Enhancing employee voice to advance the hospitality organization’s marketing capabilities: A multilevel perspective

Abstract

Increased pressure to remain competitively viable necessitates that hospitality organizations are responsive to the market. Through a theory of cooperation and competition lens, this study examines how hospitality organizations can enhance their market responsiveness via the mechanism of employee voice. Using multi-level data from 75 U.S. chain restaurants, results show employee-organization goal alignment builds employee efficacy necessary to exhibit effective prosocial voice and fortifies the organization against misaligned employee goals that potentially lead to ineffective, defensive, or acquiescent, voice behavior. At the restaurant level, unit level prosocial voice had a positive impact on the organization’s marketing capabilities through the support of a participatory organizational climate, providing evidence that enhancing employee voice is a viable marketing strategy to advance marketing capabilities.