When Context Matters: The Effects of Power Stability and Climate on Supervisors' Willingness to Implement Employee Voice

Abstract

Implementing employee voice can have substantial organizational benefits. Yet, supervisors frequently fail to implement subordinates’ improvement-oriented suggestions. To help explain this tendency, this thesis examines whether contextual factors, such as the stability of power and nature of the departmental climate in which the supervisors are part of, can influence their willingness to implement voice, as well as whether these factors interact. Study 1 (N = 242) demonstrates that although the stability of power does not directly affect willingness to implement voice, a competitive – as opposed to a cooperative – climate decreases voice implementation, an effect that only occurs when supervisors have stable – and not unstable – power. The effect of climate is further supported in Study 2 (N = 114), which also reveals that supervisors’ denigration of subordinate benevolence mediates the relationship between climate and willingness to implement voice. The present research extends the extant literature on both voice and leadership by considering the role of the supervisor’s context to understand voice implementation, as well as provide important implications for practice. Furthermore, we point out several new avenues for future research. Keywords: voice implementation, power stability, climate, threat, denigration of subordinate benevolence