Group & Organization Management

This article illustrates that any bivariate or multiple regression provides inadequate information about the levels of analysis in a data set collected in an organizational setting. As a result, individual-level effects may be incorrectly attributed to the group level, and group-level effects may be incorrectly viewed as being solely individual-level effects. Both of these situations are examples of the “fallacy of the wrong level.” Within and between analysis (WABA) allows levels of analysis to be tested in data. These WABA tests are useful in numerous analytical approaches, including structural equation modeling, hierarchical linear modeling, and various approaches to aggregation. This article provides a decision tree for use in performing tests for multiple alternative levels of analysis in a data set collected in organizations.

This study examined the extent to which changes in leader behavior 1 year after a 360-degree feedback intervention related to changes in employee attitudes. Participants were 145 leaders and their subordinates, peers, and manager. The results indicated that improved subordinate ratings of the leader on consideration, performance orientation, and employee development related to increased subordinate engagement and satisfaction as well as reduced intentions to leave following 360-degree feedback to leaders. This study demonstrates that improved leader behavior following 360-degree feedback is related to improved employee attitudes.

Rumors collected from a large public hospital undergoing change were content analyzed, and a typology comprising the following five broad types of change-related rumors was developed: rumors about changes to job and working conditions, nature of organizational change, poor change management, consequences of the change for organizational performance, and gossiprumors. Rumors were also classified as positive or negative on the basis of their content. As predicted, negative rumors were more prevalent than positive rumors. Finally, employees reporting negative rumors also reported more change-related stress as compared to those who reported positive rumors and those who did not report any rumors. The authors propose that rumors be treated as verbal symbols and expressions of employee concerns during organizational change.