Steadying the Ship after Rocking the Boat: the Effects of Voice Staging on Supervisor Hostility

Abstract

Despite its prosocial nature and organizational benefits, voice may still challenge and threaten supervisors. Specifically, voice can destabilize the social hierarchy at work, motivating supervisors to reassert themselves to regain control. This research examines when and how voice, employees’ discretionary behavior to speak up with improvement-oriented communication, results in negative social consequences for voicers. Invoking theories on status motivation and status characteristics, we argue that subordinates who stage their voice in a way that threatens supervisor status in the organization become targets of supervisor hostility. We propose that public voice has an indirect effect on supervisor hostility targeted at the voicer through supervisor status threat, and that voicer’s lack of preparation is a cue for low status that strengthens these indirect effects. In two samples that employ a critical incident technique (Study 1) and experiential sampling methodology (Study 2), we found support for our model. Our findings highlight the role of supervisor’s relative status and voice staging to explain supervisors’ reactions to voice, shedding greater light on supervisor hostility as a means to “steady the ship” after voicers “rock the boat.”