INFORMAL HIERARCHY LINEARITY: THE RELATION BETWEEN EMPOWERING LEADESHIP AND INFORMAL HIERARCHY LINEARITY
MEDIATED BY TEAM AUTONOMY
by
Anne Linde Klaar
Master’s Thesis, MSc Human Resource Management Faculty of Economics and Business
University of Groningen June 5, 2016
2 ABSTRACT
This research examined the relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity within teams. I argue that empowering leadership can reduce hierarchical differences between team members but as a consequence may stimulate the emergence of informal hierarchy linearity. Further, I argue that team autonomy mediates this relation. Because due to the autonomy given by an empowering leader, team members are provided with equal influence positions and are free to decide for themselves who they want to dominate and whom can dominate them. Data were collected by means of a survey among 56 work teams from a diverse range of industries. The findings of this field study did not support the relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity, neither when this relation was mediated by team autonomy. However, the findings did show a significant positive relation between empowering leadership and team autonomy. Explanations for these findings are discussed.
3 INTRODUCTION
Today’s organisations operate in global business environments which require fast decision making by continually changing, being uncertain and carrying high risks (Riolli-Saltzman & Luthans, 2001). Teams are able to tackle these pressing organisations’ needs through their fast adjustment capabilities and effective responses (Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp and Gilson, 2008). However, the need for teams to be agile generates a challenging position for the leaders of these teams. They have to establish a team which have to adapt quickly to the environment, which has led scholars to suggest that the leadership of teams should be shared among team members (Jaffe, 1995; Seibert, Silve and Randolph, 2004). Empowering leadership is a leadership style that seems most adequate to manage these agile teams. Empowering leaders encourage team members to develop leadership skills such as participating in decision making, giving input to solve problems, and managing one’s own tasks, which is achieved by giving responsibility and autonomy (Chen, Kirkman, Kanfer, Allen, and Rosen, 2007; Pearce, Sims, Cox, Ball, Schnell, Smith, and Trevino, 2003; Tekleab, Sims, Yun, Tesluk, and Cox, 2008).
Thus, as prior research agues, empowering leaders encourage teams to be autonomous. Team autonomy can be described as the freedom to act on what one knows and the degree to which team members experience independence in their work and in deciding how to carry out tasks (Kramer and Schambers, 1993; Langfred, 2005). In an autonomous team all the team members have equal influences on work processes and have the freedom to say what they think and feel to the other team members (Kramer and Schmalenberg, 1993; Moss and Wilson, 2014 ). However, by giving full autonomy to the team members, empowering leadership may at the same time create ambiguity about the roles the team members fulfil and how team tasks are structured. In addition, Magee and Galinsky (2008) argue that during social interaction individuals automatically form opinions about each other’s competence and influence. I argue here that this is indeed the case, and that this process may be stimulated by empowering leaders giving their team members full autonomy. The ambiguity that is created in this way will be resolved by team members engaging in social interactions that establish influence differences as a way to restore structure in their environment.
4 linearity, mediated by team autonomy. Specifically, by giving the team members high autonomy, the empowering leader may actually stimulate the emergence of informal hierarchical differences between team members, as a way to resolve uncertainty and role unclarity.
This research has an important contribution to existing literature regarding empowering leadership. Sharma and Kirkman (2015) describe in their literature review that there is a gab in the literature concerning the exploration of the negative consequences of empowering leadership. By showing that the literature mainly explore the positive consequences of empowering leadership such as encouraging autonomy. Therefore, Sharma and Kirkman (2015; 27) encourage the following: “researchers should explore the extent that to which empowering leadership has less positive effects and when and why a seemingly positive leadership approach could end up having unintended, counterintuitive negative effects”. As a response to this gab in the literature, I aim to demonstrate that empowering leadership might foster the unintended effect that team members establish informal influence relations, which may be in turn just as constraining as formal hierarchy differences. I expect to explain this by team autonomy, which will serve as the why of this relation. Practically, this research suggests that if a team with an empowering leader experience ambiguity concerning the structure within the team, it can be resolved by providing the team members with more autonomy. Because that should stimulate the team members to engage in social interactions that establish influence differences and therefore informal hierarchy linearity which will clarify the structure.
5 THEORY AND HYPOTHESES
Informal hierarchy linearity
Informal hierarchy is defined as the influence distance between team members, which is established based on social interaction (Anderson & Brown, 2010; Diefenbach & Sillince, 2011; Magee and Smith, 2013). Informal hierarchy can develop easily and effortlessly because during social interaction team members infer each other’s competence and influence, which happen in only few seconds (Magee & Galinsky, 2008). Informal hierarchy is linear when a team members does not have direct or indirect influence over a team member who has direct or indirect influence over him or her (Krackhardt, 1994; Bunderson et al. 2015). In other words, the stronger the linearity, the more clear it is who dominates whom (Magee & Galinsky, 2008: Singh, Singh, Sharma & Krishna 2003). The opposite of teams with informal hierarchy linearity, are teams with non-linear informal hierarchy. Non-linear informal hierarchy means that all team members have equal influence were no one dominates anyone (Chase, 1980; Nelissen, 1986; Magee & Galinsky, 2008; Schein and Fohrman, 1955). The constructions of linear and non-linear hierarchy are illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1
The conceptualization of linear (left) and non-linear (right) informal hierarchy
6 inefficient, and frustrating, and, thus, coordination suffers”. He and Hang (2011) confirm this by implying that when the clarity of ranks is unclear for team members, the interaction between team members and thus the coordination will become unclear. Friesen, Kay, Eibach and Galinsky (2014) argue that informal hierarchy linearity may create a structure when there is a demand for order and a lack of control. Moreover, the lack of control in combination with uncertainty about each other’s rank may increase the possibility of conflicts (Could, 2003).
To conclude, research suggest that informal hierarchy linearity provides structure when there is a demand for order and control. This structure establishes clarity of ranks and coordination and may decrease the chance of conflict within teams.
Empowering leadership
Empowering leadership is defined as a leadership style which fosters self-directedness and intrinsic motivation by sharing power, promoting self-management, supporting collaborative-decision making, supporting expression of opinions and ideas, and supporting information sharing and teamwork, all through increasing employees’ responsibility and autonomy (Lorinkova, Pearsall, and Sims, 2013; Vecchio, Justin and Pearce, 2010; Sharma and Kirkman, 2015; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990). As such, researchers assume that empowering leadership can reduce hierarchical differences between team members, by discouraging team members to dominate each other, and encouraging team members to be equal dominant, by providing them equal influence positions.
7 informally. Empowering leadership only makes these tendencies stronger by creating a team composition where it is not clear in advance who dominates whom, which increases the like hood that team members create dominance difference themselves. Thus, although the goal of many empowering leaders is to create egalitarian teams in which all team members can engage in influence behaviors, research support the contrary that it stimulates the emergence of informal hierarchy linearity. My first hypothesis is therefore;
Hypothesis 1: Empowering leadership is positive related to informal hierarchy linearity
Team autonomy
Withal, the freedom of team members to decide for themselves who they want to dominate and whom can dominate them, is due to the autonomy they received from empowering leadership (Lorinkova, Pearsall, and Sims, 2013; Vecchio, Justin and Pearce, 2010; Sharma and Kirkman, 2015; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990). With being autonomous, all the team members have equal influences on the work processes and therefore are free to say what they think and feel to other team members (Kramer and Schmalenberg, 1993; Moss and Wilson, 2014 ). Their autonomous positions within the team gives them the ability to convert the team, which is expected to be egalitarian, in to a team with informal hierarchy linearity. Which seems more likely to occur by the absence of a strong formal leader. Because this absence may create confusion about which roles team members fulfil and how the team tasks are structured. Therefore, team members will engage in social interactions that clarify their influence positions towards one another to create structure and prevent higher chance of conflict (Anderson and Brown, 2010; Bass, 1997; Could, 2003; Friesen et al., 2014; He and Hang, 2011; Magee and Galinsky, 2008).
Thus, although the goal of many empowering leaders is to create egalitarian team in which all team members can engage in influence behaviors, I argue that, due to the autonomy given, team members will engage in interactions that create informal hierarchy linearity. My second hypothesis is therefore;
Hypothesis 2: Team autonomy mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity
8 Figure 2
Conceptual model
METHOD Procedure
To test the hypotheses, data was collected from 56 work teams from a diverse range of industries. Team leaders of different companies were asked to participate on the research. After the team leader agreed it was checked if the team met the requirements for being a work team according to Koslowski and Bell (2003): “a work team is composed of two of more individuals who exist to perform organizationally relevant tasks, share one or more common goals, exhibit task interdependencies, interact socially, maintain and manage boundaries and are embedded in an organizational context that sets boundaries, constrains the team, and influence exchange with other units in the broader entity”. If this was satisfactory the team leader asked the team members to participate. When at least three of the team members approved every participant received on their mail a short and clear explanation about the objectives of the research. Thereafter the data from the team members were collected by an online survey designed with the program Qualitrics. The survey measured empowering leadership, team autonomy and informal hierarchy linearity along with demographical information. Within a month all the participants received their online survey and had a maximum of 4 weeks to respond. Reminder mails were sent up to two times to participants that had not responded to the survey yet. This was done with the intention to increase the response rate (Baruch, & Holtom, 2008). Participants
9 information was gathered from 47 teams, which means that 84% of the total teams were used.
The teams are operating in financial institutions (2%) information and communication technology (4%), industrial sector (7%), agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishery (2%), education (16%), government (7%) business service (11%) health sector (13%) and other (38%). With the business sizes ranging from 10 employees till more than 500. From the responding teams the average age ranged between 20 and 58 years with the mean age being 35 (SD=9.87). 41% was male and 59% female. Education levels varied amongst the team members with having finished HBO (44%), university (26%), secondary school (23%), primary school (6%) or Dr. promotion (1%). Working hours of the team members varied from more than 36 hour a week (51%), 25 – 36 hours a week (29%), 13-24 hours a week (16%) or less than 12 hours a week (5%).
Measures
All the questions, except from the general questions and question about the other team members, participants were requested to indicate their personal level of agreement or disagreement by responding on a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 7 (Likert, 1932). Items, originally constructed in English, were translated into Dutch for the survey and then back-translated to English for testing the hypotheses. To protect the confidentiality and to minimalize social desirable responses of the participants, the survey was anonymized and participation was voluntary.
10 Empowering leadership. Empowering leadership was measured using the six-item scale of Lorinkova et al. (2013). Sample items from the adapted scale are “In our team members are responsible for deciding how to achieve our goals”, “Our team is empowered to change our work processes in order to improve our performance” and “In our team members have a great deal of freedom in deciding how we will do our work”. Team members rated agreement with each of the 7 items on a 7-point Likert scale, with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 7 presenting “strongly agree”. Cronbach’s alpha for the empowering leadership measure in this research was .89 and aggregation statistics supported aggregating to the team level: ICC1 = .29; ICC2 = .58; mean rwg = .94.
Team Autonomy. Team autonomy was measured using the scale of Langfred (2005). It is an adapted scale of Breaugh’s (1985) individual-level item, but Langfred applied the scale to the team instead of to an individual. Sample items from the adapted scale are “The team is free to decide how to go about getting work done” and “The team has control over the scheduling of teamwork”. Team members rated agreement with each of the 8 items on a 7-point Likert scale, with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 7 presenting “strongly agree”. Cronbach’s alpha for the team autonomy measure in this research was .86 and aggregation statistics supported aggregating to the team level: ICC1 = .32; ICC2 = .62; mean rwg = .83. Control variables. Information on demographical differences of gender and age, and team size and job tenure were measured to control for the possibility of interfering with the constructs.
Age might have an influence on informal hierarchy linearity because Bal and Kooij (2011) showed that compared to younger team members, older team members view their work as an more important aspect of life and therefore have a bigger need to be satisfied with their job and have successful relations with other team members. This could mean that older team members have more interest in being equal regarding influence behaviors and thus, are less stimulated to create informal hierarchy linearity.
11 are provided with equal influence positions.
Team size might have an influence on informal hierarchy linearity because He and Huang (2011) argue that compared to smaller teams, bigger teams have more complex interactions between team members and thus, greater need for structure such as informal hierarchy linearity to guide their decision making process.
Job tenure might have an influence on informal hierarchy linearity because Rink, Kane, Ellemers and Van der Vegt (2013) show that team members who work longer in a team, often have more influence than team members who work shorter in a team. This means that a team with differences in job tenure are more likely to create informal hierarchy linearity than teams were all the team members started at the same time working for the team.
Variables additional analyses
Informal hierarchy has more than one conceptualization. Although this research conceptualizes hierarchy as informal hierarchy linearity, other researchers might conceptualize informal hierarchy as informal hierarchy centralization or informal hierarchy steepness. Where informal hierarchy centralization views hierarchy as the concentration of certain attributes of the team member within the team, such as power and status. And informal hierarchy steepness focuses on the aggregate differences on these attributes across team members. These two conceptualisations differ with informal hierarchy linearity, as informal hierarchy linearity views hierarchy as an property of the social relation and not as an influence due to the attribute of an team member (Bunderson et al., 2015). However, because these variables were also measured in the survey, they were added to the data analysis to see what the correlations were if they replaced the dependent variable.
Informal hierarchy centralization. Informal hierarchy centralization was measured on the basis of the dyadic rating approach used to measure informal hierarchy linearity, were all the team members were ask to answer the question which one out of two other team members was most influential. On the basis of the scores given by every team member, the
centralization was measured by the using Freeman’s (1979) degree centralization index:
∑(cmax-ci) / (n-1)
2Where ci is each member’s influence centrality score, cmax is the highest influence centrality
score within the team, and n is the number of team members.
12 Data analysis
To test the hypotheses, a statistical model designed by Ph.D. Andrew F. Hayes is used (Hayes, 2013). Hayes coded a program for SPSS and SAS named PROCESS which calculate, among other things, the mediation through his PROCESS Model 4. This model is built on the basic linear regression model were some presumed casual variable X influences some outcome Y trough a third variable (i.e., the “mediator”). In addition the model is based on the four steps of mediation by Baron and Kenny (1986). First, there has to be a relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity (c’-path). Second, there has to be a relation between empowering leadership and team autonomy (a-path). Third, there has to be a relation between team autonomy and informal hierarchy linearity (b-path), controlled for empowering leadership. Finally, to establish that team autonomy completely mediates the relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity (c-path), the effect of empowering leadership on informal hierarchy linearity should be zero controlled for team autonomy. By calculating the significance of all the path, the mediation effect will be reviewed. All this is represented in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Mediation model according to Baron and Kenny (1986)
13 RESULTS
Preliminary Analyses
First the data were screened for outliers1. Evaluation of the regression assumptions of independent observations, normality and linearity was satisfactory for all variables. “The means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlations among all variables in this research are presented in Table 1 below.
TABEL 1
Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Pearson Correlations of the Variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Age 35.82 9.87
2. Gender 1.60 .37 -.24
3. Team size 5.14 1.69 .22 -.22
4. Job tenure 3.72 5.26 .43** .06 -.06
5. Informal hierarchy steepness .49 .80 -.33* .08 - .27 - .12
6. Informal hierarchy centralization .39 .28 -.03 .03 .13 -.11 .41** 7. Empowering leadership 5.80 .63 -.04 .08 .18 .01 -.06 .02
8. Team autonomy 4.77 .80 -.17 .09 .15 -.13 .03 .07 .35* 9. Informal linear hierarchy .48 .28 -.08 -.18 .04 -.11 -.14 .13 .01 .22
Note: Age represent average age in year, Gender (1 = male, 2= female), Job tenure represent average job tenure in years.
* p < 0.05 (2-tailed), ** p < 0.01 (2-tailed).
Contrary to what was expected, the correlations analyses revealed that the level of informal hierarchy linearity did not show a significant relation with either empowering leadership or team autonomy (r = .01, p = n.s.; r = .22, p = n.s). In addition none of the control variables showed a significant relation with informal hierarchy linearity. Therefore, the control variables have been excluded from the data analysis. In line with previous literature (Lorinkova, Pearsall, and Sims, 2013; Vecchio, Justin and Pearce, 2010; Sharma and Kirkman, 2015; Thomas and Velthouse, 1990), empowering leadership did show a positive significant relation with team autonomy (r = .35, p < .05). Indicating that teams with a higher level of empowering leadership go with a higher level of team autonomy. Lastly, informal hierarchy steepness and informal hierarchy centralization, did not show significant relations with empowering
1 Only two outliers were found in the team autonomy and empowering leadership variable, but because further
14 leadership or team autonomy, and therefore are also excluded from the data analysis.
Hypothesis testing
Hypothesis 1 predicted that empowering leadership is positive related to informal hierarchy linearity. This hypothesis is not confirmed as the findings did not show a positive significant relationship between these two variables (F(1,40) = .002), b = .01, p = .97, R-sq = .00). Thus, the findings provide evidence that empowering leadership does not predict informal hierarchy linearity.
Hypothesis 2 predicted that team autonomy mediates the relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity. The findings also did not confirm this hypothesis. There was no significant relation found between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity mediated by team autonomy (b = -.12, p = .62). In addition, no significant relation was found between team autonomy and informal hierarchy linearity (F(2,39) = 1,29), b = .30, p = .12, R-sq = .05). However, the findings did show a significant relation between empowering leadership and team autonomy (F(1,40) = 6.15), b = .44, p = .02, R-sq = .13). Which means that the findings provide evidence that empowering leadership predicts team autonomy. Figure 4 shows an overview of these findings.
Figure 4
Hypothesized model for the relationship between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity mediated by team autonomy
15 informal hierarchy linearity when team autonomy is incorporated in the model as a mediator. This difference has the effect size of .08 which is too small to make a statement. In summary, hypothesis 1 expecting that empowering leadership is positive related to informal hierarchy linearity, was not supported by the findings. In addition, hypothesis 2 expecting that team autonomy mediates the relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity was neither supported by the findings. However, the findings did show a positive significant relation between empowering leadership and team autonomy. Which means, that the findings did show evidence that empowering leadership predicts team autonomy.
DISCUSION Findings
This research was designed to refine general understanding of the influence of empowering leadership on informal hierarchy linearity and the mediating role of team autonomy. I first tested the proposition that empowering leadership has a positive influence on informal hierarchy linearity. The field study that I conducted did not support this proposition. Second, I tested the proposition that team autonomy mediates the relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity. The findings did not confirmed this proposition either. However, a clear significant relation was found between empowering leadership and team autonomy.
Theoretical implications
The findings of this research has two theoretical implications for the research of empowering leadership within teams.
16 research also confirms that empowering leadership serves for team autonomy.
Secondly, contrary to the expectation, the direct relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity was found to be insignificant. Which made it impossible to find evidence for team autonomy as a mediating variable. Indeed, this was confirmed by an insignificant relation between team autonomy and informal hierarchy linearity. This means that in present research empowering leadership within teams does not stimulate the emergence of informal hierarchy linearity, neither when mediated by team autonomy.
A possible reason for these insignificant relations might be that teams with an empowering leader, and therefore the lack of a strong formal system, do not need the benefits of informal hierarchy linearity, such as coordination and structure. Previous research would support this explanation as some researchers have argued that teams may only experience a lack of structure and coordination if the team members are not motivated to have a successful relation (Tiedens, Urzula and Young, 2007) or experiencing conflict (Ker and Jermier, 1978). Similarly, some researchers suggest that teams can be simultaneously egalitarian and structural (Krackhardt and Killduff, 1999). Thus, it might be that team members with equal influence positions, who already acquiring informal hierarchy linearity benefits such as structure and coordination, do not need the emergence of informal hierarchy linearity. In addition, other research suggest that the utility of hierarchy differences is about whether a team is performing better when it has a hierarchical structure (Anderson and Brown, 2010). This indicates that team members provided with equal influence positions, who perform well, might not need informal hierarchy linearity.
17 Practical implications
Although the findings do not support the direct relation between empowering leadership and informal hierarchy linearity, neither when it is mediated by team autonomy, the findings do support the significant positive relation between empowering leadership and team autonomy. Therefore, if organisation want their teams to be autonomous, they can accomplish this with an empowering leader or by letting the current leader perform more empowering leadership behaviors, such as supporting collaborative-decision making and giving the team members more responsibilities.
Limitations
Although, this research presents a field study and therefore reflects real life and high ecological validity, the findings contain several limitations.
The first limitation is that there is little control over extraneous variables that might bias the findings. Even though all the team members were fully capable of filling in the surveys consisting their education level2 and not mentioning any constrains in the comments section of their survey, there might have been some extraneous variables that were not noticeable at the time and thus might have biased the findings. An example is the health status of the team members which they did not mention but which might have influenced the answers. Or the environment in which the team members filled in the survey. For instance, a noisy environment might have distracted the team member and therefore influenced the answers. By adding the control variables age, gender, team size, and job tenure, I tried to look for extraneous variables. However, none of the control variables correlated with informal hierarchy linearity. But by using random sampling, extraneous variables are controlled as much as possible.
The second limitation is that the sample size contains 42 teams. It is sufficient enough to generate valid statements for this research however, it is too small to ensure representative distribution of the whole population and to generalize the findings from these teams to other settings. It is therefore recommended to use a larger sample in future research.
The third limitation is that the gathered data is based on self-reporting. This means that the data is subjective which makes it difficult to ascertain whether the provided information is accurate (Keeping & Levy, 2000). Because how team members experience the interactions regarding who influences whom, may be different than who is influencing whom in reality. This might be because team members may not realize how much influence another team
2 All respondents had finished high school and thus are considered to be able of understanding the survey
18 member has on them. For example because the team member does not like the other team member, loves the other team member or feels superior to the other team member. As a result this team member might not acknowledge, consciously or unconsciously, that he or she is being influenced. In the literature this problem refers to common source bias. Which means that the measures contain a source of error due to the subjective answers, and thus may generate false positives or false negatives (Doty and Glick, 1998). This limitation could be rectified when team members, besides rating who influences them, rate which team members are influenced by whom. Although the data remains subjective, it is more secure to assume the provided information is accurate when the ratings are broadly the same.
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