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Academy of Management Perspectives

R E S E A R C H
Does Managerial Motivation Spill Over
to Subordinates?
Research Brief by Jean-Francois Coget, Associate
Professor of Management, Orfalea College of
Business, California Polytechnic State University
http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amp.2011.0133

nyone who has had to deal with a customer

service representative (CSR) on the phone
knows how crucial they are to the quality (or
lack thereof) of the service received. But imagine
being at the other end of the line. How might you
stay motivated to deal with client after client after
client? Would you turn to your manager for help?
How managers motivate their CSRs has been
the subject of previous studies. Until now, however, no research has investigated whether managers own motivation spills over to CSRs. In their
recent study, Jan Wieseke, Florian Kraus, Sascha
Alavi (all from Ruhr-Universitt Bochum, Germany) and Tino Kessler-Thnes (Sana Kliniken
AG, Germany) addressed this question in the
context of a large travel agency franchise that had
just adopted a new service technology tool. In
particular, Wieseke and his colleagues focused
their attention on CSRs motivation to adopt this
new service technology. What they found should
perk up the ears of everyone who manages CSRs.
In brief, managers own motivation to adopt the
new technology did spill over to CSRs. When
managers adopted the new technology themselves, CSRs were also likely to follow suit. Independently, however, as managers motivation to
adopt the technology increased, so too did the
motivation of the CSRs reporting to them to do
the same.
Wieseke and his colleagues measured motivation based on Vrooms contingency theory, which
suggests that our motivation to perform a particular task (n this case, adopting the new technol-

November

B R I E F S

ogy tool) depends on 1) our belief that effort will

lead to a desired level of performance (expectancy); 2) our confidence that achieving the desired performance will result in positive outcomes,
such as a pay raise (instrumentality); and 3) the
extent to which these outcomes are desired and
important (valence). In assessing motivation,
Wieseke and his colleagues matched more than
1,000 CSRs to their respective managers (nearly
400 in all). They found that managers expectancy
and instrumentality (but not valence) spilled over
to CSRs, most likely through social learning. By
observing their managers, the CSRs learned to
replicate their behaviors and attitudes.
Wieseke and his colleagues were also interested
in factors that might either exacerbate or limit
this spillover effect of managerial motivation.
More specifically, they investigated whether managers charismatic leadership behavior modified
the extent to which their motivation spilled over.
They reasoned that charismatic leaders motivation would be more likely to spill over to subordinates for two reasons. First, charismatic managers should be more likely to engage in symbolic
behaviors that foster strong subordinate identification, thereby increasing the likelihood that followers would imitate them. Second, since charismatic managers should be more prone to selfexpression, they are more likely to clearly express
their motivation to subordinates. As a result, subordinates would be more likely to be affected by managerial motivation and strive to emulate it.
Indeed, results showed that the expectancy and
instrumentality components of charismatic managers motivation spilled over to CSRs more than
those of non-charismatic managers. Even more
interesting was that while the valence component
of charismatic managers motivation did spill over
to CSRs, the valence component of non-charismatic managers motivation actually seemed to
lower the valence component of CSRs motivation. In other words, when non-charismatic man-

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2011

Research Briefs

agers strongly valued the adoption of the new

technology tool, this actually decreased the extent
to which the CSRs reporting to them valued the
adoption of the new tool.
Another contingency factor Wieseke and his
colleagues investigated was the extent to which
demographic similarity between managers and
their CSRs modified any motivational spillover.
They assumed that the more similar managers
are to their CSRs, the more likely their motivation is to spill over. Similarity should increase
the extent to which CSRs see their managers as
role models. Likewise, greater similarity should
increase the odds that managers will express
their expectancies, instrumentalities, and valences to CSRs.
Of course, there are many ways to define
similarity. Interestingly, the results showed that
gender similarity between managers and CSRs
had no impact on motivational spillover. That
said, age similarity did enhance the spillover of
the expectancy and instrumentality components of managers motivation to CSRs. For the
valence component of motivation, however, age
similarity paralleled the impact of charisma on
the spillover effect. When there was a large age
gap between managers and their CSRs, having a
manager who strongly valued the adoption of
new technology actually decreased the extent to
which the CSRs valued it.
Overall, Wieseke and colleagues have given us
plenty of food for thought for managerial practice.
Their results suggest that to increase CSRs motivation to engage in specific behaviors, it is important for their managers to first be motivated to
engage in those behaviors themselves. In short,
managers should recognize that their motivation
spills over to their subordinates. Moreover, being
a charismatic leader and behaving accordingly can
enhance this spillover effect. This suggests that
companies should do more to develop and encourage charismatic leadership (e.g., via training and
hiring practices). Finally, managers should be
aware that being similar to their CSRs on certain
characteristics (e.g., age) may also enhance motivational spillover. Thanks to this study, companies and managers have additional tools to enhance CSRs task motivation.

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Source: Wieseke, J., Kraus, F., Alavi, S. H., & KesslerThnes, T. (2011). How leaders motivation transfers to
customer service representatives. Journal of Service Research,
14(2), 214 233.

Does National Culture Affect Firm

Investment in Training
and Development?
Research Brief by Jean-Francois Coget, Associate
Professor of Management, Orfalea College of
Business, California Polytechnic State University
http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amp.2011.0134

onventional wisdom has it that all companies

should invest in the training and development
of their employees. Indeed, the resource-based
view of the firm provides a clear justification for
this, arguing that companies should develop and
use rare, valuable, inimitable, and non-substitutable resources to gain competitive advantage. And
human capital, which can be enhanced by training, perfectly fits the bill as just such a resource.
Consistent with this, studies have shown that
investment in training results in higher employee
productivity, which in turn enhances financial
and market performance.
Nevertheless, there remain wide variations in
the amount of money companies invest in training around the world. For instance, on average
companies in Bulgaria, the United States, Sweden, and Greece spend between 4% and 6% of
their payrolls on employee training, while firms in
Cyprus, Iceland, and Slovakia spend roughly 1% to
2%. Naturally, this raises the question of what causes
such wide national variations. Could it have anything to do with cultural differences across countries?
This is exactly the question that Hilla Peretz
(Ort Braude College, Israel) and Zehava Rosenblatt (University of Haifa) set out to answer in
their recent study of organizational investment in
training. Having surveyed nearly 6,000 firms in 21
different countries across a wide array of industries, Peretz and Rosenblatt found that cultural
differences do indeed appear to influence firm

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