The Effects of Voice Distinctiveness and Voice Consensus on Managerial Responses to Employee Voice

Organizations encourage employees to voice ideas, but how can employees ensure that managers respond positively? Is it wiser to voice about a variety of issues or about only one specific issue? And to what extent do the voice patterns within the team and managers’ beliefs influence how managers react to voice? Building on attribution theory, we address these questions in two studies. In our first (scenario) study with 184 employees, we find that when employees voice on different issues rather than on one specific issue, managers are more likely to attribute the voice to prosocial and performance-enhancement motives, and that these attributions positively influence managers’ endorsement of voice. This effect is stronger when managers hold the implicit belief that speaking up is safe. Our second (field) study shows that employees who engage in moderate levels of voice are rated as better performers than those who rarely voice or voice very frequently, especially when the frequency of employees’ voice deviates from the voice frequency of their peers. These findings highlight that not only the frequency of voice, but also other voice patterns, and managers’ implicit voice theories influence managers’ responses to voice.