he or she will take will depend on his/her mindset. As a result, managers that show to be
chronically prevention oriented will, according to this study, opt for strategies that are of a prevention oriented nature thus avoid negative outcomes. That is, if companies are looking for a leader that motivates his or her follower to value safety, follow rules and approach tasks with vigilance, they might prefer to look for an applicant who is chronically prevention focused as this has shown to be positively related to prevention leader regulatory focus. Similarly, if companies are looking for a leader that is able to motivate his/her followers to go the extra mile and inspire followers, the company would be well advised to look for an
applicant that is chronically promotion oriented as this has shown to be positively related to promotion leader regulatory focus.
consider chronic regulatory focus and leader regulatory focus as important indicators.
However, it is possible that employee voice does have a moderating effect in the relationship between chronic regulatory focus and leader regulatory focus.
5.3 Limitations
Despite the theoretical and practical contributions of this research, there are also limitations. To overcome these limitations, I also give suggestions for future research.
First of all, this study was conducted at the lab of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Groningen. Although an atmosphere as real as possible was created, the hypotheses were tested in a fictive experiment, which participants may have perceived as artificial. Thereby, most participants were students from the university without any real leadership experience or knowledge. The participants were no real leaders working for a real organizations that run real risks and consequences. As such, the consequences of choosing a riskier option had no consequence in the set-up of the experiment, hence the fictive leaders might have responded differently than they would normally do if they were actual leaders. Moreover, since they were no real leaders with real experience, I suppose that the participants could not assess the possible risk in an adequate manner. This might explain why no evidence was found for the hypotheses that suggested that promotive/prohibitive voice has a moderating effect on the relationship between chronic regulatory focus and leader regulatory focus. When looking at the overall results of the study, this is an important
limitation that should be taken into account.
have the possibility during the experiment to go back and read the e-mails again, which could have been problematic if they did not pay enough attention when they initially read the text. For the manipulation to work, future should make sure that the conceptualization of the problem and the solution suggested by the employee is concise, short and clear. This way, the participants does not run the risk to get lost into details and loose interest. Moreover, the participant should have the possibility to go back and read the e-mails again if he/she is not certain of the content of the e-mails anymore.
As my results show that promotive and prohibitive voice have no moderating effect on the relationship between chronic regulatory focus and leader regulatory focus, it would be highly interesting to investigate the role of supportive and constructive voice as well as the role of destructive and defensive voice (Podsakoff & Maynes, 2014). Supportive and
constructive voice is argued to be accepted and perceived positively by leaders and colleagues (Podsakoff & Maynes, 2014). The authors further argue that defensive and destructive voice are likely to be negatively perceived and not appreciated by others as it is believed that it may harm the organization. Since hypotheses three and four did not lead to the expected effect, future research could study the effects of supportive/constructive voice and
destructive/defensive voice on leaders. Moreover, it would be interesting to look at the impact of interpersonal fit between the employee and the leader. Interpersonal fit is when individuals experience interpersonal regulatory fit, thus when two individuals experience the same regulatory focus (Righetti, Finkenmauer, & Rusbult, 2011). In this study, I only looked at the fit within a leader, between chronic regulatory focus and leader regulatory focus. The
presence of an interpersonal regulatory fit between employee and leader might be interesting and should further be researched as it could influence leader regulatory focus.
on leader regulatory focus. Situational regulatory focus is explained as the priming of
regulatory focus through performing a certain task (Van Dijk & Kluger, 2011). For example, when an individual performs a task that requires caution, the prevention focus is likely to be activated. Similarly, when someone performs a task that requires creativity, promotion focus is likely to be activated (Van Dijk & Kluger, 2011). Therefore, leader regulatory focus might be influenced by situational regulatory focus as well, which provides interesting opportunities for future research.
6. CONCLUSION
Employee voice is an important topic as it enables to increase organizational performance. Literature shows that leadership plays an important role in employees’ decision to voice their ideas or not. However, the main focus within current academic research is mostly on what triggers employee voice, but not on its consequences on leaders. For that reason, this study combined the existing literature regarding the effect of chronic regulatory focus on leader regulatory focus and the moderating role of employee voice on this relationship. Findings show that chronic promotion/prevention orientation lead to promotion /prevention focused leadership. Unfortunately, results showed that the relationship between chronic
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APPENDIX A: PROMOTIVE AND PROHIBITIVE VOICE MANIPULATION SCENARIO
You work at the booming company “CyberSec Owl Consulting”, which was founded in 2010. The focus of CyberSec Owl Consulting is to provide specialized end-to-end cyber security services to firms with the goal of being protected from cyber attacks and make their client’s IT network safe. The increasing use of sophisticated cyber weapons made the need for cyber security services grow. CyberSec Owl Consulting is continuously growing in terms of hires and profit. Its environment is very dynamic. To be able to act upon this dynamic environment, CyberSec Owl Consulting has a relatively flat hierarchy.
You were among the first employees to start working at CyberSec Owl Consulting. You started as a recruiter and gradually made your way up to the position of head of the human resource department. You are on a first name basis with everyone and you are highly appreciated by your colleagues. Since you started, you have managed to successfully
implement new HR policies and directives and you are highly appreciated by your colleagues. Given its dynamic environment and flat hierarchy, employees of CyberSec Owl Consulting regularly work from home. You regularly work from home, as well. On these home-working days, you mostly communicate with your employees over e-mail.
Today, you decided to work from home. Since your employees are not able to speak directly to you, they already sent you a couple of mails. Your first task is to read those e-mails and respond to them. As the head of the human resource department, your employees expect you to provide them with guidance. Your e-mails and instructions are always thorough and detailed. Moreover, they have to be as elaborate as possible.
PROHIBITIVE VOICE (GROUP 1)
Richard is the training and development manager at CyberSec Owl Consulting.
Dear (NAME),
As you know, our company has considerably grown in the past years. We have twice as many
employees as we had a year ago and our profits have doubled as well. Cyber attacks are being reported regularly and cyber security services are now more needed than ever. Furthermore, companies are aware of the importance of protecting its data. Our company is expected to grow considerably over the coming years.
As the training and development manager, I am responsible for our employees' skills.
I think that the environmental changes that our company faces holds huge threats that we can only avoid if we train our employees to keep their skills up to date. It may not be popular to say this, but if we do not train our employees, their current skills will slowly become obsolete. This would have disastrous consequences for our company's growth and competitive advantage.
I would strongly advise you to act upon this. What do you think about this and what would you like me to do?
Best, Richard.
PROMOTIVE VOICE (GROUP 2)
Dear (NAME),
Furthermore, companies are aware of the importance of protecting its data. Our company is expected to grow considerably over the coming years.
As the training and development manager, I am responsible for our employees' skills.
I think that the environmental changes that our company faces holds huge opportunities that we can only grasp if we train our employees to develop new skills. I just want to go out of my way to say that if we train our employees, they will acquire new skills. This would have impressive consequences for our company's growth and competitive advantage.
I would strongly advise you to act upon this. What do you think about this and what would you like me to do?
