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

Abstract

Building on the affective events theory framework, we argue for voice as affect‐relevant action and investigate the affective consequences of voice in meetings within persons. We administered daily surveys over one workweek to examine how suggestion‐focused and problem‐focused voice in meetings relate to state positive and state negative affect at work. Our analyses are based on the data of 124 employees reporting on 224 meetings. Employees’ problem‐focused voice in meetings was associated with a decrease in employees’ state negative affect at the end of the next workday. Employees’ suggestion‐focused voice, however, was not associated with an increase in employees’ state positive affect at the end of the next workday. Future studies should investigate boundary conditions that might change the affective consequences of employees’ voice in meetings. Practitioner points Meetings offer employees the opportunity to voice work‐related issues to bring about change. There is substantial intra‐individual variability in employees’ voice in meetings, such that an employee sometimes takes this opportunity, whereas sometimes the same employee passes it on. An employee can show suggestion‐focused voice (i.e., make suggestions of how to improve current work processes) or problem‐focused voice (i.e., address problems about inefficiencies or poor performance) in a meeting. Both types of voice can provide valuable information for work teams and organizations. When employees suggest an improvement in a meeting, they do not necessarily feel more active at the end of their next workday, but when they address a problem, they feel less distressed. This favourable affective consequence may help to develop a more positive view of problem‐focused voice among supervisors and employees.

Identifying business opportunities for sustainable development: Longitudinal and experimental evidence contributing to the field of sustainable entrepreneurship

“…We focused on young participants early in their careers who had a college or university background, because research showed that these people are more likely to engage in sustainable entrepreneurship (Bosma et al, ). We used a mixed recruitment approach to obtain data from a convenience sample (Starzyk, Sonnentag, & Albrecht, ). We used an information sheet that described the purpose of the study and contained an online link to the study.…”

“…Moreover, the mixed recruitment approach results in a more heterogeneous sample, increasing the generalizability of findings. It is important to note that the mixed recruitment approach does not usually bias study findings (Starzyk et al, ). In our sample, the average age was 25 years and 45% were female.…”

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

“…By targeting communication patterns within meetings, several studies have linked behavioral patterns to outcomes of interest. For example, people who participate in a meeting by bringing up problems relating to poor work processes or performance feel less negative about their work a day after the meeting (Starzyk, Sonnentag, & Albrecht, 2018). On the other hand, when one person starts to complain in a meeting by expressing so-called “killer phrases” that reflect futility or an unchangeable state (e.g., “nothing can be done about that issue” or “nothing works”), other meeting attendees begin to complain, which starts a complaining cycle that can reduce group outcomes (Kauffeld & Lehmann-Willenbrock, 2012).…”

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

“…First, the mediation of felt guilt in the relationship between UPB and promotive voice was not supported in our experiment due to the relatively low correlation between felt guilt and promotive voice. This may not be surprising because at an acute level, research show that prohibitive voice helps to decrease state negative emotions (such as guilty in this study) while promotive voice does not (Starzyk et al 2018). However, moral cleansing process is not limited in a short time (Cryder et al 2012) and we still need more evidence to detect this relationship.…”