Voice Endorsement and Employee Safety Voice Behavior in Construction Projects: The Mediating Role of Leader-Member Exchange

Abstract

Employee safety voice refers to publishing opinions and suggestions related to workplace safety issues. In recent years, it has gradually become a hot topic in the field of organizational safety management research. Voice endorsement is the leader’s positive feedback to employees, and it is a necessary condition and key link for employees to achieve the purpose of voicing. Although there are many types of research on employee safety voice behavior and voice endorsement, few studies have explored the relationship between the two. Therefore, through a paired questionnaire survey of 214 leaders and 344 employees in construction projects, drawing on social exchange theory, using leader-member exchange (LMX) as a mediating variable, we discuss the mechanism of voice endorsement on employee safety voice behavior. The results show that in construction projects, voice endorsement negatively affects employee safety voice behavior and LMX, and LMX positively affects employee safety voice behavior. LMX has a mediating role in the relationship between voice endorsement and employee safety voice behavior. The results of this study can provide useful guidance for improving employee safety voice behavior management.

Ideas endorsed, credit claimed: Managerial credit claiming weakens the benefits of voice endorsement on future voice behavior through respect and work group identification

“…Second, examining manager’s credit-claiming behaviors during the voice process enhances our understanding of the taken-for-granted positive association between endorsement and future voice behavior (Janssen and Gao, 2015; Ng et al, 2022; Sun et al, 2022). It is often assumed that endorsement of initial voice encourages employees to speak up again in the future because endorsement enhances employees’ status (Janssen and Gao, 2015), commitment (Landau, 2009), and work engagement (Li et al, 2022).…”

How Safety Climate Impacts Safety Voice—Investigating the Mediating Role of Psychological Safety from a Social Cognitive Perspective

“…In current research on safety voice, many scholars have used social exchange theory as the common ground theory [1,36,49,50]. Safety voice acts as an extra-role behavior, and organizations cannot force employees to express their safety opinions.…”

“…When leaders show concern and support for their employees, employees will take the initiative to implement extra-role behaviors. Therefore, supportive leadership behaviors (e.g., voice endorsement, Sun et al [50]) motivate employee safety voice behavior. Turner et al [3] investigated whether younger and adult employees behaved differently in terms of safety voice.…”

“…On the one hand, managers should maintain a humble attitude and actively accept the opinions of employees. When the opinions put forward by employees receive positive feedback from their leaders, they will put aside their fear of leadership authority and be brave enough to put forward more safety ideas [50]. On the other hand, leaders should be aware of the psychological state of employees and communicate with them in a timely manner.…”

The mediating role of leader-member exchange (LMX) in the structural relationship between organizational justice and employee voice behaviour in higher education

“…For instance, employee voice is understood as the sharing of opinions, concerns, and suggestions to improve or recover the current situation going on at the organization [ 1 , [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] ]. Likewise, some studies discussed EVB as a critical factor for organizational behaviour sustainability [ 1 , [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] ]. Also, the term organizational justice is viewed as employee perceptions of what is fair and what is unfair in their workplaces [ 2 , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] ].…”