How Leaders React to Employee Constructive Voice: An Investigation Through the Resource Lens

Abstract

Acknowledging the importance of employee constructive voice to organizational survival and innovation, considerable research has been devoted to reveal how to encourage such proactive attempt. Relatively, we know little about how leaders, one of the main recipients of employee voice, would on earth reward or punish those who speak up. On the basis of Foa and Foa’s (1974, 1980) resource theory, this study explores how leaders react to employee constructive voice from the resource perspective. We contend that constructive voice could provide both information and affect resources to the leader, which in turn promotes the resource-based exchange relationship with the leader (i.e., leader-member exchange; LMX). Drawing on theories of cognitive style, we further propose that leaders with an original cognitive style are more likely to capture the resource value of constructive voice whereas leaders who closely follow rules might not see constructive voice in a positive way, which in turn would affect their LMX relationships with the focal employee. Through a two-wave multi-rater field survey among 199 leader-follower dyads in China, we found support for most of our hypotheses. This study contributes to extant voice and LMX literature and carries important practical implications for organizations to capitalize on employee constructive voice as well.