Impact of Managers' Voice Solicitation on Leader-Member Exchange with the Mediating Role of Employees' Voice Behavior and Emotional Exhaustion

Employees' voice plays a vital role in enhancing organizational achievements. Despite its vitality, existing literature provides that managers usually demonstrate reduced voice solicitation. This study attempts to find the likely effects of managers' reluctance toward employees' voice. Furthermore, employees who cannot raise their voice may suffer from emotional exhaustion, which in turn can lower their perception of Leader-member exchange (LMX). The extant research was carried out on a sample of 240 respondents from telecom sector of Pakistan as manager-employee matched pairs, supports the above arguments. Based on a variance-based structural equation modelling and bootstrapping procedure, results showed that employees' voice behavior and employees' emotional exhaustion serially mediated the relationship between managers' voice solicitation and LMX. The results highlight the need to have an environment in organizations where employees' voice is not denigrated. Finally, the theoretical and managerial implications of the study were presented.