Who says there’s a problem? Preferences on the sending and receiving of prohibitive voice

Abstract

Which employees are likely to warn leaders about threats to the workplace? When employees do speak up, will these messages gain the leader’s interest? In this article, we rely on theories of power to predict how employee characteristics (work prevention regulatory focus, closeness to the leader (leader-member exchange) and rank) influence whether employees send messages about threats (prohibitive voice). We also explore whether employee characteristics (closeness to the leader and rank) affect leaders’ attention to threat messages. In a two-wave field study with 55 leaders and 214 employees, we found that leaders were more likely to show interest in messages about threats from employees who they were not close to, but who had high rank. However, only employees with a strong work prevention regulatory focus and/or those of higher rank were likely to prioritize the sending of such messages. Although we also expected that employees who had a good relationship with the leader would send more information about threats, we found they were less likely to do so. This research suggests that there may be “opaque zones” in organizations, places where employees are unlikely to warn leaders about threats and where leaders will not pay attention even if they do.