Human Side of Innovation - Seminar

Scientific study:

Employee Voice Behavior – Interactive effects of LMX and Power Distance in US and Colombia

Case study:

Managing a global team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Members:

Kristi Madhi

Nemanja Davidovic

Rinor Bytyci

Jawad Munir

Table of contents

• Introduction

• Scientific paper

• Employee Voice Behavior – Interactive effects of LMX and Power Distance in US and Colombia

• Case Study

• Managing a global team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

• Conclusion and Integration

• Discussion

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Introduction – Overview

• Scientific Paper

• Examining LMX quality and the individual cultural value orientation of PD as predictors of voice

• Conducted in 2 locations (USA and Colombia)

• Published in June 2009 by Botero and Van Dyne

• Case Study

• Study about the management of a global team led by Greg James

• Sun Microsystems – one of the largest share holders in the global IT sector

• Published in November 2009 (Harvard Business School)

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Table of contents

• Introduction

• Scientific paper

• Employee Voice Behavior – Interactive effects of LMX and Power Distance in US and Colombia

• Case Study

• Managing a global team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

• Conclusion and Integration

• Discussion

4

Scientific Paper - Overview

• Topic:

• Employee Voice Behavior – Interactive effects of LMX and Power Distance in United States and Colombia

• Purpose of the study:

• Lack of research on quality of employee-supervisor relationships (LMX) and Voice

• No previous research that takes cultural values into consideration in predicting voice behavior

• Goal:

• LMX and individual cultural values of PD are predictors of voice behavior in an organization

• PD and LMX are interrelated to voice behavior

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Scientific Paper

• Employee Voice

• An employee expression of constructive ideas, information and opinions about change in organizations (Van Dyne, Ang Botero, 2003)

• LMX – Leader-member Exchange:

• Describes the quality of supervisor – subordinate relationship (Dansereau, Graen Haga, 1975 )

• High LMX vs Low LMX

• Power Distance - PD

• An individual’s beliefs about the extent to which supervisors are entitled to status and privilege and the extent to which individuals should support and accept the views of superiors (Hofstede, 1980)

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Scientific Paper - Hypothesis

Voice Behavior

LMX PD

Hypothesis 1 (H1) : LMX will be positively related to employee voice

Hypothesis 2 (H2) : Individual PD will be negatively related to employee voice

Hypothesis 3 (H3) : PD will moderate the LMX-voice relationship, such that PD will make

more of a difference in voice when LMX is high

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Scientific Paper – Case Studies and Methods

Study 1

Conducted in the US (PD Score = 40)

Convenience sample of 109 individuals

Conducted in various organizations

Study 2

Conducted in Colombia (PD Score = 67)

Convinience sample of 138 individuals

Translated by 2 bilingual speakers

• To assess LMX - Graen, Novak, and Sommerkamp’s (1982) (6 Items, 7 Scale)

• How well does your leader (follower) understand your job problems and needs?

• How would you characterize your working relationship with your leader (follower)?

• To assess PD - Dorfman & Howell, 1988 (3 Items)

• Managers should make most decisions without consulting subordinates?

• Managers should seldom ask for the opinions of employees?

• To assess Voice Behavior - Van Dyne and LePine’s (1998) (6 Items)

• I speak up to my supervisor with ideas for new projects or changes in procedures at work.

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Scientific Paper – Results (1/2)

• US Case

• H1 was supported – Higher LMX produced significant increase in voice.

• H2 was also supported – Higher PD negatively related to Voice

• H3 was supported also

• Colombia Case

• H1 and H2 also supported as in the US Case

• H3 not supported – integration between PD and LMX failed to reach significance

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Scientific Paper – Results and implications (2/2)

• LMX

• Both Cases support H1 – meaning higher LMX within an organization can lead to better upward constructive voice.

• High LMX – Positive or Negative?

• Employees feel the freedom to speak their mind since they “paid their dues”

• Employees don’t take the risk of speaking up as they don’t want to loose the relationship

• Interaction of PD and LMX

• Since H3 was supported in US but not in Colombia – managers should be cautious about implications of PD and LMX

• Should managers act the same way with everyone?

• Communicate in ways that diminish status differences! Informal socializing, participation opportunities, communicate directly positive regard and high trust to increase voice.

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Table of contents

• Introduction

• Scientific paper

• Employee Voice Behavior – Interactive effects of LMX and Power Distance in US and Colombia

• Case Study

• Managing a global team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

• Conclusion and Integration

• Discussion

11

Case study - Overview

• Sun Microsystems, Inc.

• Founded in 1982 at Stanford University by Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy and Andy Bechtolsheim

• Sun provides companies with hardware, software, storage and services in IT solutions

• Invented Java programming language and Network File System

• Greg James

• Computer science engineer – “uncanny knack”

• Promising career

• “Sun had the stability of a fairly established technology company where I could grow and develop professionally. It felt like it was the best of both worlds.”

• After 5 years working in SUN, received Sun Outstanding Manager award

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US Team (Santa Clara) • Robert Chan – Sales Account Manager

• Nick Elliott – Application Support Engineer

• Stephen Spurlock – Global Vice President

• Pam Lawry – Global Markets VP

• 7 other members

Greg James Global Manager at Sun Microsystems

Indian Team (Mumbai)

• Rahul Ashok – Customer Service Manager

• Praveen Devilal – Support Engineer

• 14 other members

UAE Team (Dubai)

• Ahmed Nazr – Manager for this team

• Jamal – Engineer (programmer)

• 9 other members

French Team (Paris)

• Michael Thoene – Customer Advocate

• Jacqueline Martin – Technical Support Manager

• 5 other members

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Case study

• HS Holdings

• Their entire system was down for two hours

• Caused a disaster for their online banking business

• Requested the refund of thousands dollars

• The same problem happened twice

• Sun was threatened a lawsuit

• James’ teams were blaming each other

• Made him reflect about the situation among the teams

“Who dropped the ball ?” 14

Case Study

• USA Team

• Better connected with James

• Short vacation

• High salary

• Overloaded during French

vacation

• Indian Team

• Unhappy with their work

• Feels as second class citizens

• Fewer agenda

• Feels the “pain” of time zone difference

• UAE Team

• Feels disconnected from company

• Concerns about deadlines

• Adoption to different paces

• French Team

• Long vacation

• Low salary

• Unpredictable schedule

“This is part of global collaboration” 15

Case Study

• James’ Changes

• Took the responsibility regarding HS Holdings

• Teams needed more interaction with him and with each other

• Arranged weekly meetings with his team managers and bi-weekly one to one meeting with them

• Let everyone express their opinions

• Meetings were designed to help keep the big picture in mind

• “Case Management Tools” –Access to each employee progress with one click

“ I really see the walls coming down and we are much better with each other”

• Outcomes

• His team could work around the clock, passing issues from team to team and back again across three time zones in a 24-hour period

• Costumer and employee satisfaction was up

• Team felt more united and all employees were taking care of business

• Sun has begun seeing double-digit revenue increases year-over-year

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Table of contents

• Introduction

• Scientific paper

• Employee Voice Behavior – Interactive effects of LMX and Power Distance in US and Colombia

• Case Study

• Managing a global team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

• Conclusion and Integration

• Discussion

17

Before Changes:

• USA Team • LMX was high.

• PD value was low (individualistic behavior society)

• In US scenario as LMX was high and small PD, so we saw US team was most innovative and willing to speak up and come up with suggestions.

• Indian Team • Low LMX with James.

• The case study did not give insight if the Indian society has high or low PD (As it’s a diverse society)

• But due to low LMX, they have also problems that their voice is not heard, or showing different problems.

• UAE Team

• Low LMX (less connected with James)

• Large PD society

• So showing dissent and complain about more work hours and feeling the pain to match the work pace and deadlines.

• High LMX and high PD predicted low level of willingness to engage in voice

• French Team

• Low PD society.

• Low LMX with James,

• Now as result, as low LMX so the French team was also not pleased (As showing dissent in terms of low salary and more work load).

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Conclusions: Whole Organization

• Large PD culture in Organization. (Blame Game, and dissent)

• As a whole low LMX with James

• So as a result HS holding problem happened in the first place, and there was delay in respond

• Low LMX resulted in UAE, India and French team to have low voice behavior

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After changes: Global scenario

• LMX was increased, between James and all team members (The teams were happy).

• PD factor behaviour still remained undetermined. (So managers can’t conclude an employee behaviour based on cultural background).

• Increased informal social interaction between teams resulted in high trust

and increased teams co-ordination.

• Employee were more willing to speak up but paper case study didn’t discuss about the increased creative and innovative ideas.

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Varying PD value effect on Voice Behaviour (High LMX)

USA case UAE case

High LMX + Low PD High LMX

Resulted in US team had high

employee vioce. (H3) But still high PD culture

Other teams having low PD, will have

high voice behaviour.

Resulted in low voice behaviour (H3).

For other teams having high PD, will be

also have low vioce behaviour.

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Table of contents

• Introduction

• Scientific paper

• Employee Voice Behavior – Interactive effects of LMX and Power Distance in US and Colombia

• Case Study

• Managing a global team: Greg James at Sun Microsystems, Inc.

• Conclusion and Integration

• Discussion

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Discussion

Questions for the audience

1° What would you do if you were Greg James?

2° Do you think that the value of PD depends on the employee’s age?

3° Does having high LMX within an organization also lead to higher

creativity?

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Thank you for your attention!