Positive Affective Climate Inhibits Employee Prohibitive Voice: A Hedonic Contingency Perspective

Abstract

Past research demonstrated a positive relationship between the individual-level expression of positive affect and voice behaviors between employees. Our research proposes a fresh perspective suggesting that positive affect, when construed as an organizational level climate, may be detrimental for employee voice, specifically prohibitive voice. Based on the hedonic contingency theory and organizational error theory, we contend that employees in a high (vs. low) positive affective climate experience greater motivation and pressure to maintain the existing positive vibes. This gives rise to an error aversion climate that favors the censorship and cover-up of questionable practices or behaviors, thus suppressing prohibitive voice. In sum, we expect positive affective climate to negatively predict prohibitive voice, but not promotive voice, via error aversion climate. We also argue that the negative relationship between error aversion and prohibitive voice will be more pronounced for employees who have leaders with high (vs. low) humility. Humble leaders influence employees to look out for deficiencies in the work environment, which should heighten their sensitivity to factors that shape prohibitive voice. We collected two-wave, multi-source data from a sample of 399 full-time employees and their supervisors. The results supported the hypotheses. When considered in conjunction with past findings, our findings uncovered oft-overlooked multilevel complexities inherent in the affective processes underlying why and when employees might express different forms of voice, and the importance of leader humility as an enabler of prohibitive voice. We discuss the implications, limitations, and future directions of the results.