Supervisor monitoring and subordinate innovation

• Author: Eko Yi Liao,Hui Chun
• Published date: 01 February 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2035
• Date: 01 February 2016

Supervisor monitoring and subordinate innovation

EKO YI LIAO

1

*AND HUI CHUN

2

1

Hang Seng Management College, Hong Kong

2

School of Business, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Summary This study introduces a new and parsimonious classification of supervisor monitoring (observational monitor-

ing and interactional monitoring) and examines the effects of these two monitoring styles on subordinate in-

novation. Guided by social exchange theory, we propose that the two monitoring styles influence subordinate

job attitudes (trust and distrust in their supervisor), relationship quality (leader–member exchange), and work

behaviors (feedback-seeking behaviors), which, in turn, affect their innovation. The pilot study developed the

scales for the two monitoring styles and tested their content validity among 189 undergraduate students.

Using a sample of 385 subordinates, Study 1 assessed the construct validity of the two monitoring styles.

In Study 2, the results of a survey of 388 supervisor–subordinate dyads show support for the proposed theo-

retical model. Specifically, observational monitoring and interactional monitoring were related to subordi-

nates’trust and distrust in their supervisor. Trust and distrust in the supervisor, in turn, were related to the

quality of the leader–member exchange, feedback-seeking behaviors, and ultimately, supervisor-rated innova-

tion. These findings suggest that supervisors’monitoring styles have both positive and negative effects on

their subordinates’innovation, which depends on the type of monitoring supervisors engage in. Copyright

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: supervisor monitoring; subordinate innovation; leader–member exchange

Over the last several decades, both scholars and business practitioners have dedicated considerable effort in discov-

ering the types of leadership behaviors and styles that can strongly influence individual productivity and organiza-

tional performance (Avolio & Bass, 1995). Supervisor monitoring is a leadership style that focuses on supervisor

information collection behaviors (Larson & Callahan, 1990) and has arguably received the least attention from

scholars, which is evident from the fact that it has been excluded from many reviews of leadership studies (Day,

Fleenor, Atwater, Sturm, & McKee, 2014; Gardner, Lowe, Moss, Mahoney, & Cogliser, 2010). In addition, moni-

toring has sparingly been distinguished and investigated as an independent construct. Paradoxically, monitoring has

been embedded in different measures of leadership variables. For example, monitoring was regarded as one aspect of

a supervisor’s task behaviors in situational leadership theory (Fernandez & Vecchio, 1997) and was considered a

leader behavior in the Managerial Practices Survey (Yukl & Fu, 1999).

Supervisor monitoring of subordinates deserves much more attention for both conceptual and practical reasons.

Supervisors need information on subordinates to supervise effectively. Monitoring serves an important informa-

tional purpose (Komaki, Desselles, & Bowman, 1989). It enables organizations to obtain first hand and prompt in-

formation concerning the productivity of their workforces (Komaki, 1986; Larson & Callahan, 1990), which

provides direction for top managers to design and revise their organizational strategies. Moreover, the information

collected through supervisor monitoring also forms the basis of many personnel review practices, including perfor-

mance evaluation and reward allocation (Komaki, 1986; Komaki, Zlotnick, & Jensen, 1986). In practice, supervisors

collect information on subordinate performance, and how supervisors collect this information may have important

implications on subordinate reactions. For example, it is not uncommon to hear subordinates comment that their

*Correspondence to: Eko Yi Liao, Department of Management,Hang Seng Management College,Hong Kong. E-mail: ekoliao@outlook.com

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 29 August 2013

Revised 22 April 2015, Accepted 17 May 2015

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 168–192 (2016)

Published online 19 June 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2035

Research Article

supervisors would “look over their shoulders”to determine how they work. Subordinates may also become skeptical

if supervisors rarely interact with them personally but still claim to have sufficient information for evaluation.

Conceptually and methodologically addressing the “how”question that concerns supervisors’collection of

subordinate information fills three research gaps. First, theoretical frameworks for monitoring deserve more

refinement. Different definitions and typologies of monitoring styles have been proposed. One point of view (e.g.,

Komaki, 1986) defines monitoring with a neutral perspective, namely, collecting work information. Another per-

spective (e.g., Zhou, 2003) defines monitoring with a somewhat negative connotation—closely observing subordi-

nates and ensuring that they follow the precise orders of supervisors. Some indicators of monitoring, for example,

“closely monitors subordinate’swork”(Fernandez & Vecchio, 1997) and “keeps pretty close tab on subordinates”

(George & Zhou, 2001), imply a negative tone. In contrast, monitoring may also contain positive connotations be-

cause it is an efficient way for supervisors to follow subordinate productivity. For example, subordinates may per-

ceive higher levels of fairness when they are aware that their supervisors frequently monitor them so that supervisors

are able to collect more information on everyone (e.g., Niehoff & Moorman, 1993). Accordingly, conceptualizing

monitoring without any indication of its positive or negative connotations is an issue.

The second research gap is that there is still a lack of agreement on how different types of supervisory monitoring

styles may affect subordinates differently. For example, Komaki and colleagues (Komaki, 1986; Komaki et al.,

1986) proposed four types of monitoring styles (work sampling, archival records, self-report, and secondary source),

but they did not indicate the different effects of these four methods in two observational field studies. Niehoff and

Moorman (1993) proposed three types of monitoring (observation, informal discussions, and formal meetings) and

assessed their effects on subordinates’citizenship behaviors. However, they found that two of the three monitoring

behaviors did not yield the expected effects on citizenship behaviors through justice perceptions as mediators. Such

a practical focus would require a more comprehensive consideration of the different types of methods, for example,

archival information or third-party information. More importantly, this typology was not able to fully explain the

conflicting effects of monitoring on subordinate attitudes and behaviors. It still remains unclear why monitoring

may decrease subordinate work effort and performance in several studies (Frey, 1993; Zhou, 2003; George & Zhou,

2001) but strengthen subordinate job performance and attitudes in other studies (Larson & Callahan, 1990; Niehoff

& Moorman, 1993). The seemingly inconsistent findings may be partly because of a lack of a structured monitoring

typology. We argue that the different styles of supervisor monitoring may exert a distinct influence on subordinate

reactions. For example, behind-the-back monitoring is often perceived as controlling (e.g., Zhou, 2003), whereas

monitoring through open-minded discussions may be interpreted as more favorable. Unraveling the relations among

monitoring types and their consequences can help clarify the inconsistency.

Lastly, beyond job performance and citizenship behaviors, the relation between supervisor monitoring and subor-

dinate innovation particularly requires more theoretical and empirical investigation. This study investigates subordi-

nate innovation, which includes idea generation (i.e., the creation of a novel idea or solution; Scott & Bruce, 1994)

and idea dissemination and implementation (i.e., a social process where an idea is shared and implemented; Ng,

Feldman, & Lam, 2010) as the dependent variables of ultimate interest. We argue that these dependent variables

are conceptually important. Only two previous studies (George & Zhou, 2001; Zhou, 2003) have included both cre-

ativity (i.e., idea generation) and supervisor monitoring, but the theoretical mechanisms that relate these two con-

structs have not been fully investigated. On the one hand, it is almost intuitive to assume that supervisor

monitoring stifles subordinate innovation because it may limit idea generation by decreasing decision latitudes

(Zhou, 2003). On the other hand, supervisor monitoring may not necessarily impede innovation if idea dissemina-

tion and implementation were considered. For example, supervisor monitoring may positively relate to subordinates’

innovation because subordinates would feel more comfortable with implementing new ideas if they know that their

supervisors are kept in the loop (Larson & Callahan, 1990). Thus, monitoring may be linked to innovation in inter-

esting ways.

To address these research gaps, a reconceptualization of what constitutes supervisor monitoring and how different

types of monitoring positively or negatively affect employee outcomes is necessary. First, this study proposes two

types of monitoring—observational monitoring and interactional monitoring—that represent the two most important

SUPERVISOR MONITORING 169

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 168–192 (2016)

DOI: 10.1002/job