Fostering Employee Cooperation Behavior in the Federal Workplace: Exploring the Effects of Performance Management Strategies

• DOI: 10.1177/0091026018801038
• Author: Tae Kyu Wang,Kai-Jo Fu,Jun-Yi Hsieh
• Published date: 01 June 2019
• Date: 01 June 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026018801038

Public Personnel Management

2019, Vol. 48(2) 147 –178

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/0091026018801038

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Article

Fostering Employee

Cooperation Behavior in the

Federal Workplace: Exploring

the Effects of Performance

Management Strategies

Kai-Jo Fu1, Jun-Yi Hsieh2, and Tae Kyu Wang3

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover how performance management strategies

foster cooperative behavior as a means of producing better outcomes. Using multiple

data from the 2010 Federal Human Capital Survey provided by the U.S. Office of

Personnel Management via its FedScope data portal and Federal Human Resource

Data, we tested hypotheses that considered both individual- and agency-level factors in

individual cooperative behaviors. This study highlights how performance management

strategies promote employee cooperation such that the management practice is taken

for granted; however, there is no research that examines the relationship between them.

This investigation confirms several performance practices existing between and within

the federal agencies. Managers can learn from the evidence provided and apply these

strategies to induce cooperative behaviors that help to achieve organizational goals and

improve organizational performance. The results reveal that performance management

strategies display positive and nonlinear relationships with employee cooperation.

Keywords

cooperative behavior, performance management strategies, federal government

Introduction

The issue of cooperation is central to many of the problems confronted by people

within group settings.1 Given the amount of attention that has been devoted to the

1National Chengchi University, Taiwan

2University of Taipei, Taiwan

3Catholic Kwandong University, South Korea

Corresponding Author:

Jun-Yi Hsieh, Department of Public Affairs, University of Taipei, No.1, Ai-Guo West Road, Taipei, 10048,

Taiwan.

Email: strategic60@hotmail.com

801038PPMXXX10.1177/0091026018801038Public Personnel ManagementFu et al.

research-article2018

148 Public Personnel Management 48(2)

topics of cooperation between individuals within organizations (De Cremer,

Zeelenberg, & Murnighan, 2006; Hill, 1990), researchers and practitioners now recog-

nize that complicated issues and policy problems are neither simply bounded by orga-

nizational environments nor capable of being solved on their own. Meanwhile, intense

pressure to achieve efficiency and effectiveness has encouraged public organizations

to continually search for managerial remedies to improve government performance.

Consequently, an emphasis on using more businesslike instruments in the public sec-

tor and promoting a performance culture has resulted in the growing use of outcome-

based performance, pay-for-performance (PFP), performance accountability, and

program assessment ratings tools (Dubnick, 2005; Heinrich, 2002; Moynihan, 2013).

Public organizations need their employees to be more cooperative across functions,

departments, and individuals to achieve better government performance. Furthermore,

an investment in performance management strategies for facilitating cooperative

behaviors is necessary (Ingraham & Getha-Taylor, 2008).

In practice, performance management strategies are expected to improve individual

and organizational performance (Berman, 2006; Moynihan & Pandey, 2005). While

previous efforts have tested a variety of ways in which performance management

influences individual, group, and organizational outcomes (Campbell, 2015; G. Lee &

Jimenez, 2011; Poister, Pasha, & Edwards, 2013; Rummler & Brache, 2013), investi-

gations involving the relationship between performance management practices and

individual cooperative behaviors are deficient. While no one denies the plausibility of

this relationship, there is currently limited empirical evidence. It is essential to deter-

mine whether well-designed performance management tools can support continuous

workforce development between organizations and cooperation among employees.

This concern also highlights our research question:

Research Question: Can performance management strategies facilitate employee

cooperation?

To understand the influence of performance management strategies on individual

outcomes, complicated hierarchical processes are assumed rather than tested (den

Hartog, Boselie, & Paauwe, 2004; DeNisi, 2000). In other words, public managers

need to recognize that individual-level characteristics are often insufficient to address

interactive management practices at the organizational level. In the public sector, per-

formance management has been used in a variety of ways and contains an array of

practices involving goal alignment (Ayers, 2013, 2015) and results-oriented manage-

ment processes at either the managerial or the employee level (Behn, 2002; Heinrich,

2002; Poister, 2003).2 At the organizational level performance management is the

establishment of organizational goals and the use of performance information to

ensure effective management so as to achieve those goals (Moynihan, 2008). Each

organization’s performance could be evaluated in terms of major policy execution,

financial performance, and other key areas (i.e., personnel, organization, quality of

public services) using indicators such as inputs, processes, outputs, and outcome indi-

cators (Kuhlmann, 2010). At the individual level, organizations apply personal

Fu et al. 149

performance plans, performance appraisals, and the usual sticks and carrots to drive

employee behavior and consequently improve individual performance (Behn, 2002).

Empirical studies of individual factors often fail to consider such management prac-

tices, especially in the case of employees working in public organizations (Heinrich &

Lynn, 2001); consequently, it would be beneficial to consider the hierarchical effects

within the public sector to understand and facilitate individual cooperation.

Considering all of these elements, performance management can be understood as

a system in which managers work with employees to set expectations, measure and

review results, and reward performance to ensure that employee activities work

together to be congruent with organizational objectives (Clark, 2005; den Hartog

et al., 2004; Mondy, Noe, & Gowan, 2005). Based on these considerations, this study

draws on and extends literature on social psychological theory, the prisoner’s dilemma

and social dilemma, principal–agent theory, and social capital to explain the coopera-

tion within public organizations.

The purpose of this study was therefore to provide empirical evidence on how per-

formance management strategies may influence employee cooperation, which is hier-

archically nested in public organizations. We thus concentrated on individual- and

organizational-level performance management strategies and conducted research

inquiries with a focus on the theoretical lenses that underpin employee cooperation

behaviors. We also developed hypotheses based on human resource management prac-

tices and theories derived from social psychological theory, the prisoner’s dilemma

and social dilemma, principal–agent theory, and social capital such as goal setting,

performance appraisal and feedback, and rewarding performance. Two data sources

were used to estimate our research question: the 2010 Federal Human Capital Survey

provided by U.S. Office of Personnel Management via its FedScope data portal, and

2010 Federal Human Resource Data (FHRD). Drawing on the multilevel modeling

results, we conclude by discussing the implications of our analysis for future research

involving performance management strategies and individual cooperation.

Employee Cooperative Behaviors: Conceptualization and

a Multilevel Perspective

Although the concept of cooperation has been widely researched, there has been dif-

ficulty in conceptual integration due to the numerous definitions of cooperation

(Smith, Carroll, & Ashford, 1995). This study identifies four distinctive approaches to

the conception and definition of cooperation and then integrates them into our theo-

retical model. First, one approach defines the concept of cooperation by focusing on

the nature of the relationships that exist between the goals of social actors in any given

situation (Deutsch, 1949a, 1949b; Tjosvold, 1984, 1986, 1998). Deutsch (1949a,

1949b) proposed that social interactions can be understood in terms of how partici-

pants’ goals are related; thus, a situation is cooperative if participants perceive their

goals as being aligned. Conversely, a situation is competitive if participants perceive

their goals as being in opposition to each other. Drawing on the idea of Deutsch’s

theory of cooperation and competition, Tjosvold (1986) posited an integrated approach