extra schriesheim 1991 full instrument

7/29/2019 Extra Schriesheim 1991 Full Instrument

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Journal of Occupational Psychology (199V), 64, 159-166 Printed in Great Britain 1 5 9 1991 The British Psychological Society

The discriminant validi ty of theLeader Reward and PunishmentQuestionnaire (LRPQ) andsatisfaction \s^ith supervision: Atwo-sample, factor analyticinvestigationChester A. Schriesheim*

Department of Management, School of Business Administration, 414 Jenkins Building,University of Miam i, Coral Gables, PL 33124-9145, USA

Tianothy R. HinkinMclntire School of Com merce, University of Virginia

Linda A. TetraultDepartment of Psychology, University of Miami

The conceptualization of leaders as reinforcement mediators is a relatively recentdevelopment, which has generated substantial interest in leadership research. Accom-panying this new approach has been the development and use of perceived leaderreinforcement questionnaires; a rapidly growing literature has developed as a result. Thisarticle reports a factor ana lytic investigation of what is probably the most commonly usedand reliable measure in this domain - the Leader Reward and Pu nishment Questionnaire(LRPQ: PodsakofF, Todor, Grover & H uber, 1984). Using samples of hospital employees{N = 375) and bankers (N = 297 ), with principal axes factor extraction and varimaxrotation, the results show relatively good discriminant validity when the LRPQ isfactored with the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire's 'satisfaction with supervision'items (MSQ: Weiss, D awis, England & Lofquist, 1967). A consistent pattern of weak tomoderate cross-loadings does exist, however, suggesting that research which employsaffective dependent variables may need to interpret cautiously some ofthe relationshipsobtained. Avenues for future research are briefly discussed.

Many approaches to the study of leadership have emerged over the past 70 years (Bass,1981), but one which has been suggested as particularly fruitful is the reinforcementapproach (cf. House, 1988). The central concept involves the treatment of leaders as* Requests for reprints.


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16O C. A. Schriesheim, T. R. H inkin and L. A. Tetraultreinforcement mediators and the conceptualization of leader behaviour in terms of theadm inistration of rewards and punish me nts to subordinates contingent on their perform-ance. The reinforcement perspective has generated considerable theoretical and empiricalinterest, and a substantial literature has developed as a result (Williams & Podsakoff,1988).Most recent investigations in this domain have employed the Leader Reward andPunishment Questionnaire (LRPQ) of Podsakoff, Todor & Skov (1982; reported inPodsakoff/ al., 1984). Th e LR PQ buil t on the earlier work of Sims & Szilagyi (1 975) bydele ting, add ing and mod ifying ite m s, so tha t both contin gen t (performance-related) andnon-contingent leader reward and punishment behaviours are assessed. As currentlycon stituted , the four dimen sions assessed by the LR PQ are: Contingent Reward behaviour(CR: 10 i tems), Non-Contingent Reward behaviour (NCR: four i tems). ContingentPunishment (CP: five items), and Non-Contingent Punishment (NCP: four items) (see theAppendix for the i tems of the LRPQ).Many analyses have been conducted which have demonstrated acceptable internalconsistency, test-retest reliability, factor structure and both concurrent and predictivevalidity for these leader reinforcement scales (Podsakoff c& Schriesheim, 1984 a, b\Podsakoff e? al., 1984). However, research exploring the broader domain of psychometricissues is clearly needed to increase confidence in these measures and their accumulatedfindings (cf. Schwab, 1980). One psychometric property of the LRPQ that should beinvestigated is its discriminant validity, i.e. whether the subdimensions (subscales) ofthe LR PQ are sufficiently d ifferentiated from oth er, suppose dly different, con structs(Nunn ally, 197 8; Schwab, 1980). Since the LR PQ is designed to obtain subordinates 'descriptions of the perceived behaviour of their supervisors, it seems reasonable to askwh ethe r these descrip tions are sufficiently differentiated from affective reactions to thosebehaviours. Research in other domains has found serious confounding between highlycorrelated but supposedly distinct descriptive and affective measures, so the question ofartifactual relationships due to poor discriminant validity naturally arises. The currentresearch therefore followed the approach suggested by Ferratt, Dunham & Pierce (1981)and undertook a factor analytic exploration ofthe empirical distinctiveness (discriminantvalidity) ofthe four LR PQ subscales, and a com mon ly used and well developed m easure ofjob satisfaction the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ: Weiss et al., 1967).

The MSQ is employed because it is intended to be a strictly evaluative or affectiveinstrument, so that i t should be empirically dist inct frop the LRPQ. In addit ion,satisfaction w ith supervision has been used by more respondents tha n any other depe nden tvariable in leader reinforcement research, and the meta-analytically estimated 'truecorrelation' (corrected for artifacts) between CR and supervision satisfaction is .64(Will iams & Podsakoff, 1988). The MSQ also possesses excellent internal consistencyreliability and other psychometric properties (Weiss et al., 1967), and its proportion oftrue score (non-error and non-method) variance is higher than several other establishedsatisfaction measures (Schriesheim, T etr au lt, K inicki & Carson, 198 9).

M e t h o dSample and procedure


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LRPQ validity 161enhance the generalizability of findings. The first sample consisted of 375 full-time employees of a largesouthern US hospital. The average age was 34 years, average organizational tenure was 4.5 years, and 73 percent were female. A total of 91 per cent o fthe hospital respondents had graduated from high school and 40 pe rcent had college degrees or graduate training. The second sample consisted of 297 mid-level managersemployed at over 100 USfinancial nstitutio ns. The average age ofthe respondents was 32.3 years and 69 percent were male. The respon dents' average length of tenure in the profession was 4.3 years, and over 90 per centof the respondents were college graduates and all had at least some college education. Questionnaires wereadministered to the hospital employees in their usual work settings, during normal work hours, while thebanking sample was administered the same measures at the beginning of a two-week residential industry-sponsored management development programme.MeasuresLeader reward andpunishment behaviour. Perceived leader reward and punishment behaviour was assessed by the23-item instrument developed by Podsakoff and Skov and presented in Podsakoff / al. (1984, p. 38).Following PodsakofF and his associates, a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 'strongly disagree' to 'stronglyagree', was employed in both samples here.Satisfaction. Satisfaction with supervision was measured by the two five-item subscales, Supervisor-HumanRelations (SSHR) and Supervisor-Technical Ability (SSTA), ofthe long (100-item) form ofthe MSQ (Weiss etal., 1967); these items are also shown in the Appendix.Analytical proceduresCoefficient alpha internal consistency reliabilities, means, standard deviations and intercorrelations werecomputed for the six scales in both samples (separately) and found to be well within the ranges typicallyreported in the literature (all coefficient alphas were in excess of .70). Thus, the samples employed in thisinvestigation should not have produced atypical findings. Also, the LRPQ was factored by itself in bothsamples (separately), and showed excellent dimensional structure.The main analyses of this study, however, involved factoring the LRPQ and MSQ together, to explore thediscriminant validity ofthe LRPQ. For ease of interpretation and conformity to Podsakoff ?/.'s (1984)procedures (and common convention), these analyses used iterated principal axes factoring, with squaredmultiple correlations as initial com muna lity estimates and varimax rotations. For these analyses the LRPQ andsatisfaction with supervision items were factored together in each sample (the two samples were notcombined).*

ResultsHospital sampleEigenvalue-one, scree (Catteli, 1966) and discontinuity (Harm an, 1967) criteria, as wellas the theoretical struc ture ofthe LRPQ and MSQ, all indicated tha t it was appropriate toextract five factors from the hospital data. Extracting these and subjecting them to avarimax rotation produced the results shown in the columns headed 'A' in Table 1.As seen in Table 1, the factor structure ofthe LRPQ is generally good and showsconsiderable distinctiveness between its subdimensions. Using the .40 criterion level,which appears to be most comm only used in judg ing factor loadings as meaningful (Ford,MacCallum & Tai t, 1986), it seems clear tha t factor 1 measures satisfaction with* It should be mentioned that a second set of analyses were also conducted on these data, employing LISREL maximutrllikelihood confirmatory fector analysis (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1984) to assess statistically the goodness of fit of th e LRPQitems to their theoretical a priori dimensions. To conserve space, these analyses are not reported here but they very stronglyconfirmed the theoretical dimensionality ofthe LRPQ in both samples (full tabular results are available from the authors onrequest).


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162 C. A. Schriesheim , T. R. H inkin and L. A. TetraultTable 1. Five-factor varimax solution for LRPQ and MSQ supervision items'*Scale anditem no.CP 14C R 0 5NCR 21C R 0 9CR 07CP 13C R 0 8NCP 18C R 0 3NCR 22C R 0 2C R 0 4NCR 20NCP 19CP 11C R O lCP 12NCR 23CR 10CR 06CP 15NCP 16NCP 17SSHR 10SSTA 15SSHR 30SSTA 35SSHR 50SSTA 55SSHR 70SSTA 75SSHR 90SSTA 95Unrotatedeigen-value% Totalvariance

A153014

- 2 4340543- 1 6371038361211360710

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12.337.3

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11.133.6

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- 0 61665

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38392639222519261627

3.29.8

2B1172

- 0 47 1530357

- 2 865

- 0 2737401- 2 215810838686517- 0 7- 2 254043722302129302435

3.29.8

A- 1 925- 1 3- 3 7

0 8- 1 0

21- 7 3

11072 119- 1 2

- 5 1- 0 12401

- 1 4- 4 3

11- 0 7- 6 0- 6 7

2615222 1202420162319

2.47.2

3B19- 2 404

- 1 8- 0 2- 0 5- 0 5

67- 0 3- 1 3

1 Qlo- 0 104

11- 1 2- 0 51113

- 2 5- 1 1- 0 342

48- 1 6- 2 1

07- 0 6- 1 8- 1 9- 0 7- 1 4- 0 2

07

1.85.3

A3415020211601402380 116290207

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1.23.6

4B6611

- 0 513168 1041108

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1.85.3

A- 1 9

15470123

- 0 5140205672925652210180953- 0 418- 0 8031320101007102 109031607

1.13.3

5B

- 0 80 178- 0 411

- 1 0- 0 4- 0 9

0 1590 1

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2.36.8

kA226234254539595867477082483844746235455053456060646673585871716765

20.261.2

2

B496162614270596155466565706565744940595764365568576768605255696465

19.659.2

" The items are presented in the same order as on the survey questionnaire b ut are numbered in accordance with the originalsources (Podsa koffeia/., 1984; Weiss etal., 1967); the LRPQ and MSQ items are shown in the Append ix, also numberedaccording to the original sources.* The columns headed 'A' present the hospital sample loadings, wh ile those headed 'B' give the loadings for the banke ts.


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LRPQ validity 163supervision, while factor 2 assesses CR. Factor 3 is concerned with NCP, while factor 4measures CP; factor 5 assesses NCR.Looking at specific items, it can be seen that CP l4 has only a .34 loading on itsapprop riate factor (a lthou gh it has no cross-loading greater tha n . 19 in m ag nitu de ).Also, items CR 09 and 10 do not load at the . 40 level on their appropriate factor (factor 2)and both have cross-loadings on the NCP factor (factor 3) which are larger than theirappropriate loadings.

Nine of the 10 CR items (all but CR 09) have weak to moderate cross-loadings on thesatisfaction factor (factor 1), as does item N C P 17. How eve r, only the loading for CR item08 is in excess of .40 and the appropriate loadings are substantially higher than thecross-loadings for all bu t CR 08 and 10. Alth oug h the factor loadings ofth e satisfactionwith supervision item s are generally go od, three (SSHR 10 and SSTA 15 and 35) also haveweak cross-loadings on the CR factor (factor 2).Banker sampleAs with the hosp ital sam ple, eige nvalue , scree and discontinu ity criteria, as well as a prioridimensionality, all suggested the extraction of five factors for the bankers. Five factorswere therefore ex tracted, a varimax r otation em ployed, and the factors then reordered tocorrespond to those obtained in the hospital samp le (based on the similarity ofthe loadingson the items); the results are shown in the columns headed 'B' in Table 1.

As shown in Table 1, the pat tern of factor loadings for the b ankers provides reasonablesupport for the a priori dimensionali ty of the LRPQ. Only NCP 17 has a moderatecross-loading on another LRPQ factor, although NCR 22 and 23 also have weakcross-loadings on other LRPQ factors.Looking at the CR and satisfaction items, however, discloses a clear pattern ofcross-loadings for bo th. H er e, thre e ofth e 10 CR items (CR 0 3 , 06 and 07) can be seen tohave weak cross-loadings on satisfaction (factor 1), while CR 08 and N C P 16 havemo derate cross-loadings (these two item s also do not have appropriate loadings which areappreciably higher than these cross-loadings). Although the loadings ofthe satisfactionwith supervision items are generally good, SSHR 30 and 50 and SSTA 75 and 95 haveweak cross-loadings on CR (factor 2) and SSHR 10 has a reasonably high (.54)cross-loading.Co mp aring the results across the two sam ples indicates an excellent factor struc ture forthe LRPQ in general. However, weak and moderate cross-loadings occur between the CRand satisfaction ite ms in both sam ples. In particular , CR 0 3 , 06 and 07 and SSHR 10 haveconsistent weak cross-loadings and CR 08 has moderate cross-loadings in both samples.

D i s cu s s i o nThe results pertaining to the discriminant validity of the LRPQ must be viewed assupp orting the L R PQ bu t also as indic ating the need for caution when its CR scale is usedin studies which involve satisfaction with supervision as measured by the MSQ or sim ilarsupposedly affective satisfaction measures.

Deleting CR items 03, 06, 07 and 08 and rerunning the analyses ofthe current studyresulted in improvements in the factor structures of both samples; virtually all cross-loadings of LR PQ item s on satisfaction disappeare d. The coefficient alpha reliability ofth e


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164 C. A. Schriesheim , T. R. Hinkin and L. A. TetraultCR scale also stayed above . 70 in both sam ples, appare ntly because the re ma ining six CRItems are a reasonably hom ogen eous sam ple from the dom ain of con tinge nt leader rewardbehaviour. Th us, w hile it would be prem ature to suggest that CR items 0 3 , 06, 07 and 08be deleted from the LRPQ to improve its discriminant validity, it does not seemunreasonable to suggest that further research is needed on this issue, so that the evidencewhich accumulates on leader reward behaviour is not tainted by suspicions of artifactualrelationships. This seems particularly important given the fact that some supervisionsatisfaction mea sures, such as the Jo b Descriptive Index (Sm ith, Ken dall & H ul in , 1969),have mo re intentio nally descriptive item con tent than does the MS Q. T his , of' course^might heighten item cross-loading patterns and aggravate concerns about artifactualrelationships.

In conclusion, the current investigation suggests that the confounding of descriptions(reported cognitions) and affect may be somewhat of a problem in leader reinforcementresearch. It may be that the wording of survey questionnaires creates or contributes tocognit ion-att i tude confounding, that survey respondents cannot or do not dist inguishbetween w hat they believe and wh at the y feel, or that some com bination of these factors isat work. In any event, research exploring the sources of such confounding may be usefuland help us better understand basic organizational processes.As a final comment, it is appropriate to highlight that the current research should alsobe viewed as sup po rting the disc rim inant validity of the LR PQ on an overall basis, as wellas its a priori theoretical s truc ture . T oo often measures are used in organizational researchwithout adequate psychometric investigation (Schwab, 1980), and too often psycho-metric examination leads to abandonment rather than development and improvement.Thus, while further investigation of the psychometric properties of the LRPQ seems

desirable, it should not be abandoned as a useful instrument for studying leaders asreinforcement mediators. On the contrary, given the good psychometric propertiesdemonstrated for the LRPQ, research aimed at improving it and subjecting it to furtherscrutiny clearly seems warranted.

Acknowledgemen t sThis research was supported by grants from the Corporate Affiliate Program of the School of BusinessAd min istration , Un iversity of Mi am i, and from the Associates Program of the Mc lntire School of Com merce,University of Virginia. The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments of the Editor and oftwo anonymous referees.

ReferencesBass, B. M. (1981). Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership, rev. ed. New York: Free Press.Cattell , R . B . (1966 ). Th e scree test for the num ber of factors. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 1 , 2 4 5 - 2 7 6 .Fe rra tt ,T . W ., Du nh am , R . B. & Pi er ce ,J . L. (1981). Self-report measures of job character istics and affective

responses: An examination of discr iminant validity. Academy of M anagement Journal, 2 4 , 7 8 0 - 7 9 4 .Ford, J. K ., MacC allum, R. C. & Ta it , M . (198 6). Th e application of exploratory factor analysis in applied

psychology: A critical review and analysis. Personnel Psychology, 3 9 , 2 9 1 - 3 1 4 .H a r m a n , H . ( 1967) . Modem Factor Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Ho use, R. J. (198 8). Leadership research: Some forgotten, ignored , or overlooked f indings. In J. G. H un t,B . R. B aliga, H . P . Dachler & C. A. Schriesheim (Eds) , Emerging Leadership Vistas. Lexington, MA:Lexington.


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LRPQ validity 165Joreskog, K. G. & Sorbom, D. (1984) . LISREL VI: Analysis of Linear Structural Relationships by Maximum

Likelihood, Instrumental Variables, and Least Squares Methods. Mooresville, IN: Scientific Software.Nunnal ly , J . C. (1978) . Psychometric Theory, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hil l .Podsakoff, P. M. & Schriesheim, C . A. (1984 a) . Leader reward and punishment behavior: A review ofthe

li terature. Paper presented at the Southern Man agem ent Association Meetin g, 1417 No vem ber, Ne wOrleans, LA.Podsakoff, P. M . & Schriesheim, C. A. (198 4 b). The co ntent v alidity of leader reward and pu nish men t scales.

Paper presented at the Southern Management Association Meeting, 14-17 November, New Orleans, LA.Podsakoff, P. M ., Tod or, W . D ., Grov er , R. A. & Hu ber, V . L. (198 4). Situational moderators of leader

reward and punishment behaviors: Fact or f ict ion? Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 3 4 ,2 1 - 6 3 .

Podsakoff, P . M . , T odor , W . D . & Skov, R . B . (1982 ). Effects of leader contin gen t and non contin gent rewardand punish men r behaviors on subordina te performance and satisfaction. Academy of ManagementJournal, 2 5 ,8 1 0 - 8 2 1 .

Schriesheim, C. A., T etra ult , L. A., K inick i, A. J. &C arso n, K . P. (198 9). A confirmatory analysis of JD I,MSQ, and IOR construct validity. Paper presented at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Society forIndustr ial and Organizational Psychology, Boston, MA, 2930 April .Schwab, D. P. (1980). Construcr validity in organizational behavior . Research in Organizational Behavior, 2 ,3 - 4 3 .Sims, H . P ., J r & Szilagy i, A. D . (19 75 ). Leader reward behavior and sub ordin ate satisfaction andperformance. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1 4 , 4 2 6 - 4 3 8 .Smith, P . C , Kendal l , L . M . & Hu l in, C . L . (1969) . Th e Measurement of Satisfaction in Work and Retirement.Chicago: Rand McNal ly.

We i s s , D . J . , D a w is , R . V . , E ng la nd , G . W. & Lofquist, L. H. (1967). Manual for the Minnesota satisfactionquestionn aire. Industr ial Relations Cen ter , University of Minn esota, M inneapolis.

Wil l iam s, M. L . & Podsakoff, P. M. (198 8). A meta-analysis of at t i tud inal and behavioral correlates of leaderreward and punishment behaviors. Southern Management Association Proceedings, 1 6 1 - 1 6 3 .

Received 18 December 1989; revised version received 26 October 1990


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166 C. A. Schriesheim, T. R. Hinkin andL. A. TetraultAppendix

Leader Reward and Punishment Questionnaire ItemfContingent Reward behaviour (CR)CR 01 My supervisor always gives me positive feedback when I perform wellCR 02 My supervisor gives me special recognit ion when my performance is especially goodCR 03 My supervisor would quickly acknowledge an improvement in the quali ty of my workCR 04 My supervisor commends me when I do a better than average jobCR 05 My supervisor personally pays me a compl iment when I do outs tanding workCR 06 My supervisor informs his/her boss and others when I do outs tanding workCR 07 If I do wel l , I know my supervisor will reward meCR 08 My supervisor would do all that he/she could to help me go as far as I would l ike to go in

this organization if my work is consistently above averageCR 09 My good performance often goes unacknowledged by my supervisor (reverse-scored)CR 10 I often perform well in my job and still receive no praise from my supervisor (reverse-scored)Contingent Punishment behaviour (CP)CP 11 If I performed at a level below that which I was capable of, my supervisor would indicate his/herdisapprovalC P 12 My supervisor shows his/her displeasure when my work is below acceptable levelsC P 13 My supervisor lets me know about it when I perform poorlyC P 14 My supervisor would reprimand me if my work was below standardC P 15 W h e n my work is not up to par, my supervisor points it out to meNon-Contingent Punishment behaviour (NCP)N C P 16 My supervisor frequently holds me accountable for th ings I have no control overN C P 17 My supervisor is often displeased with my work for no apparent reasonN C P 18 My supervisor is often critical of my work, even when I perform wellN C P 19 I frequently am repr imanded by my supervisor without knowing whyNon-Contingent Reward behaviour (NCR)N C R 20 Even when I perform poorly, my supervisor of ten commends meN C R 21 My supervisor is just as likely to ptaise me when I do poorly as when I do wellN C R 22 Even when I perform poorly on my job, my supervisor rarely gets upset with meN C R 23 My supervisor frequently praises me even when I don't deserve it

Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire items''Satisfaction with Supervisor Human Relations (SSHR)SSHR 10 The way my supervisor and I understand each otherSSHR 30 The way my boss handles his/her subordinatesSSHR 50 The way my boss backs his/her subordinates up (with top m a na ge m e nt )SSHR 70 The way my boss takes care of compla ints brought to him/her by his/her subordinatesSSHR 90 The personal relationship between my boss and his/her subordinatesSatisfaction with Supervisor Technical Ability (SSTA)SSTA 15 The technica l ' know-how' of my supervisorSSTA 35 The competence of my supervisor in making decisionsSSTA 55 The way my boss delegates work to othersSSTA 75 The way my boss provides help on hard problemsSSTA 95 The way my boss trains his/her subordinates" From Podsakoff ef al. (1984, p. 38).* From Weiss a al . (1967, pp. 32-35).


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