Employee voice and coworker support: The roles of employee job demands and coworker voice expectation

Summary Although a number of studies have examined the antecedents of employee voice, knowledge on the consequences of voice, especially in terms of the coworkers' responses, is limited. The current research addresses this important issue by examining when and why employee voice, as a citizenship behavior, can facilitate coworker support. Drawing on expectancy violation theory, we propose that higher job demands strengthen the positive relationship between employee voice and coworker support by decreasing coworker voice expectation. We tested our hypotheses using two complementary studies: Study 1 adopted an experience sampling methodology and collected data consisting of 944 daily responses from 103 employees over a 10‐day period; Study 2 adopted a two‐wave survey design and collected data from 161 employee–coworker dyads. The results support our hypotheses that higher (versus lower) job demands enhance the positive association between employee voice and coworker support via decreased (versus increased) coworker voice expectation.