Observations of Supervisors Communication Styles and their Effects in Remedial Appraisal Interviews

Abstract: This article describes the development and validation of the Jullens Observation Communication Instrument (JOCIN). We used this instrument to assess the communication styles of male supervisors (n = 68) in role-playing situations, in which they addressed a professional male actor who played the role of an employee, on absenteeism. The role-plays were videotaped and two trained observers (experts) used the JOCIN. During the role-plays, also the peers of the supervisors (n = 67) assessed their colleagues with this instrument. In the two sets of data we found the same factor structure with two factors, i.e., a ‘relation-oriented style’ and a ‘task-oriented style’. The composite reliability (CR) and the square root of the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) supported the convergent and divergent validity of the instrument. According to the experts, the supervisors adopted rather a task-oriented communication style than a relation-oriented style. Moreover, the task-oriented style had a positive impact on the employee’s intention to change his absenteeism behaviour and the relation-oriented style affected the employee’s feeling of ease with the supervisor.