Culture and organisational context: how it influences voice behaviour

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how business practitioners can encourage voice behaviour (i.e. communicating opinions and concerns to improve business functioning). This paper specifically focuses on individuals' ideas of power distance as a predictor of voice. Furthermore, it evaluates the moderating effect of work discipline on this relationship between power distance and voice. Data was collected from a survey sent out to mainly Dutch and German employees who are active on the labour market. A sample of 139 responses was used to regress power distance, voice behaviour and an interaction variable of work discipline and power distance. The results show that power distance is negatively related to voice behaviour. The larger the power distance the less voice is expressed. Work discipline, the moderator, did not prove to have significant effects on the relationship. Exploratory findings show that a significant moderating effect may exist when solely looking at the private sector. This study contributes to previous research in its extension of proof of the negative relationship between power distance and voice. It furthermore contributes to the assessment of work discipline and its influence on voice behaviour.