You better watch out: How the supervisor response to worker voice affects promotive voice

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between worker voice ‐ individual workers speaking up for their own interests ‐ and promotive voice ‐ individual workers speaking up to promote the interests of the organizations that employ them. We apply structural equation modelling to our unique data set on the voice behaviour of workers in the Netherlands (N = 3,159) to test our hypotheses. The results indicate that the supervisor response to worker voice has an indirect effect on promotive voice, suggesting that workers’ experiences with speaking up for their own interests impact their contributions to the functioning of the organization.