Field study of complements to supervisory leadership in more and less flexible work settings

Terri L Griffith,Ronald E Rice,John E Sawyer,Emma S Nordbäck

doi:10.1186/s41469-018-0034-5

Abstract

Self-management is increasingly required by people in jobs with flexible schedules and locations, freelance arrangements, and other forms of organizational job design. Successful self-management requires a sense of engagement with one’s work. We build from the substitutes for leadership literature to develop a model of work design focused on how complements to supervisory leadership foster work engagement. The model illustrates a parsimonious set of possible complements to supervisory leadership: feedback from the work itself, technology support of work, knowledge to work independently, electronic communication with supervisors, and alternative workplace use as predictors of work engagement. Results are from a two-period field study of a Nordic telecom company experienced with flexible work practices. Additionally, in time 2, we compare the data from this first organization with a Nordic transportation company that is less experienced with flexible work practices. Our results show the strongest relationships with work engagement are feedback from the work itself and technology support of work. Supervisor electronic communication also plays a role in work engagement, mediated by alternative workplace use. We highlight shifts in work design that can enable more flexible work settings while maintaining worker engagement in our increasingly digital organizations.

Highlights

Self-management is increasingly required by people in jobs with flexible schedules and locations, freelance arrangements, and other forms of organizational job design
The results show the value of feedback from the task itself, as well as technology support of work, use of alternative workplaces, and electronic communication with supervisors—all typical possibilities for complements to supervisory leadership in today’s work environment
Alternative workplace use was lower for respondents in Org2 (t = 8.01, p < .01), and knowledge to work independently was positively correlated with alternative worksite use in Org2 (r = .14, p < .05), but not in Org1 (r = .06, p > .10)

Summary

Introduction

Self-management is increasingly required by people in jobs with flexible schedules and locations, freelance arrangements, and other forms of organizational job design. Snow et al (2017), for example, provide a framework for the design of what they call digital organizations (e.g., organizations relying on digital technology across operations and communication) They highlight the importance of self-organization and taking opportunities to combine people, technology, and organizational design in new ways for effective and efficient work. Self-management (e.g., Fjeldstad et al 2012; Petrou et al 2012), knowledge commons, protocols, and infrastructure (Fjeldstad et al 2012) may be more effective than traditional hierarchical control (Snow et al 2017), such as formal supervision We acknowledge this trend and look to the literature on work design for foundational dimensions that may serve to complement traditional supervisory leadership. Our work is aligned with the recent call by Oldham and Fried (2016) to examine the impact of new work environments on employees’ job characteristics and engagement

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