This study adopts an integrated approach to employee voice (EV) and analyses the impacts of direct and indirect EV mechanisms on firm innovation in small and medium‐sized firms separately. It also proposes a new categorization for direct EV, by distinguishing between verbal and written mechanisms, allowing us to take the level of formality of different EV mechanisms into account. The analysis of 17,890 European firms shows that verbal, written and indirect EV mechanisms are all positively related to a higher propensity of firm innovation in both small and medium firms. However, for verbal EV mechanisms the relationship is significantly stronger for small firms than medium firms. The results also reveal that medium firms derive higher benefit than small firms while combining and balancing EV mechanisms with different levels of formalization (i.e. verbal and indirect voice). However, the former also suffers from excessive formalization of employees’ involvement in the innovation process (e.g. through written and indirect voice). Overall, this study supports recent calls for the need to adopt an integrated, pluralistic approach to EV and has important implications for EV research in small and medium firms.

Employee voice (EV) refers to all the ways and means through which employees have a say in the decisions that affect their work and the overall running of their organization. It involves different domains and topics and occurs through a variety of channels (direct and indirect, formal and informal, individual and collective). The main distinction is between direct voice channels, through which employees have the opportunity to express their ideas and opinions directly to managers without the mediation of representatives, and indirect voice channels, through which EV is expressed by representatives, usually elected from the wider group of employees. Since the last decades of the 20th century, EV has become a central topic in human resource management (HRM), industrial relations, (IR) and organizational behavior (OB) literature, providing researchers and practitioners with an extensive and ever-increasing amount of knowledge. However, each discipline has created its own conceptualization of the meanings of and purposes for EV, leading EV to become a contested terrain, characterized by research silos and competing literatures. While the OB perspective concentrates on the informal and prosocial nature of individual EV, the IR approach is mainly focused on formal structures for collective EV and the contrasting interests of management and workers, and the HRM approach tends to emphasize the role of direct EV as a component of the wider HRM systems that may generate higher organizational outcomes. Integrative approaches that can bring together different disciplinary perspectives are therefore required for a more comprehensive understanding of how EV takes shape in organizations and affects individual and organizational outcomes. Greater attention should also be paid to the multidimensionality of EV, investigating further how it relates to employee silence and to other phenomena, such as ethical employee voice and whistle-blowing. Finally, little is known about the emerging forms of EV related to workplace digitalization and working remotely.

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Questo studio contribuisce al dibattito sul coinvolgimento dei dipendenti nelle decisioni che riguardano il loro lavoro e l'organizzazione. In particolare, lo studio analizza la relazione tra i meccanismi di employee voice e i risultati aziendali, e come essa vari al modificarsi del livello di capitale umano impiegato dall'organizzazione. L'analisi dei dati relativi a 168 imprese italiane dell'indagine Cranet (2015) mostra che sia i meccanismi di employee voice, sia i livelli di capita-le umano hanno una relazione positiva e significativa con i risultati aziendali. Inol-tre, l'analisi mostra che le performance organizzative migliori si hanno nelle azien-de che combinano elevati livelli di employee voice con una forza lavoro caratte-rizzata da alto capitale umano. Lo studio supporta quindi l'esistenza di una rela-zione di complementarità tra il coinvolgimento dei dipendenti nelle decisioni aziendali e lo sviluppo di pratiche volte a incrementare il capitale umano. Questi risultati offrono importanti implicazioni teoriche e pratiche al dibattito sulla com-petitività delle organizzazioni moderne e suggeriscono alcune importanti direzioni di ricerca futura.