scholarly journals Let's work together, especially in the pandemic: finding ways to encourage problem-focused voice behavior among passionate employees

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk De Clercq ◽  
Renato Pereira
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
Goal Congruence ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Hr Managers ◽  
Positive Work ◽  
Passion For Work

PurposeThis study seeks to unravel the relationship between employees' passion for work and their engagement in problem-focused voice behavior by identifying a mediating role of their efforts to promote work-related goal congruence and a moderating role of their perceptions of pandemic threats to the organization.Design/methodology/approachThe research hypotheses were tested with quantitative data collected through a survey instrument administered among 158 employees in a large Portuguese-based organization that operates in the food sector, in the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The Process macro was applied to assess the moderated mediation dynamic that underpins the proposed theoretical framework.FindingsEmployees' positive work-related energy enhances their propensity to speak up about organizational failures because they seek to find common ground with their colleagues with respect to the organization's goals and future. The mediating role of such congruence-promoting efforts is particularly prominent to the extent that employees dwell on the threats that a pandemic holds for their organization.Practical implicationsThe study pinpoints how HR managers can leverage a negative situation—employees who cannot keep the harmful organizational impact of a life-threatening virus out of their minds—into productive outcomes, by channeling positive work energy, derived from their passion for work, toward activities that bring organizational problems into the open.Originality/valueThis study adds to HR management research by unveiling how employees' attempts to gather their coworkers around a shared work-related mindset can explain how their passion might spur reports of problem areas, as well as explicating how perceived pandemic-related threats activate this process.

Interpersonal antecedents to employee upward voice: mediating role of psychological safety

2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (9) ◽  
pp. 1510-1525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sriji Edakkat Subhakaran ◽  
Lata Dyaram
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Psychological Safety ◽  
Employee Voice ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Manager Behavior ◽  
The Impact

Purpose Despite the increasing prominence of employee voice in organizational innovation and productivity, employees continue to struggle to influence matters that affect them at work. The purpose of this paper is to model work group context and manager behavior as the predictors of employee upward voice. Further, a mediating role of employee psychological safety is examined in this link. Design/methodology/approach With data from 575 employees representing various technology firms in India, the authors test the hypothesized relationships using covariance-based structural equation modeling. Findings Results indicate coworkers upward voice and manager pro-voice behavior to significantly impact employee upward voice with a mediating impact of psychological safety. This implies that perceived psychological safety plays a significant role in explaining the impact, coworkers and manager behavior would have on regulating employee upward voice. Originality/value This study contributes to the employee voice literature from an Indian context, where upward communication is culturally discouraged.

Personality and boredom at work: the mediating role of job crafting

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-330
Author(s):  
Bogdan Oprea ◽  
Dragos Iliescu ◽  
Vlad Burtăverde ◽  
Miruna Dumitrache
Keyword(s):  
Job Crafting ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Cross Sectional Design ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose Boredom at work is associated with negative consequences, therefore it is important to investigate whether employees engage in job crafting behaviors that reduce boredom and what are the individual differences associated with these behaviors. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire study was designed to examine the mediating role of job crafting in the relationship between conscientiousness and emotional stability and boredom among 252 employees (Study 1) and in the relationship between Machiavellianism and psychopathy and boredom among 216 employees (Study 2). Findings The results showed that conscientiousness is negatively related to work-related boredom. This relationship is mediated by job crafting. Neuroticism and psychopathy are positively associated with boredom at work, but these relationships are not mediated by job crafting behaviors. Research limitations/implications The study was based on self-reported measures, which might raise questions of common-method bias, and the research samples contained mostly women and young employees, which raises questions about generalizability of our findings. At the same time, the cross-sectional design does not allow causal inferences. Practical implications Organizations can select employees based on their personality for jobs that predispose to boredom and give them enough autonomy to be able to craft them. Moreover, they can identify employees who need support to manage their boredom and include them in job crafting interventions. Originality/value Traditionally, boredom at work has been considered as resulting from characteristics of tasks and jobs. The findings indicate that some employees can make self-initiated changes to their work in order to reduce their boredom and possibly its negative consequences.

Supportive leadership, proactive personality and employee voice behavior

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mervat Mohamed Elsaied
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Psychological Safety ◽  
Proactive Personality ◽  
Employee Voice ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
Supportive Leadership ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Immediate Supervisor

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of psychological safety in the relationships among supportive leadership, proactive personality and employee voice behavior. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from 268 employees, and 56 were their immediate supervisors, in three Egyptian companies belonging to footwear and headgear sector. Employees and their immediate supervisors provided data on separate questionnaires and different occasions; an identification number was used to match each employee’s questionnaire with the response of his/her immediate supervisor. Findings The results indicated that both supportive leadership and proactive personality had a positive and significant effect on voice behavior. In addition, the results showed that psychological safety fully mediated the relationships among supportive leadership, proactive personality and employee voice behavior. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by linking supportive leadership, proactive personality and employee voice behavior. It clarifies how and why supportive leadership and proactive personality can stimulate voice behavior.

scholarly journals Work-related curiosity positively predicts worker innovation

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (9) ◽  
pp. 1184-1194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pinar Celik ◽  
Martin Storme ◽  
Andrès Davila ◽  
Nils Myszkowski
Keyword(s):  
Divergent Thinking ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Job Requirements ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Individual Work ◽  
Job Title ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between individual work-related curiosity and worker innovation and to test the mediating role of worker divergent thinking. Design/methodology/approach In all, 480 participants, holding 188 different jobs, filled in a validated work-related curiosity scale and indicated their job title. Job requirements in terms of divergent thinking and innovation − derived from the Online Information Network (O*NET) database − were used as proxies for divergent thinking and innovation skills. Findings Results indicated that individual work-related curiosity was a positive predictor of worker innovation and that worker divergent thinking mediated this relationship. Research limitations/implications Individual work-related curiosity supports exploratory skills which support in turn innovation skills. Practical implications Managers could use individual work-related curiosity as a predictor of innovation skills when recruiting, training and guiding employees. Originality/value This study is the first to show an association between individual work-related curiosity and innovation skills across more than 150 different jobs.

Voice behavior and creative performance moderated by stressors

2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Song ◽  
Jianlin Wu ◽  
Jibao Gu
Keyword(s):  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Employee Performance ◽  
Performance Outcomes ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
Creative Performance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Work Related Stressors

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test the moderating role of work-related stressors on the relationship between voice behavior and the voicer’s creative performance. Design/methodology/approach The sample comprised 781 full-time employees from 16 companies covering six industries in the central region of China. Hierarchical moderated regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses. Findings Results showed that voice behavior had significant positive effect on creative performance. The positive relationship between voice behavior and creative performance was stronger for employees with low challenge stressors as well as for employees with high hindrance stressors. Research limitations/implications This study employs a cross-sectional design with data collected from the same source. Practical implications The findings suggest that employees should be encouraged to voice out their opinions and ideas. Work-related stressors should be treated differently to expand the effects of voice behavior on creative performance. Originality/value This study is one of the few to establish boundary conditions from the contextual perspective on the effect of voice behavior on employee performance. Considering whether work-related stressor is a challenge or a hindrance could possibly result in a better understanding of the role of work-related stressors in the voice behavior-creative performance relationship. An empirical evidence is provided for the positive relationship between voice behavior and employee performance outcomes.

Job autonomy and employee voice: is work-related self-efficacy a missing link?

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (9) ◽  
pp. 2401-2413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisher Tohirovich Dedahanov ◽  
Changjoon Rhee ◽  
Nazokat Gapurjanova
Keyword(s):  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Overall Response Rate ◽  
Employee Voice ◽  
Job Autonomy ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Prohibitive Voice

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, this work replicates the existing research by examining the links between job autonomy and work-related self-efficacy; and, second, it extends the literature by investigating the relationships between work-related self-efficacy and two forms of voice such as promotive and prohibitive and by measuring the mediating role of self-efficacy on the link between job autonomy and promotive and prohibitive voice. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a self-administered instrument to conduct a survey among 1,227 highly skilled employees. The researchers received a total of 904 questionnaires. After disregarding the non-usable questionnaires, the authors retained 813 questionnaires for the study. The overall response rate was 66 percent. Findings The results suggest that work-related self-efficacy has a significant relationship with prohibitive voice and mediates the link between job autonomy and prohibitive voice. Meanwhile, the findings of this study indicate that there is no significant association between work-related self-efficacy and promotive voice. Originality/value This work is the first to identify the association between work-related self-efficacy and prohibitive voice and the mediating role of work-related self-efficacy on the association between job autonomy and prohibitive voice.

Overcoming organizational politics with tenacity and passion for work: benefits for helping behaviors

2022 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk De Clercq ◽  
Chengli Shu ◽  
Menglei Gu
Keyword(s):  
Affective Commitment ◽  
Organizational Politics ◽  
Helping Behavior ◽  
Amazon Mechanical Turk ◽  
Personal Resources ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Helping Behaviors ◽  
Passion For Work

PurposeThis study unpacks the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational politics and their helping behavior, by explicating a mediating role of employees' affective commitment and moderating roles of their tenacity and passion for work.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative survey data were collected from 476 employees, through Amazon Mechanical Turk.FindingsBeliefs that the organizational climate is predicated on self-serving behaviors diminish helping behaviors, and this effect arises because employees become less emotionally attached to their organization. This mediating role of affective commitment is less salient to the extent that employees persevere in the face of challenges and feel passionate about working hard.Practical implicationsFor human resource managers, this study pinpoints a lack of positive organization-oriented energy as a key mechanism by which perceptions about a negative political climate steer employees away from assisting organizational colleagues on a voluntary basis. They can contain this mechanism by ensuring that employees are equipped with energy-boosting personal resources.Originality/valueThis study addresses employees' highly salient emotional reactions to organizational politics and pinpoints the critical function of affective commitment for explaining the escalation of perceived organizational politics into diminished helping behavior. It also identifies buffering effects linked to two pertinent personal resources.

Power drives consumer voice behavior

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenqian Wan ◽  
Huaibin Li
Keyword(s):  
Role Playing ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Consumer Voice ◽  
Sense Of Power ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Moderating Role

PurposeThe active voice behavior of customers is crucial to the development of enterprises, but few studies have examined how to promote customer voice behavior. Does a sense of power drive consumers to provide advice to the companies involved? This paper aims to address the issue.Design/methodology/approachBy conducting three experiments, the authors proved the effect of the sense of power on customer voice behavior. In Study 1, the authors manipulated subjects' sense of power levels (high vs low) through an episodic recall task. Tangible goods were used as experimental material. The authors verified that power had a positive impact on customer voice behavior. In Study 2, the authors changed the experimental materials to intangible service products and used role-playing tasks to manipulate the subjects' sense of power. Study 2 validated the mediating role played by self-confidence in the main effect. In Study 3, the authors validated the moderating role of self-doubt for the power effect.FindingsBased on the approach-inhibition theory of power and the situated focus theory of power, the current research finds that there is a positive effect of consumer's sense of power on their voice behavior. It also further analyzes the mediating role of self-confidence, the mechanism by which power affects customer voice behavior. However, this positive effect does not always occur. Self-doubt plays a moderating role in this relationship. If the individual's self-doubt level is high, the positive effect of power on the individual's self-confidence cannot be observed, which means that self-doubt is a boundary condition for the positive effect of power on individuals' self-confidence.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors discuss the influence of sense of power on customer voice behavior and test the mediating role of self-confidence and its boundary conditions. The results show that consumers are more confident in themselves when they feel a sense of power and are more likely to proactively make suggestions to the company. However, the overall effect is not obvious when consumers have a high level of self-doubt. As a psychological state of consumers that firms can easily manipulate, the effects of power on consumer behavior remain to be explored by the authors.Practical implicationsThe findings of current research suggest that empowering consumers who are less self-doubting can increase their self-confidence, which, in turn, can lead to more active expression and feedback on issues that need improvement in their experience. Thus, companies can enhance consumers' sense of power through some ways, such as using environmental elements to stimulate consumers' sense of power.Originality/valueThere are few studies on how the sense of power affects consumers' voice behavior. Prior work on voice behavior has focused on the perspective of customers' perception of the social exchange relationship between themselves and enterprises. The research explores the strategies suitable for enterprises to promote customer voice behavior from the perspective of the sense of power, and the findings contribute to the research on the sense of power and consumer voice behavior.

Customer power and frontline employee voice behavior

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 238-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaewon Yoo
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Empowerment ◽  
Task Interdependence ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Job Characteristic ◽  
Managerial Openness

Purpose This paper aims to develop a research model that proposes a relationship among customer power, psychological empowerment and voice behavior of frontline employees (FLEs). The model also suggests that managerial openness, as a result of the manager–employee interface, contributes by mediating the effect of customer power on psychological empowerment. As a result of the job characteristic–employee interface, task interdependence is suggested as a moderator in the relationship between psychological empowerment and voice behavior. Design/methodology/approach To analyze the data, a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling procedure using LISREL 8.5 were used. Next, the conditional process modeling was fitted to test the moderated mediation hypotheses. In this stage, the mediating role of psychological empowerment and the moderating effect of task interdependence voice behavior were tested with bootstrapping methods. Findings The results showed a significant relationship between customer power and FLEs’ voice behavior, establishing psychological empowerment as an intervening mechanism. Thus, customer power can be a signal of appreciation for passive and job uncontrollability to service employees. The findings also suggested the mediating role of managerial openness, which delivered a negative effect of customer power on the FLEs’ psychological empowerment. Task interdependence enhanced the link between psychological empowerment and voice behavior. Research limitations/implications The specific service sector chosen for this study was retail banks. Furthermore, the study was undertaken among the FLEs of banks in South Korea. Having FLEs self-report on managerial openness raises a general concern that those employees with little experience may not have fully understood whether a manager’s current behaviors are open-minded and empowering. Lastly, the perceptions of customer power, psychological empowerment, managerial openness, task interdependence and voice behavior that all came from FLEs naturally raises concerns about the influence of method bias in these results. Practical implications The significant negative and indirect relationship observed between the perception of customer power and employees’ voice through managerial openness and employees’ psychological empowerment suggested that the double deviation effect of customer power on employees’ psychological empowerment through the interface between customer and employee (customer power) and manager and employee (managerial openness). This study provides insight into the management of service customer–employee and manager–employee interactions to encourage employee psychological empowerment. Originality/value The main emphasis of the model is on the so-called voice behaviors that FLEs exhibit as an overall consequence of various service employee interfaces. The management of FLEs has been extensively discussed in the services marketing literature. However, few research studies have attempted to link and combine the effect of various interfaces to which employees are exposed on employees’ voice behavior. In this study, three interfaces that the FLEs are always exposed to were examined simultaneously: that of the employee and the customer (perceived customer power), the interface of the employee and the manager (managerial openness) and that of the employee and his or her job characteristic (task interdependence).

If the organization is a mess, do employees explain or exploit the situation?

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk De Clercq ◽  
Muhammad Umer Azeem ◽  
Inam Ul Haq
Keyword(s):  
Job Performance ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Resource Managers ◽  
Voice Behavior ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Problem Situations ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Organizational Problem

PurposeThis study investigates the connection between employees' dissatisfaction with the organizational status quo and their job performance, with a particular focus on the mediating role of their problem-focused voice behavior – through which they pinpoint possible causes of organizational problem situations – and the moderating role of their Machiavellianism.Design/methodology/approachThree-wave survey data were collected from employees and their supervisors in Pakistani organizations.FindingsAn important reason that employees' beliefs about organizational underperformance spur their own performance, as rated by supervisors, is that they spend significant energy expressing their concerns about shortcomings. The mediating role of such constructive voice behaviors is mitigated though, to the extent that employees have stronger Machiavellian tendencies.Practical implicationsFor human resource managers, the findings reveal problem-focused voice as a key mechanism by which employees' negative perceptions about how well their organization fares can be channeled into higher job performance. They also elucidate how this process is less likely among employees who are self-centered and less concerned about their organization' well-being, such that they hold back pertinent information about organizational failures from others.Originality/valueThe study pinpoints problem-focused voice as an unexplored behavioral response by which employees' beliefs about organizational underperformance can enhance their job performance. It also details how the tendency of Machiavellian employees to stay away from such voice activities may backfire in the form of lower performance evaluations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document