When Voice Matters: A Multilevel Review of the Impact of Voice in Organizations

The conventional wisdom is that voice leads to desirable outcomes for organizations. However, this is most certainly an oversimplification. Of the over 1,000 studies examining the impact of voice in organizations, the implications of voice vary by the level of the organization (individual, group, organization) as well as the outcome of interest (e.g., group harmony vs. job satisfaction). In this article, we draw from the diverse literatures examining the impact of voice to integrate the theoretical frameworks and empirical results for voice outcomes across organizational levels. To do so, we start with a discussion of the definition and development of voice as a construct, beginning with Hirschman’s seminal work on voice/exit/loyalty. We then review the theoretical frameworks within each level that explain the effect of voice on outcomes, highlight the role of mediating or moderating mechanisms, and discuss directions for future research. Finally, we emphasize emerging trends in the study of voice and suggest areas in which the various literatures may benefit from borrowing across fields and levels of interest to produce a more comprehensive, theoretically grounded, and cohesive body of work.</jats:p

Followership, Leadership and Social Influence

Traditional research in leadership has largely relegated followers to the role of passive recipients or, at best, moderators of leader influence and behaviors. However, recent work in the area of followership has begun shifting this focus and emphasizing the possibility that followers actively have an influence over leaders, in particular leader behavior. This paper revisits traditional areas of the leadership literature and builds on the emerging followership literature to reintroduce followers as part of the social context of leaders. In an attempt to build theoretical rationales for how followers influence leader behavior we draw on the social influence (e.g., Social Impact Theory, Latane, 1981) and the power literature to suggest individual (e.g., strength and immediacy of followers) and group level (e.g., number of followers and unity of the group) characteristics that influence leader behaviors as a function of a leader's informational and effect dependence on followers

When the tables are turned: The effects of the 2016 US Presidential election on in-group favoritism and out-group hostility

The outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election was a big surprise to many, as the majority of polls had predicted the opposite outcome. In this two-stage cross-sectional study, we focus on how Democrats and Republicans reacted to this electoral surprise and how these reactions might have influenced the way they allocated resources to each other in small groups. We find that, before the election, Republicans showed greater in-group favoritism than Democrats, who treated others equally, regardless of their political affiliation. We then show that Democrats experienced the election outcome as an ego shock and, in the week following the election, reported significantly higher levels of negative emotions and lower levels of self-esteem than Republicans. These reactions then predicted how individuals' decided to allocate resources to others: after the election, Republicans no longer showed in-group favoritism, while Democrats showed out-group derogation. We find these decisions when the tables were turned can be partially explained by differences in participants' state self-esteem

Speaking truth to power: The effect of candid feedback on how individuals with power allocate resources

Subordinates are often seen as impotent, able to react to but not affect how powerholders treat them. Instead, we conceptualize subordinate feedback as an important trigger of powerholders’ behavioral self -regulation , and explore subordinates’ reciprocal influence on how powerholders allocate resources to them over time. In two experiments using a multi-party, multi-round dictator game paradigm, we find that when subordinates provided candid feedback about whether they found prior allocations to be fair or unfair, powerholders regulated how self-interested their allocations were over time. However, when subordinates provided compliant feedback about powerholders’ prior allocation decisions (offered consistently positive feedback, regardless of the powerholders’ prior allocation), those powerholders made increasingly self-interested allocations over time. In addition, we show that guilt partially mediates this relationship: powerholders feel more guilty after receiving negative feedback about an allocation, subsequently leading to a less self-interested allocation, while they feel less guilty after receiving positive feedback about an allocation, subsequently taking more for themselves. Our findings integrate the literature on upward feedback with theory about moral self-regulation to support the idea that subordinates are an important source of influence over those who hold power over them

Head above the parapet: How minority subordinates influence group outcomes and the consequences they face

Research on power often treats the recipients of powerholders’ decisions (i.e., subordinates) as an undifferentiated group, overlooking how their responses to powerholders’ decisions might vary and how those responses might affect powerholders’ later decisions. In this paper, we examine the role of lone dissenting subordinates (individuals whose feedback differs from that expressed by other group members) in shaping powerholders’ allocation decisions, and explore the consequences those subordinates face for their dissent. In three experimental studies, we show that even as a lone voice, the feedback of a dissenting subordinate influences powerholders’ decisions. Powerholders make more self-interested allocations when a lone subordinate provides consistently positive feedback, even when others provide mostly negative feedback. However, powerholders regulate their allocations when a lone subordinate provides candid feedback that points out the self-interested nature of their allocations, even when others provide consistently positive feedback. We further show that lone dissenting subordinates’ influence is stronger when they share a salient group membership with the powerholder (e.g., their school or political affiliation). Finally, we find that powerholders reward lone subordinates who provide them with positive feedback, but only punish lone candid subordinates if they do not share a salient group membership with them. Overall, our results suggest that subordinates who risk putting their head above the parapet can improve outcomes for their group members, and can avoid being punished for doing so, as long as they share a salient group membership with the powerholder

Seeing the "forest" or the "trees" of organizational justice: Effects of temporal perspective on employee concerns about unfair treatment at work

What events do employees recall or anticipate when they think of past or future unfair treatment at work? We propose that an employee’s temporal perspective can change the salience of different types of injustice through its effect on cognitions about employment. Study 1 used a survey in which employee temporal focus was measured as an individual difference. Whereas greater levels of future focus related positively to concerns about distributive injustice, greater levels of present focus related positively to concerns about interactional injustice. In Study 2, an experimental design focused employee attention on timeframes that differed in temporal orientation and temporal distance. Whereas distributive injustice was more salient when future (versus past) orientation was induced, interactional injustice was more salient when past orientation was induced and at less temporal distance. Study 3 showed that the mechanism underlying the effect of employee temporal perspective is abstract versus concrete cognitions about employment

Leader Humility in Singapore

Singapore Management University, Human Capital Leadership Institute, BSI

Job satisfaction as mediator: An assessment of job satisfaction's position within the nomological network

Job satisfaction\u27s position within the nomological network and the mechanism outlined by theories of social exchange suggest that job satisfaction functions as a mediator of the relationship between various antecedent variables and volitional workplace behaviours. We extend social exchange theory to include perceptions of the total job situation and develop a model that positions job satisfaction as a mediator of the relationships between various internal and external antecedent variables, and three volitional workplace behaviours: citizenship behaviours, counterproductive workplace behaviours, and job withdrawal. The fit of a fully mediated model is good and all four classes of antecedents (dispositions, workplace events, job characteristics, job opportunities) contributed uniquely to the prediction of satisfaction. Job satisfaction is also shown to mediate most antecedent‐consequence relationships, although two important exceptions are evident. A direct link from pro‐social disposition to OCBs, and a direct link and one from anti‐social disposition to counterproductivity, suggest that job satisfaction does not fully moderate the relationships between dispositions and contextual behaviours