Employee Voice: Are We Speaking a Different Language?

Abstract

Employee voice has been studied across a diverse range of disciplines, generating an extensive body of literature on the topic. However, its conceptualization across the disciplines has differed, resulting in a lack of integrative theories and frameworks on employee voice. The main objective of this paper is to conduct a multi-disciplinary review of the academic research on employee voice, to show where there is an opportunity to adopt and adapt the findings and research on employee voice within alternate disciplines, and to demonstrate how this may lead to a common conceptualization of employee voice. This review focuses on an analysis of the Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior disciplines’ conceptualization of employee voice, beginning with the identification of where the two disciplines diverged in their concept and study of employee voice. Further, it maps their commonalities and differences, on the basis of motive, content, mechanism, target and management of voice. Finally, it identifies opportunities to incorporate the alternate disciplinary perspective and proposes a conceptual model that acknowledges both formal and informal voice. It is proposed that the consideration of formal and informal employee voice in future studies will enable the integration of voice research within the Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior disciplines, which in turn will assist in the development of a holistic framework on employee voice.