Effects of Upward Feedback on Supportive Leadership, Job Satisfaction and Engagement: An Experimental Field Investigation

2023-03-09

2023-05-22

Subproject 1:
Supportive Leadership (survey measure, perceived by employees)
Supportive Leadership (feedback technology)

Subproject 2:
Intention to quit (survey measure)
Work Engagement (survey measure)
Job Satisfaction (survey measure)
Quitting (provided by cooperation partner)

Subproject 1:
Supportive Leadership (survey measure): Employees’ rating of their nearest leader’s supportive behavior is measured using the Need Support 12-item scale (Tafvelin & Stenling, 2018). The scale consists of three dimensions: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (never/almost never) to 5 (always).

Supportive Leadership (feedback technology): Employees’ rating of their nearest leader’s supportive behavior is measured using four items from the feedback technology. We will combine the items into one index for supportive leadership using equal weights. Participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

1. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has given me constructive feedback on my work.
2. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has recognized what I do well.
3. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has been friendly and accommodating.
4. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has been working towards a working culture where we see and support each other.

Subproject 2:
Work Engagement (survey measure): Employees’ self-reported engagement is measured using the UWES-9 Utrecht Work Engagement 9-item scale (Schaufeli et al., 2003). The measure consists of three dimensions capturing vigor, dedication, and absorption. Participants respond on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (never) to 6 (every day).

Job Satisfaction (survey measure): Employees’ self-reported satisfaction is measured using the (BNS-18) Basic Need Satisfaction 18-item scale (Van den Broeck et al., 2010). The measure consists of three dimensions: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree).

Intention to quit (survey measure): Employees’ self-reported intention to quit is measured using Michaels and Spector’s (1982) 3-item Turnover Intention Scale. Participants respond on a 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree).

Quitting: Indicator whether an employee has quit between the baseline and the endline survey.

Subproject 1:
Dimension of Supportive leadership (Feedback technology):
feedback, recognition, friendliness, and support.

Subproject 2:
Mechansims:
Supportive Leadership (survey measure, perceived by employees)
Supportive Leadership (feedback technology)

Department level Outcomes:
Sick leave (Provided by cooperating partner)

Only for departments with patient care:
- Index for service quality

Subproject 1:
Dimension of Supportive leadership (Feedback technology):
In the feedback technology, the supportive leadership questions are divided into four different dimensions: feedback, recognition, friendliness, and support.

Feedback is measured using a single item:
1. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has given me constructive feedback on my work.

Recognition is measured using a single item:
2. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has recognized what I do well.

Friendliness is measured using a single item:
3. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has been friendly and accommodating.

Support is measured using a single item:
4. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has been working towards a working culture where we see and support each other.

Subproject 2:
Individual level:
Supportive Leadership (survey measure): Employees’ rating of their nearest leader’s supportive behavior is measured using the Need Support 12-item scale (Tafvelin & Stenling, 2018). The scale consists of three dimensions: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (never/almost never) to 5 (always).

Supportive Leadership (feedback technology): Employees’ rating of their nearest leader’s supportive behavior is measured using four items from the feedback technology. We will combine the items into one index for supportive leadership using equal weights. Participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).


1. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has given me constructive feedback on my work.
2. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has recognized what I do well.
3. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has been friendly and accommodating.
4. During the last three weeks, my immediate leader has been working towards a working culture where we see and support each other.

Department level:

Sick leave (cooperating partner data): Average number of days employees are on sick leave per month.

Only for departments with patient care:
Index for service quality: equal weight average of standardized measures of waiting time and re-admission rate per month and department. Both outcomes will be provided by the cooperation partner)

We conduct a field experiment in a hospital setting to investigate the effects of upward feedback on supportive leadership, work engagement, job satisfaction, intention to quit and quitting, and as a second step core key KPIs. In the experiment, leaders in both the treatment and the control group will receive feedback from their employees every three weeks over 12 weeks. Depending on the treatment the feedback covers different topics.

Not available

Stratified randomization based on divisions using the STRATARAND command in STATA by John Ternovski

Leader

Yes

Implementation March 2023:
Nr. Of cluster: 23 departments
If possible, we would like to extend the project to more departments (subproject 2). We would like to stack the data in the future, but we do not have enough information at the moment to know what the sample size would be.

Implementation March 2023: Department level outcomes: 23 observations Individual level outcomes: (employees without leaders) The average department size is 27 employees, leading to a potential sample size of 622 observation. We expect a response rate of 50% leading to a sample of 311 employees.

Implementation March 2023:
Clusters will be as equally split across treatments as possible: 11 in the treatment and 12 in the control.

Implementation March 2023: We use PowerUp! software to conduct our power calculation. For individual-level data, we are able to get an MDES of 0.513 standard deviations with alpha = 0.05 and a power of 80% assuming the 23 leaders (cluster), 13 employees per department, and an intraclass correlation of 0.05. For department-level data, we are able to get an MDES of 1,323 with alpha = 0.05 and a power of 80%, assuming 23 independent observations at the department-level. We will include baseline control variables which should help us improve power. For example, if we assume the control variables can explain 80% of the variance in the outcome variables, the MDES is reduced to 0.37 at the individual-level, and 0.59 at the department-level.