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Project

Self-regulation in sport teams. Analyzing positive and negative proactive voice behaviors at the between- and within-subject level.

Team leaders strive to obtain self-regulating teams that are able to adequately respond to complex and changing circumstances (Crant, 2000). Especially in the dynamic microcosm of team sport settings, it is impossible for leaders to be constantly aware of ongoing affairs on and off the pitch, to constantly intervene or specify every single task that is required. It is therefore crucial that players proactively take their responsibility by voicing suggestions for improvement, correct each other, speak up to their coach and are capable to manage prevailing interpersonal issues. By engaging in such proactive behaviors, players help guiding the team towards the predefined goals. However, not all types of proactivity are inherently positive or improvement-oriented. The dynamic, high-pressuring environment might result into players covertly criticizing or bad-mouthing the coach or teammates, shifting blame or utter excuses after failures. Both coaches and athletes testify that when these negative ‘voice’ behaviors are not managed properly, they can increase negativity and fragmentation in the team, and ultimately result in bad team performances (Cope, Eys, Schinke, & Bosselut, 2010).

Yet, this PhD-project aimed to gain insights about the role coaches can occupy in stimulating constructive proactive behaviors in their teams. In addition, we aimed to develop scientific knowledge about antecedents and consequences of negative voice behaviors in order to gather in-depth insights about the mechanisms by which coaches and teams can manage such behaviors and prevent their potential obstruction of the team’s functioning.

Chapter 1 - Coaching is Teamwork! The role of need-supportive coaching and the motivational climate in stimulating proactivity in volleyball teams

This chapter aimed to investigate how coaches can stimulate constructive and improvement-oriented proactivity within their teams. A current understanding in the proactivity literature is that leadership style and the installed climate (i.e. norms and beliefs about appropriate behaviors in particular situations) are crucial determinants of proactive behavior in the workplace (Bindl & Parker, 2011). Inspired by Achievement Goal Theory (e.g., Ames, 1992) and Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2007), it was hypothesized that the perceived motivational climate functions as an underlying mechanism by which need supportive coaches stimulate proactivity. We tested the hypothesized model on data that was collected within a sample of 180 volleyball players. In our multilevel structural equation model, proactivity was considered as a higher-order construct, consisting of constructive voice (e.g., providing suggestions for improvement), taking charge (e.g., correcting others) and upward communication (Grant, Gino, & Hoffman, 2011).

In line with our hypotheses, coaches’ need support positively predicted players’ perceived mastery climate which, in turn, was positively related to proactive behavior. Need supportive coaching was negatively related to players’ perceived performance climate. Contrary to our expectations, a performance climate was associated with increased proactivity. Both mastery and performance climate fully mediated the relation between need support and proactivity. However, it should be noted that a mastery climate emerged as the strongest predictor of proactive behavior, and, as opposed to a performance climate, has already been revealed to predict a wide-range of other beneficial individual and team outcomes (Ashauer & Macan, 2013; Gully & Philips, 2005; Smith, Smoll, & Cumming, 2007; Vazou, Ntoumanis, & Duda, 2006). These findings suggest that displaying need-supportive coaching behaviors is an effective approach for coaches to facilitate the installment of a mastery climate and, in turn, spur constructively-oriented proactive behaviors. However, even in a performance climate, the task-interdependent nature of sport teams appears to thrive players towards more proactive behaviors, albeit to a lesser extent.

Chapter 2 – Internally managing negative voice by engaging in positive voice: examining the temporal dynamics of negative and supportive voice in relation to cohesion in sport teams

Drawing upon Social Exchange Theory (SET: Blau, 1964; Foa & Foa, 1974; Gouldner, 1960), Chapter 2 aimed to reveal the relation between destructive voice about the coach (i.e., bad-mouthing, covertly criticizing the coach behind his back) and defensive voice (i.e., expressing excuses after failures) on the one hand and cohesion on the other hand. In addition, we aimed to investigate whether teams are capable of internally managing such negative voice by expressing positive voice. Yet, assuming that negative voice behavior would be associated with decreased cohesion, we tested whether supportive voice (i.e., refuting negative comments within the team) moderated this relation. Given the dynamic nature of sport teams, we were also interested in the importance of relative deviances in players’ perceived voice behavior (i.e., perceiving more/less voice than they usually do). For this reason, the relations were examined at both the between- and within-subjects level.

Six hockey and seven korfball teams were examined for four weeks. At the between-subject level, multilevel analyses revealed that when players perceived higher average levels of defensive voice or destructive voice about the coach (over time), they perceived the team as less task cohesive. Social cohesion was unrelated to negative voice at this level. Weekly deviations from players’ average amount of perceived negative voice did not predict task cohesion, nor social cohesion. These findings suggest that the ‘chronic’ amount of (perceived) negative voice functions as a team process that decreases the team’s coherence towards their objectives. However, cohesion remains unaffected when players temporarily perceive more negative voice than usual.

As expected, supportive voice moderated the negative relation between defensive voice and task cohesion at the between-subject level. Under high average levels of perceived supportive voice, defensive voice did less strongly predict task cohesion. This result indicates that teams are capable of internally managing negative voice behavior by providing a sufficient chronic amount of supportive voice. However, when players perceived more negative voice than usual and, simultaneously, perceived more supportive voice than usual, they experienced less task and social cohesion. This suggests that overly managing temporal rises in negative voice could harm the teams’ cohesion as it could give the impression that players are not allowed to temporarily ‘vent’ their frustrations or that they are not on the same page. From a theoretical perspective, these findings point toward the inapplicability of the principles of SET to formulate precise expectations at within- and between-subjects level.

Chapter 3 – Can losing teams cope with destructive voice behavior? The role of game results and athletes’ perceived motivational climate

In Chapter 3, we aimed to provide a dynamic picture of how destructive voice about the coach fluctuates in response to losing games as this is inherent to competitive team sports. In addition, drawing upon AGT (e.g., Ames, 1992), this study examined the role of players’ perceived motivational climate in players’ amount of destructive voice behavior about the coach. Besides testing the main effects of mastery and performance climate on destructive voice about the coach, we analyzed their interaction with the game result. More specifically, we expected that a loss would be associated with more destructive voice about the coach, and (2) this effect of losing a game would be magnified (reduced) in a high performance (mastery) climate.

We tested the hypothesized relations on a sample of 136 basketball and volleyball players, who were assessed for eight weeks. Each player had to rate all team members’ voice frequency. Players’ average received score was used as a measurement of their voice behavior. This score is equal to the amount of voice they expressed as perceived by all teammates. As expected, players expressed more destructive voice about the coach after a loss (according to their teammates). A mastery climate was associated with less destructive voice about the coach, while a performance climate positively predicted such voice behaviors. These relations emerged at the between- and within-subjects level, pointing towards the importance of players’ average perception of the motivational climate over time, and these climates’ relative saliency (e.g., perceiving a stronger mastery-oriented focus than usual). Only a performance climate was revealed a moderator of the within-subject relation between losing a game and destructive voice about the coach. More specifically, players perceiving a stronger performance-oriented climate than usual after a loss, expressed more destructive voice about the coach than players who experienced a less performance-oriented climate than usual after a loss. To conclude, these findings indicate that negative voice behaviors might be inevitable in sport teams as only one loss will already trigger players’ expression of destructive voice about the coach. However, coaches are able to manage such voice behavior by focusing on a mastery rather than performance climate, and by decreasing the focus on ego-involved features after a loss.

Chapter 4 - The relation between group dynamics and personality: The role of the Five Factor Model and narcissism in players’ frequency and passing on of negative and positive voice behaviors

Chapter 4 focused on the big five personality traits (Costa, 1996; Costa & McCrae, 1992; McCrae and John, 1992; extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness and openness) and narcissism as antecedents of players’ voice behaviors. More specifically, this study focused on the relation between these dispositional traits and players’ supportive voice, constructive voice (i.e., correcting team mates in order to improve their functioning), defensive voice, destructive voice about the coach and about team members. Using a social network approach, we did not only examine players’ amount of voice, but also the extent to which they function as ‘gates’ of ‘bridges’ who pass on voice. Such bridging players can be very influential within a group (Freeman, 1979) as they accelerate the diffusion of positive or negative tones. This study was conducted using the same sample as Chapter 2. Similar to Chapter 3, voice frequency was assessed by calculating the average received score from all teammates, which is equal to the average frequency a player voices towards his/her teammates (as perceived by this player’s teammates). In addition, we tested the same relations for players’ self-reported voice frequencies. 

With regard to players’ voice behavior as perceived by their teammates, the results showed that highly extraverted players were perceived as expressing more positive and negative voice behaviors in general, with the exception of defensive voice. Highly agreeable players were perceived as expressing less destructive voice about team members and about the coach, while openness was positively related to players’ amount of destructive voice about the coach. Players’ conscientiousness positively predicted their constructive voice and emotional stability was inversely related to defensive voice. Interestingly, several of these relations were nonsignificant for players’ self-ratings of voice, while a positive relation emerged between narcissism and defensive voice, pointing towards an amount of subjectivity that is inherent to voice behaviors and the perception of one’s personality.

Highly extraverted players were found to be more likely to pass on supportive voice while emotionally stable players are less likely to pass on defensive voice. Especially narcissism appeared as a predictor of players’ ‘bridging’ behavior as highly narcissistic players are more likely to pass on all types of negative voice (i.e., defensive and destructive voice). These results indicate that personality not only plays a role in players’ clear and visible voice behaviors, but also in more subtle and covert group dynamical behaviors.

Conclusion

Proactivity can be embodied by many types of behavior. Players can correct each other, provide suggestions for improvement or start expressing negative tones. Negative voice can result into team fragmentation unless players are capable to proactively counter these behaviors within the team or allowing temporal rises such that the team’s cohesion remains unaffected. Coaches are also able to manage proactive voice behaviors by focusing on a mastery rather than performance climate. They should consider that players’ behavior seems to be driven by the stable presence of these climates and by extra emphasizing (i.e., more than usual) mastery- or performance-oriented features. However, also less controllable processes such as players’ personality and game results were revealed as antecedents of voice behavior. This wide range of mechanisms that predict proactive voice behaviors and determine whether positive proactive behaviors reduce or magnify the impact of negative voice, perfectly illustrates the dynamic nature and unpredictability of a sport team and its environment.

Date:1 Oct 2014 →  30 Nov 2018
Keywords:Coaching, Group dynamics in sports
Disciplines:Orthopaedics, Human movement and sports sciences, Rehabilitation sciences
Project type:PhD project