Social courage fosters both voice and silence in the workplace

Abstract

Purpose One of the strongest and most important outcomes of trait social courage is employee voice, but researchers have only studied this relationship with unidimensional conceptualizations of voice. The purpose of this paper is to apply Van Dyne et al.’s (2003) three-dimensional conceptualization of voice, which also distinguishes three dimensions of silence, to provide a nuanced understanding of the relationship of social courage with voice and silence. The authors also test for the moderating effect of three contextual influences: top management attitudes toward voice and silence, supervisor attitudes toward voice and silence, as well as communication opportunities. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a four-timepoint survey with each measurement occasion separated by one week. A total of 134 participants completed all four timepoints. Findings The results support that social courage positively relates to prosocial voice and silence, whereas it negatively relates to defensive voice and silence as well as acquiescent voice and silence. In other words, social courage positively relates to beneficial voice and silence as well as negatively relates to detrimental voice and silence. The results also failed to support any moderating effects, suggesting that the relationships of social courage are very resilient to outside forces. Practical implications These findings both test prior results and discover new relationships of social courage, which can further stress the importance of courage. The authors also draw direct connections between the influence of social courage on the surrounding workplace environment – as well as the influences of the environment on social courage. While the current paper provides insights into social courage, it also directs future researchers toward new insights of their own. Originality/value Courage is an emergent research topic within organizations. While many authors have assumed that courage is important to work, the current paper is among the few to empirically support this notion.

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

“…Prior HR management scholarship underscores the value of employees who go out of their way to pinpoint problems in their organization (Howard & Holmes, 2019). In light of the resistance that these disruptive behaviors often encounter though, it is critical to understand how energy-enhancing personal resources might lead to problem-focused voice (Quinn et al, 2012).…”

“…Various contextual factors spur employees' voice behavior, despite the resistance with which the behavior may be received, such as their exposure to transformational leadership (Zhang and Inness, 2019), experience of group cohesion (Kong et al , 2017) or beneficial positions in intra-firm networks (Venkataramani and Tangirala, 2010). Employees' possession of relevant personal resources also might provide them with more stamina to bring problem situations into the open, including their duty and achievement orientations (Tangirala et al , 2013), tenacity (De Clercq and Belaustegoitia, 2017) or social courage (Howard and Holmes, 2019). As mentioned in the Introduction, we examine the stimulating role of another energy-enhancing personal resource, passion for work (Baum and Locke, 2004), with a particular focus on (1) how the relationship between passion for work and problem-focused voice behavior is mediated by dedicated efforts to promote work-related goal congruence and (2) how this mediated link might be invigorated by perceptions of pandemic threats to the organization.…”

“…Prior studies in the realm of human resource (HR) management recognize the important role of voice behavior in organizations, as occurs when employees proactively speak up and offer ideas for improving the organizational status quo (Howard and Holmes, 2019; Wang et al , 2019). Such voice behavior might take prohibitive or promotive forms, such that the former type involves expressions of opinions about organizational shortcomings, whereas the latter focuses on solutions to the shortcomings (Qian et al , 2020; Wang et al , 2020).…”

Woes of silence: the role of burnout as a mediator between silence and employee outcomes

“…Silence weakens the social ties among individuals and may erode the social fabric that glues them together, thus making them more inconsiderate (Bowen and Blackmon, 2003). It hampers communication, cooperation (Çaylak and Altuntas, 2017;Nechanska et al, 2020) and knowledge sharing (Howard and Holmes, 2019), all activities being hallmark of contextual performance (Gambarotto and Cammozzo, 2010;Ruck et al, 2017). This may deprive individuals of important work-related information that comes from the coworkers with whom they interact, thus having serious implications for employee contextual performance.…”

“…First of all, it broadens our existing knowledge on the deleterious effects of defensive silence at individual level. By linking employee silence to organizationally relevant outcomes, we answer the call of Howard and Holmes (2019) and Morrison (2014) for more research on employee silence in order to provide a broader perspective on individual level effects. In this regard, burnout is a particularly relevant reaction of remaining silent.…”