TATIONpRÆSEN

OPEN Conference 2012

Leadership, Influence and Voice BehaviorResearch project by

Mari Svendsen PhD studentLINOR (Leadership and Involvement in Organizations)Department of Psychology, School of Business and Social SciencesUniversity of Aarhus, Denmark

Agenda Introduction to voice behavior My project› Variables and the theoretical assumptions behind them› Hypotheses› Contribution to the literature Discussion

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What is voice behavior?

› “Discretionary communication of ideas, suggestions, concerns, or opinions about work-related issues with the intent to improve organizational or unit functioning” (Morrison , 2011, s. 365). 

› Originally thre consept was introduced Hirschman(1970). Together with exit and loyalty, voice was defined as one of the primary options facing employees who were dissatisfied with organizational functioning. The concept gained renewed interest within a broader conceptualization (by Le Pine & Van Dyne, 1998) in the late 90’s.

› A verbal message to someone internally in the organization › Discretionary › Constructive › OCB behavior

Promotive and prohibitive voice behavior (Liang, Farh, & Farh, 2012)

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Why study voice behavior?

› Employees’ on the front lines, such as sales personnel or customer care providers, are uniquely positioned when it comes to recognizing opportunities for improvements or concerns about their work procedures and/or products.

› Voice behavior is found to correlate negatively with stress and employee turnover and positively with job performance (Ng & Feldman, 2011; Leck, 1990).

› The use of voice behavior may contribute positively to the continuous representation of interests between the management and the employees (Wilkinson & Fay, 2011).

› Studies have shown that employees can be reluctant to use this form of upward communication (Morrisson & Millikken, 2003; Moskal, 1991).

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Previous research

› There have been two streams of research in antecedents of voice within the last decade; individual traits and attitudes ( i.e. job satisfaction, personality traits etc.) and contextual antecedents (i.e. leadership and organizational structure) (Morrison, 2012 : Edmondson, 2009)

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Gaps in the literature

› Firstly, there is a need for an integration as to how contextual and individual factors simultaneously affect voice behavior.

› Secondly, we need a deeper understanding of the mediating and moderating variables in the relationship between contextual and individual factors and voice behavior.

› Thirdly, there is a need for more longitudinal research to establish causal relationships.

› Lastly, it is central to explore how the use of voice behavior can depend on the content of the message.

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Research questions

› What kind of impact does the interaction between leadership and perceived influence have for the employees’ use of voice behavior?

› Does self- efficacy mediate the relationship between leadership and voice behavior?

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Perceived influence as a contextual variable

› The employees’ general experience of influence is theoretically hypothesized to strengthen the employees’ use of voice behavior because this gives the employees the impression that their inputs are valuable and appreciated (Wilkinson & Fay, 2011). Thus, according to i.e. Vroom (1964) they should be more motivated and persistent in their use of voice behavior, because of their greater expectancies for success with their actions.

› Two studies have examined this relation – and find a positive relationship between perceived influence and improvement oriented voice behavior (Venkataramani & Tangriala, 2010 ;Tangriala & Ramanujam, 2012).

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Leadership as a contextual variable

› Theoretically, leaders stand out as important because they are the targets of voice behavior, and they have the authority to administer rewards and punishments. (Detert & Burris, 2007)

› Prior research has confirmed the relationship between different types of leadership behavior and improvement oriented voice behavior ( Liu, Zhu, & Yang 2010; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009) .

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Transformational leadership› Transformational leadership consists of Idealized influence, Individual

consideration, Inspirational motivation, and Intellectual stimulation. The goal is to build trust, admiration and, loyalty towards the leader, and to make the employees do perform “beyond expectations” (Bass, 1985; 2006).

› Transformational leadership is still one of the most influential and most studied leadership construct (Yukl, 2011). Accordingly, it is important to explore if and how, this type of leadership influences voice behavior.

› There have been some inconsistencies regarding the relation between transformational leadership and voice behavior. Some studies find no relationship between transformational leadership and employee voice behavior (Rank, 2007; Detert & Burris, 2007b), whereas others find a positive relationship (Liu, Zhu & Yang, 2010; Detert & Burris, 2007a). Liang (2010) finds a negative interaction effect among transformational leadership, proactive personality and voice behavior.

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Leadership and perceived influence

› Employees perceive high influence when they feel important at their workplace and feel that their opinions matter (Spreitzer, 1995).

› Studies show that the degree of participation offered by the supervisors, such as involving the employees in important decision making processes, and taking into account their ideas and suggestions, may increase the employees’ feeling that they are considered important by key decision makers, and thus lead to a higher degree of perceived influence (Tangriala & Ramanujam, 2012).

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Transformational leadership and participative leadership behaviors

› Transformational leadership can be implemented in both a participative and a directive manner (Bass, 1999; Bass, 2006). Thus it might lead to both a high or low perception of influence. The hypothesis is that a participative implementation of transformational leadership is a condition, which must be present in order for transformational leadership to lead to voice behavior .

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Hypothesis 1 - 2

› H1. Employees with transformational leaders, who are high in participative leadership, will display more employee voice, than when participative leadership is low. There will be no relationship between transformational leadership, low in participation, and employee voice behavior.

› H2. Perceived influence will act as a mediator in the relationship between leadership and voice.

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Occupational self – efficacy as an individual variable

› Individuals high in self – efficacy have a stronger belief in having the adequate skills necessary for the use of voice behavior and a belief in their ability to overcome the potential negative consequences (Morrison & Phelps, 1999).

› People who perceive of themselves as personally competent are usually more confident taking advantage of their possibilities for influence (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2012).

› Two prior studies find a positive correlation between self-efficacy and improvement oriented voice behavior (Landau, 2009; Tangriala & Ramanujam, 2012)

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Hypothesis 3

› H3. The positive relationship between perceived influence at work and voice behavior will be moderated by the employees occupational self- efficacy, such that the relationship is stronger when the individuals occupational self-efficacy is higher.

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Contribution to the literature

› Bring together individual and contextual explanations of voice.› Shed light on the mediating and moderating variables between

leadership and voice.› Provide some explanation for previous inconsistent findings on the

effect of transformational leadership.› The longitudinal design will help to better determine the causal

relationships among the variables.› Give us more information about how the use of voice behavior can

depend on the content of the message.

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Comments and/or questions?

› Thank you for your attention!

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