OrgDesign_ResearchProposal_Steele[1]

2011
Market & Organizational
Satisfaction Through Continuous
Dominance Complementarity Design:
Research Proposal – Avoiding adjacent extraverted
leadership structures during austere economic periods
by
Gigi M. Steele

G.M.Steele: 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Problem Statement - Research Question ..................................................................................3
Theory Background ...................................................................................................................4
Motivation Models.......................................................................................................................................5
Choice of Manager.......................................................................................................................................5
Valence Influence by Sponsors.....................................................................................................................5
Research Hypotheses ................................................................................................................6
Hypothesis 1 ................................................................................................................................................6
Hypothesis 2.................................................................................................................................................6
Dominance Complementarity Models ........................................................................................................6
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................7
Reversing the Extraverted Leadership Advantage: The Role of Employee Proactivity................................7
Organizational Commitment, Job Redesign, Employee Empowerment and Intent to Quit Among
Survivors of Restructuring and Downsizing..................................................................................................9
The Relationship and Effects of Employee Involvement, Employee Empowerment, and Employee
Satisfaction by Job-type in a Large Manufacturing Environment..............................................................10
Research Study ........................................................................................................................13
Study Design...............................................................................................................................................13
Study Analysis.............................................................................................................................................13
Deliverables................................................................................................................................................13
Expected Outcomes.................................................................................................................14
References...............................................................................................................................15
McAlwee, G.S. - All Rights Reserved -
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 3
PROBLEM STATEMENT – RESEARCH QUESTION
Over the past decade, in the wake of the burst housing bubble, accounting scandals, and systemic
mismanagement of major corporations, the traditional model of extraverted charismatic leadership
dominating both western and eastern cultures has lost credibility. Leading to near failures of many
oligopoly markets, the resulting unprecedented open market operations by the Federal Reserve, known to
most consumers as government bailouts and to most financial operators as quantitative easing (e.g. QE1
& QE2), have created an adverse or austere private sector job environment. Robert Lucas, University of
Chicago 1995 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, in reviewing the correlation between wage levels and the
size of government, is quoted stating, “The obvious connection, as I’ve pointed out on many occasions, is
that America is becoming a European-style welfare state and it is unavoidable that we will suffer from
European-style economic malaise (Mitchell, 2011).
The reality for many companies and working individuals is one of survival. To the average employee,
extreme job anxiety and a tight credit market have limited their ability to move in order to take a new job
or restructure their small business to achieve growth. While the US Government is upsizing, the majority
of American’s are downsizing, living off savings, or deciding to forego retirement. There are few choices
following catastrophic losses to their 401K or loss of a sale option for their small business due to default.
The hard learned lessons of diversification and increased frequency in allocation and strategic adjustment
have extended to instincts and attitudes in the workplace. The downside to the wise advice of not over-
investing in any one company has co-opted the baseline attitude in the workplace.
While most employees are extrinsically motivated to perform at the workplace to secure employment
continuity, they are also wary about the stability of their company. The very nature of the relationship
between employers and employees has undergone a fundamental shift. Most employees are largely
disillusioned with the very idea of loyalty to organizations. Any shown is demonstrated only when there is
alignment of an employee’s role in addressing company challenges that also develops expertise furthering
their professional development (Johnson, 2005). Emotional energy spent maintaining an associative
separation subverts the motivation to seek organizational empowerment. Amidst far reaching corporate
downsizing and a high frequency of strategic adjustments to meet market expectations for earnings and
capital structure metrics, a generally negative mood across the workforce is difficult to avoid. This casts
doubt and creates distrust towards most communication within a company – even that which indicates
“progress.” As a result, companies are challenged to motivate and satisfy the needs of their employees.
As organizational life becomes more dynamic, uncertain, and unpredictable, it has become increasingly
difficult for leaders to succeed by merely developing and presenting their visions top-down to employees
(Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007). Hence, the challenge for managers is how to motivate and empower
employees to engage openly and help push the organization to achieve its goals, rather than require
classic push-or-pull leadership dynamics. In addition, research has shown that when employees are given
autonomy, they often work together to coordinate efforts to take charge, undertaking collaborative
activities to improve work processes and methods (Leana, Appelbaum, & Shevchuk, 2010).
Specifically, companies must design leadership that enables a culture that satisfies process needs aligned
to business requirements while also delivering content based needs defined by external collective
anxieties of the economy and career market. Hence, the research questions are contained in how
companies can design their organization to enable employee empowerment during austere market
conditions or economic periods.
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 4
THEORY BACKGROUND
There are anticipated and classically defined conflicts for employees in determining whether their present
state of employment stress is attributable to internal or external factors and further, if the stress is at a
healthy level. Much of stress is perspective and there are both negative and positive stressors. At the
negative extreme, voluntary turnover is one of the most reliable predictors of the organizationally
destructive intent to quit (Light, 2004). A complexity to this scenario is that voluntary departure may
occur even in the absence of internal dissatisfaction characteristics.
Empirical studies have shown statistically significant positive relationships between job redesign,
empowerment and affective commitment. Initially demonstrating the fundamental attribution error
(Ivancevich, Konopaske, & Matteson; 2011), even aware of the downturn in the economy, many
employees focused on faults within their own organization. As employees learned of friends, family,
other colleagues and even strangers losing their jobs, they attributed more of their stress and job security
situation to external factors. It is important to acknowledge that in either case, dissatisfaction was
measured against external content information. Further, there is a limit to the emotional labor burden
this creates before burn-out occurs.
Similarly, companies should recognize their own potential for attribution error in managing downsizing,
restructuring, and changing market strategies. Financial operations and communications will be
evaluated by employees for gaps to the needs of the market and their own needs.
Foundational classic research into Motivational Theory is separated into (1) content theories and (2)
process theories. Of the popular theories for each approach, most can be used to support constructs that
explain observed behavior. For content theory, the Frederick Hertzberg theory is explained briefly here.
Following will be the Expectancy Theory by Victor Vroom.
Herzberg analyzed the job attitudes of 200 accountants and engineers who were asked to recall when
they had felt positive or negative at work and the reasons why.
From this research, Herzberg suggested a “two-factor” approach to understanding employee motivation
and satisfaction where extrinsic “hygiene” factors can at best lead to the lack of dissatisfaction and
intrinsic factors fuel proactive involvement, empowerment and can lead to job satisfaction.
Leading to Dissatisfaction Leading to Satisfaction
Company Policy Achievement
Supervision Recognition
Relationship w/ Boss Work Itself
Work Conditions Responsibility
Salary Advancement
Relationship w/ Peers Growth
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 5
In 1964, Victor Vroom introduced a mathematical description of Expectancy Theory in describing
motivational force as the product of the momentary expectation of a result from an action
(instrumentality) and the anticipation of a reward (valence) associated with that result. This theory is
powerful when considering that two factors must be supported and each of these requires a supported
process that enables the willing application of content information. In downsizing austere environments
and during extended organizational re-organization, there is little to support the instrumentality and
valence within an organization. This suggests that these factors must be driven by legitimate external
sponsors or direct consumer communication mechanisms.
CHOICE OF MANAGERS
Given the dynamic, uncertain and intrinsically constrained job environments that have emerged in the 21st
century, there is stability only in uncertainty. It has become obvious to many organizational owners and
leaders that the costs of backing the cliché proactive manager with their heavy top-down vision and self-
serving push-pull management style may outweigh the benefits. This research proposal is intended to be
engaged by companies seeking to design leadership and culture to over-come barriers to satisfaction in
austere business climates.
The realistic objective is therefore to not focus on retention through extrinsic factors but to focus on
aligning content and process experiences for the employee with the pragmatic objectives of the company
to meet market needs. This objective would be coincident with the popular organizational behavior risk
reduction practice to hire for attitude and overall ability and train for success. However, the question that
still remains is how companies can focus or retire the external anxieties that suspend involvement, much
less satisfaction, when there is little confidence in valences.
Skepticism of corporate culture must be acknowledged by both by employees and project sponsors. One
key objective of management should be to maximize the positive sense of achievement experienced by
each individual within the organization. Single point executive leadership rhetoric promoting solutions to
the valence anxieties may only serve to further damage valences. In addition, instrumentality
mechanisms must be specifically aligned to both employees’ needs and company objectives.
The combination of a need for valence validation and supported employee autonomy should be
considered when designing management architecture. Problems may arise with extraverted managers
whose internal communications may be seen as opposing customer needs and whose willingness to fill
strategic gaps with employee identified measures is lower.
VALENCE INFLUENCE BY SPONSORS
Project sponsors may benefit from displaying leadership traits that promote imagination, curiosity, and
ingenuity to organizations. As these can be flexible and promote autonomy, they can be perceived as
more tangible than others that are quantitatively defined. Decomposing further, consider the question;
how are successful teams defined? The foundation of this research study accepts that this can be non-
specific to many as a collective culture, an identity gained through association, a movement providing
satisfaction to its members in excess of other associations. While project tasks may be quite specific,
projects should have the capability to accommodate diversity in the contributing membership which
further reinforces the belief in a team’s legitimacy. Attitudes go through a metamorphosis (reference
motivational process theories) where each member decides or subconsciously relieves the assigned
burden on a group or organization. Sponsors may succeed more by focusing on measurement metrics
held by the present culture to start momentum for process based motivation. Expectancy for
optimization requires patience and parallel involvement. Things that can be done:
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 6
RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
Organizational Behavior (OB) goals for companies seeking to outperform competitors must include more
than the promotion of content differentiation. In order to eliminate prepotency need barriers within
employees themselves, management must avoid manipulation of market information and avoid
arrogance towards the needs of the customer in both internal and external communication channels.
Hence, extraverted behavior on the part of managers is likely to increase dissatisfaction and prevent valid
employee process engagement. As supported by Herzberg’s two-factor theory, a focus on employee
content dissatisfaction will solidify a culture that ironically prevents empowered participation in process
activities. For example, communication that indicates that many cuts to management have been made as
part of a reduction in force does little if anything to motivate and empower employees.
Where job range, job design, and cost requirements stretch the abilities of an organization’s workforce,
regardless of whether there is receptive mediation for a complimentary relationship between a group
member’s proactivity and a leader’s extraversion, intrinsic motivation necessary for functional
performance requires dominance complementarity between group members and the external customer,
market or credible project sponsor. Without this fundamental fidelity, member extrinsic anxieties and
dysfunctional group behavior will at best moderate organizational outcomes.
Specifically, this research proposal offers the following hypotheses and model to inform the research
problem:
Hypothesis 1: Greater organizational satisfaction will exist for organizations where there is continuous
dominance complementarity design - extending from the behavioral leadership of group level
management within a company to the behavioral leadership of external sponsors.
Hypothesis 2: Within the same industry, organizations with continuous dominance complementarity
design will secure larger market share (gross sales) in their industry than those with discontinuous
dominance complementarity design.
External Sponsor
- or -
Market
Motivation Gap (B)
Continuous
Complementarity
Discontinuous
Complementarity
Process
Lane
ContentLane
Mission
Values
Vision
Strategy
Balanced Scorecard
Strategic Steps
Personal Goals
Satisfied Market
Process
Lane
ContentLane
Mission
Values
Vision
Strategy
Balanced Scorecard
Strategic Steps
Personal Goals
Satisfied Market
Leadership Apex (A)
External Sponsor
- or -
Market
External Sponsor
- or -
Market
Mission
Values
Vision
Strategy
Balanced Scorecard
Strategic Steps
Personal Goals
Satisfied Market
External Sponsor
- or -
Market
External Sponsor
- or -
Market
Motivation Gap (B)
Continuous
Complementarity
Discontinuous
Complementarity
Process
Lane
ContentLane
Mission
Values
Vision
Strategy
Balanced Scorecard
Strategic Steps
Personal Goals
Satisfied Market
Process
Lane
ContentLane
Mission
Values
Vision
Strategy
Balanced Scorecard
Strategic Steps
Personal Goals
Satisfied Market
Leadership Apex (A)
External Sponsor
- or -
Market
External Sponsor
- or -
Market
External Sponsor
- or -
Market
Mission
Values
Vision
Strategy
Balanced Scorecard
Strategic Steps
Personal Goals
Satisfied Market
Figure 1 – Versions of Dominance Complementarity Models introduced by this research study which demonstrate how motivational gap measures
are larger when there is discontinuity between the market and an organization across the lanes of process and content goal interaction due to leader
traits. Note that in the continuous case, the motivation gap is less sensitive to the Leadership Apex compared to the discontinuous state; however,
use of organization leaders with less extroversion may offer rapid closure across the Process and Content Lane motivation gaps.
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 7
LITERATURE REVIEW
Three relevant scientific research studies were selected for their ability to inform the formation of study
questions in support for this research proposal. Each study is summarized here including its hypotheses,
study design, study results and contribution the proposed study questions.
Reference Study 1:
Reversing the Extraverted Leadership Advantage: The Role of Employee Proactivity
Two test environments, including a set of pizza stores and a laboratory, were used to study a dominance
complementarity theory between leaders and members of a group. While shown to be a consistent
predictor of supervisor and subordinate perceptions of leadership effectiveness, extraverted leadership
may not always contribute positively to group performance. The study team formed two hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: The association between leaders’ extraversion and group performance is moderated by
employee proactivity. When employees are passive, leaders’ extraversion is positively related to group
performance, but when employees are proactive, leaders’ extraversion is negatively related to group
performance.
Hypothesis 2: Employees’ perceptions of receptivity mediate the moderating effect of employee
proactivity on the relationship between leader extraversion and group performance.
Study team’s goal was to evaluate conditions under which extraverted leadership contributed to versus
detract from group performance.
An extensive literature background supported expectations that an increase in performance for cases
where proactive employees have leaders lower in extraversion and where proactive leaders and
employees are lower in extraversion. This effect reverses when employees are proactive.
The two studies performed focused on relatively structured, simple tasks in which motivation was a
central determinant of performance. Study 1 tested Hypothesis 1 by having pizza delivery operations
emulate the leader’s traits. Study 2 tested both hypotheses and sought to explore causal inferences by
determining if employees only perceived highly extraverted leaders as less receptive under conditions of
high proactivity. Both hypotheses are supported by organizational support theory (Rhoades &
Eisenberger, 2002), when employees feel that their contributions are valued by their leaders, they
reciprocate by working harder.
Study 1 – Likert-type 5-point range questionnaires were given to a US national pizza delivery chain. The
surveys were critically designed for controls to isolate on motivation factors. A survey variation was made
for both store leaders and general employees. Measurements areas included:
• Group Performance – store profitability measured over seven (7) weeks following surveys.
• Leader’s Personality Traits – self scored with 10 questions for each of the Big Five traits.
• Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, & Openness.
• Group Proactivity – across the stores in the study, 374 total employees rated the levels of
proactivity within their stores. Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) software, EQS Version 6.1,
was used to evaluate the factorial validity of the proactivity construct.
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 8
The mean, standard deviation, and correlation with study parameters were calculated and regression
analysis with controls on the Goldberg Big Five personality traits. Interactions, the multiple of leader
personality and employee proactivity, were tabulated. To evaluate the form of interaction, plots were
made for one standard deviation above and below the mean of employee proactivity. Extraverted
leadership predicted higher store performance when employees were passive, but lower store
performance when employees were proactive.
Study 2 – A T-shirt folding contest was organized at a southeastern university in the US. One hundred and
sixty-three students were organized into 56 groups of three with roles assigned of a leader and two
followers to fold as many T-shirts as possible in ten minutes. Added to each group were two research
assistants posing as “confederate” followers who would fold the same number of shirts in every sessions,
regardless of conditions. Key to this study design are two constructs. The first created instrumentality
and valence by announcing a popular and valuable award to the teams in the top 10%. The second was a
two element manipulation scheme. The first element had leaders of each group trained to exhibit either
high or low levels of extraversion. The second manipulation element had the confederate followers either
act passively or proactively. In the proactive case, one confederate would introduce the idea of a
qualified better way to fold the shirts after a minute and a half into the contest. If the leader agreed, the
second confederate would teach the method and if the leader said no to the idea, the confederates did
not challenge and proceeded to follow the leader’s initial instructions.
Study Design
Measurements for Study 2 performance were:
• Dependent variable: group performance – simply number of T-shirts folded by three student
group members. Those folded by confederates were not counted.
• Mediator: leader receptivity - followers evaluated leaders on five items of openness using 7-point
Likert-type scale.
• Manipulation check 1: Leaders’ extraverted behavior – Leaders indicated the extent to which they
displayed behaviors characteristic of extraverts during the task using a 9-point Likert-type scale.
• Manipulation check 2: Followers’ proactive behaviors – Leaders rated their followers’ proactive
behaviors by indicating the extent to which followers as a group displayed such behaviors on a 7-
point Likert-type scale.
Study Results
Means and standard deviation were calculated in addition to analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the 2
(leader extraversion: high vs. low) X 2 (followers’ behavior: proactive vs. passive) parameters. Consistent
with Hypothesis 1, we found a significant interaction between leaders’ extraversion and followers’
proactive behavior.
Consistent with Hypothesis 1, the study found a significant interaction between leaders’ extraversion and
followers’ proactive behavior. To ascertain whether these effects were driven by leader or follower
performance, we conducted additional 2x2 between-subjects ANOVAs on the number of t-shirts folded by
the leader and by the two followers. Consistent with our hypotheses, when followers were proactive,
they achieved higher performance when leaders acted in a less extraverted manner.
Confident support was demonstrated for the motivational mechanisms of perceived leader receptivity in
Hypothesis 2. Mediated moderation analysis using a 2X2 ANOVA showed that lower leader extraversion
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 9
can improve the performance of proactive groups even when their ideas are not actually superior or more
efficient.
Research Relevance
The studies reviewed in this reference support the proposed hypotheses for a new study that will
evaluate the complementarity between external leaders, internal project leaders, and employees. Here
our ANOVA mediated moderation analysis will be expanded to a 3 X 2 which adds the variable of external
leader extraversion – either low or high. This situation occurs frequently in defense contract
environments and commercial acquisitions where there may be very low to very high levels of
transparency and support from project stakeholders. Depending on their receptivity, perceived and
actual, that competing contractors have for proposed solutions or alternatives to a procurement program
requirement’s set, the moderating effect of proactive employees on effective outcomes should be
significant. Unfortunate for US defense capabilities, defense companies haven’t adjusted well to the
impact of changes to acquisition structure reforms as defense downsizing cuts to their workforces leaves
an aggregate of both highly proactive employees and leaders with ideally characteristic extroversion
behavior. Even the best organizational operators are challenged to maintain motivational factors as they
are over-run with proactive employees who apply their rationalized requirement set to the formation of
informal groups in efforts to design and build functional equipment within time and schedule constraints.
The problem is that these solutions have low receptivity to external sponsors.
Reference Study 2:
Organizational Commitment, Job Redesign, Employee Empowerment and Intent to Quit Among
Survivors of Restructuring and Downsizing
This study was reviewed as it evaluates a common core dynamic in industry in an ever globalized economy
– restructuring and downsizing. On a large scale, the increased occurrence of lay-offs, reduced pay, and
general uncertainty are an extrinsic stressor that challenges all companies. Immunity is not guaranteed –
even in absence of any organizational changes. The majority of studies on downsizing and restructuring
focus on the extrinsic factors of prior roles, fairness, trust, and justice rather than empowerment, job
redesign, intent to quit through affective organizational commitment. To realize the efficiency or cost
saving goals of downsizing and restructuring, an organization must retain employees who can sustain
long-term loyalty, organization commitment, and champion the details of completing the organizational
transition. Employee needs demand a conscious and structured organizational approach to the
management of survivors' adverse reactions (intent to quit and subsequent voluntary turnover) to
restructuring and downsizing.
While this study demonstrates that empowerment and job redesign can be organizational interventions
that could mitigate "intent to quit,” the study is limited in that it only serves to demonstrate that affective
organizational commitment can come from job redesign and empowerment. The real question is what
will sustain motivation. Further, if only select employees in the organization are galvanized into new roles
or job designs, the remainder will be left in a starvation scenario that will moderate any intent to
effectively transition the organization. Also relevant to the hypothesis proposed by the new study is the
need to validate organizational objectives. Thus, it is argued here that the empowerment must have high
fidelity communication mechanisms with external content messages. Organizational changes that fail to
reflect improved market or customer confidence may prove to be unrecoverable.
This study evaluated two hypotheses:
• Hypothesis 1: Job redesign (skills variety, task significance, autonomy, identity and feedback),
because it enhances survivors' assessments of their capacity to effectively respond to the
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 10
challenges of restructuring and downsizing, will be positively related to affective organizational
commitment.
• Hypothesis 2: Employee empowerment (meaningfulness, impact, competence and self-
determination), because it enhances survivors' assessments of their capacity to effectively
respond to the challenges of restructuring and downsizing, will be positively related to affective
organizational commitment.
Study Design
Eight transit systems were invited to participate based on the author's knowledge of their involvement in
outsourcing, restructuring and downsizing. Five companies agreed to participate and represented a range
of organizational size operating locally with 100 buses to nationally with over 2000 vehicles including both
rail and bus services. A confidential direct mailed questionnaire using a 5-point Likert-type scale system
was sent to over 700 employees of the five companies. Questions about job characteristics with proven
validity measured levels of agreement and importance for job redesign, affective organizational
commitment and employee empowerment.
Study Results
Factor analysis was used to evaluate the validity of the study measures along with a Pearson correlation
to assess the relationships or association between the scale items and constructs. Additionally,
Cronbach’s Alphas were used to test for the reliability of the scales. If given the opportunity to change
their job features, the most important was job skills followed by job autonomy. While only Hypothesis 2
was directly supported, this study provides empirical evidence showing that both job redesign employee
empowerment that enhance survivors' sense of impact and job meaningfulness can facilitate survivors'
affective commitment. This reduces the intent to quit because of the significant positive correlation
between them. It was also shown that the four factors of empowerment (meaningfulness, competence,
impact and choice or self-determination) are independent and cannot be represented by a single
measure.
Research Relevance
There is clear empowerment in job environments where meaningfulness is uniformly realized. Job design
alone is not sufficient for empowerment. The instrumentality of creating employees that achieve self-
realization requires an organizational design that allows them to develop competence through the
autonomy to align with market opportunities as opposed to experiencing the frustration of trying to apply
training through rigid organizational barriers. Especially during an austere downsizing environment,
expectancy theory for impact is brittle and requires consistent commonality and commitment between
the market opportunities and the company’s objectives.
Reference Study 3:
The Relationships and Effects of Employee Involvement, Employee Empowerment, and Employee
Satisfaction by Job-type in a Large Manufacturing Environment
During a depressed economic state and following lay-offs, a 2003 study aimed at determining the
relationships between involvement, empowerment, and satisfaction with respect to a range of job types
in Fortune 100 companies. These job types were hourly, salary non-management, engineers, and
managers. While several studies have explored the relationship, none considered this broader construct
where job types were evaluated for correlation.
Employee involvement involves processes including four elements of knowledge, information, power and
rewards and among the interdependence between these, antecedents to employee involvement,
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 11
empowerment and satisfaction exist. While empowerment can come from process based experiences, as
a cognitive sentient overlay, it has unique motivational power when an employee’s perception is positive
about their competence, meaningfulness, choice, and impact.
It is essential to recognize the essential construct of the study for Light’s dissertation in evaluating the
sequential relationship of employee impact starting with each of the four input elements (e.g. -
information received by the employee) and how these affect the level of their involvement and in
following, the impact evaluation through the sequence to how an employee’s satisfaction affects their
decision of whether or not to leave the company.
Significant to Light’s research and study motivation is consideration of theory highlighting the Expected
Value Theory promoted by Victor Vroom.
Hypotheses
Based on a review of literature, a set of six (6) hypotheses were developed to test the study questions
with added depth in the area of employee involvement.
The first two hypotheses tested the linear relationship between employee involvement, employee
empowerment and employee satisfaction. The third hypothesis, divided into three facets tests the
difference in the perceptions of employee involvement, employee empowerment, and employee
satisfaction by the four different job types. The fifth hypothesis examines the relationship of the four
components of employee involvement to overall employee involvement and the sixth hypothesis
examines the four components of employee empowerment to overall employee empowerment.
Figure 2 – Sequential structure roadmap to employee satisfaction showing two clusters where four-factor instrumentality controls outcome.
Responses and correlation of factors vary by job-type. Adapted from Joel Light’s Dissertation, “The Relationships and Effects of Employee
Involvement, Employee Empowerment, and Employee Satisfaction By Job-type in a Large Manufacturing Environment.” Capella University, 1994.
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 12
Study Design
Serving as the annual employee survey for a Fortune 100 company in 2003, both quantitative questions
using a 5-point Likert scale and a qualitative written comment section were used as study instruments.
From the population, 35,614 surveys were returned representing 69% of the total group. Over 19,000
comments were received.
Study Results
Prior to the analysis of the research questions, a Cronbach’s Alpha test and factor analysis were
performed on the survey questions. Responses to open ended study questions were coded by job type
and component to increase the understanding of differences in quantitative data. The ordinal
relationship was also compared to measure if there was similar importance indicated between
quantitative and qualitative groups.
Note of limitation: while this study acknowledges that economic and individual factors also influence job
satisfaction, only work related factors were studied and analyzed. Further, as it was a single point-in-time
data set and was limited to one group within one company, other variances and issues with portability to
other populations could exist.
Research Relevance
Supporting the premise of the new proposed research study are the findings that:
• Of the sequence flow in process relationships, the quantitative correlation was best and the
majority of open-ended comments for all job types were for employee involvement. While the
correlation to employee involvement was still good, information was the lowest of the process
factors. This may be a confidence issue as significant concerns were expressed on the velocity,
integration, and accuracy of information within the company.
• Employees lower in a traditional hierarchical structure are the least satisfied and this had a
negative effect on empowerment. Hourly employees however were generally more satisfied
than engineers.
• Rapid vertical information flow enhances employee involvement; however, more important is
the key that power comes from the manner in how information is delegated.
• Validating social exchange theory, with even a high level of perceived power, a high level of
reward is expected.
• All job types commented on excessive organizational structures. Of the empowerment cognition
factors: meaning, choice, competence and impact; impact had a 20% better correlation than the
next highest factor, choice (λ= 0.66).
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 13
PROPOSED RESEARCH STUDY
This study proposes to evaluate the dominance complementarity between external sponsors, internal
project managers, and employees. This study proposal is applicable to both defense oligopoly markets as
well as commercial product and service markets.
Study Design
The research process shall engage both an organization and its market or sponsor stakeholder
organization. Within each group, an anonymous behavior trait and satisfaction survey will be
administered using Vovici online tool-sets. The Vovici software tool-set, used in over half of all Fortune
500 companies, has been verified for SSL-security, time efficiency, and high participation rate. This survey
will also have open ended questions which allow for either self written responses or allow choices of short
paragraphs that they can tailor by selecting adjective and modifier strength that best describes their
situation.
Quantitative questions will use 4-point Likert-scale measures as rather than a 5-point Likert-scales where
the middle answer is neutral. This will serve to improve participant involvement and identify trends.
Relevant to the Hypotheses of this study, both internal and external group surveys will have as an element
of the survey process a Myers-Briggs personality type indicator to measure the degree of extroversion in
the population as a function of role in the organization.
Study Analysis
Following the survey, a 3 x 2 ANOVA mediated moderation analysis will be performed to identify specific
process motivation issues to explore later in a set of study groups. Unique to this research study design is
the process where each of these study groups will be done in absence of their complement (i.e. – internal
and external populations are placed into independent study groups first) and then allowed to observe a
recording of their complement’s study-group with follow-up. This is in effect a real-time Cronbach’s
Alpha which will demonstrate to the research study as well as the study participants the reliability of their
perception against their complement. From this, the “design factors” to achieve best dominance
complementarity will be identified.
Deliverables
In addition to the survey and focus group statistical summary reports, this study will produce a tailored
classic balanced scorecard that will facilitate continuous optimization of dominance complementarity
design as a strategic planning and management system tool. This can be effective in maximizing both
employee and customer satisfaction.
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 14
PREDICTED RESEARCH FINDINGS
This study anticipates that achieving an optimal process orientation leading to satisfaction, especially
during austere economic conditions, requires a set of three motivational commonalities to reduce the
influence of external negative content:
1. Continuum of requirement set and valence for a program. Validated product requirements or
project objectives using market or customer communications that are as direct as possible. As
there are limits to self-endorsement, this will serve to satisfy the external content needs of
employees through increased velocity in transporting the opportunity and increased accuracy of
the external market need consistently to each employee.
2. Common leverage of leadership apex – gains in both process and content advantage from use of
introverted internal managers/leaders who won’t compete but rather facilitate proactivity and
upward influence from employees. Hypothesis 2 would expect internal leaders with high
extroversion to ultimately produce lower quality and higher cost equipment than those with
lower extroversion as there will be low receptivity and in following low motivation and means to
close requirement gaps. Dominance complementarity theory indicates that without program
sponsor receptivity to a robust and active resolution process for requirement gaps, effective
solutions won’t be effectively implemented – if at all. The way to encourage proactivity and
mediate moderating effects is to empower and train organizational leaders with competent
management skill sets but with lower extroversion.
3. Effective autonomous open environments with integrated diversity values - a variety of equitable
engagement channels for employees to participate in honest dialogue and share in the vision and
development of the organization. With consistent, robust, and assertive goal communication
from project sponsors, valence anxiety is reduced with increased project validity and market
relevance. This further supports the use of leaders with lower extraversion.
June 2011

G.M.Steele: 15
REFERENCES
Mitchell, D. (2011), Nobel Prize Winner Analyzes the Obama Growth Gap, Cato@Liberty [online]: June 16,
2011. Retrieved from: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/nobel-prize-winner-analyzes-the-obama-growth-
gap/http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/nobel-prize-winner-analyzes-the-obama-growth-gap/
Ivancevich, J, Konopaske, R, & Matteson, M. (2011), Organizational Behavior. McGraw-Hill Irwin: 9th
ed.
Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B.B. (1959), The Motivation to Work (2nd ed.). New York: John
Wiley & Sons.
Leana, C., Appelbaum, E., & Shevchuk, I. (2010), Work process and quality of care in early childhood
education: The role of job crafting. Academy of Management Journal, 52: 1169-1192.
Griffin, M., Neal, A., & Parker, S. (2007), A new model of work role performance: Positive behavior in
uncertain and interdependent contexts. Academy of Management Journal, 50: 327-347.
Grant, A., Gino, F., and Hofmann, D. (2011), Reversing the Extraverted Leadership Advantage: The Role of
Employee Proactivity. Forthcoming in the Academy of Management Journal: The Wharton School,
University of Pennsylvania, Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
Harvard Business School. Retrieved from:
http://www.management.wharton.upenn.edu/grant/GrantGinoHofmann_AMJforthcoming_ExtravertedL
eadershipProactivity.pdf
Light, J. (1994), The Relationships and Effects of Employee Involvement, Employee Empowerment, and
Employee Satisfaction by Job-type in a Large Manufacturing Environment. Capella University: Ph.D.
Dissertation, August 1994. Retrieved from:
http://www.drjohnlatham.com/Conceptual_Framework_files/Light_Joel_Dissertation.pdf
Isaiah, U. (2006), Organizational Commitment, Job Redesign, Employee Empowerment and Intent to Quit
Among Survivors of Restructuring and Downsizing. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management: May
1, 2006. Retrieved from: http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/company-
strategy/13483789-1.html
Johnson, L. (2005), Rethinking Company Loyalty. Harvard Business School: September 19, 2005.
Retrieved from: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5000.html
Goldberg, L. R. (1981), Language and individual differences: The search for universals in personality
lexicons. In L. Wheeler (Ed.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 2. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Vovici 6. Survey Software Brochure. Retrieved from:
http://www.vovici.com/_assets/pdf/FactSheets/VoviciFS_Vovici_6_Highlights.pdf
June 2011

OrgDesign_ResearchProposal_Steele[1]

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (13)

Similar to OrgDesign_ResearchProposal_Steele[1]

Similar to OrgDesign_ResearchProposal_Steele[1] (20)

OrgDesign_ResearchProposal_Steele[1]