Good Workers and Crooked Bosses: The Effect of Voice Suppression by Supervisors on Employees’ Populist Attitudes and Voting

Abstract

This study is the first to explore the effect of political socialization in the workplace on populist attitudes. We investigate the effect of workplace voice suppression on employees' populist attitudes and voting. We expect employees who were suppressed by supervisors to hold more populist attitudes and to be more likely to vote for a populist party than employees who were not. We argue that some employees experience voice suppression by supervisors as stressful, so splitting is likely to be employed as a defense mechanism. Splitting is achieved through cognitive distinction and antagonism between “the good workers” and “the crooked bosses.” Such a split mental framework can generalize into a worldview that contrasts “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite,” a core characteristic of populism. We predict that the extent to which suppression triggers splitting and consequentially incites populist attitudes and voting depends on employees' acceptance of power distance. We test our hypotheses using SEM on survey data from 2990 members of the Dutch labor force. Our results show that experiences of voice suppression are positively related to populist attitudes and populist voting. As expected, this effect is stronger for employees who are less accepting of power distance.

The oppressive boss and workers’ authoritarianism: effect of voice suppression by supervisors on employees’ authoritarian political attitudes

“…In this paper, we focus on social interactions that reflect workplace authority (such as voice suppression), rather than on structural workplace characteristics. This helps uncover more specific mechanisms underlying the spillover on political attitudes, since authority relations are more clearly expressed through social interactions than through formal hierarchical positions (Stanojevic et al, 2020). Moreover, generalisation is more successful the more a certain stimulus or situation resembles the context linked to the initial socialisation (Shepard, 1987).…”

Political Participation and Workplace Voice: The Spillover of Suppression by Supervisors

“…First, most studies focus on experiences at the workplace within rare workplace structures, such as worker cooperatives (e.g. Pateman, 1970), or do not directly test the effects of more common interactions in the workplace on political participation (see for an exception Stanojevic et al, 2020). In this study, we address more common experiences at work by focusing on responses of supervisors to workplace voice.…”

“…While previous research mainly focused on participation in workplace decisions (Greenberg et al, 1996; Jian and Jeffres, 2008; Sobel, 1993; Verba et al, 1995), we argue that the preparation for political action lies not only in the mere training of the expression of issues and interests but also in the feedback that supervisors give by way of their responses to workplace voice. An employee who voices an issue at work can meet a variety of responses by its supervisor (Kassing, 2009; Stanojevic et al, 2020). Supportive responses, such as helping to solve the problem or rewarding the employee, constitute positive feedback on voice expression in the workplace.…”

Self-perceived misattributed culpability or incompetence at work

“…Employee voice may be discouraged in organizations (Stanojevic et al 2020). In particular, normative prohibitions against attributional conflict may deter employees from exercising voice to challenge misattributions by a direct superior (Jackall, 1988, p. 20;Martinko & Gardner, 1987;Wilhelm et al, 1993).…”