1 Psychological Antecedents of Promotive and Prohibitive Voice: A Two-Wave Examination Jian Liang Antai College of Economics and Management Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai, China Tel: (86-21) 5230-9359 Email: [email protected]Crystal I Chien Farh Robert H. Smith School of Business University of Maryland College Park, MD 20740 Tel: (510) 325-3702 Fax: (301) 314-8787 Email: [email protected]Jiing-Lih Farh Department of Management of Organizations The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Clear Water Bay, Kowloon Hong Kong Email: [email protected]In press, Academy of Management Journal We would like to acknowledge Elizabeth Morrison and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, and Yaping Gong, Riki Takeuchi, Chun Hui, and Gary Johns for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. This research was jointly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 70902046 and 71032003). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Third Biannual Conference of the International Associate of Chinese Management Research (IACMR) in Guangzhou, China.
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Psychological Antecedents of Promotive and Prohibitive Voice: A Two-Wave Examination
Jian Liang Antai College of Economics and Management
We would like to acknowledge Elizabeth Morrison and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, and Yaping Gong, Riki Takeuchi, Chun Hui, and Gary Johns for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. This research was jointly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 70902046 and 71032003). An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Third Biannual Conference of the International Associate of Chinese Management Research (IACMR) in Guangzhou, China.
safety and FOCC, respectively, may have been relatively stronger predictors in this non-western
context. It is an empirical question as to whether OBSE will play a stronger role in predicting
voice in Western contexts in which self-agency and individualism are valued. A second plausible
explanation is that the mechanisms through which OBSE exerts its impact on voice may overlap
with those of psychological safety. Self-esteem has been theorized to relate positively to voice
because high self-esteem individuals are less concerned about being negatively impacted by the
interpersonal consequences of voice (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998; Van Dyne et al., 1995). In
other words, employees with high OBSE may perceive greater personal psychological safety,
regardless of the level of psychological safety perceived by others. This explanation is plausible
given the positive correlation we found between psychological safety and OBSE at both Time 1
(r = .42) and Time 2 (r = .37), as well as the substitutive interaction effect we found between
psychological safety and OBSE on voice.
Despite its relatively weaker role in predicting voice, we did find an interesting reciprocal
relationship between OBSE and promotive voice that is worthy of mention. In contrast to prior
models suggesting that psychological factors precede voice, we found evidence that voice may
lead to subsequent psychological beliefs relating to personal influence. Consistent with Korman
(2001), our results suggest that the exercise of personal influence on work-related issues through
voice further enhances individuals’ self-concept in the workplace. Despite a general focus of
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researchers to uncover primarily the antecedents to voice, future research should adopt panel
designs in order to capture other reciprocal dynamics between psychological factors and voice,
as well as explore what additional benefits may arise from voice other than increased feelings of
self-worth in the workplace.
A second key implication of our study is that psychological antecedents of voice not only
uniquely impact voice, but may also interact amongst each other. Furthermore, our findings
suggest that, while in some cases psychological antecedents may strengthen each others’
predictive power on voice, in other cases they may weaken each others’ effects. The positive
synergistic effect of high psychological safety and high FOCC on voice demonstrates that the
two psychological forces represent non-parallel and unique pathways to voice.
Contrary to our expectations, we found that the relationship between psychological safety
and voice was not strengthened by high levels of OBSE. Specifically, the pattern of the
interaction was such that the psychological safety-voice relationship was positive only for
individuals with low OBSE but not for individuals with high OBSE. One way to interpret these
results is that high OBSE individuals - being more confident of their ability to voice effectively
(i.e., high behavioral control) - may be relatively less sensitive to the perceived safety of the
interpersonal context when deciding to voice, whereas a psychologically safe environment may
be particularly important for low OBSE individuals to express their constructive suggestions
because they believe they lack the self-confidence and protection of personal credibility at work.
Indeed, prior research on the relationship between self-esteem and voice found that although
higher self-esteem was generally related to greater levels of voice, this relationship was subject
to situational boundary conditions (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998). Citing behavioral plasticity
theory (Brockner, 1988), LePine and Van Dyne (1998) reasoned that low self-esteem individuals
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would be more responsive to external or situational cues than individuals with high self-esteem.
Our findings seem to be consistent with this line of logic. Nonetheless, we caution that our
results do not necessarily disconfirm the importance of perceived behavioral control in predicting
behavior. To capture the control concept advanced by the theory of planned behavior, we
recommend that a more direct measure of perceived control should be used in future research, in
addition to a general measure like OBSE.
A final implication of our study relates to the content and operationalization of voice. We
are the first study to – based on theory and prior inductive research – generate a measure that
captures both promotive and prohibitive dimensions of voice. Introducing a measure of voice
that subsumes both content dimensions is an important advancement of voice research given the
recent broadened definition of voice (Van Dyne et al., 2003). Furthermore, our validation
analysis and finding that FOCC and psychological safety relate differentially to the two types of
voice provide evidence of not only the conceptual and empirical distinction between promotive
and prohibitive voice, but also point to how the nomological networks surrounding the two types
of voice may differ. A promising avenue for future research is to further explore how antecedents
to voice, as well as the interpersonal consequences associated with voice, may differ depending
on its contents.
Practically speaking, even though companies hoping to benefit from the suggestions and
concerns of their employees generally have the best intentions toward encouraging voice, the
unfortunate truth is that employees are often uncomfortable about voicing (Dutton et al., 1997;
Milliken et al., 2003). Our study calls managers to recognize that several psychological factors
can either facilitate or prevent employees from speaking up. Voice can be maximized to the
extent that managers are able to increase employees’ psychological safety, FOCC, and OBSE,
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for instance, by demonstrating an attitude of openness towards employees’ ideas and providing
formal or informal mechanisms for voice (thereby increasing psychological safety), reminding
employees that they are valued members of the organization and are capable of providing
valuable input (thereby increasing OBSE), and emphasizing that employees can “give back” to
the organization by providing suggestions and pointing out ineffective processes (thereby
increasing FOCC). Additionally, given our study’s finding that voice is more likely to occur
when both psychological safety and FOCC are high, managers should be careful to act in ways
that facilitate both of these key psychological factors. Finally, by making voice a positive
experience for employees, managers can increase the likelihood that employees will engage in
future instances of voice.
Limitations and Future Directions
Our study has several limitations that should be addressed in future research. First,
although we conceptually differentiated promotive and prohibitive subdimensions of voice and
found some evidence of differences in their nomological network, much more work can be done
in this area. Future research may uncover other psychological antecedents that may differentiate
these two subdimensions. One possibility may be individual differences in regulatory focus
(Higgins, 1997). For instance, promotion-focused employees may engage in greater promotive
voice due to their propensity to think in terms of achieving ideals and possibilities, whereas
prevention-focused employees may engage in greater prohibitive voice due to their propensity to
think in terms of avoiding losses. Future research may also explore the different outcomes of
promotive and prohibitive voice. We might expect promotive voice to be more closely related to
innovation due to its function in identifying new opportunities, and prohibitive voice to be more
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closely related to efficiency or cost reductions due to its function of stopping or preventing harm
such as process losses.
A related limitation is the wording of the items used to capture FOCC, which had a
stronger bent toward promoting constructive change through coming up with suggestions and
ideas rather than raising concerns. The explicit mention of suggestions and ideas may have
biased the strength of the relationship found between FOCC and promotive voice. Similarly, in
an attempt to capture the enhanced interpersonal risk associated with voicing concerns, the
wording of our prohibitive voice items conveyed a sense of “daring” which may have biased the
strength of the relationship found between psychological safety and prohibitive voice. Thus, we
recommend future researchers to develop a more balanced wording of the items capturing FOCC
and prohibitive voice in order to overcome these limitations.
Another limitation of our study is the manner in which we operationalized perceived
behavioral control over voice. Given the social and political implications of engaging in voice,
we felt that OBSE – a proxy for self-perceived status and access to resources in the workplace –
would increase one’s perceived ease of speaking up. Our study’s results, however, have
suggested that the mechanisms underlying the effects of OBSE may overlap with those of
psychological safety. Hence, future research may choose to operationalize perceived behavioral
control over voice in a more specific manner. A likely candidate, for instance, is the recently
introduced construct “voice self-efficacy,” defined as how confident an employee is about his or
her skills as well as ability to speak up with suggestions for improvement (Kish-Gephart et al.,
2009). Including both voice self-efficacy and OBSE may capture more fully an employee’s
perceived access to both internal and external resources to effectively speak up.
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Finally, although our intention was not to conduct a cross-cultural comparison study,
testing our model in the Chinese context may have influenced our results nonetheless.
Traditional Chinese values on high power distance may make voice a particularly risky behavior
(Huang et al., 2005). Furthermore, the Chinese cultural emphasis on maintaining harmonious
interpersonal relationships and reciprocation over individual agency may have increased the
relative importance of psychological safety and FOCC over OBSE in predicting voice in our
sample. We recommend that future research more systematically examine the effects of culture
on our model and determine whether the pattern of our findings is unique to our research context.
Conclusion
Employee voice is a complex phenomenon to predict. Nevertheless, because of its
functionality in promoting organizational health, we urge researchers to continue to pursue
understanding of the many factors that may facilitate or inhibit its expression. Our efforts here to
identify two content domains of voice and examine the multiple psychological factors leading to
them represents a first step to achieving a more nuanced and complete understanding of why and
how employees speak up. We hope that our work serves as a launching pad for future research
along these lines.
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Footnotes
1 Based on comments advanced by other researchers (e.g., Burris et al. 2008; Organ et
al., 2006), we elected to adapt Van Dyne and LePine’s (1998) items to solely reflect verbal
communication about the improvement of organizational affairs. The four items included,
“Develops and makes recommendations concerning issues that affect this work group,”
“Speaks up and encourages others in this group to get involved in issues that affect the
group,” “Communicates his/her opinions about work issues to others in this group even if
his/her opinion is different and others in the group disagree with him/her,” and “Speaks up in
this group with ideas for new projects or changes in procedures.”
2 Items from Farh, Hackett, and Liang (2007) included, “This employee actively raises
suggestions to improve work procedures or processes,” and “This employee actively brings
forward suggestions that may help the organization run more efficiently or effectively.”
3 Because the potential conceptual overlap between job satisfaction and FOCC would
partial out some of the variance in voice explained by FOCC, we re-analyzed our data
without including job satisfaction as a control variable. The results remained unchanged. We
elected to retain job satisfaction as a control variable because of the cognitive and affective
impact it may have on voice, based on prior research demonstrating its relationship to OCBs
in general (e.g., Moorman, 1993; Organ & Konovsky, 1989).
4 The modest test-retest correlations among the voice measures at Time 1 and Time 2
deserve some explanation. Based on our interviews with managers from the sample
organization, we believe that the relatively low correlations were partially due to the sample
context. Our study was conducted in a retail company that at the time of data collection was
undergoing tremendous change, resulting in high turnover and an unstable workforce that we
believe led to low test-retest correlations. However, extant research in other study contexts
examining constructs akin to the predictors in our study have found strong correlations with
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voice when measured at the same time. For instance, Walumbwa and Schaubroeck (2009)
found a positive correlation of r = .49 between psychological safety and voice; Fuller, Marler,
and Hester (2006) found a positive correlation of r = .26 between felt responsibility for
change and voice; and Venkataramani and Tangirala (2010) reported a positive relationship
(γ = .24) between personal influence (as rated by peers) and voice. Thus, although our sample
organization was not necessarily the most ideal setting for testing our hypotheses, the fact
that we were still able to find support for our proposed relationships suggests that our study
was a conservative demonstration of the underlying relationships that otherwise might have
been shown to be more robust elsewhere.
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TABLE 1
A Comparison of Promotive versus Prohibitive Voice Promotive Voice Prohibitive Voice
Commonalities
• Is not specified in formal job descriptions (save for particular jobs such as auditing) and thus is “extra-role.”
• Is helpful to the functioning of the work unit or the organization and thus is “constructive.”
• Is motivated by a desire to help the work unit or organization and thus reflects an employee’s sense of responsibility and constructive attitude towards the organization.
Distinctions
1. Behavioral content
• Expresses new ideas or solutions for how to improve the status quo.
• Future-oriented; points to possibilities of how to do things better in the future.
• Expresses concern about existing or impending factors (i.e., incidents, practices, or behaviors) that are harmful to the organization.
• Past or future-oriented; points out harmful factors that have negatively affected the status quo or could have a harmful effect in the future.
2. Function • Points out ways that the organization can be better.
• Points out factors that are harmful to the organization.
3. Implications for others
• Suggests improvements that may bring forth changes that inconvenience others in the short run, but the improvements can potentially eventually benefit the entire community.
• The good intention behind suggested improvements is easily recognized and interpreted as positive.
• Calls attention to harmful factors and consequently implicates the failure of those responsible.
• The good intention behind pointing out harmful factors may not be easily recognized nor interpreted as positive because of the potential negative emotion and defensiveness invoked in the process.
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TABLE 2 Factor Loadings for Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Study Variables
Measurement Items Loadings
Promotive voice Proactively develop and make suggestions for issues that may influence the unit. .81(.80) Proactively suggest new projects which are beneficial to the work unit. .79(.76) Raise suggestions to improve the unit’s working procedure. .74(.83) Proactively voice out constructive suggestions that help the unit reach its goals. .71(.81) Make constructive suggestions to improve the unit’s operation. .71(.83)
Prohibitive voice Advise other colleagues against undesirable behaviors that would hamper job
performance. .87(.84)
Speak up honestly with problems that might cause serious loss to the work unit, even when/though dissenting opinions exist. .77(.77)
Dare to voice out opinions on things that might affect efficiency in the work unit, even if that would embarrass others. .72(.81)
Dare to point out problems when they appear in the unit, even if that would hamper relationships with other colleagues. .70(.79)
Proactively report coordination problems in the workplace to the management. .66(.68)
Psychological safety In my work unit, I can express my true feelings regarding my job. .74(.80) In my work unit, I can freely express my thoughts. .72(.72) In my work unit, expressing your true feelings is welcomed. .65(.65) Nobody in my unit will pick on me even if I have different opinions. .55(.62) I’m worried that expressing true thoughts in my workplace would do harm to myself (R). .54(.46)
FOCC
I owe it to the organization to do whatever I can to come up with ideas/solutions to achieve its goal. .86(.86)
I have an obligation to the organization to voice out my own opinions .78(.77) I feel a personal obligation to produce constructive suggestions to help the organization
achieve its goals. .64(.78)
I owe it to the organization to do what I can to come up with brilliant ideas, to ensure that our customers are well served and satisfied. .62(.67)
I would feel an obligation to take time from my personal schedule to generate ideas/solutions for the organization if it is needed. .57(.64)
OBSE
I am helpful around here. .89(.86) I am valuable around here. .85(.87) I count around here. .80(.73) There is faith in me around here. .62(.55) I am efficient around here. .49(.43) I am trusted around here. .47(.41) I am taken seriously around here. .46(.46)
Notes: Standardized factor loadings are reported. Loadings from Time 2 are reported in parentheses. FOCC = Felt obligation for constructive change. OBSE = organization-based self-esteem.
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TABLE 3 Comparison of Measurement Models in the Main Study
Models Factors χ2 d.f. Δ χ2 RMSEA CFI IFI NNFI
1 Five factors: Two types of voice, FOCC, psychological safety, OBSE.
593.61 (537.52) 314 . 066
(.059) .94 (.95) .94 (.95) .93 (.94)
2 Four factors: Two types of voice combined into one factor.
3 Four factors: FOCC and psychological safety combined into one factor.
820.18 (901.16) 318 226.57**
(363.64**) .088
(.094) .91 (.91) .91 (.92) .90 (.91)
4 Four factors: Psychological safety and OBSE combined into one factor.
953.48 (932.13) 318 359.87**
(394.61**) .099
(.096) .89 (.91) .89 (.92) .88 (.91)
5 Four factors: FOCC and OBSE combined into one factor.
1076.37 (1129.98) 318 482.76**
(592.46**) .110
(.110) .88 (.89) .88 (.89) .86 (.88)
6
Two factors: Supervisor ratings (e.g., voice) combined into one factor; subordinate ratings (e.g., psychological states) combined into one factor.
1617.05 (1734.51) 323 1023.44**
(1196.99**) .140
(.140) .81 (.82) .81 (.82) .79 (.81)
Notes: Model fit indices from Time 2 are reported in parentheses. * p <.05. ** p < .01. FOCC = Felt obligation for constructive change. OBSE = organization-based self-esteem.
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TABLE 4 Means, Standard Deviations, and Inter-Correlations among Variables in the Main Study
Notes. N = 220-239, List-wise deletion. Internal reliabilities (coefficient alphas) appear in parentheses on the diagonal. FOCC = felt obligation for constructive change. OBSE = organization-based self-esteem. Organizational tenure was operationalized in months. Education level was measured using four categories: 1 = middle school or below, 2 = college, 3 = university, and 4 = postgraduate. Position in the organization was measured using four categories: 1 = employees, 2 = first-line manager, 3 = middle manager, and 4 = senior manager. * p <.05. ** p < .01.
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TABLE 5 Results of Two-Wave Structural Equation Models
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Controls
Education Promotive(t2)
.02(.07) -.01(.06) -.01(.07) -.04(.07) Position Promotive(t2)
Notes: N=231, FOCC = felt obligation for constructive change. OBSE = organization-based self-esteem. The standard errors in the estimations are reported in parentheses. *p < .05; ** p < .01, One-tailed tests.
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TABLE 6 Results of Random Coefficient Modeling Analyses on Voice Behavior
-2 log-likelihood 493.09 451.54 481.42 478.95 456.96 478.72 Notes: N=232, FOCC = felt obligation for constructive change. OBSE = organization-based self-esteem. The standard errors in the estimations are reported in parentheses. † p < .10, * p< .05; ** p < .01, two-tailed tests.
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FIGURE 1 A Two-Wave Structural Model of Psychological Antecedents and Voice
Notes:
Psychological Antecedents
(T1)
β2
β3
β5
Ф3
Promotive Voice (T1)
Promotive Voice (T2)
Prohibitive Voice (T1)
Prohibitive Voice (T2)
β7
Psychological Antecedents
(T2)
β1
Ф2
Ф1
β4
β6
The test-retest correlations of study variables over time (β1, β2, and β3);
The path coefficients examined for the hypothesized effect of psychological antecedents on voice (β5 and β7);
The path coefficient may suggest reverse causality (β4 and β6).
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50
FIGURE 2 Psychological Safety X FOCC Interaction on Promotive Voice
Note. FOCC = Felt obligation for constructive change.
4.12 2.93 Psychological safety
3.10
3.00
2.90
2.80
2.70
2.60
2.50
2.40
Prom
otiv
e vo
ice
High FOCC group
Low FOCC group
51
51
FIGURE 3 Psychological Safety X OBSE Interaction on Promotive Voice
Note. OBSE = organization-based self-esteem.
4.12 2.93 Psychological safety
3.00
2.90
2.80
2.70
2.60
2.50
2.40
Prom
otiv
e V
oice
High OBSE group
Low OBSE group
52
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Jian Liang ([email protected]) is an associate professor at Antai College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Management from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research interests include employee proactive behaviors, cultural values, leadership, and business ethics. Crystal I. C. Farh ([email protected]) is a doctoral candidate in organizational behavior at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Her research interests include managing cross-cultural interfaces, employee proactive behaviors, and team and leadership processes. Jiing-Lih (Larry) Farh ([email protected]) is the Chair Professor of Management at the School of Business and Management at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from Indiana University at Bloomington. His research interests primarily focus on the study of organizational behavior in Chinese contexts (such as cultural values, guanxi, leadership, and organizational citizenship behavior)