The voicer's reactions to voice: an examination of employee voice on perceived organizational status and subsequent innovative behavior in the workplace

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper was to explore the voicer's own psychological or behavioral reactions to voice. A framework was proposed to predict how and when employee voice is related to innovative behavior in the workplace based on conservation of resources theory.Design/methodology/approachData was collected from a three-wave survey including 232 employees and their supervisors. Hierarchical multiple regression and PROCESS, a SPSS macro, were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsEmployee voice was positively associated with innovative behavior. Perceived organizational status mediated the link between voice and innovative behavior. Meanwhile, performance-goal orientation strengthened the positive voice–perceived organizational status and voice–innovative behavior associations.Originality/valueThis paper extended the authors’ understanding of the outcomes of voice by elucidating that voice could motivate the psychological or behavioral reactions of not only team members but also the voicer himself/herself. In addition, it highlighted the value of performance-goal orientation in strengthening the potentially positive relationship between voice and perceived organizational status. In doing so, the authors identified the unexplored individual-level psychological and behavioral reactions of the voicer himself/herself after speaking up. The present study also provided practical implications by shedding light on measures to promote innovative behavior in the workplace.

Is temporal leadership always beneficial? The role of job passion and synchrony preference

“…Inspired by prior research, we controlled employees' demographic characteristics, including gender, age and education in the present study, allowing for their influences on innovative behavior to be reflected in the findings (Eva et al, 2019;Pian et al, 2019;Chen et al, 2020). In addition, we included job type of focal employees as a control variable since prior research noted that job type was associated with employees' creativity (Tsaur et al, 2011).…”

An Empirical Study of the Effect of Communication Visibility on Innovation Behavior

“…Voice behavior is an important factor that can improve organizational efficacy (Chen et al, 2020a). Many theoretical perspectives have been used to explore the antecedents of voice behavior, such as leader–member exchange (Burris et al, 2008), climate (Morrison et al, 2011), proactive personality (Wijaya, 2019), and voice efficacy (McAllister et al, 2007).…”

“…Therefore, it is inferred that communication visibility might be conducive to employee voice behavior. Further, Chen et al (2020a) showed that voice behavior facilitated idea generation and that the resources accompanied by voice behavior were conducive to turning employees’ suggestions into actual innovative behaviors. Therefore, this study examines the mediating effect of voice behavior to explain how communication visibility affects innovation behavior.…”

Job insecurity and employees' safety voice behavior – a managerial dilemma caused by COVID-19

“…One of the most important aspects of employees' life is the safety voice (a dimension of safety behavior, defined as one's propensity to raise voice for unsafe practices at work) (Tucker and Turner, 2011). Employees' voice has been valued at work as it is found to direct the organizational efforts toward areas of improvement (Chen et al , 2020; Chillas and Marks, 2020; King et al , 2020), especially in crisis (Lee, 2020). As COVID-19 has also a crisis that has settled new normals for businesses and firms have to transform their practices (Breier et al , 2021; Seetharaman, 2020), it is expected that the employee's voice for safety would have greater significance in current pandemic crisis.…”