The affective relevance of suggestion-focused and problem-focused voice: A diary study on voice in meetings

Energizing and depleting? The daily effects of organizationally focused citizenship behaviors

Purpose

Prior research suggests that organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) can have both positive and negative effects on employees; however, it is unclear about the mediating mechanisms of this relationship and how the effects of challenging and supportive OCB may differ. Drawing on the dual-pathway model of proactivity and OCB research, the authors derive a theoretical model that attempts to reveal how different types of employees' daily organizationally focused citizenship behaviors can affect employees.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors examine the relationships using a daily-diary study using experience sampling methodology (ESM). The survey includes 72 employees who completed three surveys a day for 10 working days resulting in 614 daily observations.

Findings

The authors find that advocacy participation increases perceptions of prosocial impact, which in turn increases daily job satisfaction; the authors also find that advocacy participation decreases ego depletion, which then reduces daily job stress. Daily voice likewise increases perceptions of prosocial impact, which in turn increases daily job satisfaction; however, unlike advocacy participation, voice increases ego depletion, which then increases daily job stress.

Originality/value

The study is one of the first studies to simultaneously examine the personal perceptions and emotions of engaging in daily organizationally focused OCB and recognize the fact that different types of prosocial behavior have differential outcomes. The authors also extend prior research by documenting the mechanisms by which OCB impacts employees.

The multilevel influence of supervisor helping behavior on employee voice behavior: A moderated mediation model

Based on conservation of resource theory, this study adopts an experience sampling method to build a cross-hierarchical mode to investigate the internal mechanism between supervisor helping behavior and employee voice behavior. The empirical results from 76 employees’ dynamic data show that the supervisor helping behavior has no significant direct effect on the employee voice behavior; thriving at work plays a mediating role between supervisor helping behavior and employee voice behavior. Psychological availability, as a moderator, not only positively moderates the effect of supervisor helping behavior on thriving at work but also positively moderates the mediation of thriving at work on the relationship between supervisor helping behavior and employee voice behavior. From the dynamic perspective, this study adds to the literature on supervisor helping behavior and employee voice behavior, and it has practical implications on managerial decision-making.

The meeting after the meeting: A conceptualization and process model

This article offers initial theorizing on an understudied phenomenon in the workplace: the meeting after the meeting (MATM). As an informal and unscheduled event, the MATM takes place outside managerial control and has potentially far-reaching consequences. However, our current knowledge of the MATM relies primarily on practitioner observations, and conceptual work that integrates the MATM into the larger meeting science literature is missing. This article fills this gap by outlining key defining features of the MATM that can be used to structure future research. Moreover, and based on theorizing concerning the affect-generating nature of meetings, we develop an affect-based process model that focuses on the antecedents and boundary conditions of the MATM at the episodic level and shines light on meetings as a sequential phenomenon.

Plain Language Summary

This article sheds light on an understudied but rather common phenomenon in the workplace: The meeting after the meeting (MATM). Defined as an unscheduled, informal and confidential communication event, the MATM has the potential to create new structures in everyday organizational life. Yet, our current knowledge of this particular meeting type is very limited and largely based on anecdotal accounts by practitioners. To guide future research, this article first outlines key features of the MATM, focusing on when the MATM occurs, where it takes place, how it takes place, why it takes place, and who is involved in the MATM. Next, this article presents an affect-based process model of the MATM. To this end, antecedents and boundary conditions at the episodic level are outlined, highlighting that meetings should be seen as interconnected, sequential events.

Let's work together, especially in the pandemic: finding ways to encourage problem-focused voice behavior among passionate employees

Purpose

This study seeks to unravel the relationship between employees' passion for work and their engagement in problem-focused voice behavior by identifying a mediating role of their efforts to promote work-related goal congruence and a moderating role of their perceptions of pandemic threats to the organization.

Design/methodology/approach

The research hypotheses were tested with quantitative data collected through a survey instrument administered among 158 employees in a large Portuguese-based organization that operates in the food sector, in the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The Process macro was applied to assess the moderated mediation dynamic that underpins the proposed theoretical framework.

Findings

Employees' positive work-related energy enhances their propensity to speak up about organizational failures because they seek to find common ground with their colleagues with respect to the organization's goals and future. The mediating role of such congruence-promoting efforts is particularly prominent to the extent that employees dwell on the threats that a pandemic holds for their organization.

Practical implications

The study pinpoints how HR managers can leverage a negative situation—employees who cannot keep the harmful organizational impact of a life-threatening virus out of their minds—into productive outcomes, by channeling positive work energy, derived from their passion for work, toward activities that bring organizational problems into the open.

Originality/value

This study adds to HR management research by unveiling how employees' attempts to gather their coworkers around a shared work-related mindset can explain how their passion might spur reports of problem areas, as well as explicating how perceived pandemic-related threats activate this process.

Family, Work, Collegial, and Emotional Influences on Problem-Focused Voice Behaviors

This study details the unexplored connection between employees’ exposure to family incivility and voice behavior to pinpoint organization problems, considering the mediating role of their work engagement and the moderating role of their emotion sharing with colleagues in this connection. Survey data obtained from employees who work in the banking sector reveal that a critical reason rude treatment by family members keeps employees from expressing their opinions about organizational shortcomings at work is that they exhibit limited positive work energy. This explanatory role of work engagement is less salient though when employees can draw on the relational resource of emotion sharing. For organizational change professionals, this study accordingly showcases a core explanation, thwarted work engagement, by which family-related hardships prevent employees from undertaking productive problem-focused voice activities, and it explicates how this mechanism can be subdued if the work environment encourages employees to express personal feelings openly to their peers.

Thanks for Your Recognition, Boss! a Study of How and When Voice Endorsement Promotes Job Performance and Voice

Existing studies mainly explore the antecedents and distal outcomes of voice behavior of employees. Less is known about what may occur after supervisors endorse ideas of employees. Based on the conservation of resources theory, we explored how and when voice endorsement affects job performance and voice behavior of employees. With the sample of 444 matched supervisor–subordinate pairs from a large organization, we found that voice endorsement of supervisors positively influences voice behavior and job performance of employees through the mediating effects of positive mood and work engagement. Additionally, we found that the voice commitment of employees strengthens the influence of voice endorsement of supervisors on positive mood of employees. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

A Moral Cleansing Process: How and When Does Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior Increase Prohibitive and Promotive Voice

In this study, we draw on moral cleansing theory to investigate the consequence of unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) from the perspective of the actors. Specifically, we hypothesize that after conducting UPB, people may feel guilty and tend to cleanse their wrongdoings by providing suggestions or identifying problems at work (i.e., prohibitive and promotive voice). We further hypothesize that the above relationship is moderated by the actor's moral identity symbolization. We conducted three studies, including experiment and surveys, to test our hypotheses. Results of these studies show consistent support to our hypotheses. In particular, individuals reported more felt guilt after conducting UPB, and they tended to compensate with more prohibitive and promotive voice subsequently. In addition, the indirect relationship from UPB acting to both voice behaviors via felt guilt was stronger for people with a high level of moral identity symbolization. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Supervisor Developmental Feedback and Voice: Relationship or Affect, Which Matters?

Employee voice is the discretionary communication of ideas, suggestions, or concerns to benefit the organization. Employee voice is important for both organizations and employees. As such, this study examined the relationship between supervisor behavior and voice, by exploring the positive influences of supervisor developmental feedback on employee voice at the episode level. Further, this study explored the underlying mediators of positive affect and perceived rapport in the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee voice, based on social exchange theory. The study collected 310 matched data points, collected across 62 employees for five consecutive days, using an experience sampling method with mobile surveys. Day-level supervisor developmental feedback positively related to day-level employee voice. Positive affect and perceived rapport with supervisors mediated the relationship between supervisor developmental feedback and employee voice at the episode level. The findings extend the antecedents of voice and examined the social exchange process at a within-person level.

Do We Really Need Another Meeting? The Science of Workplace Meetings

Meetings are routine in organizations, but their value is often questioned by the employees who must sit through them daily. The science of meetings that has emerged as of late provides necessary direction toward improving meetings, but an evaluation of the current state of the science is much needed. In this review, we examine current directions for the psychological science of workplace meetings, with a focus on applying scientific findings about the activities that occur before, during, and after meetings that facilitate success. We conclude with concrete recommendations and a checklist for promoting good meetings, as well as some thoughts on the future of the science of workplace meetings.