The Role of Feedback Quality and Organizational Cynicism for Affective Commitment Through Leader–Member Exchange

• DOI: 10.1177/0734371X20923010
• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Mieke Audenaert,Beatrice Van der Heijden,Tine Van Thielen,Tim Rombaut
• Date: 01 September 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X20923010

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2021, Vol. 41(3) 593 –615

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X20923010

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Article

The Role of Feedback Quality

and Organizational Cynicism

for Affective Commitment

Through Leader–Member

Exchange

Mieke Audenaert2, Beatrice Van der Heijden1,2,3,4,5,

Tim Rombaut6, and Tine Van Thielen2

Abstract

Affective commitment is crucial for employees to guarantee that they adhere to

organizational interests and goals, but not self-evident for street-level bureaucrats

who have a great deal of discretionary freedom in doing their work. Street-level

bureaucrats can deviate from organizational goals during the execution of custom-fit

solutions, and particularly so when they are cynical toward their organization. To

increase affective commitment among street-level bureaucrats, leaders may play an

important role by providing qualitative feedback and having a high-quality leader–

member exchange relationship with their team members. We examined the cross-

level interaction of leaders’ feedback quality and police officers’ organizational cynicism

in relation with affective commitment through Leader–Member eXchange (LMX).

Building on theorizing on human resource (HR) attributions and on the assumption

in social exchange theory that individuals engage in different reciprocation efforts, we

expected that police officers who are more cynical toward their organization would

be hesitant to reciprocate with more commitment to their organization when their

leader’s feedback quality is low. Our findings in a sample of 266 police officers nested

in 71 teams supported this expectation. Hence, this study contributes to a better

1Institute for Management Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

2Research group HRM and Organisational Behaviour, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

3Open University of The Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands

4University of Kingston, London, UK

5Hubei University, Wuhan, China

6Politiezone Meetjesland Centrum, Eeklo, Belgium

Corresponding Author:

Mieke Audenaert, Research group HRM and Organisational Behaviour, Department of Marketing,

Innovation and Organisation, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University,

Campus Tweekerken, Hoveniersberg 2, Ghent 9000, Belgium.

Email: mieke.audenaert@ugent.be

923010ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X20923010Review of Public Personnel AdministrationAudenaert et al.

research-article2020

594 Review of Public Personnel Administration 41(3)

understanding of how to foster the affective commitment of employees who have

discretion in their work. Feedback quality appears to be crucial, both for LMX and

affective commitment, and this particularly for police officers who are more cynical

about their organization.

Keywords

feedback quality, LMX, affective commitment, organizational cynicism, street-level

bureaucrats, police officers

Introduction

In many public sector organizations, employees gain more and more discretion, and

their affective commitment may be threatened by teleworking (De Vries et al., 2019),

by knowledge work (Walsh, 2016), and by the changing employment relationship in

this sector (Audenaert et al., 2019a). This study seeks to enhance our understanding

about how to foster the affective commitment of street-level bureaucrats, being

employees in a public sector context who have a lot of discretion. In particular, this

study focuses on police organizations which are “street-level bureaucracies” that are

characterized by tight hierarchy, but in which police officers have a considerable dis-

cretion to act according to their personal priorities and beliefs (Lipsky, 1980). Although

discretion is functional for police officers to create custom-fit solutions in specific

situations, it might hinder the realization of organizational goals when police officers

choose not to act on behalf of their organization. Therefore, police managers seek to

enforce compliance of their staff with bureaucratic requirements and performance

standards (Cronin et al., 2017). This approach to managing employee performance is

questionable because it is impossible to prescribe procedures with sufficient detail for

every possible situation (Johnson, 2015).

An alternative approach police managers can take is to reinforce affective commit-

ment, which entails emotional attachment to the organization by identifying with the

organization, enjoying membership, and feeling involved (Meyer & Allen, 1991).

Police officers may be more willing to pursue the organizational interests and goals if

they feel and experience high levels of affective commitment (Van Gelderen & Bik,

2016). Earlier research indeed supports that affective commitment makes police offi-

cers adhere to ethical standards and engage less in deviant behaviors (Haarr, 1997).

However, empirical studies demonstrate that police officers’ commitment to the orga-

nization is vulnerable and typically declines with tenure (e.g., Beck & Wilson, 2000).

Thus, further enhancing our understanding of how to maintain and foster police offi-

cers’ affective commitment appears to be relevant for the overall human resource man-

agement (HRM) knowledge base regarding managing employees with significant

discretion. More specifically, this study can advance theory and research on perfor-

mance management practices for street-level bureaucrats.

Building on previous research, we have chosen to focus on the effectiveness of

police managers’ feedback quality for fostering affective commitment (e.g., Metcalfe