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72 CHAPTER 3. NOISE REDUCTION EFFECTIVENESS
Goal Ambiguity Goal ambiguity measures the extent to which firms clearly formulate
their objectives. Goal ambiguity is measured with a multi-item construct, evaluated by
four questionnaire items. As summarized in table 3.5, the items refer to how clear and
specific the goals are defined, and how easily they can be communicated. The Cronbach’s
alpha of the four items together is rather low at a value of 0.630. The Cronbach’s alpha
cannot be improved by deletion of one of the items, as is shown in table 3.5. However,
factor analysis shows that the four questions load onto one component, with all component
loadings well above 0.500. Based on the adequate component loadings, I combine the items
into one measure, labelled goal ambiguity.
Table 3.5: Items for Goal Ambiguity (Q17-20)
Item description
Component
loadings
Scale if item
deleted
a. Clarity of goals 0.758 0.484
b. Specificity of goals 0.734 0.480
c. Difficulty of explaining goals to outsiders
(reversed)
0.572 0.552
d. Clarity of goals to insiders 0.682 0.547
Percentage variance explained 47.6%
Cronbach’s alpha 0.630
Measurability of Outputs Measurability of outputs refers to the extent to which firms
are able to measure the desired results of the business unit in a goal consistent way. Measurability
of outputs is a construct evaluated by four questionnaire items, asking about the
objective measurability of the outputs, including aspects of completeness and goal consistency
of the output measurement. The items load onto one factor with a scale reliability
of 0.74 (Cronbach’s alpha). The items and the corresponding statistics as summarized in
table 3.6.
Emphasis on Personal-Level Performance Measures I measure emphasis on personal-level
measures as the importance of personal-level performance measures to the respondent’s
performance evaluation (Q37). The respondents divided 100 points over a list of
performance measures according to their relative weights in the performance evaluation
system. The list of performance measures consists of measures at the firm, business unit,
within-business-unit, and personal levels. I summate the relative weights of the various
personal-level measures (professional skills, social skills, and experience & know-how), to
calculate the emphasis on personal-level measures-construct.
representation of the 7-point scaled items in the uncertainty construct.