Transformational leadership and employee voice: a model of proactive motivation

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 777-790
Author(s):  
Guilin Zhang ◽  
Michelle Inness

Purpose Drawing on the model of proactive motivation, the purpose of this paper is to examine how transformational leadership influences followers’ voice behavior through three proactive motivation states, namely, “reason to,” “can do” and “energized to.” It also examines the moderating role of followers’ proactive personality in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee voice. Design/methodology/approach The online survey was distributed through Qualtrics using a two-wave design. In total, 1,454 participants completed the survey at Time 1, of those 447 also completed the survey at Time 2. Findings Transformational leadership influences employee voice via followers’ promotion focus, role-breadth self-efficacy and affective commitment. Followers’ proactive personality attenuates the impact of transformational leadership on voice, supporting the substitute for leadership hypothesis. Research limitations/implications Self-reported data are the main limitation of the present study. Other limitations include treating employee voice as a unidimensional construct and oversimplifying the impact of positive affect on voice. Practical implications The present study suggests that training managers to demonstrate more transformational leadership behavior, enhancing employees’ proactive motivation and hiring proactive individuals are strategies to facilitate employee voice. Originality/value The present study contributes to a better understanding of employee voice from a proactive motivation perspective. It also demonstrates that followers’ proactive personality is important “boundary condition” to transformational leadership.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Naseer Abbas Khan ◽  
Ali Nawaz Khan

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the impact of abusive supervision on employees' voice in China's construction industry. Moreover, the authors explore the mediating role of ethics-related self-efficacy and work engagement and the moderating influence of psychological climate in explaining the association between abusive supervision and employee voice behavior.Design/methodology/approachThis study used data in pairs collected from 402 supervisors and employees of construction companies in Anhui, China. In this study, the authors used the time-lag approach to collect data in three-time waves from different respondents. A structural equation modeling (SEM) approach was applied to test the hypothesized model.FindingsThe results of this study indicate that there is a significant association between abusive supervision and employee voice. Moreover, the results indicated that work engagement mediated the association between abusive supervision and employees' voice. In contrast, self-efficacy did not mediate the link between abusive supervision and employee voice. Furthermore, results also show that the contingent effect of psychological climate significantly influences the mediating effect of work engagement.Originality/valueThis study also has implications for the construction industry, allowing managers to create a favorable working atmosphere in which employees can reinforce their voices at work.


2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (9) ◽  
pp. 1510-1525 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sriji Edakkat Subhakaran ◽  
Lata Dyaram

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mervat Mohamed Elsaied

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 543-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhu Yao ◽  
Xianchun Zhang ◽  
Zhenxuan Liu ◽  
Lili Zhang ◽  
Jinlian Luo

Purpose This study aims to investigate the impact of narcissistic leadership on employee voice behavior from the perspective of job stress, trust in leaders and traditionality in China. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a survey on 437 employees to assess their narcissistic leadership in Time 1. In Time 2, they measured their job stress, trust in leaders and traditionality. In Time 3, they assessed the voice behavior of these employees. Findings Narcissistic leadership correlates positively with employees’ job stress, which mediates between narcissistic leadership and employee voice behavior. Trust in leaders negatively moderates the correlation between job stress and employee voice behavior, as well as moderates the mediation effect of job stress on the correlation between narcissistic leadership and employee voice behavior. In addition, traditionality positively moderates the correlation between job stress and employee voice behavior, as well as moderates the mediation effect of job stress on the correlation between narcissistic leadership and employee voice behavior. Originality/value This study establishes the impact of narcissistic leadership on employee behavior from the perspective of job stress, trust in leaders and traditionality.


Author(s):  
Michael Asiedu Gyensare ◽  
Olivia Anku-Tsede ◽  
Mohammed-Aminu Sanda ◽  
Christopher Adjei Okpoti

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of transformational leadership on employee turnover intention through the mediating role of affective commitment. Design/methodology/approach – The study examines conceptual relationships in the Ghanaian context, based on structural equation modelling with maximum likelihood estimation, using sample employees from the private sector organizations. In addition, the mediation analysis is conducted with Sobel’s test and 95 per cent CI bootstrap analysis. Findings – The study shows that affective commitment would decline workers’ quitting intention and serves to promote a degree of trust and willingness to follow their leaders’ philosophy, ideology, vision and guidance in the organization. Hence, affective commitment fully mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee turnover intention. Practical implications – To help lessen employees quitting intentions, both middle and top-level managers should endeavour to create an atmosphere of trust, admiration, loyalty and respect for their employees. Originality/value – Overall it is shown that affective commitment was the mechanism through which transformational leadership influences employees’ turnover intentions in the SLCs in Ghana.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mervat Elsaied

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between supportive leadership and employee voice behavior by examining the mediating role of employee advocacy, and the moderating role of proactive personality.Design/methodology/approachThe model was tested by using data that were collected from 402 supervisors, and 87 subordinates who were working in 6 firms belonging to the stone and Glass sector, in the Tenth Ramadan city, Egypt. The employees and their immediate supervisors provided data on separated questionnaires, and different occasions. Then, an identification number was used by the author to match each employee questionnaire with the response of his/ her immediate supervisor.FindingsThe results revealed that employee advocacy fully mediated the positive relationship between supportive leadership and employee voice behavior. Also, it also found that proactive personality moderated the relationship between supportive leadership and employee voice behavior, such that the relationship was stronger for people lower rather than higher in proactive personality.Originality/valueThis empirical paper provides preliminary evidence of the mediating effect of employee advocacy in the positive relationship between supportive leadership and employee voice behavior. The model extends the existing results by adding substantive moderate proactive personality to explain how the effect of supportive leadership on employee voice behavior.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mari Svendsen ◽  
Thomas S. Joensson

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between transformational leadership and voice during the change-planning process. The authors propose a moderated mediation model to investigate the relationship between voice, other change-related variables, and the boundary conditions of transformational leadership. Design/methodology/approach – The authors collected survey data from 124 employees and their leaders in a medical technology company in Norway. The organization was planning a major restructuring of its working procedures. The authors analyzed the data using PROCESS and a fixed effect approach. Findings – The results suggest that transformational leadership has no effect on change-related voice (CRV) by itself. However, there is an indirect effect through affective commitment to change. This effect is conditional on the employees’ level of perceived change impact. Research limitations/implications – The paper is limited by the cross-sectional design of the study. Other potential limitations are discussed. Originality/value – The paper is the first to explore the relationship between transformational leadership and CRV, and is thus interesting for practitioners who wish to increase the level of CRV from their employees. Furthermore, researchers interested in organizational change and proactivity constructs such as voice will also find the paper valuable.


2018 ◽  
Vol 67 (9) ◽  
pp. 1901-1917 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neuza Ribeiro ◽  
İlhami Yücel ◽  
Daniel Gomes

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of transformational leadership (TL) on employees’ individual performance (IP) through the mediating role of affective commitment (AC). More specifically, it aims to understand how TL relates to employees’ AC, TL relates to employees’ IP, employees’ AC relates to IP and employees’ AC mediates the relationship between TL and employees’ IP.Design/methodology/approachA total of 476 Turkish healthcare professionals participated in this study. The mediation effect of AC in the relationship between TL and employees’ IP was tested by structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results indicate that AC mediates the relationship between TL and employees’ IP. In others words, transformational leaders promote employees’ AC which, in turn, increases their IP.Practical implicationsThis study suggests that organizations should select, develop and invest in leaders who adopt a TL style because they build a climate of admiration, loyalty, respect, participation and involvement for employees which will in turn enhance their commitment and performance.Originality/valueThis study responds to calls for research studies to explore the mediating mechanism in the TL process (Judgeet al., 2006), as the mediation effects explain the conditions in which TL is related to the favorable outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-89
Author(s):  
Muhammad Athar Rasheed ◽  
Khuram Shahzad ◽  
Sajid Nadeem

Purpose This study aims to investigate the impact of transformational leadership on the innovation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through employee voice behaviors. Drawing from the upper echelon theory, it is hypothesized that employee voice is the mediating mechanism through which transformational leadership affects the process and product innovation in SMEs. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected from 169 SMEs of Pakistan through an online self-administered questionnaire. The proposed hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings Findings confirm that transformational leadership positively affects both process and product innovation in SMEs and employee voice behavior mediates between these relationships. Originality/value This research contributes to both theoretical and practical domains by providing evidence that encouraging employees to raise their voice positively impacts product and process innovation and transformational leadership is a potential organizational factor to shape employee voice and process and product innovation. To the best knowledge, this is the first study that investigates the mediating role of employee voice between transformational leadership and process and product innovation in SMEs and developing country’s context.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuqin Yuan ◽  
Yanfei Wang ◽  
Wenyuan Huang ◽  
Yu Zhu

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the influencing mechanism of coaching leadership (CL) on employee voice behavior (VB) based on cognitive-affective system theory of personality (CAPS). Specifically, the study intends to build a model of psychological security (PS) and openness to change (OC) that mediate the relationship between CL and employee VB at an individual-level and group-level from cognitive-affective dual perspective.Design/methodology/approachCL, employee VB, PS and OC were assessed in an empirical study based on a supervisor–subordinate dyads sample of 287 employees and 72 team leaders from enterprises in Southern China.FindingsFrom CAPS theory perspective, the authors found that CL promotes employee VB and that PS and OC mediate the relationship between CL and VB.Practical implicationsResults underscore the importance of encouraging managers to engage in CL behaviors, which are conductive to enhancing employee PS and OC thereby improving employee VB. These results also highlight the significance of managerial attention to a secure voice atmosphere and the improvement of employees’ affective commitment to organizational change.Originality/valueThe research findings provide a significant contribution to the literature in that it shows PS and OC as crucial dual mediating mechanism through which CL influences VB. Moreover, this paper is one of the few studies answering the call to examine the effect of leadership at multiple levels.


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