The mediating role of affective commitment in the relation of the feedback environment to work outcomes

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Abstract

The Feedback Environment, as opposed to the formal performance appraisal process, is comprised of the daily interactions between members of an organization (Steelman, Levy, & Snell, in press). Relations between the feedback environment and work outcome variables such as Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) were examined through the mediating effects of affective commitment. Results indicate that affective commitment mediates the relation between the feedback environment and organizational citizenship behavior, and this mediated relation is stronger for OCBs directed at individuals than directed at the organization as a whole. Conclusions and implications are discussed.

Introduction

Industrial/Organizational Psychology research generally, and performance appraisal research specifically, has clearly shown the importance of feedback on organizational and individual performance. However, Kluger and DeNisi (1996) in their seminal work on feedback intervention, emphasized the variable effectiveness of feedback in improving performance. More recently, research has turned away from examining the singular construct of feedback and toward examining contextual factors in the workplace that influence the use of feedback, or the Feedback Environment (Steelman et al., in press). As opposed to the formal performance appraisal process, the feedback environment refers to the daily interactions between members of an organization regarding the way feedback is presented, received, and used.

The present study examined the relation between the feedback environment, as operationalized by the feedback environment scale, and workplace outcome variables. It was expected and hypothesized that contextual behaviors, such as supervisor-reported organizational citizenship behaviors, would be strongly affected by employee self-reports of the feedback environment. Moreover, these relations may operate through the mediating effect of affective commitment, as the feedback environment affects commitment levels, which then, in turn, impact workplace citizenship behaviors.

The role of feedback within an organization is affected by a variety of variables present within the work setting (Fedor, 1991; Ilgen, Fisher, & Taylor, 1979; Taylor, Fisher, & Ilgen, 1984). While the feedback message sometimes seems to receive the majority of the research attention, other aspects of a feedback session, such as interpersonal treatment, have recently been pushed into the forefront of feedback researchers' agendas. More specifically, salient contextual variables have been examined extensively with respect to performance appraisal (Findley, Giles, & Mossholder, 2000; Funderburg & Levy, 1997; Herold & Fedor, 1998; Levy & Williams, 1998). These salient contextual variables include factors such as the accuracy of the message that is delivered, the manner in which the message is delivered, the credibility of the individual providing feedback, and the perceived fairness of the message (Fedor, 1991; Ilgen et al., 1979). Feedback researchers stress that the feedback environment should not be conceptualized as one stable aspect of an organization, but rather as a continually changing, dynamic system that is shaped by the actions of the feedback recipient (Ashford, 1993; Becker & Klimoski, 1989; Herold & Fedor, 1998). A more comprehensive view of the feedback environment should treat source and message variables as integral to affecting an individual's perceived feedback environment.

Recently, a standard for measuring the feedback environment has been proposed (Steelman et al., in press). This Feedback Environment Scale (FES) is composed of two major source dimensions, supervisor and co-worker, that are each then subdivided into seven major facets. Hence an employee is subject to two separate, yet somewhat related environments: daily feedback-related interactions with supervisors and daily feedback-related interactions with co-workers. The present research focused solely on the supervisor feedback environment.

The first of the seven facets that compose the supervisor feedback environment is Source Credibility, which refers to the supervisor's expertise and trustworthiness as a feedback provider. Feedback Quality, the second facet, refers to the consistency and usefulness of feedback, Feedback Delivery refers to the considerateness with which the feedback message is presented. Favorable and Unfavorable Feedback refer to the frequency with which positive feedback or negative feedback (that is consistent with the recipient's own conceptualization of his/her work performance) is provided. Source Availability refers to the amount of contact the recipient has with his or her supervisor and the effort the recipient needs to expend in order to receive feedback. Finally, Promotes Feedback Seeking refers to the supportiveness of the environment in promoting feedback-seeking behavior. The reliability and validity of each of these seven facets of the FES have been supported by construct validation studies (see Steelman et al., in press).

Although research has demonstrated that a more favorable feedback environment may lead to increased motivation to use feedback (Steelman & Levy, 2001), the feedback environment has yet to be examined as an antecedent of work behaviors such as organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).

Organizational citizenship behaviors are those behaviors that “contribute to the maintenance and enhancement of the social and psychological context that supports task performance” (Organ, 1997, p. 91). These behaviors are those that are beneficial and supportive for the organization yet are not required by the demands of the task or job, and may not have as clear a direct link to organizational rewards. Research has confirmed that as well as enhancing the working environment, OCBs also increase organizational performance and effectiveness (Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997).

Organizational citizenship behaviors have been categorized in various ways (see Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bacharach, 2000). One categorical scheme includes five components or classes of behavior that include altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue (Organ, 1988). Altruism refers to the process of helping a co-worker complete a job-related task. Conscientiousness includes behaviors such as arriving at work on time, working late on a big project, using time wisely and efficiently while at work, and not wasting company resources. Sportsmanship refers to the employee's ability to maintain a positive attitude even when faced with workplace difficulties. Courtesy reflects polite and respectful behavior toward co-workers that is intended to prevent work-related conflicts before they occur. Finally, Civic Virtue refers to the employee's involvement in the work environment as separate from his/her involvement in a specific job or task. Confirmatory factor analyses have upheld these five dimensions as separate aspects of OCB with different determinants (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990).

OCBs have been dimensionalized in other ways as well. One popular demarcation of OCB is to separate those behaviors directed at the organization from those behaviors directed at the individual (Williams & Anderson, 1991). OCBOs, or those OCBs that impact the organization as a whole, would include behaviors such as Civic Virtue, Sportsmanship and Conscientiousness. OCBIs, or those behaviors directed at other individuals within the organizational context, include the Altruism and Courtesy dimensions described above.

The antecedents of OCBs have also been extensively researched (Podsakoff et al., 2000; Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983). Most pertinent to the current study, the relation between performance appraisal and OCBs has been demonstrated in many different contexts (Allen & Rush, 1998; Podsakoff et al., 2000; Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). Further, the supervisor-employee interaction that occurs in the appraisal process has also been shown to explain variance in contextual performance above that explained by organizational structure (Findley et al., 2000). This supervisor-employee interaction is similar to the operationalization of the supervisor feedback environment presented here. Hence, the supervisor feedback environment is expected to yield a strong relation with OCBs.

Variables related to the feedback environment like leader supportiveness, organizational commitment, understanding of the performance appraisal system and perceived fairness have all been found to predict OCB (Allen & Meyer, 1996; Haworth & Levy, 2001; Organ, 1997; Organ & Konovsky, 1989; Podsakoff et al., 1990). Recently researchers have found that direct interactions with supervisors, including the extent to which supervisors observed and listened to their employees, lead to increased OCBs by subordinates (Findley et al., 2000). Other research has confirmed that the delivery of feedback has been found to affect how the feedback recipient will behave toward other members of the organization (Becker & Klimoski, 1989). This suggests that perhaps a more positive feedback environment will lead employees to demonstrate more OCBs. However, since much of this research has been cross-sectional with self-report data, the causal nature of the relation between feedback environment variables and OCB is unclear (Podsakoff et al., 2000).

The feedback environment scale was developed to measure the contextual, person-to-person aspects associated with the feedback giving and receiving process in an organization (Steelman, 1997). These contextual variables associated with the feedback environment have been shown to correlate with distal and proximal attitudinal variables such as satisfaction and affective commitment (Steelman & Levy, 2001). This may be because perceptions of a more favorable feedback environment may lead employees to perceive that the organization values them. Drawing from empirical research on perceptions of justice, there seems to be a consistent and robust finding that employees who perceive the organization as being more fair and supportive are more likely to engage in behaviors that support it as well (Moorman, Blakely, & Niehoff, 1998; Tepper & Taylor, 2003). When employees encounter fair procedures they perceive that the organization values them and their work (Lind, 2001), employees can then reciprocate this fair treatment either with more supportive employee attitudes, such as increased organizational commitment, or behaviors, such as OCBs (Organ, 1988, Organ, 1990). Therefore, it follows that if employees perceive a favorable feedback environment, they may be more likely to reciprocate with greater commitment directed at the organization. One of the most commonly cited measures of commitment is affective commitment, a construct explored in more depth below.

Affective commitment is defined as the “identification with, involvement in, and emotional attachment to the organization” (Allen & Meyer, 1996, p. 253). Affective commitment is highly correlated with management receptiveness, organizational dependability, organization support, and support from supervisors (Allen & Meyer, 1996). These antecedents are also components of the feedback environment. This suggests that a more favorable feedback environment may lead to increased affective commitment. That is, those who feel that the feedback environment supports them may be more likely to reciprocate with increased affective commitment toward the organization. Indeed, recent research on the feedback environment has shown that employees who perceive a more favorable feedback environment report more affective commitment than those who perceive an unfavorable feedback environment (Steelman & Levy, 2001).

Since organizational attitudes have been consistently linked to OCBs (Moorman, Niehoff, & Organ, 1993; Podsakoff et al., 2000; Tepper & Taylor, 2003), it follows that affective commitment may be a potential mediator of the relation between the Feedback Environment and each facet of OCB. Past research has also revealed a substantial relation between affective commitment and OCB in a variety of different empirical studies and workplace contexts (Allen & Meyer, 1996). If so, the more favorable the Feedback Environment, the higher the affective commitment, and the greater the likelihood of OCB.

Hypothesis 1

Affective commitment mediates the relation between the feedback environment and OCBs.

In particular, it may be that the relation between the feedback environment and OCBIs is more strongly mediated by affective commitment than is the relation between the feedback environment and OCBOs. In general, research has shown a strong relation between OCBIs and attitudinal variables (Farh, Podsakoff, & Organ, 1990; Lee & Allen, 2002; Organ & Ryan, 1995). OCBIs, and especially altruism, have been shown to be clearly related to affective commitment with correlation coefficients ranging from .2 to .5 (Organ & Ryan, 1995; Podsakoff et al., 2000; Shore, Barksdale, & Shore, 1995). Past research also suggests that affective commitment correlates more strongly with altruistic behaviors than with compliance type behaviors (Allen & Meyer, 1996; Shore et al., 1995).

In contrast, OCBOs, may have a stronger direct relation with the feedback environment perceptions. Williams and Anderson (1991) concluded that pleasant working conditions and a favorable relationship with one's manager were consistently more related to OCBOs than OCBIs. Other OCB research has also found that attitudinal variables such as satisfaction and fairness perceptions related to OCBI-type behaviors while not being significantly related to OCBO-type behaviors (Farh et al., 1990). Although there is both theoretical and empirical research to suggest the feedback environment will be related to both OCBIs and OCBOs, because of the importance of attitudinal variables in predicting OCBIs it is predicted that affective commitment will play more of a mediational role between the feedback environment and OCBIs than it will between the feedback environment and OCBOs. Hence, affective commitment is expected to have more of a mediational impact on the relation between the feedback environment and OCBIs than OCBOs.

Hypothesis 2

The relation between the feedback environment and OCBI shows a stronger mediation through affective commitment than the relation between the feedback environment and OCBO.

To further examine the relation between the feedback environment and OCBs, each of the facet levels of OCB was also examined with respect to the FES and affective commitment. Due to the many conceptualizations of OCBs, as well as commitment, in the literature, no explicit hypotheses are made regarding these relations at the OCB facet level, although some expectations follow from Hypothesis 2.

Section snippets

Participants

One hundred forty undergraduate students at a large, Midwestern university who were working at least part-time and gave permission to have their supervisor contacted participated in the study. Seventy-one supervisors returned the survey, yielding a response rate of 51%. Subordinates whose supervisors did not return surveys were excluded from further analyses. Thus, all analyses were conducted with a sample size of 71.

The average subordinate age was 22.98. Women made up 70% of the sample.

Results

Correlations between the supervisor FES and work outcome behaviors (see Table 1) revealed that, overall, the feedback environment related positively to supervisory reported OCB. Regressions were then conducted to test the mediating effects of affective commitment following Baron and Kenny's (1986) multi-step regression procedure. First, the mediator (affective commitment) was regressed on the IV (the FES), and this relation was found to be significant, F(1,69)=11.30, p<.01, β=.38, t=3.36, p

Discussion

The goal of this study was to explore the relationship between the feedback environment and work outcome variables. Affective commitment was found to partially mediate the relation between the supervisor feedback environment and OCB. More specifically, an employee's perception of his/her supervisor feedback environment related strongly to his/her level of affective commitment, which was related to OCB. Although causal direction cannot be evaluated within this research design, one explanation of

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