Quitting before leaving: The mediating effects of psychological attachment and detachment on voice.

Abstract

This research advances understanding of the psychological mechanisms that encourage or dissuade upward, improvement-oriented voice. The authors describe how the loyalty and exit concepts from A. O. Hirschman's (1970) seminal framework reflect an employee's psychological attachment to or detachment from the organization, respectively, and they argue that psychological attachment and detachment should not be considered as separate, alternative options to voice but rather as influences on voice behavior. Findings from 499 managers in the restaurant industry show that psychological detachment (measured as intention to leave) is significantly related to voice and mediates relationships between perceptions of leadership (leader-member exchange and abusive supervision) and voice, whereas psychological attachment (measured as affective commitment) is neither a direct predictor of voice nor a mediator of leadership-voice relationships.

Proactive work behavior: Forward-thinking and change-oriented action in organizations.

“…In support of this, leader-member exchange (LMX) has been positively related to individual innovation behaviors (r=.34, p<.01;Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004), as well as to supervisor-rated voice (r=.25, p<.01; Burris, Detert, & Chiaburu, 2008).…”

Authenticity, employee silence, prohibitive voice, and the moderating effect of organizational identification

“…Thus, employees with high levels of authenticity should not need an external impetus to advocate the things they consider right, nor should they be discouraged by their managers' disinterest. Furthermore, acquiescent silence is a form of detachment (Burris, Detert, & Chiaburu, 2008). Given that authenticity is associated with various markers of positive organizational adjustment, such as job satisfaction, meaning of work, and work engagement (Leroy, Anseel, Dimitrova, & Sels, 2013;Menard & Brunet, 2011; see also Study 1), employees with high levels of authenticity should be less likely to detach themselves from the organization, which in the end should result in less acquiescent silence.…”

The Relationship between Prosocial Voice and the Patient Safety Culture in the Saudi Public Hospitals

“…In the same line of studies, Burris et al (2008) conducted a quantitative study involving 234 restaurant managers to investigate the relationship between leadership and prosocial voice with two mediators. They focused on the psychological attachment of employees and their detachment to the organization as mediators in the relationship between two independent variables and leadership behaviour and the dependent variable of prosocial voice.…”

“…Such voice types reflect changes directed towards improvement (Premeaux & Bedeian, 2003), initiatives for proactive expressions of novel solutions to resolve organizational problems (Fuller et al, 2007), a challenging effective notion to improve circumstances at work (Venkataraman & Tangirala, 2010), communication focused on improving job-related safety situations (Tucker et al, 2008), innovation recommendations for improvement (Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009), and communication towards a specific target that holds the organizational power (Burris et al, 2008;Detert & Trevino, 2010). A general theme noted among studies of this calibre is the description of voice of an employee speaking up, unique due to the motivation and interaction underlying the communication of notions and feedback provided for improving activities within the organization.…”

“…Prosocial voice related factors are perceived quality of leadership support, style of management, organizational loyalty and the level of employee fair treatment (Burris et al, 2008;Detert & Trevino, 2010;Walumba & Schaumbroeck, 2009). The next sections provide details of the prosocial voice factors that are significant to this study.…”