The Relationship between Psychological Safety and Employee Voice: The Mediation Role of Affective Commitment and Intrinsic Motivation

Abstract

In this quantitative research, we enhance understanding of psychological safety on employee voice behavior by examining mediating role of affective commitment and intrinsic motivation. We examined these relationships among 151 research assistants working full-time for universities. The results suggest that psychological safety is significantly associated with affective commitment whereas it does not significantly influence intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, employee voice behavior is affected by intrinsic motivation but not by affective commitment. Lastly, while affective commitment plays an important role as mediator in the relationship between psychological safety and employee voice although intrinsic motivation does not have a mediating effect. We discuss the implications of these findings for both theory and practice.

Organizational adaptation to working from home in a crisis situation (COVID-19): the interaction between leaders’ openness and followers’ voice

“…Therefore, we investigated whether WFH has an impact on leader openness and whether leader openness influences voice behavior and vice versa, whether employee’s voice influences leaders openness. Furthermore, we included in our study three mediating variables that are predictors of voice behavior: psychological safety ( Liang et al, 2012 ), intrinsic motivation ( Uğurlu and Ayas, 2016 ; Jaaffar and Samy, 2023 ), and affective commitment ( Nisar et al, 2020 ; Cheng et al, 2022 ).…”

“…Work motivation, especially intrinsic work motivation, is also an important predictor of employee voice behavior ( Uğurlu and Ayas, 2016 ; Jaaffar and Samy, 2023 ). During WFH the largest threat to motivation is the lack of face-to-face contact with colleagues ( Hertel et al, 2005 ; Bočková and Lajčin, 2021 ; Schade et al, 2021 ).…”