Who gets credit for input? Demographic and structural status cues in voice recognition.

Abstract

The authors investigate the employee features that, alongside overall voice expression, affect supervisors' voice recognition. Drawing primarily from status characteristics and network position theories, the authors propose and find in a study of 693 employees from 89 different credit union units that supervisors are more likely to credit those reporting the same amount of voice if the employees have higher ascribed or assigned (by the organization) status--cued by demographic variables such as majority ethnicity and full-time work hours. Further, supervisors are more likely to recognize voice from employees who have higher achieved status--cued by their centrality in informal social structures. The authors also find that even when certain groups of lower status employees speak up more, they cannot compensate for the negative effect of their demographic membership on voice recognition by their boss. The authors underscore how recognition of employee voice by supervisors matters for employees. It carries (mediates) the effects of voice expression and status onto performance evaluations 1 year later, which means that demographic differences in the assignment of credit for voice can serve as an implicit pathway for discrimination.

Public versus Private Voice

“…As managers and employees might differently assess public (vs. private) voice by male and female employees due to gender bias in work settings (Howell et al, 2015), we controlled for manager and employee gender.…”

“…We included several measures as controls to remove the influences of other factors related to voice endorsement. First, as male and female managers might differently judge ideas raised by their male and female employees due to possible gender biases (Howell et al, 2015), we controlled for manager and employee gender. Second, managers with low levels of self-efficacy are more aversive toward employee voice (Fast et al, 2014), which can result in experience of threat and lower endorsement.…”

“…Hence, employees who prefer public to private voice are more likely to create instances in which it is harder for managers to simply ignore and dismiss their voice (Dutton & Ashford, 1993). Consequently, input from such employees is more likely to get managers' attention, which is a minimum prerequisite for turning voice into real change (Burris et al, 2017;Dutton & Ashford, 1993;Dutton et al, 2001;Howell et al, 2015). Hence, we expect that employees who engage in public voice more often than in private voice are more likely to initiate change within their work-group or organization.…”

“…Yet, some employees are considered as more successful than others in turning their ideas into real change (Dutton & Ashford, 1993;Dutton, Ashford, O'Neill, & Lawrence, 2001). To be effective change agents, employees need at a minimum to get their managers to recognize their voice (Burris, Rockmann, & Kimmons, 2017;Dutton & Ashford, 1993;Dutton et al, 2001;Howell et al, 2015). This, in fact, is often one of the main obstacles that employees face because managers have limited time and resources (Pfeffer, 1992), which makes it hard or impossible for them to address all the issues at hand.…”

“…Additionally, Grant, Parker and Collins (2009) showed that voice leads to higher performance evaluations when employees display strong prosocial values and low negative affect. Howell, Harrison, Burris, and Detert (2015) more recently proposed that employee status positively affects managers' recognition of voice, which, in turn, leads to more favourable performance appraisals. Authors indeed found that for higher status employees, voice was associated with higher performance appraisals.…”