From Barriers to Drivers: Understanding Different Approaches to Getting Systematic Upward Voice in Organizations

For the last four decades, scholars have noted the importance of getting employees to speak up. Most scholars have focused their attention on the barriers preventing employees from voicing their ideas, with the prominent theory and findings revealing that when employees do not feel it is safe or worthwhile to speak up, they will withhold their voice and stay silent. Given the increasing understanding that voice is indeed importantly related to key organizational outcomes, in this chapter, we will review a growing, though currently not well-integrated, literature about the various ways to encourage employees to speak up. That is, rather than pointing out the barriers for why employees are compelled to withhold their ideas, we seek to shift the focus to evaluating the efficacy of different approaches to getting voice.