Supervisors’Responses to Employee Voice Behavior: An Experimental Study in China and Japan

This study examines how supervisors respond to employee voice behavior in the Asian context considering the following factors: The target of voice, the expertise of the voicing employee, and the supervisor’s sense of power. We conducted a scenario-based experimental study using Chinese and Japanese samples and found that speaking up to skiplevel leaders rather than immediate supervisors was negatively related to the evaluations of voicing employees, which was partially mediated by liking in both samples and perceived threat in the Chinese sample. We also found that the expertise of voicing employees was positively related to the evaluations of voicing employees, but it also had a negative indirect effect on the evaluations through perceived threat against the employees in the Japanese sample. Moreover, for the Chinese sample, supervisors’ sense of power moderated some of the effects of target of voice and the expertise of the voicing employees on supervisors’ reactions. We discuss theoretical and practical implications and future research directions.