2.3.3 The psychological mechanisms of voice behavior
While many attempts have been made to predict voice behavior, we still know
little about its underlying mechanisms (Huang et al., 2005). Table 2.2 shows that
only two studies included mediators in their designs: Detert and Burris (in press) and
Fuller et al. (2006). Therefore, we can conclude that researchers have not paid
enough attention to this issue in the literature.
In the OCB literature, the most prominent mechanism identified by Organ and
his colleagues (2006) is mainly social-exchange based, including trust in the
organization, satisfaction, a sense of obligation or a feeling of responsibility, a need
to reciprocate, a sense of commitment, and a perception of fairness etc. Similarly
with the OCB perspective on voice, the EVLN literature also viewed it as reciprocal
behavior resulting from social exchange process, although they focused on different
functions of voice. For example, Hirschman (1970) suggested that loyal employees
tend to express their dissatisfaction, rather than exit from the firm. Consistent with
this fundamental proposition, Table 2.1 shows that the EVLN researchers included
exchange variables to specify the antecedents of voice behavior (e.g., job satisfaction,
investment size, and psychological contract). It is not surprising to find that the
antecedents in the two lines of studies overlapped with each other considerably.
On the other hand, the emerging research on issue selling highlights
psychological factors related to the selling process. Researchers in this area believe
that middle managers’ perceptions of contextual factors influence their propensity to
proactively sell certain issues to the top management. Table 2.3 shows that two
psychological perceptions were highlighted in the studies: perceived probability of
selling successes and image risk. Issue selling studies suggested employees are least
likely to engage in such activities when they judge the efficacy of speaking up as low and the costs of doing so as high (Ashford et al., 1998). Only when people believe
that issue selling is not risky and is likely to be successful, then the expected benefits
(e.g., an enhanced image and increased credibility) make selling behavior likely to
happen. Obviously, the above logic also applies to our understanding of the
underlying mechanisms of voice behavior.
From the above discussion, it is clear that the three lines of literature contribute
complementary knowledge to the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of
voice. Based on the above review, three different mechanisms are proposed to
describe how voice is generated and elicited at work: psychological safety, felt
obligation to the organization, and OBSE. This specification not only captures the
characteristic of voice as a form of extra-role behavior, but also explains why it is
different from other cooperative behaviors.
To address the three research gaps identified from the literature review, the first
step in this dissertation was a pilot study to examine the dimensionality of voice
behavior. The second step was a time-lagged panel study to examine the
psychological mechanisms of voice behavior (Chapter 3). In the final step, I
proposed a cross-level model to predict voice behavior. Important personality trait
and contextual variables are examined in the model (Chapter 4). Correspondingly,
three empirical studies were conducted to examine the core arguments in this
dissertation.