When identification with your group matters: leader consultation in response to constructive follower voice

Abstract

ABSTRACT Integrating social exchange and social identity theory, the present research investigates to what extend and why follower social identification matters for the relationship between constructive follower voice and leader consultation. We argue that when the voicing follower is strongly identified with the joint workgroup, leaders will positively reciprocate constructive voice with consultation, as a concrete participatory leader behaviour, because they perceive this follower’s voice as more constructive. We conducted a multi-wave field study (N = 177) and two pre-registered experiments (N = 199 and N = 528). Overall, we found that leaders consulted constructive voicers more when they were strongly rather than weakly identified with the joint workgroup, because they perceived their voice as a more constructive contribution. Comparison with a neutral control condition further showed that this effect was mainly due to leaders refraining from consultation when voicing followers were weakly identified. Additionally comparing constructive voice to two other types of proactive expressions (i.e. destructive voice, supportive voice) in Study 3 showed that followers’ weak social identification attenuated the positive effect of voice on leaders’ perceived voice constructiveness only for constructive voice (i.e. challenging and promotive) but not for non-challenging (i.e. supportive) or non-promotive (i.e. destructive) follower expressions.