Interpersonal antecedents to employee upward voice: mediating role of psychological safety

Abstract

Purpose

Despite the increasing prominence of employee voice in organizational innovation and productivity, employees continue to struggle to influence matters that affect them at work. The purpose of this paper is to model work group context and manager behavior as the predictors of employee upward voice. Further, a mediating role of employee psychological safety is examined in this link.

Design/methodology/approach

With data from 575 employees representing various technology firms in India, the authors test the hypothesized relationships using covariance-based structural equation modeling.

Findings

Results indicate coworkers upward voice and manager pro-voice behavior to significantly impact employee upward voice with a mediating impact of psychological safety. This implies that perceived psychological safety plays a significant role in explaining the impact, coworkers and manager behavior would have on regulating employee upward voice.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the employee voice literature from an Indian context, where upward communication is culturally discouraged.

Citation

Subhakaran, S.E. and Dyaram, L. (2018), "Interpersonal antecedents to employee upward voice: mediating role of psychological safety", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 67 No. 9, pp. 1510-1525. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-10-2017-0276