'Perception of Work Participation in Organizations: A Cross-cultural Study' (AsPredicted #76835)
Author(s) This pre-registration is currently anonymous to enable blind peer-review. It has 3 authors.
Pre-registered on 2021/10/13 - 02:25 AM (PT)
1) Have any data been collected for this study already? No, no data have been collected for this study yet.
2) What's the main question being asked or hypothesis being tested in this study? Research Question 1 (RQ1): On a group level, do employees in China have a preference for workplace participation in the form of participative decision making and a flattened organizational hierarchy?
Research Question 2 (RQ2): What is people's perception of workplace participation effect on employee's productivity in China?
Research Question 3 (RQ3): On a group level, do employees in China perceive workplace participation as conducive to work satisfaction?
Research Question 4 (RQ4):What is people's perception of workplace participation effect on company's manageability/managerial stability in China?
3) Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured. The full survey Items are as follows. All items will be measured with a 1-7 Likert Scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree unless otherwise specified.
DV1: Participation Preference
An ideal work group should have the freedom to manage itself.
An ideal manager should have less influence on how employees complete their work.
I prefer my manager to give clear directions.(R)
I prefer my manager to make most decisions on my job.(R)
I prefer to plan my work on myself rather than being told what to do by my manager.
I wish to carry out my work in the way I think is the best.
I wish I could change how I do my work as I see fit.
I'd prefer to choose my job assignments myself.
Workers would be better off if they are able to maintain a hierarchical relationship with their managers.(R)
I'd prefer to work as a partner of my manager as opposed to as a subordinate.
DV2: Participation Outcome--Productivity
Companies that let their employees talk more generally have higher productivity.
Letting employees express opinions on specific issues would slow down their work.(R)
In general, how do you think expressing opinions on various specific issues would affect employees' productivity? (from -5 - Greatly harm productivity to 5 - Greatly benefit productivity)
DV3: Productivity Outcome--Job Satisfaction
Letting employees express opinions on specific issues makes them more satisfied at work.
I feel happier at work when I can express my thoughts on work related issues.
Sometimes the more I talk at work, the more dissatisfied I feel.(R)
Giving employees more opportunities to talk would lower their enthusiasm for work.(R)
Productivity Outcome 4--Workplace Stability
Letting employees talk more would put more workers on strike. (R)
Letting employees talk more would undermine the management's authority over the workers.(R)
It is better off for everyone to work more and talk less.(R)
Employees who talk more would disobey their managers more.(R)
Employees who refrain from expressing their opinions are harder to manage.
Companies that let employees talk more would experience more chaos. (R)
4) How many and which conditions will participants be assigned to? All participants will fill out the same survey with the same items.
5) Specify exactly which analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis. We will compute the descriptive statistics (e.g., means, SDs) for each index and also for each individual survey item within an index. In addition, to test for correlations between indexes, pearson correlations will be used. We will use linear regressions to test the correlations between different DVs and participants' demographics.
Prior to the proposed data collection in China, we have already collected data using the same survey measurement from a comparable sample in the United States. Linear regressions will be used to test for any cross-cultural difference in the DVs between employees from the U.S. and China.
6) Describe exactly how outliers will be defined and handled, and your precise rule(s) for excluding observations. We will not remove outliers. We will include two attention check items in the survey. One item will say, "Please choose Somewhat Agree for this question" while the other item will say, "Please choose Strongly Disagree for this question." The participants who choose any answers other than what's specified by the item instructions in either question will be excluded from the data.
7) How many observations will be collected or what will determine sample size? No need to justify decision, but be precise about exactly how the number will be determined. We will invite 200 participants for the current study. The final sample size will be lower than 200 after participants who fail the attention checks.
8) Anything else you would like to pre-register? (e.g., secondary analyses, variables collected for exploratory purposes, unusual analyses planned?)
