Understanding and optimizing multisource feedback

This article integrates the most recent research results on the topic of multisource feedback with what researchers have learned over the years about performance feedback in general. We believe that this review and set of recommendations represent the state of the art at this time. We provide practitioners with new ideas about how to continue to improve the multisource feedback process in their organizations. We also suggest ideas for feedback providers and facilitators about how to maximize the success of the feedback process. Additionally, we provide “food for thought” for researchers concerning ideas for future research. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Workforce diversity and firm performance: Relational coordination as a mediator and structural empowerment and multisource feedback as moderators

Workforce composition in organizations has become increasingly diverse. As an important step in determining how workforce diversity leads to firm performance, we proposed relational coordination as a mediator through which diversity in age and education indirectly affects firm performance. We also highlighted two human resource management practices (structural empowerment and multisource feedback) as critical contingencies that moderate the effects of workforce diversity on relational coordination and firm performance. We conducted hierarchical multiple regression on multisource data (including responses from senior directors, department directors, managers, and employees, as well as financial performance) from 189 Korean firms in the manufacturing sector, which yielded support for our hypotheses. These findings offer novel theoretical and practical insights into the effective management of workforce diversity.     

Analyzing the Effectiveness of Multisource Feedback as a Leadership Development Tool for College Students

Undergraduate students (n = 144) completed the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SRLS), which measures leadership capacity within the framework of the Social Change Model (SCM) of Leadership Development. Observers (n = 374) who knew the students from a variety of contexts completed observer‐report versions of the SRLS. The research was designed to measure differences in rating of capacity between student leaders and those who know and observe their behaviors. Mean observer scores were higher than self‐reported scores for most capacities, with moderate to large effect sizes. Significant differences between self and observer interscale correlations and a high degree of subscale intercorrelations within observer‐reports led to conducting an exploratory factor analysis of observer responses. A universal one‐factor structure emerged that was different from the SCM model, suggesting observers make little distinction among separate leadership capacities in those they observe. Implications for leadership development and education programs are discussed including the benefit of rater training prior to the use of multisource feedback instruments, how the context in which students interact with observers affects feedback, and the need for further examination of other methods of determining effectiveness in conjunction with multisource feedback instruments.     

Agreeing to disagree? Explaining self–other disagreement on leadership behaviour

ABSTRACT

Leadership research tends to treat differences among ratings of the same leaders as measurement error. Our study makes such varying perceptions of leadership behaviour its main phenomenon of investigation. We conceptualize divergent leadership ratings based on the difference between managers’ self-ratings and team members’ assessments of leadership behaviour. Using data from three German public organizations on 51 teams and 190 leader–follower dyads, we find that divergent leadership ratings are a function of managers’ motivation, their use of managerial reflection routines, and team members’ personality. The findings point to the importance of using multisource feedback and developing managers’ self- and other-awareness.     

Measurement equivalence of executives' performance ratings for same‐ and opposite‐gender dyads

The measurement equivalence of performance ratings from different raters is important to establish if researchers and practitioners want to have confidence that raters are using the performance measurement system in the same way. The purpose of the present study was to examine the measurement equivalence of performance ratings from male and female direct reports. Women and men executives from various organizations participated in a multisource assessment process for feedback and development purposes and were rated by both women and men direct reports. The results indicated gender equivalence for direct reports' ratings of men and women executives, meaning that regardless of gender, raters provided ratings using the same psychological metric. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Is coworker feedback more important than supervisor feedback for increasing innovative behavior?

A growing body of research explores human resource management practices that encourage employees to innovate. In this study, we examine the links between different sources of feedback (supervisor and coworker) and employees’ innovative behavior. Drawing on social exchange theory and the job demands‐resources theory, we first propose that work engagement and psychological contract breach mediate the relationship between supervisor feedback and employees’ innovative behavior. Second, we propose a moderated mediation model in which coworker feedback attenuates the relationships between supervisor feedback and employees’ innovative behavior through the mediating mechanisms of both work engagement and psychological contract breach. Using three waves of multisource data from 300 Chinese employees and their 64 supervisors, we found a dual‐mediation pathway by which employees’ work engagement and perceptions of psychological contract breach mediate the influence of supervisor feedback on innovative behavior. Our results also show that coworker feedback can be used to supplement the lack of supervisor feedback when required. Organizations are advised to ensure that employees obtain regular feedback from multiple sources because such feedback can promote employees’ work engagement and perceptions that the organization is upholding its side of the psychological contract, which fosters employees’ innovative behavior.     

Feelings of Pride and Respect as Drivers of Ongoing Member Activity on Crowdsourcing Platforms

Crowdsourcing platforms are online organizations that organize work by sourcing tasks to their members. As participation on crowdsourcing platforms is completely voluntary, getting members to actively participate in tasks on an ongoing basis is essential for the survival of these online platforms. Why members would be active on an ongoing basis, however, is currently not well understood. To understand ongoing member activity on crowdsourcing platforms, we build on the group engagement model, which postulates that feelings of pride and respect influence engagement because they foster identification with the group. We argue that, although in general the nature of crowdsourcing platforms limits the effects of identification processes on member behaviour, feelings of pride and respect will still play central roles in such online organizations, because feelings of pride and respect can directly drive members’ cooperative behaviors towards the platform organization. Moreover, we posit that the way in which platform organizations communicate with their members affects these feelings of pride and respect. We test these ideas in a longitudinal, multisource field study and find that feelings of pride drive ongoing member activity on an online crowdsourcing platform directly and that platform management can increase members’ feelings of pride and respect by engaging in specific organizational communication practices.     

Can performance appraisals motivate employees to improve performance? A Mexican study

In this study of Mexican employees, we examined the relationship between performance appraisal characteristics (appraisal source, appraisal purpose and feedback richness) and perceived reactions of employees to the appraisal characteristics (perceived fairness and perceived accuracy of appraisals) and appraisal outcomes (appraisal satisfaction and motivation to improve). We hypothesized that multisource appraisals, appraisals used for administrative and developmental appraisals (multipurpose appraisals) and appraisals that have a high degree of feedback richness would lead to more perceived accuracy and perceived fairness of appraisals. We further hypothesized that higher levels of perceived fairness and accuracy would lead to higher levels of employee appraisal satisfaction and motivation to improve performance in the future. Results based on a survey of Mexican employees provide support for most of the hypothesized relationships. We discuss implications of the findings for research and practice of performance appraisals in the Mexican context.     

Stages of Organizational Transformation in Transition Economies: A Dynamic Capabilities Approach

How do organizations previously dominated by the state develop dynamic capabilities that would support their growth in a competitive market economy? We develop a theoretical framework of organizational transformation that explains the processes by which organizations learn and develop dynamic capabilities in transition economies. Specifically, the framework theorizes about the importance of, and inter‐relationships between, leadership, organizational learning, dynamic capabilities, and performance over three stages of transformation. Propositions derived from this framework explain the pre‐conditions enabling organizational learning, the linkages between types of learning and functions of dynamic capabilities, and the feedback from dynamic capabilities to organizational learning that allows firms in transition economies to regain their footing and build long‐term competitive advantage. We focus on transition contexts, where these processes have been magnified and thus offer new insights into strategizing in radically altered environments.     

Empowered self‐development and continuous learning

Organizational changes are creating the need for continuous learning environments that support employees' self‐development. Self‐development means seeking and using feedback, setting development goals, engaging in developmental activities, and tracking progress on one's own. This assumes that people are capable not only of monitoring their own behaviors, but also of recognizing which behaviors and outcomes are most favorable and desirable. Drawing on self‐determination theory, this article shows how organizations can encourage self‐development by providing nonthreatening performance feedback, ensuring behavioral choices for learning, encouraging feedback seeking, and rewarding participation in learning activities and other self‐determined behavior. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Work‐life support practices and customer satisfaction: The role of TMT composition and country culture

Despite the growing prevalence of work‐life support (WLS) practices in companies, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical clarity on their benefits to organizational performance. It is also unclear if the organizational performance effects of WLS practices vary based on an organization's internal and external environments. The dual objective of this paper is to investigate whether WLS practices relate to customer‐focused outcomes and, if so, under which conditions WLS practices yield benefits. Drawing on contingency theory, we examine how the boundary conditions of internal firm characteristics (e.g., percentage of top management team [TMT] members with children) and external environmental factors (e.g., gender egalitarianism of the country) moderate the relationship between WLS practices and customer satisfaction. We shed light on these issues by examining multisource, longitudinal data collected over three years from a multinational corporation operating in 27 countries. The results show that both percentage of TMT members with children and gender egalitarianism of the country strengthen the relationship between WLS practices and customer satisfaction. The findings provide insights into the circumstances when WLS practices provide performance benefits for firms and the translatability of these benefits from one country to another.     

Resilience of sustainability‐oriented and financially‐driven organizations

To answer key questions concerning how negative and positive financial performance gaps motivate organizations to build more resilient systems, we develop a conceptual process model to reveal the process by which financially and sustainability‐driven organizations can translate these negative and positive financial performance gaps into organizational resilience. We specify the different modes of search behaviors that these organizations pursue when encountering negative and positive financial performance gaps. We then expand on group engagement model to theorize that vicarious search is likely to encourage limiting behaviors, whereas internal search is likely to foster promotion behaviors. Finally, we explain how both promoting and limiting behaviors can be helpful in improving organizational resilience. In this way, we hope to advance research that connects and integrates relatively disparate realms and, more specifically, to contribute to the sustainability, resilience, and performance feedback literatures.     

Human Resource Management and the Permeable Organization: The Case of the Multi‐Client Call Centre*

ABSTRACT Despite the interest over recent years in the fragmentation of organizations and the development of contracting, little attention has been paid to the impact of the associated inter‐organizational relationships on the internal organization of employment. Inter‐organizational relations have been introduced primarily as a means of externalizing – and potentially rendering invisible – employment issues and employment relations. In a context where inter‐organizational relationships appear to be growing in volume and diversity, this constitutes a significant gap in the literature that this paper in part aims to fill. The purpose of the paper is two‐fold: to develop a framework for considering the internal and external organizational influences on employment and to apply this framework within a case study of a multi‐client outsourcing call centre. We explore the interactions between internal objectives, client demands and the use of external contracting in relation to three dimensions of employment policy: managing the wage‐effort bargain, managing flexibility and managing commitment and performance. It is the interplay between these factors in a dynamic context that provides, we suggest, the basis for a more general framework for considering human resource policy in permeable organizations.     

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility to Internal Stakeholders: Walking the Walk or Just Talking the Talk?

As organizations recognize the need to engage in CSR and sustainability initiatives, it is integral to success to communicate that they are doing so. However, the research focus is more often on communicating with external stakeholders to draw attention to corporate responsibility initiatives. Internal stakeholders as employees are not researched as often, despite their integral role in communicating the organization's CSR vision and sustainability as they interact with external stakeholders. In order to explore employee perceptions of CSR communication, a two‐phase mixed‐method study was undertaken, including semi‐structured interviews with 20 CSR managers in NZ organizations to provide content to inform an online questionnaire survey to seek feedback from employees in these same organizations. This paper contributes to research on internal stakeholders in revealing the influence of the perceived value congruence between managers and employees in influencing internal stakeholder perceptions of CSR and sustainability initiatives. The findings have implications for public policy, enhancing organizational communication, the need for authenticity and managerial recognition of their role in facilitating employee commitment to CSR initiatives. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Rating Expatriate Leader Effectiveness in Multisource Feedback Systems: Cultural Distance and Hierarchical Effects

A critical challenge for global firms is to implement assessment tools to develop expatriate leaders who can effectively manage role relationships across different directions (upward, laterally, downward) in cross‐national contexts. Drawing on social categorization and relational demography theories and a data set of 360‐degree ratings of expatriates from 36 countries, we use multilevel modeling to investigate relationships between cultural distance and ratings of leadership effectiveness in task and contextual performance by colleagues with different hierarchical vantage points (subordinates, supervisors, peers). Cultural distance refers to the overall degree of difference in key cultural values identified in the GLOBE study between an expatriate's and coworkers’ countries of origin. Unlike supervisors as a rating group, results show that peer and subordinate raters as a group may be more likely to have their ratings negatively influenced by cultural distance, an effect that may be exacerbated for peer ratings from countries higher in power distance and lower in humane orientation. This study contributes to the understanding of multisource feedback systems to assess expatriate leadership effectiveness by identifying likely group ratings tendencies linked to cultural distance and hierarchical perspectives. Organizations should develop strategies to mitigate possible effects of cultural distance on subordinate and peer ratings of expatriates. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A Buddhist perspective on death: An ethnographic study and implications for nonprofit marketing in grief support and terminal illness

The liminal state associated with terminal illness and death of a loved one is characterized by a marginalized experience, often accompanied by immense grief, confusion, isolation, and in cases identity crisis. There exists a range of issues that make marketing to these groups very different from marketing to non‐sensitive segments. This paper adds to the literature on marketing to sensitive groups by exploring the concept of death and implications for nonprofit organizations in grief support and terminal illness, with an ethnographic study of one of the world's largest Nichiren Buddhist organizations. It shows that Buddhist concepts of death can play a compassionate role for nonprofit organizations in countering the delusory fear and hopelessness of death for families and patients coping with bereavement and imminent death.     

Winning at all costs: An exploration of bottom‐line mentality,Machiavellianism, and organisational citizenship behaviour

This study seeks to advance the bottom‐line mentality literature by exploring an antecedent and outcome of employee bottom‐line mentality. We build and test a moderated‐mediation model by arguing that the personality trait of Machiavellianism promotes an employee's adoption of a bottom‐line mentality. Moreover, drawing on trait activation theory, we argue that this relationship is fully activated when the employee perceives that the organisation endorses a bottom‐line mentality. To expand our theoretical model, we also suggest that employee bottom‐line mentality inhibits organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards co‐workers. Lastly, we investigate whether an employee's perception of an organisation's bottom‐line mentality conditionally moderates the indirect effect of Machiavellianism on organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards co‐workers through the mediated mechanism of employee bottom‐line mentality. Our theoretical model is tested across two distinct studies. Study 1, a field study conducted within a variety of organisations, provides evidence for our initial predictions (Hypotheses 1 and 2). Study 2, a multisource field study conducted in multiple industries, replicates and extends the findings from Study 1 by providing evidence for the entire moderated‐mediation model. We find support for our hypothesised model across both studies. Implications for theory and practice are discussed, and suggestions for future research are identified.     

From Hot Cakes to Cold Feet: A Contingent Perspective on the Relationship between Market Uncertainty and Status Homophily in the Formation of Alliances

In this study, we reconsider the classical positive association between the level of market uncertainty and an organization's propensity to form ties with organizations of similar status. Although prior research argues that the greater the uncertainty, the higher the level of status homophily, we suggest that this relationship is contingent upon framing that affects positive or negative valence towards uncertainty. In an up market, organizations tend to frame uncertainty as upside risk, and thus will subsequently favour explorative uncertainty‐mitigation devices; whereas, in a down market, organizations primarily frame uncertainty as downward risk, and thus will rely on more conservative uncertainty‐mitigation mechanisms. We therefore predict that a greater number of status‐heterophilous ties will be formed in an up market than in a down market. We discuss the implications of our results for status theory and more broadly for research on strategic decision making under uncertainty.     

A comparison of adverse impact levels based on top‐down,multisource, and assessment center data: Promoting diversity and reducing legal challenges

We compared levels of adverse impact (AI) against minorities and women based on three promotional decision methods for 428 associate store managers of a Fortune 500 retailer: top‐down appraisal (TDA), multisource appraisal (MSA), and an assessment center (AC). We found significant effects for race and minority status (favoring whites) but no significant effects for gender across all three methods. Comparisons were analyzed using two definitions of AI (four‐fifths rule and the Fisher Exact Test) with a selection ratio (SR) of .25. No evidence of AI was found against blacks for any of the methods. For Hispanics, AI was found under the four‐fifths rule for the AC. For women, the four‐fifths rule was violated using TDA. Results provide some partial support for the argument that diversity goals are more likely to be met using assessment centers compared to TDA when the preponderance of raters are white men. Our data also suggest that carefully crafted, job‐related, top‐down appraisal, combined with rater training, may be effective in facilitating the promotion of more women and minorities and reducing the probability of legal problems. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Multisource Ratings Of Managerial Competencies And Their Predictive Value For Managerial And Organizational Effectiveness

This study examined the predictive value of multisource ratings of managerial competencies for managerial and organizational effectiveness. Data from 155 subordinates, 59 peers, and 28 supervisors were gathered in order to provide insight into their perceptions on managerial competencies for their managers. With regard to the outcome variable (i.e., effectiveness), both individual‐level (subordinates’, peers’, and supervisors’ ratings of managers) and organizational‐level (Balanced Scorecard) measures were used. As expected, subordinates, peers, and supervisors have distinct perspectives on the managerial competencies that are relevant for effectiveness. Moreover, the specific managerial competencies differ in terms of their predictive validity respectively for managerial and organizational effectiveness. The outcomes of our study suggest that a multisource and multimethod approach is valuable in assessing both managerial competencies and managerial and organizational effectiveness. Several implications for human resource management practices are discussed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.