How and When Supervisor Feedback Influences Employee Voice: An Energy Perspective

Abstract

Although scholars have attempted to explore supervisor feedback as an antecedent of voice, the underlying mechanism remains under-explored. The current research addresses this critical issue from the perspective of conservation of resources (COR) theory by delineating how and when supervisor feedback influences employee voice through an energy mechanism. Using dyadic data collected from 671 employees and their 218 direct supervisors in a retailer company, we found that supervisor favorable feedback increases employees’ relational energy, which in turn, promotes employee voice. On the contrary, supervisor unfavorable feedback decreases employees’ relational energy and thus inhibits employee voice. Furthermore, we found that leader-member exchange (LMX) quality works as an important boundary condition for the relationship between supervisor favorable feedback and voice via relational energy. These findings highlight the role of energy in the relationship between supervisor feedback and employee voice and offer managerial implications for supervisors to optimize their feedback on employees.