How and When Managers Reward Employees' Voice: The Role of Proactivity Attributions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Park, Hyunsun; Tangirala, Subrahmaniam; Hussain, Insiya; Ekkirala, Srinivas
• 署名单位: University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; Indian Institute of Management (IIM System); Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-9010
• DOI: 10.1037/apl0001008
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 2269-2284
• 关键词: EMPLOYEE VOICE; voice solicitation; PROACTIVITY; leadership

摘要

Recent voice research has noted that providing adequate job rewards for speaking up can sustainably motivate voice from employees. We examine why managers who seek out voice at work might not always properly reward the behavior. Drawing on theories of dispositional attribution, we propose that, in general, managers tend to reward voice because it signals to them that employees possess a valued underlying trait: proactivity, which is characterized by change-orientation and foresight. However, we argue that when managers engage in more voice solicitation-that is, explicitly ask for voice and take a listening posture toward it-their tendency to infer proactivity from employees' voice weakens. Thus, we make a case that voice solicitation, a managerial behavior intended to set facilitating conditions for speaking up at work, inadvertently weakens the (indirect) relationship between employee voice and job rewards. We establish support for our theory in a set of two studies with complementary designs. Study 1 was a preregistered between-subjects experiment that used a realistic vignette design with an online panel of 592 working adults based in the United States. Study 2 was a multisource field survey with a sample of 385 employees and their managers working at the Indian branch of a global technology company in the oil and gas industry. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results.