A Role Theory Perspective on How and When Goal-Focused Leadership Influences Employee Voice Behavior.

Jing Qian,Wei Zhang,Bin Wang,Meng Chen,Baihe Song,Xiaoyan Li,Yi Qu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01244

Jing Qian, Wei Zhang + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01244

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Abstract

Despite an increasing number of studies that identify leaders’ role in promoting employees’ voice behavior, little is known about the role that supervisors’ goal-focused leadership plays in this. The current study aims to address this research gap by using the role theory to explain how supervisors’ goal-focused leadership influences employees’ voice behavior and the conditions under which supervisors’ have maximum impact on employee voice. A field study of 197 employees and their immediate supervisors offered support for our model. The results indicated a positive association between goal-focused leadership and employees’ voice behavior that was mediated by leaders’ omission of reward and punishments. We also found that perceived helping and support from coworkers positively moderated the relationship between leaders’ reward and punishment omission and employees’ voice behavior such that the relationship was weaker when coworker helping and support was higher. The findings provide more comprehensive picture of the process by which goal-focused leadership influences employee voice and highlight how coworkers can buffer the negative effect of ineffective managerial reward and punishment omission. The practical implications of this research, its limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

Highlights

Voice behavior is defined as “informal and discretionary communication by an employee of ideas, suggestions, concerns, information about problems, or opinions about work-related issues to persons who might be able to take appropriate action, with the intent to bring about improvement or change” (Morrison, 2014, p. 172)
In line with the emerging literature indicating a relationship between goal-focused leadership and follower outcomes (e.g., Colbert and Witt, 2009; Perry et al, 2010; Kim et al, 2017), we investigated the relationship between goal-focused leadership and voice behavior amongst employees working in a logistics company located in northern China
Leaders’ punishment omission and reward omission were both negatively related to employee voice behavior (r = −0.19, p < 0.01; r = −0.28, p < 0.05), providing preliminary support for hypotheses 1b and 2b

Summary

Introduction

Voice behavior is defined as “informal and discretionary communication by an employee of ideas, suggestions, concerns, information about problems, or opinions about work-related issues to persons who might be able to take appropriate action, with the intent to bring about improvement or change” (Morrison, 2014, p. 172). When employees engage in this upward communication behavior, they are challenging the status quo and may initiate changes to established work arrangements and processes, which may enhance their perception of control, increase overall job satisfaction and motivation and decrease stress (Greenberger and Strasser, 1986; Parker and Asher, 1993; Morrison and Milliken, 2000). Organizations benefit from voice behavior because it contributes to effective organizational decision making, organizational learning, innovation and better error detection (Argyris and Schon, 1978; Locke et al, 1981; Nemeth and Kwan, 1985; Enz and Schwenk, 1991; Morrison and Milliken, 2000)

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