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Cross-Level Effects of Team TaskInterdependence on the RelationshipBetween Learning Goal Orientation andFeedback-Seeking BehaviorsJaehee Cho aa Department of Communication Studies , University of NorthCarolina , CharlottePublished online: 12 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Jaehee Cho (2013) Cross-Level Effects of Team Task Interdependence on theRelationship Between Learning Goal Orientation and Feedback-Seeking Behaviors, CommunicationResearch Reports, 30:3, 230-241, DOI: 10.1080/08824096.2013.806258

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Cross-Level Effects of Team TaskInterdependence on the RelationshipBetween Learning Goal Orientationand Feedback-Seeking BehaviorsJaehee Cho

The primary goal of this study was to examine the cross-level impact of team task

interdependence (TTI) on employees’ feedback-seeking behaviors. To achieve this goal,

this study empirically tested the multilevel effect of TTI on an individual-level motiva-

tor—learning goal orientation (LGO)—of feedback-seeking behaviors. A set of multilevel

data was analyzed through hierarchical linear modeling. Through the analysis, this study

could prove the significant roles of LGO and TTI.

Keywords: Feedback-Seeking Behaviors; Hierarchical Linear Modeling; Leaning Goal

Orientation; Team Task Interdependence

Today’s organizations have become more and more decentralized and require more

creative and flexible responses to fast technological and environmental changes.

This tends to lead organizations to become more reliant on employees’ proactive

behaviors (Crant, 2000). Although these behaviors are defined in various ways, it

can be conceptualized as, ‘‘taking initiative in improving current circumstances

or creating new ones: it involves challenging the status quo rather than passively

adapting to present conditions’’ (Crant, 2000, p. 436). This means that employees

are not simply passive receivers following organizational orders but active agents

trying to improve given situations through their own initiatives.

Jaehee Cho (PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 2011) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communi-

cation Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Correspondence: Jaehee Cho, University of North

Carolina at Charlotte, Department of Communication Studies, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC

28223–0001; E-mail: jcho17@uncc.edu

Communication Research Reports

Vol. 30, No. 3, July–September 2013, pp. 230–241

ISSN 0882-4096 (print)/ISSN 1746-4099 (online) # 2013 Eastern Communication Association

DOI: 10.1080/08824096.2013.806258

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Among various proactive behaviors, feedback-seeking behaviors have been largely

investigated by scholars in diverse academic disciplines (Ashford, Blatt, &

VandeWalle, 2003; Callister, Kramer, & Turban, 1999; Gupta, Govindarajan, &

Malhotra, 1999; Morrison, Chen, & Salgado, 2004; Vancouver & Morrison, 1995;

VandeWalle, 2003; VandeWalle, Ganesan, Challagalla, & Brown, 2000). These studies

have related feedback-seeking behaviors to critical topics in organization and com-

munication studies, including newcomers’ socialization, knowledge management,

leadership, communication satisfaction, and so on.

Paying attention to the potential motivators of feedback-seeking behaviors, pre-

vious studies thoroughly examined the critical role of learning goal orientation

(LGO; Ashford et al., 2003; VandeWalle, 2003; VandeWalle et al., 2000). Although

those studies have empirically proved positive effects of LGO on different modes

of seeking feedback, few of them have examined significant roles of collective-level

factors. However, employees’ behaviors are significantly influenced by the cross-level

effects of various collective-level factors (Moates, Harris, Field, & Armenakis, 2007;

Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002; Schonfeld & Rindskopf,

2007)—that is, because members of an organization are emotionally, perceptually,

and normatively bound to their group or organization (Choi, 2008; Hoffman,

Bynum, Piccolo, & Sutton, 2011), their perceptions and behaviors need to be

explained through group- or organization-level characteristics, rather than only

through individual, personal traits (Hollingshead, Costa, & Beck, 2007; Raudenbush

& Bryk, 2002).

In particular, as Huang, Barbour, Su, and Contractor (2010) proposed, team task

interdependence (TTI) is one of the most influential collective-level factors that affect

individuals’ information-seeking behaviors. Nevertheless, few studies have empiri-

cally examined TTI’s cross-level effects on feedback-seeking behaviors. Thus, con-

sidering this gap in the studies of feedback-seeking behaviors, this study engages in

examining cross-level effects of TTI on the relationships between LGO and

feedback-seeking behaviors.

Literature Review

Feedback-Seeking Behaviors and LGO

As Ashford and Black (1996) argued, employees’ feedback-seeking behaviors have

been considered a key category of proactive behaviors and largely investigated by

scholars in the areas of organizational science and communication studies. To date,

scholars have focused on two different modes—inquiry versus monitoring—of seek-

ing feedback information (Anseel & Lievens, 2007; Callister et al., 1999; Vancouver &

Morrison, 1995). According to Ashford and Cummings (1983), monitoring is a way

of taking information from the environment by making observations of given situa-

tions, as well as others’ behaviors. In other words, employees seek feedback cues from

others’ behaviors and use these cues to generate meanings of feedback. Because the

process of monitoring is based on employees’ subjective interpretation of environ-

mental cues, it is relatively more arbitrary and less accurate. Unlike monitoring,

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inquiry of feedback refers to employees’ ‘‘attempt to actually increase the amount

of personally relevant data in his or her information environment by directly asking

actors in that environment for their perception and=or evaluation of the behavior in

questions’’ (Ashford & Cummings, 1983, p. 385). Basically, inquiry is a more active

way of seeking feedback and allows employees to acquire more accurate feedback.

As VandeWalle (2003) presented, feedback-seeking behaviors are largely influ-

enced by goal orientations. According to Hirst, Van Knippenberg, and Zhou

(2009), goal orientation implies, ‘‘both self-development beliefs and how these beliefs

lead individuals to interpret and engage with their environment’’ (p. 281). By setting

up and achieving higher goals, employees can succeed in improving themselves. In

regards to self-development, scholars have paid more attention to LGO. This parti-

cular type of goal orientation mainly focuses on an individual’s acquisition of new

knowledge and skills for given tasks or self-development (VandeWalle, 2003).

In particular, considering that the acquisition of new knowledge and skills is

enabled by the individual’s proactive communication behaviors, previous studies

have investigated and found positive effects of LGO on feedback-seeking behaviors

(Park, Schmidt, Scheu, & DeShon, 2007; Renn & Fedor, 2001; VandeWalle et al.,

2000). It is particularly considerable that a meta-analysis by Payne, Youngcourt,

and Beaubien (2007) found a positive correlation between LGO and feedback-seeking

behaviors. Based on those conceptual links and empirical findings, the following

hypotheses are established:

H1: Employees’ LGO will positively predict their inquiry of feedback from directsupervisors.

H2: Employees’ LGO will positively predict their monitoring of feedback from directsupervisors.

TTI as a Team-Level Factor

Although previous studies have provided meaningful empirical findings about

feedback-seeking behaviors, few studies have thoroughly measured and examined

the cross-level impacts of collective-level factors on individual-level feedback-seeking

behaviors (Huang et al., 2010). Even studies measuring and analyzing collective-level

factors, such as national and organizational cultures (Morrison et al., 2004), have not

examined the cross-level effects of those factors on individual-level feedback-seeking

behaviors. Thus, the main goal of this study was to examine the effect of a critical

team-level factor—TTI—on feedback-seeking behaviors.

According to Wageman and Gordon (2005), TTI is ‘‘the degree to which a piece of

work requires multiple individuals to exchange help and resources interactively to

complete the work’’ (p. 687). As they argued, TTI is socially constructed and char-

acterized by normative aspects. As team members repeatedly experience patterned

behaviors in regards to team-level interactions, those behaviors become a normative

component that further guides the members’ future behaviors. This reemphasizes

that task interdependence is a group-level phenomenon moderating individual-level

behaviors (Liden, Erdogan, Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2006).

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TTI is often closely and positively related to various individual-level and

team-level outcomes, such as job satisfaction (van der Vegt et al., 1999), citizenship

behaviors (Allen, Sargent, & Bradley, 2003), and group processes (Stewart & Barrick,

2000). Furthermore, studies have found that task interdependence has a positive

effect on information sharing within teams (Jarvenpaa & Staples, 2000; Tushman

& Nadler, 1978). It is quite reasonable to understand that a more interdependent

team would more likely to share feedback to accomplish given tasks than a less inter-

dependent team. Moreover, it is also very plausible that members with higher LGO

are more likely to seek feedback in a team of which members depend more heavily on

team-level cooperation. This is mainly because team-level interdependence plays a

key role in rendering feedback-seeking more normal. Thus, the following hypotheses

are established:

H3: TTI will positively affect the relationship between LGO and the inquiry of feed-back.

H4: TTI will positively affect the relationship between LGO and the monitoring offeedback.

Method

Participants and Procedures

Employees of a semiconductor company were invited to complete an online survey.

Twenty-nine teams with a total of 499 office workers were identified as potential

research participants. Members of the 29 teams were invited to anonymously partici-

pate in the online survey. In total, 189 employees across 23 teams completed the sur-

vey. The response rate was approximately 38%. The majority of the respondents were

men (87.1%). The average age was approximately 39 years. The average organiza-

tional tenure was 5.23 years (SD¼ 4.50). In addition to these preliminary analyses

of the entire participant sample, Table 1 presents a summary of the descriptive

statistics for age, team tenure, and organizational tenure for each team.

Instrumentation

All measures were 5-point Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5

(strongly agree), except for the demographic questions. Reliability tests also showed

acceptable Cronbach’s alpha scores (>.70).

Feedback-seeking behaviors. To measure the two different strategies of seeking

feedback, this study used five items from scales proposed by Callister et al. (1999)

and Ashford (1986). Specifically, five items were used for measuring inquiry (2 items)

and monitoring (3 items) of feedback. An example of inquiry of feedback was, ‘‘I ask

my direct supervisor how I am doing.’’ A reliability test showed an acceptable Cron-

bach’s alpha for this measure composed of the two items (M¼ 2.13, SD¼ 1.10;

a¼ .953). Three items were used to measure the monitoring of feedback. An example

was, ‘‘From watching my direct supervisor, I can tell how well I am performing my

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job.’’ However, because of a low standardized regression weight, the following item

was removed from further analysis: ‘‘I observe the characteristics of people who

are rewarded by my direct supervisor and use this information.’’ After removing this

item, an acceptable Cronbach’s alpha could be obtained (M¼ 3.19, SD¼ 0.91;

a¼ .808).

LGO. VandeWalle’s (1997) Likert-type scale was used to measure the LGO. LGO

was measured through the following four items: (a) I prefer challenging and difficult

tasks so that I’ll learn a great deal, (b) I truly enjoy learning for the sake of learning,

(c) I like tasks that really force me to think hard, and (d) I’m willing to take difficult

tasks if I can learn a lot by taking them (M¼ 4.18, SD¼ 0.62; a¼ .778).

TTI. Pearce and Gregersen’s (1991) Likert-type scale was used to measure task

interdependence. This scale is composed of the following four items: (a) I work clo-

sely with other team members in doing my work, (b) I frequently must coordinate

Table 1 Summary of Descriptive Analysis for Each Team

Team n Average Age (in Years)

Team Tenure Organizational Tenure

M SD M SD

1 6 31.5 2.17 2.041 2.75 2.297

2 7 34.0 4.14 4.315 6.57 5.373

3 4 41.0 2.80 4.805 3.88 6.758

4 9 30.1 2.42 1.744 4.64 4.783

5 8 34.6 3.57 3.587 3.57 3.587

6 6 32.5 5.67 5.000 7.32 4.343

7 11 30.5 2.62 2.680 3.75 2.414

8 8 32.6 2.24 3.329 5.71 5.937

9 6 37.2 3.10 4.629 5.60 6.035

10 15 32.4 2.61 2.071 6.16 4.658

11 10 32.0 2.94 4.152 4.66 4.926

12 8 32.1 2.73 3.534 4.85 4.655

13 8 35.6 3.29 3.624 6.19 5.946

14 6 29.6 1.34 1.331 2.51 2.997

15 3 33.7 3.50 2.121 6.75 2.475

16 9 36.1 3.73 2.584 6.18 5.017

17 15 32.1 2.13 1.674 5.37 4.470

18 6 38.8 5.75 3.221 8.08 5.024

19 12 33.4 2.65 2.648 4.62 4.411

20 7 32.0 3.99 5.533 6.42 6.294

21 4 41.0 1.73 0.896 2.88 1.887

22 3 35.3 1.75 0.901 6.50 3.500

23 7 38.6 3.14 1.909 6.36 4.543

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my efforts with other team members, (c) My own performance depends on receiving

accurate information from other team members, and (d) The way I perform my job

has a significant impact on other team members. The individual reliability test

showed an acceptable Cronbach’s alpha (M¼ 4.26, SD¼ 0.63; a¼ .761). To get

group reliability, group size and the number of items were weighted and considered.

This study got a slightly low, but generally acceptable, group reliability (a¼ .69).

Then, TTI was obtained by averaging team members’ task interdependence scores

for each team.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

For the purpose of validating the five composite measurements, a confirmatory factor

analysis (CFA) was conducted. In the process of CFA, following Lee and Lim’s (2007)

guidelines, one of the three items measuring the monitoring of feedback information

was removed because of a low standardized regression weight (<.50. For more rigor-

ous and valid evaluation of model fits of CFA, it is recommended to use a combi-

nation of absolute fit indexes and comparative fit indexes (CFIs; Hu & Bentler,

1999). Thus, following their suggestion, this study used the following model fit

indexes: CFI having good fit with �.96, goodness-of-fit index (GFI) having good

fit with �.90, and a standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) having good

fit with �.10. The CFA results showed good model fits: v2(40, N¼ 189)¼ 109.34,

p< .001; CFI¼ .97; SRMR¼ .047; and GFI¼ .93.

Results

Within-Group Consistency Analysis

According to Glisson and James (2002), to create a Level-2 variable by aggregating

team members’ scores for the variable, within-group consistency analysis must be

conducted. In particular, the Level-2 construct being measured through Likert-type

scales must have acceptable interrater reliability scores. Thus, because TTI was mea-

sured through a 5-point Likert-type scale composed of four items, an index of

within-group consistency of responses, rwg(j), was computed for the construct (James,

Demaree, & Wolf, 1984). The results of within-group consistency analysis showed

acceptable interrater reliability scores (rwg(j)) for each of the 23 teams (mini-

mum¼ 0.81, maximum¼ 0.98, average¼ 0.94). These results must be interpreted

as the justification for aggregating team members’ responses to measure the Level-2

construct, TTI.

Hierarchical Linear Modeling Analysis

To test the proposed hypotheses, three models for each of two outcome variables—inquiry and monitoring of feedback—were created and used. The first model

included only an outcome variable. The second model was what is called a

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random-coefficient model, having only LGO as a Level-1 independent variable

(Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). The last model included both Level-1 and Level-2 inde-

pendent variables for the purpose of detecting the effects of Level-2 variables on the

regression slopes for the Level-1 variables.

Fully unconditional model. As mentioned earlier, the first model (fully uncon-

ditional model) included only the random effects on the two outcome variables—

inquiry and monitoring of feedback. To detect the existence of considerable

between-group differences, intraclass correlations (ICCs) for each of the two out-

comes was computed. The results showed that, whereas monitoring of feedback

had a considerable ICC (.093), inquiry of feedback had a less considerable ICC

(.022). Although the ICC for inquiry of feedback was relatively small, hierarchical lin-

ear modeling (HLM) analyses were conducted for detecting how helpful the inclusion

of the Level-2 variable was for explaining the remaining random variance.

Random coefficient model. H1 and H2 hypothesized LGO’s positive effects on

inquiry and monitoring of feedback. To test these two hypotheses, a random coef-

ficient model was tested. This model included only the Level-1 variable, LGO. As

Tables 2 and 3 show, LGO strongly and positively predicted the two modes of seeking

feedback. LGO significantly predicted inquiry of feedback (standardized b¼ 0.560,

p< .001). The addition of LGO into the fully conditional model increased the

explained variance of inquiry by 11.6%. LGO also strongly predicted monitoring

Table 2 Hierarchical Linear Modeling Results for Inquiry of Feedback

Variable

Fully Unconditional Model Random Coefficient Model Fully Conditional Model

s00 R b s00 s10 R b s00 s10

0.027 1.198

LGO 0.560�� 0.050 0.124 1.059

TTI –0.732� 0.049 0.078

Note. LGO¼ learning goal orientation; TTI¼ team task interdependence.�p< .05. ��p< .001.

Table 3 Hierarchical Linear Modeling Results for Monitoring of Feedback

Variable

Fully Unconditional Model Random Coefficient Model Fully Conditional Model

s00 R b s00 s10 R b s00 s10

0.096 0.932

LGO 0.383� 0.105 0.009 0.877

TTI –0.177 0.103 0.009

Note. LGO¼ learning goal orientation; TTI¼ team task interdependence.�p< .001.

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of feedback (standardized b¼ 0.383, p¼ .002). By adding LGO into the fully

conditional model, the variance of monitoring of feedback was increased by 6%.

These two findings fully supported H1 and H2.

Fully conditional model. H3 and H4 were focused on the effects of the Level-2 vari-

able, TTI, on the regression slopes of LGO on feedback-seeking behaviors. In other

words, it was examined how the regression slopes of LGO on feedback-seeking beha-

viors would vary, corresponding to TTI. Following Raudenbush and Bryk’s (2002)

guidelines, a fully conditional model including Level-1 and Level-2 variables was used

to test those hypotheses. The HLM results showed that, although TTI negatively and

significantly (standardized b¼�0.732, p¼ .036) affected LGO’s slope on the inquiry

of feedback, there was no significant effect in regards to the monitoring of feedback.

In other words, in teams with higher TTI, the effect of LGO on the inquiry of feed-

back decreased, compared to teams with lower TTI. Furthermore, the addition of TTI

into the random coefficient model increased the explained variance for LGO’s effects

on inquiry of feedback by 37.1%. Although these results indicated the rejection of H3

and H4, the significant negative effect of TTI was further interpreted and discussed.

Discussion

The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of TTI as a multilevel

factor on feedback-seeking behaviors. Specifically, this study examined how TTI

affected the relationships between LGO and two modes of seeking feedback. The

main effects of individual-level and team-level factors were hypothesized and tested

by HLM analyses. Through these analyses, this study was able to observe the follow-

ing meaningful findings.

By using random coefficient models for HLM, this study tested the hypotheses in

regards to LGO’s positive effects on two modes of feedback-seeking behaviors. As

predicted, LGO significantly and positively predicted the monitoring and inquiry

of feedback. As many previous studies have found, LGO has been considered a key

source of motivation for seeking information more actively (Park et al., 2007; Renn

& Fedor, 2001; VandeWalle et al., 2000). Regarding feedback information, it is highly

plausible that employees with higher LGO are more likely to gather feedback to

obtain more understandings of their own performances and to ultimately improve

their work. Based on these arguments, this study’s finding of the positive relationship

between LGO and feedback-seeking behaviors is comprehensible. This finding pro-

vides additional support for existing arguments of the positive relationships between

LGO and feedback-seeking behaviors specifically (Tuckey, Brewer, & Williamson,

2002; VandeWalle et al., 2000).

It is interesting to note that TTI negatively predicted LGO’s effect on the inquiry of

feedback—that is, in teams where members depended more on other members to

complete given tasks, those with higher LGO were less likely to inquire feedback from

their direct supervisors than in teams with relatively lower TTI. This was a finding

opposite to the initial expectation. Initially, based on the main concept of LGO (Park

et al., 2007; Renn & Fedor, 2001; VandeWalle et al., 2000), it was predicted that

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in teams where more cooperation is needed among team members for the

completion of given tasks, members’ LGOs would more strongly affect those

members’ inquiry and monitoring of feedback. Thus, the negative effect of TTI is

considerable.

This result can be explained through the social costs of inquiring feedback. Many

studies about feedback-seeking behaviors have argued that social costs tended to

influence an actor’s final decision regarding the modes of seeking feedback (Callister

et al., 1999; Levy, Albright, Cawley, & Williams, 1995). In general, because monitor-

ing incurs less social costs than inquiry, members tend to prefer monitoring to

inquiring for feedback. In particular, when members have longer organizational ten-

ure (e.g., veteran employees), they have more preference for monitoring feedback and

are less likely to seek feedback from direct supervisors (Callister et al., 1999; Levy

et al., 1995). It also needs to be considered that, in teams with higher TTI, veteran

workers’ lack of knowledge has more negative impacts on team performance and

is less acceptable, compared to teams with lower TTI. Thus, in teams with higher

TTI, veteran employees’ inquiry of feedback can create more negative images of those

employees. This loss of faces must be a huge cost for veteran employees. Furthermore,

as the descriptive statistics show, participants in this study score a high average on

organizational tenure (M¼ 5.23 years). Considering this long organizational tenure,

it is comprehensible that those veteran members in teams with higher TTI feel more

social costs from proactively inquiring feedback from supervisors. Finally, although

those workers may have the passion to learn more about given tasks, they are likely

to hesitate to inquire about feedback from their supervisors in order to protect their

images and reduce the social costs from such inquiries.

In this way, this study was able to present the significant role of TTI for moder-

ating the effects of LGO on feedback-seeking behaviors. These findings empirically

confirmed the fact that employees’ feedback-seeking behaviors were influenced by

individual-level, as well as collective-level, factors. This makes a theoretical contri-

bution by extending the literature of feedback-seeking behaviors to develop a more

solid multilevel model.

Limitations and Future Directions

Although this study identified multiple meaningful findings, the following limitations

need to be considered. First, in terms of HLM, although the number of participants

within a group does not significantly impact the results of the analyses, the number of

groups matters in validating the statistical results (Maas & Hox, 2004). Although

there is still some disagreement regarding the minimum number of groups needed,

thirty is often considered the very minimum for validating HLM results (Kreft,

1996; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). However, the number of groups included in this

study was 23, and this small number may have affected the results regarding the

effects of the Level-2 variables. Nevertheless, it is still noteworthy that the 23 teams

all come from a single organization. This is because the team-level results of this

study are relatively free from organizational-level noise. When data are collected from

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teams of multiple organizations, the team-level data are biased by organizational

differences (e.g., locational differences). Thus, despite the small number of teams,

the effect of TTI is validated in the particular context.

Next, it is considerable that there was no response from six teams, significantly

decreasing the response rate. This might have happened mainly because of the follow-

ing reason. Although all of the potential participants were office employees of the

company, there might have been differences in the extent of which they relied on

online communication. It should be further considered that some employees seldom

use the company e-mail and Intranet. For example, whereas employees in human

resources teams tend to heavily rely on the company e-mail system, members of

maintenance teams seldom used the system. Thus, it is possible that some members

did not read the online invitation letter, although it was distributed through an

official route. This indicates that future research needs to employ triangulated

methods of collecting data.

Finally, although this study collected data from representative samples of an elec-

tronics company, unique contexts of different types of companies need to be con-

sidered. In particular, the general levels of TTI may be different among different

categories of companies. For example, compared to banks, media projection compa-

nies generally need higher level of TTI. This implies that future research needs to col-

lect data from more diverse types of companies to fully comprehend the true effects

of TTI.

Conclusion

The primary goal of this study was to examine the cross-level effect TTI on employ-

ees’ feedback-seeking behaviors. By analyzing multilevel data collected from employ-

ees in a large electronics company, this study found out that TTI significantly, but

negatively, influenced LGO’s effect on feedback-seeking behaviors. This finding pro-

vides scholars with much deeper comprehensions of such proactive communication

behaviors and assists those scholars to conduct more systematic investigation of

feedback-seeking behaviors within contemporary organizations.

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