The Impact of Leaders' Implicit Theories of Employee Participation on Tests of the Vroom-Yetton Model.

The Vroom-Yetton model of decision-making specifies an appropriate level of employee participation based on an analysis of important situational attributes. However, much of its validity evidence has relied on managers' self-reports of both their behavior and decision outcomes. An experimental study was conducted to test whether performance information can activate leaders' implicit theories of performance and bias leaders' self-ratings of their decision-making behavior. The design was a 2x3 between-groups factorial manipulating leader decision-making style (autocratic or participative) and level of performance feedback (high, low, or none). The data indicated that, when given high performance feedback, leaders' self-ratings are biased by their implicit theories of effective decision-making. This result suggests that studies relying on managers' self-reports are likely to inflate validity estimates of the Vroom-Yetton model. Group members' ratings of leader decision-making behavior were also affected by high performance feedback, but only when they rated leaders who were instructed to use a participative decision-making style. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]