Managers’ theories of subordinates: A cross-cultural examination of manager perceptions of motivation and appraisal of performance

The present study sought to examine the relationship between managers’ perceptions of employee motivation and performance appraisal by surveying managers and employees in three distinct cultural regions (North America, Asia, and Latin America) within a single global organization. Three distinct cultural patterns emerged in the theories managers’ held about their subordinates. While North American managers perceived their employees as being more extrinsically than intrinsically motivated, perceptions of intrinsic motivation proved to be a more robust predictor of performance appraisal. Asian managers exhibited a holistic tendency in that they perceived their subordinates as equally motivated by intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and their perceptions of both motivations proved to be comparable predictors of performance appraisal. Latin American managers perceived their employees as being more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated, and accordingly, only their perceptions of intrinsic motivation proved to be significantly correlated with performance appraisal. In contrast to the cultural variations exhibited in manager perceptions, employees consistently reported themselves as being more motivated by intrinsic than extrinsic incentives. Explanations for the distinct cultural patterns that emerged and their implications for the study of culture and organizational behavior are discussed.     

Self-serving Bias and Actor-Observer Differences In Organizations: An Empirical Analysis1

Self-serving attributional bias is the tendency for a subordinate to attribute personal (internal) cause for successful performance but to assign cause for failures to external factors. The actor-observed difference in attribution is the tendency for concerned observers (managers) of a subordinate's performance to attribute cause for the performance to factors internal to the subordinate, in direct opposition to the subordinate's external attribution for the same performance. This research investigated both phenomena. Twenty-four experienced managers served as manager/subjects in simulated appraisal situations. Subjects with prior work experience served as subordinate/subjects. Each manager participated in four separate simulated performance appraisals, under differing conditions of objective performance and work history, for a total of 96 interactions. The results revealed a strong self-serving bias on the part of subordinates. The results also strongly supported the notion of an actor-observer difference in performance attribution. Subordinates tended to attribute more externally and managers tended to attribute more internally (to the subordinate), regardless of performance level. The research also served to delineate and articulate the relationship between self-serving bias and actor-observer differences.     

Manager–salesperson congruence in customer orientation and job outcomes: The bright and dark sides of leadership in aligning values

To create customer-oriented organizations, managers are often asked to promote a values-based vision. Yet, many managers struggle with transferring their values to employees making strategic value changes difficult. Despite this challenge, research has yet to demonstrate how managers effectively align values within the sales force, or the impact alignment has on job outcomes. Therefore, we develop and empirically test a conceptual framework to examine the role of transformational leadership in aligning salesperson customer orientation (CO) values. We find that transformational leadership is a strong mechanism in creating perceived value congruence, yet may have a surprising dark side. Results suggest that transformational managers achieve congruence by raising or, contrary to conventional wisdom, lowering salesperson CO values to meet the perceived values of the manager. Response surface modelling results support the importance of perceived manager values. Customer-oriented salespeople have higher job satisfaction and sales performance when they perceive their manager to also have high CO. When values are misaligned, job satisfaction increases more for low CO salespeople as perceptions of manager CO increase. Exploratory findings show that performance was higher under situations of perfect alignment but also under severe misalignment suggesting that values generate performance under complementary or supplementary conditions.     

Are We There Yet? An Assessment of Fit Between Stereotypes of Minority Managers and the Successful‐Manager Prototype

Caucasian managers from the hospitality industry used a managerial attribute inventory to rate 1 of 5 target groups: successful manager, Caucasian American manager, African American manager, Asian American manager, or Hispanic American manager. The results revealed higher correspondence between ratings of Caucasian and Asian American managers and the successful-manager prototype than between prototype characteristics and the reported stereotypes of African American and Hispanic American managers. Comparisons between male and female respondents were made also. Their reported perceptions were found to be similar.     

A Social Learning Perspective on Sales Technology Usage: Preliminary Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Drawing on social learning theory, we examine how the perceived technological savvy of a salesperson’s manager, coworkers, and competitors affects sales technology usage behavior. Data were drawn from a major retail bank in Nigeria, Africa. Analyses of data from relationship managers confirm predictions that while perceived coworker savvy directly influences technology usage, the influence of managers’ and competitors’ perceived savvy is mediated. Perceived manager savvy influences usage by increasing feelings of monitoring and the level of perceived coworker savvy. Similarly, perceived competitor savvy influences usage by increasing perceived manager and coworker savvy. We also confirm that usage of sales technology has a positive influence on salesperson performance.     

建言类型对管理者建言采纳的影响：上下级关系的间接调节作用

基于说服模型,本研究探讨了建言类型、上下级关系、管理者感知忠诚对管理者建言采纳的影响。通过两个管理者样本的实验数据,本研究发现：(1)管理者更易采纳促进性建言而非抑制性建言;(2)在上下级关系不好的情况下,建言类型对建言采纳的影响显著,在上下级关系较好的情况下,建言类型对建言采纳的影响不显著;(3)上下级关系是通过管理者感知忠诚调节建言类型对建言采纳的影响。     

Predicting expatriate effectiveness: The role of personality,cross‐cultural adjustment,and organizational support

The interest in expatriate effectiveness has grown remarkably as a consequence of globalization and the possibility of failure in international assignments. This study has tested a comprehensive model of expatriate effectiveness in a sample of 108 Spanish expatriate managers. They responded to a survey which included a set of variables, including personality, adjustment, language skill, cultural distance, organizational support, and expatriate effectiveness (i.e., job performance, intentions of early return, and manager efficacy perceived by others). The results showed that cultural distance and cross‐cultural adjustment were the immediate predictors of expatriate effectiveness and that achievement, sociability, organizational support, and language skills predicted cross‐cultural adjustment and cultural distance. The results showed a good fit to the hypothesized model (GFI = .973; CFI =.975; RMSEA = .056; SRMR = .053). Finally, we comment on the implications of the findings for the research and practice of selection in international assignments.     

Perception of managers’ influence depending on status,power, and company performance

This research examines others’ perception of the influence of managers working in successful or unsuccessful companies who possess or lack status (to be respected by others) and power (control of valued resources). Study 1 shows that high‐status managers were judged as more influential in the firm than their low‐status peers, regardless of the company's situation. Study 2 finds that in a context of economic uncertainty, a manager with high status and power is perceived to be more capable of affecting the firm. The effect of power seems to be secondary since when a manager has low status, having high power does not significantly benefit the influence attributed to him or her. Furthermore, dominance (assertive behavior), not warmth, mediated the relationship between status and the attributed influence. Overall, these findings confirm that status is a very potent source of social influence, status and power are distinct constructs with different effects, and dominance rather than warmth is a key personal dimension linked to successful leadership.     

Perceived trait-co-occurrences according to managerial role: A structural representation

Fifty-eight middle managers were presented with three check lists containing effective and ineffective managerial traits previously obtained as free responses from another sample of middle managers. Each manager in the present study was asked to describe a superior, a peer, and a subordinate. Multidimensional scaling solutions were then calculated from these check list data. Ratings, obtained on five properties, were used to interpret the solutions.The findings demonstrated that managers in a highly competitive organization having frequent, formalized evaluative procedures (1) ascribe highly negative attributes to those peers perceived as effective, (2) have relatively undifferentiated views of their ineffective peers and ineffective subordinates, but (3) not their superiors who are viewed critically whether effective or ineffective.     

Trust in the face of conflict: the role of managerial trustworthy behavior and organizational context

The authors explored the role of attributions in shaping employees' trust in their managers in the context of negative events. The authors examined how 2 forms of managerial trustworthy behavior (open communication and demonstrating concern for employees) and organizational policies relate to attributions, trust in the manager, and organizational citizenship behavior. Participants were 115 credit union employees who responded to a critical incident regarding a disagreement with their managers. As hypothesized, trustworthy behavior was negatively related to attributions of personal responsibility for negative encounters, and this relationship was stronger when human resource policies were perceived as unfair. Managerial trustworthy behavior was also positively related to trust in the manager and organizational citizenship behavior. Personal attributions partially mediated the relationship between trustworthy behavior and trust.     

Line manager involvement in work-life balance and career development: can't manage,won't manage?

Line manager involvement in HRM is an increasing trend across Europe. With the numbers of employees taking advantage of work-life balance policies also on the increase, line manager responsibility for this specific policy area is likely to become more marked. In this paper, we argue that line managers have a critical role to play in the career development of reduced-hours employees, but that due to a number of cultural and institutional processes, the extent of this involvement is likely to be limited. Using qualitative data from interviews with police managers and police officers who have reduced their hours, we argue that gendered assumptions, deeply embedded in taken-for-granted organisational practices and structures, operate in ways that encourage line managers and reduced-hours workers to locate career barriers in the psyche of the latter. The implications of these processes for line manager involvement in the career development of reduced-hours professionals are explored and explicated.     

Blaming leaders for organizational accidents: Proxy logic in collective- versus individual-agency cultures

The current research investigates whether observers blame leaders for organizational accidents even when these managers are known to be causally uninvolved. Past research finds that the public blames managers for organizational harm if the managers are perceived to have personally played a causal role. The present research argues that East Asian perceivers, who are culturally oriented to focus on the causal influence of groups [Menon, T., Morris, M. W., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (1999). Culture and the construal of agency: Attribution to individual versus group dispositions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 701–717.], blame managers based on the behavior of the group, not only based on the behavior of the individual managers. We argue that perceivers first assign responsibility to the collectivity, the organizational unit or some group within it, and then extend responsibility to the manager representing it. We tested this proposal in a series of studies with a community sample in Japan and matched student samples of Japanese and Americans. Results show that perceivers who are culturally oriented to focus on collective-level causality (Japanese, more so than Americans; Asian Americans, more so than European Americans) blame leaders through proxy logic. Implications of this intuitive logic and of the cultural difference are discussed.     

Gender Typing of the Successful Manager—A Stereotype Reconsidered

The feminization of management is a recurring theme in both popular and scientific management literature. However, several studies have shown that successful managers are generally attributed predominantly masculine characterics. In this study, gender typing of the manager role was studied in a sample of 143 management students (74 men, 69 women) in the Netherlands. As was hypothesized, on a checklist with masculine, feminine, and gender-neutral traits, masculine characteristics were rated as more applicable to successful managers than feminine characteristics, but gender-neutral characteristics were rated even more applicable. Analysis of the wording used to describe a successful manager on an open-ended question showed that participants used either gender-neutral words or (generic) “he.” This finding indicates that the successful manager is still imagined as a man, even though on a checklist this manager seems to possess predominantly gender-neutral traits. It is concluded that more methodological variety is needed in the study of gender typing of successful managers.     

MEN,WOMEN, AND MANAGERS: ARE STEREOTYPES FINALLY CHANGING?

As the number of women in management roles increases and organizations place a greater emphasis on diversity, a subsequent change in perceptions of women as leader-like is expected. To test this notion, we examined gender and management stereotypes of male and female managers and students. Results reveal considerable change in male managers' views of women over the past 30 years, as evidenced by greater congruence between their perceptions of women and successful managers and stronger endorsement of agentic and task-oriented leadership characteristics for women. Stereotypes held by male students changed less, remaining strikingly similar to stereotypes held by male managers 15 years ago. Across samples, there was general agreement in the characteristics of managers but less agreement about the characteristics of women. We also found men somewhat less likely than women to attribute successful manager characteristics to women. Respondents with positive past experiences with female managers tended to rate women higher on management characteristics.     

Male and female managers' ability to read emotions: Relationships with supervisor's performance ratings and subordinates' satisfaction ratings

The present study examines the direct and indirect effect of managers' accuracy in ‘reading’ non‐verbal emotional expressions and their supervisors' performance ratings and subordinates' satisfaction with the manager. Data from working managers and their supervisors and subordinates were used to test the study's hypotheses. Although managers' accuracy was not directly related to others' ratings, a significant interactive effect was found: Female but not male managers who more accurately perceived non‐verbal emotional expressions received higher performance ratings from their supervisor and higher satisfaction ratings from their subordinates, perhaps due to gender stereotypes prescribing emotional sensitivity to female managers. Furthermore, how managers used emotional information to enhance subordinates' satisfaction varied for female and male managers. Results suggested that male managers who were more accurate at emotion perception received higher satisfaction ratings if they used the information to be more persuasive, whereas more emotionally perceptive female managers received higher satisfaction ratings when they demonstrated more supportiveness.     

A daily investigation of the role of manager empathy on employee well-being

In a daily diary study, the authors investigated the top-down influence of manager empathy on a process model of employee well-being. Sixty employees supervised by one of 13 managers completed a daily survey for 2 weeks, producing a total of 436 observations. Hierarchical linear modeling results revealed that, at the daily level, employees who reported somatic complaints made less progress on their goals and felt lower levels of positive affect and higher levels of negative affect. At the group level, cross-level main and interactive effects of manager empathy were observed, such that groups of employees with empathic managers experienced lower average levels of somatic complaints, and daily goal progress was more strongly related to positive affect for groups of employees with empathic managers. We discuss the implications of these results for the emerging literature on leaders as managers of group emotion.     

ASK AND YOU SHALL HEAR (BUT NOT ALWAYS): EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MANAGER CONSULTATION AND EMPLOYEE VOICE

The literature on employees’ voice is characterized by 2 influential perspectives on its antecedents—1 that focuses on the importance of managerial behaviors and the other that emphasizes the role of employees’ internal motivational states. In this study, we integrate these perspectives and examine the proposition that (a key managerial behavior) consultation—that is, the extent to which the manager is seen to solicit and listen to suggestions on work issues from the employees, enhances employees’ upward voice by increasing their perceived influence at work (an important motivational state). Using multisource survey data from 640 nurses and their managers, we found that managers’ consultation was positively related to employees’ upward voice, with employees’ perceived influence acting as the mediator. We further delineate key moderators of this mediated relationship and discuss implications for theory and practice.     

Proactivity with image in mind: How employee and manager characteristics affect evaluations of proactive behaviours

This paper investigates image cost as a potential downside of proactivity. Drawing on attribution theory, we examine how people construct subjective evaluations of one manifestation of proactivity, feedback‐seeking behaviour. Using a scenario methodology, we examined how employees' performance history, their manager's implicit person theory (IPT), and the frequency of their feedback‐seeking affect how managers evaluate employees' feedback seeking. Results indicate that manager attribute average performers' feedback seeking significantly less to performance‐enhancement motives than superior performers' seeking. Results further show that the frequency of feedback seeking and a manager's IPT interact in influencing managers' attributions for feedback seeking, with more entity oriented managers attributing frequent feedback seeking significantly more to impression‐management motives than infrequent feedback requests. These results highlight the importance of not only the instrumental benefits of employee proactivity, but also its potential costs.