Abstract

Research on employee voice has been widely documented for workers in traditional employment relationships (TERs) and has offered a broad understanding of how they express their ideas and complaints at work. However, an under-explored area concerns how workers express voice in non-traditional employment relationships (NTERs) characterised by flexibility, temporality, instability, and insecurity. Studying voice in NTERs is of high importance due to its increased potential proliferation and associated precariousness. In this paper, we expand the knowledge frontiers in the voice literature by conducting an integrative review of empirical studies that explore voice among workers in NTERs. We identify the forms of voice available to non-traditional workers, the issues they are interested in voicing, how effective their voice is in influencing management decisions, determinants, and outcomes of their voice. Future research agenda offered concerning how the neglected area of voice among non-traditional workers can be addressed.

Highlights

  • Furthering ideas from the seminal works of Hirschman (1970) and Freeman and Medoff (1984), most of the voice research from both organisational behaviour (OB) and employment relations and human resource (ER/HR) perspectives have studied workers in traditional employment relationships (TERs) neglecting those in non-traditional employment relationships (NTERs)

  • We identify the forms of voice available to non-traditional workers, the issues they are interested in voicing, how effective their voice is in influencing management decisions, determinants, and outcomes of their voice

  • While eight studies explored voice influence in terms of communicating suggestions and complaints, six studies examined whether workers in NTERs have an actionable influence over workplace decisions

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Summary

Introduction

Furthering ideas from the seminal works of Hirschman (1970) and Freeman and Medoff (1984), most of the voice research from both organisational behaviour (OB) and employment relations and human resource (ER/HR) perspectives have studied workers in traditional employment relationships (TERs) neglecting those in non-traditional employment relationships (NTERs). TERs, otherwise known as standard employment, are characterised by contract permanency, specified work hours, working on employer’s premises, continuity, long-term career expectations, and income security (Ashford et al, 2007). NTERs, otherwise known as alternative work arrangements, non-standard

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