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Theorising determinants of employee voice: an

integrative model across disciplines and levels of

analysis

Bruce E. Kaufman, Department of Economics, Georgia State University, and Centre

for Work, Organization and Wellbeing, Department of Employment Relations and

Human Resources, Griffith University

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 25, no 1, 2015, pages 19–40

This article critiques organisational behaviour (OB) research on employee voice and presents a

broader-based conceptual model that integrates ideas and concepts across employment relationship

disciplines and levels of analysis. OB studies err by taking an overly individualistic, psychological,

managerialist and de-institutionalised perspective on employee voice. This criticism is documented andillustrated with numerous examples from the OB literature. To provide a constructive step forward, the

article presents an enlarged model of employee voice that not only includes OB but also brings in

important contributions from the HRM, industrial relations, labour economics and labour process fields.

The model provides an integrative framework for theoretical and empirical studies of voice and yields a

number of research and practice implications.

Contact: Bruce E. Kaufman, Department of Economics, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA

30303, USA. Email: [email protected]

Keywords: employee voice; HRM; employment relationship; organisational behaviour; indus-

trial relations

INTRODUCTION

The employee voice concept was popularised in the research literature by Freeman and

Medoff (1984), although its roots go back more than two centuries (Kaufman, 2014a). Thenumber of books and articles on employee voice began to mushroom 10 years later and

spread into industrial sociology, labour law and behavioural science fields, such as

industrial-organisational psychology, organisational behaviour (OB) and HRM. Illustratively,

symposia on employee voice have been featured in the Journal of Management Studies(September 2003), Socio-Economic Review (May 2006), Human Relations (March 2010), Human

Resource Management (January 2011) and Industrial Relations (January 2013). Also recently

published is a 29-chapter Handbook of Research on Employee Voice (Wilkinson et al., 2014).Naturally, researchers in these many different fields and disciplines explore the voice topic

from different frames of reference and with different concepts and methods. Also, the ongoingtrend towards academic specialisation both across and within fields tends to fragment the

research literature on employee voice into self-contained and self-referential silos (Wilkinson

and Fay, 2011) – referred to by Suddaby (2012), editor of the Academy of Management Review, as

the ‘balkanization of management theory’ (p. 7).This article seeks to break down some of these employee voice silos and foster a more

integrative and cross-disciplinary research dialogue. No field is free of excessive specialisation

and narrowness of approach; however, the OB segment of the voice literature seems

particularly divorced from the historical mainstream of the subject and theories and findingsin other employment-related fields (Godard, 2014; Mowbray et al., 2014; Pohler and Luchak,

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12056

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015 19

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Kaufman, B.E. (2015) ‘Theorising determinants of employee voice: an integrative model across disciplines andlevels of analysis’. Human Resource Management Journal 25: 1, 19–40.

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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2014). Hence, this article proceeds in a two-step process of critique and reformulation. The first

step is to outline the OB model of employee voice, using recent articles by Morrison (2011) and

Klaas et al. (2012) as a focal point, and identify its important shortcomings (also see Brinsfield,

2014). The second step is to take the OB perspective and build on it a more integrative and

broad-based voice model by incorporating key concepts and ideas from other fields, such asHRM, industrial relations (IR), labour economics (LE) and the labour process (LP) part of

industrial sociology. These perspectives receive chapter-length treatment in the Wilkinson et al.

(2014) research handbook, and this article can be viewed as an attempt to formalise a greaterconceptual unity among them in the spirit of the original cross-disciplinary and multilevel

employment relations (ER) field (Edwards, 2003; Budd, 2004; Kaufman, 2004).

OB: CONCEPTUALISATION AND MODEL OF EMPLOYEE VOICE

The OB-centred literature on employee voice was recently summarised and synthesised in two

lengthy review articles in top-tier journals by Morrison (2011) and Klaas et al. (KOBW, 2012).1

Both articles are billed in their titles as integrative and include in their bibliographies more than

two hundred studies. These articles do not speak for all OB researchers; a search of theliterature can always find exceptions to the criticisms and generalisations made here, and the

two articles and literature they summarise may have a discernible American slant.

The place to start is the definition and conceptualisation of employee voice. Morrison (2011)

states, ‘I offer the following integrated conceptualization of voice: discretionary communication

of ideas, suggestions, concerns, or opinions about work-related issues with the intent toimprove organizational and unit functioning’ (p. 375). She also lists these specific features of

employee voice: verbal expression, individual choice, face-to-face, prosocial and constructive

intent. Her article focuses on psychological antecedents, processes and outcomes of voice at theindividual and small group levels, and excludes from coverage the voice literatures inorganisational justice, HRM and IR (LE is not mentioned) on the grounds that they ‘have not

considered discretionary voice behaviors, nor the causes or consequences of this behavior . . .

[but] a wide range of formal mechanisms’ (p. 381, emphasis in original).

Unexpectedly for a review article, KOBW do not provide a definition of the voice construct.However, their perspective is also centred in micro OB, and in particular psychological

determinants and processes. For example, KOBW describe voice as a discretionary choice made

by the individual employee that typically consists of communicating ideas, opinions and

preferences upward to superiors in the organisation. They also observe that the dominant

assumption that voice is functional for the organisation (p. 337) brings benefits to managers

(p. 328) and takes a prosocial orientation (pp. 337–338). They cite seven determinants of voice(p. 316), and these have a heavy micro OB orientation, such as trait-like individual differences,

satisfaction-commitment-loyalty and organisational culture. Unlike Morrison, however, KOBW

give some consideration to formal and collective forms of voice, and posit not only a prosocialorientation but also a justice orientation rooted in dissatisfaction and potential conflict of

interests. This facet leads KOBW to briefly discuss grievance systems and mention collective

bargaining; they do not, however, specifically introduce HRM or IR into their integrative review

(LE is not mentioned).Based on her review and synthesis of the micro organisational literature, Morrison depicts

in a diagram the core independent and dependent variables and causal orderings for a model

of employee voice. It is reproduced as Figure 1. KOBW do not present a diagram, but thediscussion in their article closely follows Figure 1.

Integrative model of employee voice

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Does the OB model depicted in Figure 1 capture the strategic ‘must have’ elements necessary

for a manager or researcher to adequately understand the basics of employee voice? Aspreliminary evidence, consider these 10 features.

1. Employees are included as active decision makers, but organisations and managers are

treated as autonomous contextual factors (top left-hand box).

2. The amount and type of voice is explained without reference to the goals, strategy andperformance of organisations and their managers (none included in the Contextual Factors

box).

3. Voice is explained without reference to programmes, policies and strategies that companies

create for HRM, employee involvement and workplace governance.

4. Also omitted is the influence on voice of conditions in the organisation’s external

environment, such as prosperity level of the economy, laws governing employee voice,extent of trade unionism and individual versus collective cultural attitudes (none are

included in the top two boxes).

5. The assumption is that employees want to speak up to help managers and the organisation, but this predisposition is never explained (lower left-hand box).

6. The ‘benefit the organisation’ motive appears to rest on an implicit assumption that the ER

is typically unitarist, cooperative and mutual gain.

7. Economic considerations, such as the effect of voice on the organisation’s profit andemployee’s wages, are not included as contingencies in the choice process or voice

outcomes (the outcome ‘employee rewards’ being closest to an exception).

8. Only individual voice is modelled; collective forms of voice are omitted and no distinctionis made between direct and indirect (representative) voice.

Figure 1 Morrison’s voice model

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9. Ignored are other dimensions of voice besides communication and problem-solving, such as

exercising power, providing democratic governance, solving organisational failures,

maintaining justice, and protecting employee rights.

10. Voice is portrayed as typically good for organisational performance (the numerous plus

signs in the organisational outcome box) so managers should revise organisational practicesto encourage more of it, but no positive feedback loop is included and no explanation given

where the upward voice cycle stops.

No model can include all relevant factors; further, a model has to be tailored to the level of

analysis and research question. This article’s contention, however, is that these 10 items

represent strategic omissions even at the individual level of voice research. The amount, quality

and value-added of individual employee voice, for example, surely depend on the firm’s

business strategy, use of traditional or high-performance HRM practices, availability of formal/group voice mechanisms, cooperative versus adversarial tenor of employee relations,

employee cultural attributes (e.g. power distance, individual vs. collective orientation), and

whether alternative jobs are plentiful or scarce. As argued by Godard (2014),Mowbray et al. (2014), Pohler and Luchak (2014), and Cullinane and Donaghey (2014), a broaderand more inclusive model that gives balanced consideration to all stakeholder roles and

interests is needed.

ALTERNATIVE ER MODEL

Voice takes place within an employment relationship that crosses traditional disciplinary borders.

HRM is often framed as management of the employment relationship, and for this reason is said

to be cross-disciplinary (Wilkinson et al., 2010). Academic researchers, however, are trained in

narrow areas of specialisation, and the broader cross-disciplinary dimension is often neglectedand sometimes defensively greeted – per the observation by Burris (2012) that ‘[v]oice that

fundamentally challenges is likely to be met with resistance’ (p. 853). Given this lacuna, Figure 2

presents an alternative model of employee voice with roots in the cross-disciplinary field of ER.

The model is necessarily a generalised and broad-brush representation with only the moststrategic features of voice included from the various literatures. It is, nonetheless, a model – as

opposed to a classification system or catch-all list of variables culled from each field – because the

component parts are conceptual entities linked together in a cause–effect structure that yields

hypotheses and explains patterns in the dependent variable.The model starts at the top and proceeds to the bottom. The final step in the structure is the

determination of the outcome variable, employee voice. The most important causal and

feedback relationships are indicated with arrows; many links are omitted, however, to keep thediagram legible. Individual components, such as the firm’s desired amount of voice and therole of ER climate in the firm, are theorised in greater detail in Kaufman (2014b,c).

Employee voice: defined and conceptualised

Employee voice is the dependent variable to be explained. One reason the voice literature

remains fragmented is that the voice construct is not commensurate across authors and fields.

OB writers, for example, define voice as individual expression for problem-solving, while manylabour economists define voice as synonymous with unions and collective bargaining (e.g.Addison, 2005).

An alternative approach is to ask managers how they conceive voice. Wilkinson et al. (2004)conclude from field interviews that voice encompasses consultation, communication, and say, and





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varies along dimensions of form (direct vs. indirect), agenda (shared vs. contested) and influence(power or ‘muscle’). Accordingly, employee voice to managers has both integrative/

pie-growing and distributive/pie-sharing dimensions, and takes place in highly variegated

forms and settings ranging from an informal 5-minute problem-solving discussion to collective bargaining. Voice also includes not only face-to-face talk but also other forms of

communication, such as emails, grievance filings and striking.

This conceptualisation of employee voice is far wider than commonly used in OB. However,

it accords with the definition used by other researchers who take a broad ER perspective. The

editors of the voice research handbook, for example, define voice as ‘the ways and meansthrough which employees attempt to have a say and potentially influence organizational affairs

relating to issues that affect their works and the interests of managers and owners’ (Wilkinsonet al., 2014).

This definition encompasses all employment relationships and includes both thecommunication and influence dimensions of voice. Also, this conceptualisation can be

measured in workplace surveys, such as along the dimensions of form, agenda and influence.

These data can then be converted into a low-to-high ranking, similar to the way individual

HRM practices are combined into a composite index for firm performance studies andrepresented as a voice frequency distribution (Kaufman and Miller, 2011; Kaufman, 2014b).

External environment

The model starts with an organisation’s external environment. This category includes factors suchas economy (e.g. macro cycles, industry growth), legal (e.g. employee rights, union organising and

Figure 2 Employment relations (ER) model of employee voice determinants

Internal Contingencies

EmployerProduction Technology

Managerial Quality

Organisational CultureEmployee

Psycho-Social Dispositions

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

Demographics

External Environment

Economic Legal Social-Cultural

Organisational

Configuration

Governance

Structure

Employer

Goal: Efficiency and ProfitBenefits

Costs

Strategy

EmployeeGoal: Enhanced Well-Being

BenefitsCosts

Strategy

Voice System

Individual versus Collective

Topics and Agenda

Communication versus Influence

Voice System

Individual versus Collective

Topics and Agenda

Communication versus Influence

Interaction Process

Markets

Management

Individual

DesiredVoice

Demand

Desired

VoiceSu l

Employee Voice

Employment Relationship

L a b o ur M

a r k e t L a b

o u r M a r k e t

ER Climate

Conflict/Adversary

Cooperation/

Partner

Authority

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bargaining regulation, co-determination) and cultural-social (e.g. individualist vs. collective

attitudes; authority-conformity norms).

Morrison and KOBW almost entirely omit external environment contingencies on the

argument their focus is on individual choice about an extra-role behaviour outside of formal

voice structures. Surely, however, the type and intensity of workplace problems, the mannerworkers choose to present them to management, and the financial ability of firms to

constructively address them are significantly influenced by whether the economy is in recession

or at full employment, the law allows companies to easily terminate workers or switch frompermanent to temporary/contingent workers, and if workers are located in Sweden, China or

Brazil. In support of this position, the authors of the introduction chapter to the Sage Handbook

of Organizational Behavior (Hoption et al., 2008) state that organisations have to be theorised as

open systems and ‘any explanation of individual-level employee behavior that ignores these

external events will likely result in a narrow perspective of OB’ (p. 8).Illustratively, Ng and Feldman (2012) perform a meta-analysis of 55 studies on the

relationship between job stress and voice, find a negative association, and suggest in the

managerial implications section that to get more voice managers should try to reduce ‘highlevels of work and organizational demands’ (p. 230). They fail, however, to square thisrecommendation with the widespread conclusion in the management literature that firms over

the last several decades are facing intensifying market competition and therefore have to get

more performance from employees at the same time they hold down labour and HR costs (e.g.Paauwe et al., 2013; Kaufman, 2014d). Indeed, LP scholars (Marks and Chillas, 2014) argue thatit is the essence of capitalism that markets continually erode profit margins and increase the

pressure/stress on owners-managers to ‘get more for less’ from employees. In this situation,

constructive prosocial voice is likely to atrophy, while self-oriented voice from greater job stress

and work intensification creates a growing volume of complaints, criticisms and demands.

The lack of attention in micro OB studies to the external environment of organisations makesthe models and conclusions particularly susceptible to ethnocentric bias because so much of

their explanatory power comes from potentially culture-specific motivations, attitudes, norms

and psychological frames. These considerations are omitted by Morrison (2011) and mentioned

in one place by Klaas et al. (2012: 321), implying either these articles are implicitly meant forlargely a North American audience or the psycho-social determinants of voice have universal

fit across regions of the world.

Also important are complementarities among external environment variables that create

distinct national employment/voice systems (Katz and Darbishire, 2000; Wood et al., 2009).

Voice breadth, depth and form, for example, are likely considerably different in a liberal marketeconomy, such as America, versus a coordinated market economy, such as Germany, because

the former emphasises individual employee exit into competitive labour markets as the routeto improved job satisfaction, while the latter emphasises collective voice in regulated labour

markets through works councils, trade unions, co-determination and other organisationalforms.

Organisational configuration

Positioned below the external environment in Figure 2 is a roof. It represents the form and

structure of an organisation. At the ends of the roof are written, respectively, organisational

configuration and governance structure. Their left/right position on the roof is not important for

the components underneath.

Organisational configuration represents alternative organisational designs and managementsystems, such as size, division and coordination of tasks, hierarchical versus flattened structure,





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command/control versus participative management, and standardisation-formalisation of

processes (Short et al., 2008). Organisational configurations exhibit large diversity, starting with

mechanistic versus organic designs and extending to more finely grained forms such as

represented by simple, machine, bureaucracy and commitment models (Cordery and Parker,

2007). Component parts of organisations, such as the employment system, HR function andwork team, also have configurational structures (Verburg et al., 2007).

Research shows that the amount and form of employee voice vary across these

configurations, being low and informal in simple structures, and high and formalised incommitment organisations (Toh et al., 2008). Employee voice, for example, is considered a

linchpin practice in firms with a high-involvement system, and according to Lawler (1986) is

encouraged by greater delegation to employees of four critical voice ingredients: information,

knowledge, rewards and power (p. 3). These resources for voice have large variation not only

across firms (e.g. fast food restaurants vs. consulting firms) but also within firms (e.g. clericalvs. technical), per emphasis in HRM on strategic differentiation of high-performance practices

across work groups (Huselid and Becker, 2011). KOBW omit consideration of organisational

configuration; Morrison lists ‘organisational structure’ in the contextual factors box but discussesit in the narrow context of how bureaucracy and hierarchy stifle face-to-face upward voice.

Governance structure

On the other side of the roof is governance structure. Every organisation is not only a formal

structure of positions, departments and functions coordinated by a management system but

also a political structure that contains executive, legislative and judicial rule-making and

enforcement functions. All three functions may be performed by a single person, such as theowner/entrepreneur, or may be delegated and decentralised within the organisation, such as

through various voice institutions (e.g. works council, arbitration board). The governance

structure determines decision-making rights, the distribution and exercise of authority andpower, and the rights and responsibilities of subordinates (Kaufman et al., 1995; Rousseau andShperling, 2003; Budd, 2004). It also determines whose interests get included in decision

making, how much influence and participation employees are given, and expresses an

organisation’s ethical values and moral commitments to employees (Van Den Berg, 2004;

Verhezen, 2010). A governance structure consideration omitted by Morrison and KOBW, forexample, is the effect of a shareholder versus stakeholder model of the firm on the amount and

form of employee voice behaviour (presumably more voice in the latter). More generally, both

sets of authors observe that employees are fearful of speaking up to superiors for fear of

retaliation which, presumably, suggests strengthening the governance structure.

One set of writers, such as Burris (2012), follow Morrison and are silent on the governance

subject and instead recommend increased training for managers and employees so the formerare more open to voice and the latter tailor voice to be more constructive and non-threatening

(referred to as ‘high-quality’ voice by Morrison). Another set, such as Takeuchi et al. (2012),

follow KOBW and recommend that managers consider increased protection for employees whouse voice, principally in the form of a grievance or alternative dispute resolution programme.

OB writers in both groups, partly due to their emphasis on individual and direct types of voice,

do not go further and recommend revising the governance system to include a form of

collective/representative voice or greater legal protection, such as an employee council orlegislative just-cause termination requirement. Actually, these topics are ruled out by Morrison

(2011) when she delimits OB research to discretionary behaviours and not formal mechanisms (p.

381) – although later in the article she observes that ‘individuals are more likely to voice . . .where there are structural mechanisms for providing input’ (p. 386).

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A rationale for employee voice going back more than a century is that it balances power in

organisations and introduces democratic elements of representation, participation, influence

and due process into otherwise authoritarian top-down organisations (Webb and Webb, 1897;

Leiserson, 1922; Foley, 2014). Present-day researchers in IR, HR and LE carry forward this

perspective, noting that organisations use different governance structures that provideemployees with varying degrees of power (and empowerment) and opportunities for

individual/collective and informal/formal voice and participation (Gospel and Pendelton,

2010; Lewin, 2014; Willman et al., 2014). Also central is the idea that employment relationshipsinevitably contain conflicts of interest among participants, and workers on moral and ethical

grounds deserve voice to protect and promote their well-being (Budd, 2004; Kaufman, 2005;

Guest, 2008).

Employment relationship

Under the roof is the employment relationship, also called the employee–organisation relationship(Shore et al., 2012). The ER comes into existence when a business owner or managerial agent

hires a person who agrees for a wage or salary to work as directed. The employmentrelationship may include as few as two people or as many as hundreds of thousands.

The employment relationship utilises two alternative coordination modes with, respectively,horizontal and vertical dimensions. One coordinating mode is the labour market where firms

go to get new employees (or return employees no longer needed) and workers go to find jobs.

In the diagram, the labour market is outside the walls of the organisation and the flow of labour

in and out of the firm is depicted by the horizontal arrows. The matching process through

demand and supply establishes a market-wide pattern of wages and other terms and conditionsfor jobs and workers of different characteristics and provides incentives for both parties to live

up to their side of the agreement. For example, dissatisfaction leads to turnover, which imposes

a cost on both firm and the worker.The second coordination mode is the organisation where production takes place and

managers direct employees in the performance of their jobs. Per the organisational

configuration discussion above, most organisations have a hierarchical pyramid structure with

coordination achieved by a vertical command and control process where authority and

decision-making rights are located at the top and through directives and administration arepassed down (or delegated) from managerial order-givers to production worker order-takers.

Employment contract law, earlier known as the law of master and servant, reinforces the

vertical authority/command structure (the downward arrow from authority) by stipulating that

as a condition for keeping the job the employee must faithfully follow the directions and

policies of management. Inside the firm, the visible hand of HRM, rather than the invisible

hand of demand/supply, sets wages and other terms and conditions, recruits, develops andmotivates employees, and monitors and enforces work performance.

Also fundamental to the employment relationship is the incomplete nature of the labour

contract (Simon, 1951; Marsden, 1999; Edwards, 2003). The employer and worker reach anunderstanding, sometimes formally articulated in words or writing, about the contents of the

exchange, such as pay, work hours and job duties, but many aspects are left implicit and filled

in later as the job proceeds. Here originate three important constructs in OB voice theory:

psychological contracts, social exchange and organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs).

Because the labour contract is incomplete, the employer and the employee develop mental beliefs about the expected terms and conditions of the exchange and what each side owes the

other. These expectations involve not only the economic dimensions of the exchange but alsosocial dimensions, such as respect and fair treatment. Social exchange is regulated by a norm





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of reciprocity, and if one side fails to deliver on expectations or obligations the other perceives

a violation of the psychological contract and reduces discretionary contributions (Farndale et al.,

2011). Many discretionary contributions are conceived of as OCBs, such as conscientiousness,

hard work and loyalty. Thus, the incomplete nature of the labour contract provides an

opportunity for employee voice to help solve unanticipated problems and contributeproductive ideas, but employees are only motivated to provide this discretionary extra-role

OCB if managers not only honor their side of the psychological contract but also reciprocate

with extra-role inducements. The end result, if all goes well, is a virtuous win-win – voice helpsfirms perform better and firms reward employees with valued economic/social goods.

Given this outline of the employment relationship, consider implications. To begin, note that

Morrison’s model represents a highly truncated version of an employment relationship. Only

the employee side is represented in Figure 1 as an active agent in the voice process. The model

also omits the labour market half of the ER, and thus the economic part of the exchangeprocess. Indeed, omitted are all external influences on voice that originate outside the walls of

the organisation (none in the Contextual Factors box). To put this feature in perspective, the

parallel situation is if an economist constructed a voice model that includes only markets andthe external environment, and leaves blank in Figure 2 everything inside the walls of theorganisation.

To further accent this lacuna, consider omission of the labour market part of the employment

relationship. Both Morrison and KOBW emphasise that employees choose to provide the

amount/type of voice based on a cognitive evaluation of the benefits/costs of speaking up. Thecosts principally involve negative consequences for the employee from management retaliation,

such as lower performance ratings and being fired. The state of the labour market, say as

measured by unemployment rate in the worker’s local area, is surely an important cost

determinant. For example, if the labour market is strong and many jobs are available, workers

perceive a lower cost of speaking up since if retaliated against they can more easily switchemployers (the exit option); high unemployment, however, tilts employee choice towards

silence (Kaufman, 2014b).

The state of the labour market should, therefore, be included as a context variable in Figure 1

and control variable in empirical studies. Van Dyne and Lepine (1998), for example, perform across-sectional and longitudinal analysis (21 organisations over 6 months) of individual

employee’s voice contributions. Six control variables are used but none pertain to the determi-

nants in the external environment. It seems plausible, however, that if the unemployment rate in

(say) Ohio in 1998 is twice as high as in Nebraska in 1997, the effect should be a lower level of

employee voice – and also lower critical message type – in the former.Going further in seriousness, taking into account external trends in the employment

relationship seriously weaken OB’s social exchange and OCB pillars. HRM writers, for example,frequently argue that markets have become more competitive, thus necessitating the use of

high-performance practices (Kaufman, 2014d). A way to conceptualise this trend is that theexternal labour market (ELM) outside the organisation in Figure 2 is growing larger and more

powerful, while the internal labour market (ILM) inside the firm is growing smaller and

weaker. This result is said to have given rise to a ‘new employment relationship’. Tsui and Wu

(2005: 116) observe, ‘the new employment relationship is a quasi-spot contract . . . Employers. . . are interested primarily in a high level of employee task performance without requiring

commitment . . . Additionally, employees do not expect the employer to provide long-term job

security’.

What are the implications of the new employment relationship for employee voice? First,with the new employment relationship, power shifts in favour of firms and they want less, not

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more, employee voice. Hollowed and shrunken ILMs need less voice to facilitate efficient

management coordination, and likewise spending money to promote voice via a fair and just

workplace becomes an increasingly poor investment as turnover increases and job tenure and

organisational loyalty fall. Second, employees also have less desire for organisational voice in

a more market-mediated employment relationship because they increasingly rely on exit if dissatisfied, correctly realise they can be more quickly and inexpensively replaced if speaking

up irks a manager, and see no pay-off to helping the company with discretionary OCBs when

they are not likely to be around to share in the gains. Finally, the norm of reciprocity uponwhich rests the power of social exchange theory shrinks in lockstep with the disappearance of

employer–employee commitment to cooperate together in a long-term mutual gain

relationship. Following the theoretical insights of Nobel laureates Coase (1937), Simon (1951)

and Williamson (1985), one can package these ideas as an argument that technological change

and market deregulation have lowered transaction cost of using markets, and accordinglyELMs, transactional employment contracts and exit are supplanting ILMs, relational contracts

and voice (Kaufman, 2010, 2013; Willman et al., 2014). Also implied is that social exchange

theory in general, and OCB theory of prosocial voice in particular, have shrinking relevance andexplanatory power.

A focus on the employment relationship provides two other important insights omitted from

OB voice research. Owners of capital only hire employees if doing so is expected to generate

an economic surplus above cost. Employers gain from employee cooperation, therefore, because

the extra discretionary work effort and OCBs increase the surplus and amount available forprofit. However, workers expect a share in return for their contribution, such as provision of

prosocial voice.

OB writers assume this sharing process takes place through the social exchange process and

norm of reciprocity. Omitted, however, are these considerations. First, the reciprocity norm may

be a weak-to-non-existent force in short-term employment relationships or hire/fireemployment systems; when high unemployment makes threat of job loss a cheaper and more

potent cooperation motivator than investing money to build good will and commitment; and

when employers can substitute a technological process for getting discretionary effort (e.g.

electronic surveillance of workers in call centres) in place of a more expensive psychologicalprocess (Marks and Chillas, 2014). Second, employers are incented by competition, financial

markets and self-interest to surplus-share with employees only to the minimal extent it helps

profit; hence, the indeterminacy of the labour contract creates an inherent distributive conflict

over how the larger pie from cooperation is divided (Edwards, 2003). The OB conception of

voice is, in this respect, one-sided and employer-friendly because it restricts the subject to thepie-growing function from cooperation, omits (or denigrates as self-centred and harmful) the

role of voice as a bargaining/influence tool to gain for employees more of the fruits of cooperation, and focuses on the voice type (individual prosocial communication) which is least

powerful for employees and least threatening for firm profit and managerial control. Third, thelabour contract is not only incomplete but also terminable at-will (absent legal restriction),

which gives firms an incentive to opportunistically terminate employees in order to keep more

of the surplus, such as from lay-offs made possible by productivity improvements and culling

out long-service employees close to pension. Employee voice, in this case, serves a protectivefunction and needs muscle to be effective (Holland et al., 2012).

Decision making and voice choice

The next step is to go to the individual employer and employee levels and specify thedecision-making process by which both parties make choices about their desired level and form of





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voice. Decision making and choice are particularly salient theory topics for an OB model of

voice because the focus is on the individual and discretionary behaviour. As Morrison (2011)

states, ‘individuals choose whether or not to engage in this behavior’ (p. 375). Since decision

making is a much-researched subfield within in OB (e.g. the journal Organizational Behavior and

Human Decision Processes), one would expect this dimension of employee voice to be wellarticulated in OB studies. Surprisingly, it is only lightly discussed by Morrison and KOBW and

problematically presented.

The Morrison model can usefully be thought of in a regression equation context:V = β0 + β1CF + β2IF + β3CF·PCE + β4IF·PCE, where V is voice amount, CF is the vector of

variables in the contextual factors box (Figure 1), IF is the vector of factors in the individual

factors box, and PCE is a moderator variable (specified as an interaction term) representing the

factors in, respectively, the perceived costs and efficacy boxes. This representation brings to

attention an anomalous aspect of her model. She states that the primary driving motive behindvoice (p. 382) is a person’s desire to benefit the organisation. This motive is taken as a ‘given’

for the individual, is therefore outside the person’s decision-making process, and hence goes

into the constant term β0 – with the maintained hypothesis β0 > 0. Variation in prosocial motivesacross individuals thus explains part of voice variation through up and down movements inthe intercept of the regression line but explains zero of the discretionary part. A similar problem

applies to the numerous personality traits that both Morrison and KOBW cite as voice

determinants. KOBW, for example, argue that part of voice variation is explained by individual

differences in stable personality traits, such as self-efficacy and proactivity. Like the prosocialmotive, these individual trait differences (constants at the employee level) explain intercept

changes but none of the discretionary variation in voice.

A theory of discretionary voice, therefore, has to include a model, however simple, of human

choice and decision making. Thus, KOBW state that ‘the decision to use voice contains a

significant calculative element’ (p. 323), and likewise Morrison argues that the discretionarypart of voice comes from an ‘expectancy like calculus’ (p. 384) and cites Vroom’s expectancy

theory of motivation.

It seems surprising in light of the strong emphasis in OB on explaining discretionary voice

and the large OB literature on decision making that authors such as Morrison and KOBW givethis subject such cursory and ill-formulated treatment. Of course, the issue is whether the

omission makes a substantive difference for management science and practice on voice. To

provide an affirmative answer, and also point a way forward, Figure 2 outlines elements of a

serviceable model of voice choice, drawing inspiration from models in both IR and LE. Theargument is much less in favour of any particular choice model, however, and much more to

suggest that OB research on voice will remain muddled without some articulated model.

The decision making model in Figure 2 has four elements, briefly described below and withapplications to voice. The model, in the ER tradition, is built on a rational choice foundation

but with behavioural amendments (Kaufman, 1999; Budd, 2004).

Action goal The first component for decision making is specification of each agent’s action goalor end-state objective. This step is important in order to predict choice because it is otherwise

impossible to say if a voice outcome represents a perceived benefit or cost to the decisionmaker. For example, Morrison argues that workers will not provide voice if it is seen as futile

(no benefit), but whether an action is futile depends on the desired outcome. For example,

writing a negative blog post about management or demonstrating outside a store may be futile

for personal job advancement but effective for exposing social injustice. Economic voice modelssolve this problem by including the agent’s diverse end goals (e.g. personal advancement, social

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justice) as variables in a utility function (utility = well-being), specify determinants of each end

goal’s benefits and costs, and derive the equilibrium solution. This choice model can be

modified to incorporate behavioural elements, such as uncertainty, imperfect information and

fairness. Details aside, the salient point is that to explain and predict an employee’s

discretionary voice decision, some assumption has to be made about the goal that motivates behaviour – as is well recognised in OB theories of motivation (e.g. Barrick et al., 2013).

Morrison’s model only includes a role for employee decision making. Surely, however, the

breadth, depth and form of voice are also critically influenced by decisions of managers. To usean apt metaphor from economist Marshall (1890), a model that purports to explain the amount

of voice in organisations but includes only the employee side is akin to trying to cut a piece

of paper with one-bladed scissors. Accordingly, in keeping with the employment relationship

concept in Figure 2, underneath it is included two decision-making parties: the employer (left

side) and employee (right side).Individual well-being is the end goal for employees, but according to Sirmon et al. (2007)

‘[t]he primary pursuit of business is creating and maintaining value’ (p. 273, emphasis added).

Value is multidimensional and firms have numerous goals (Boxall, 2007), but ultimately theytelescope into running the firm efficiently to maximise the capitalised value of profit and returnon capital – of necessity given the role of profit/loss as capitalism’s selection criterion for firm

survival and demise. Figure 2, therefore, lists efficiency and profit as the goal objective for the

employer decision maker. (An objective of higher performance begs the question of how

performance is measured and evaluated.)Here surfaces a hugely important omitted variable in OB voice models: profit-making. Voice

form and amount are explained by individual differences in employee motives and

psychological dispositions, but the financial side of voice is neglected. Illustratively, the word

‘profit’ is not mentioned by either Morrison or KOBW, her diagram excludes financial

determinants of voice, and voice is limited to prosocial forms which by definition benefit firmperformance. But in a business world where companies decide resource investments, including

in people and voice, on the size of the prospective rate of return, how is it possible to accurately

theorise the amount and form of employee voice with attention only to psychology and none

to finance, profit-making and the stock price? Workers in two firms may be identical on everymeasureable psychological trait and disposition, but the voice amount will nonetheless show

large variance and systemic effects if it leads to larger profit in one (e.g. Costco, Southwest) and

lower profit in another (e.g. Walmart, Ryan Air). Likewise, a profit perspective, much more than

a psychological perspective, explains why managers systematically welcome individual and

constructive voice more than collective and confrontational voice (Cullinane and Donaghey,2014).

Benefits and costs The second set of items in the choice process depicted in Figure 2 specifies

the benefits and costs of voice, as subjectively estimated by employer and employee. Theyinclude both pecuniary and psychological-social consequences and are influenced by the

cognitive and affective states emphasised in OB studies. The benefits of voice for an employer,

for example, include improved productivity and a more positive organisational climate, while

the costs include higher wages and diluted authority. For employees, a benefit of voice is higherwages (the mirror image of the cost to the employer) and praise from the boss, while costs are

potential job termination and interpersonal conflict.

To predict behaviour, it is not enough to simply list the benefits and costs in a box-arrow

diagram (e.g. last two boxes in Figure 1). Benefits and costs get explanatory traction as theyinfluence the ability of employee and employer to attain their utility and profit goals. Here





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enters a decision-making insight from economics, which greatly improves the predictive

content of voice theory but is neglected in OB (and HRM). It is the marginal method. Assume

for sake of argument that, in line with OB research, greater employee voice improves firm

financial performance. This finding, however, is surely not open-ended (e.g. 4 hours of

employee voice per day?), yet without the marginal method the optimal stopping point in voicecannot be determined. The decision rule for both employee and employer is similar: increase

voice as long as the marginal gain exceeds the marginal cost and when the two are equal utility

and profit are maximised (Freeman and Kleiner, 2000; Kaufman, 2014b). From this perspective,one reason many firms feature little employee voice is that managers have calculated that it

soon costs more than it brings in.

Strategy Another determinant of choice omitted by Morrison and KOBW is, respectively,

employer and employee strategy (Dundon and Gollan, 2007). In an uncertain and fast-changingenvironment, employers and employees cannot flawlessly peer into the future and foresee the

best route to reach their goals. Hence, they must formulate a strategy. Some employees, for

example, conclude that they are more likely to get ahead by ‘staying under the radar’ andhence will seldom voluntarily offer opinions or voice dissent; others, however, conclude theopposite and use a strategy of using voice to ‘push the envelope’. Others may have little desire

for voice because their career strategy is to acquire human capital by frequently moving from

company to company (Royer et al., 2008). Similarly, one employer may choose a low-cost

strategy to attain competitive advantage, along with a complementary HRM strategy of hire/fire, and therefore desire small-to-little employee voice. A different employer, however,

uses a product quality strategy, along with a high involvement HRM strategy, and hence desires

considerable employee voice (Lepak et al., 2005; Chi et al., 2011). Of an entirely different nature,

an organisation’s strategy towards unions (e.g. hostile vs. accommodative; suppression vs.

substitution) also influences voice amount and form (Cooper and Briggs, 2009; Marginson et al.,2010).

Internal contingencies

Benefits, costs and strategy are not themselves independent variables but mediating variables

influenced by a variety of other factors. Some of these factors are contained in other parts of the model, such as external environment, organisational configuration and governance

structure. Another block of determinants in Figure 2 (not entirely separate) is internal

contingencies, that is, factors internal to the organisation and employee, respectively. A

representative sample of factors for each is identified in the middle box under the roof. Internal

organisational contingencies include, for example, production technology, managerial quality

and organisational culture. Internal employee contingencies include factors such as theworkforce’s psycho-social attitudes towards work and management, knowledge, skills and

abilities, and demographics.

The internal contingencies box of Figure 2 subsumes the factors in the ‘contextual factors’and ‘individual factors’ boxes in Morrison’s diagram, and in this respect is a repackaging rather

than substantive new addition. (The boxes below them on perceived costs and efficacy are

embedded in the decision making boxes of Figure 2.) With respect to the KOBW article, the

internal contingencies listed for the employer in the top part of box is new; that is, KOBW giveconsiderable attention to the role of the employee’s psychological structure (traits, dispositions,

etc.) as voice determinants but mostly omit the firm’s organisational structure (production

technology, organisational configuration). Whether the firm has an assembly line, self-managedteam or bureaucratic form of production surely has as much – probably a great deal more –

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influence on the amount and form of discretionary voice than whether workers are low or high

in self-efficacy and extroversion (i.e. the assertion is that for a one standard deviation in CF and

IF, β1 > β2).

Further, since workers with heterogeneous traits and attitudes sort among firms to find the

best person/job fit, much of the cross-section statistical evidence presented in OB studies ontraits and dispositions as determinants of voice is systematically biased and unreliable. For

example, Crant et al. (2011) find that proactive personality is the strongest predictor of voice.

They inform managers (pp. 294–295):

‘Organizations that rely on employee suggestions as a source of continuous

improvement are advised to identify the extent to which job applicants possess

proactive personality, and to evaluate the proactivity of current employees as part

of promotion decisions . . . [and] as part of a broader selection process’.

Neglected is the fact that the positive effect of proactivity on voice is statistically inflated

because proactive people sort into firms providing more opportunity for voice. The advice that

firms alter selection procedures to target applicants with proactive personalities is also flawed.If this trait is in limited supply and gives firms higher productivity, the workers with this traitgain through demand/supply competition a higher wage – implying that the extra

performance value of the trait brought into the firm through the selection process in the end

accrues not to the firm (higher profit) but the worker (higher wage), as theorised in the

resource-based view of the firm (Barney and Clark, 2007: ch. 2).At this point in Figure 2, the employer and employee, influenced by all the factors and

influences described above, have decided on the amount of individual voice they desire.

Morrison and KOBW effectively end the theory of voice determinants here and proceed to voice

outcomes (the last two boxes in Figure 1). A more integrative and complete model, however,

requires four more parts.

ER climate

Morrison and KOBW mention climate at several places as a contextual and mediating factor,

and in a different article Morrison and colleagues give explicit attention to conceptualising

climate and identifying its effect on voice (Morrison et al., 2011). They say climate as a genericconstruct refers to ‘collective beliefs or perceptions about the practices, behaviors, and activities

that are rewarded and supported in a given work environment’ (p. 184). They then define voice

climate as a two-dimensional construct encapsulating shared beliefs about, respectively,

whether speaking up is safe versus dangerous, and effective versus futile. As noted earlier,

these boxes in Figure 1 are also central to her voice decision making model (utilising Vroom’s

expectancy model of motivation), and thus climate affects voice rather narrowly throughindividual perception of benefits and costs of speaking up.

A climate construct is also used in voice studies in other fields, such as HRM/IR. Pyman et al.

(2010), for example, define IR climate as a subset of organisational climate, and say that it refersto ‘the atmosphere, norms, attitudes and behaviors reflecting and underpinning how workers,

unions, and managers interact collectively with each other in the workplace’ (p. 463). Other

studies equate climate with organisational culture (Clapham and Cooper, 2005) or distinguish a

specific component of organisational culture, such as justice climate (Goldberg et al., 2011).All of these conceptualisations are helpful but also too narrowly tailored to specific voice

dimensions and organisational contexts. Figure 2 introduces a broader conceptualisation, called

ER climate. ER climate is the perceived tenor or ‘good-bad’ quality of relations betweenmanagement and workers in organisations. A way to model the ER climate is to use the ER





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‘four frames of reference’ model (Budd and Bhave, 2008; Kaufman, 2014c). Employment

relationships fall into four categories – market, unitarist, pluralist and critical – based on how

the two sides perceive their relation. End points are 100 per cent conflict/adversary (worst) and

100 per cent cooperation/partner (best). These frame of reference end points create similar ER

climate end points, as indicated in Figure 2. Bad ER climate is associated with the critical frame,good climate with the unitarist frame, and a mix of conflict/cooperation and adversary/partner

with the pluralist frame. [The market frame is not relevant to climate since the employment

relationship is entirely transactional and impersonal (no climate).] The distribution of organisations among these three frames creates a similar frequency distribution of ER climates

(depicted as a bell-shaped curve). This distribution can be further refined by introducing, in

addition to broad frames of reference, alternative employment systems (e.g. simple, machine,

bureaucratic, commitment, adhocracy); also, the distribution changes shape and shifts left/right

in reaction to external and internal contingencies.The hypothesis advanced is that the tenor of ER climate influences the amount and type of

employee voice (Kaufman, 2014c). Since OB studies recognise this link, the contribution made

here is to broaden and generalise it. When viewed against the entire climate frequencydistribution and its determinants, one sees, for example, that the OB field has structured theanalysis to include only-to-mostly voice situations and outcomes in the high-end tail of the ER

climate distribution. KOBW, for example, note that OB studies of prosocial voice posit a

unitarist-type employment relationship featuring mutuality of interests (p. 327), thus helping

create a positive ER climate (top end of the distribution) that, in turn, feeds into higher jobsatisfaction for workers and, via the reciprocity norm, a desire to provide helpful other-related

voice that benefits the organisation.

Morrison et al. (2011) qualify this perspective by noting that some firms have a ‘climate of

silence’. A broad ER model of voice, as in Figure 2, suggests that many firms deliberately engineer

a climate of silence, even if it puts them on the low side of the ER climate distribution, becausea ‘lean and mean’ HR strategy (pay cuts, work intensification, downsizing) is more profitable –

particularly in a short-term finance-driven economy with intense competition – than a long-term

partnership-mutual gain strategy (Cullinane and Donaghey, 2014; Kaufman, 2014d). These

ER-level factors are omitted by Morrison and co-authors, however, and instead they link a climateof silence to the shortcomings of individual leadership style and behaviour. The contrary

hypothesis is that a climate of silence arises not from the shortcomings of individual managers

(although in individual cases it may) but from their strategic decision to tightly control/suppress

voice to restrict employee power resources and keep a lid on unwelcome and potentially costly

complaints and demands – paradoxically, a consideration well recognised in the OB literature onorganisational power (Anderson and Brion, 2014). Illustrative of the unbalanced managerialist

slant in this literature, KOBW devote a section to the ‘dark side of voice’ but does not discuss init managers using coercion to silence employees (Thompson and Harley, 2007; Gall and Dundon,

2013) but workers using voice for revenge, harassment and embarrassment of managers.

Voice system

The next step in the voice model is voice system for employer and employee, respectively. The

employer and employee have made a choice, based on benefits and costs as shaped by strategies,

external contingencies and internal contingencies, regarding their desired level of voice (a behaviour). The level of voice cannot be separated from form and type of voice (a structure),

however, because these dimensions are inextricably connected. In particular, if all of the

enumerated factors cause the employer and employee to desire a high voice workplace, then thetwo sides cannot simply rely on extensive extra-role face-to-face communication, as focused on

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in micro OB studies. Rather, as desire for voice moves from low to high, it necessitates that both

parties to the employment relationship introduce broader and more formalised voice procedures

and structures (Gollan et al., 2014). Wilkinson et al. (2010: 11) conceptualise this idea as an

‘escalator of participation’. Included in this process is transition from individualised and informal

voice procedures, such as direct voice methods of worker–supervisor discussion and open-doordispute resolution, to progressively more formalised and representative voice structures, such as

elected employee plant councils, multi-step arbitration-mediation systems, collective bargaining

and co-determination. Viewed in this light, it seems paradoxical for OB writers to limit voice tothe lowest step of the escalator not only because collective voice forms can benefit firms but also

because individual voice behaviours are readily studied in formal voice structures – as

researchers in employment psychology, industrial sociology and IR teamed up to do more than

a half century ago (Kornhauser et al., 1954). (Morrison’s claim that HRM/IR studies do not study

individual behaviours is a very large caricature – see, for example, Luchak, 2003; Pyman et al.,2010; Marchington and Suter, 2013).

Also, part of individual decision making for both employee and employer is about whether

to keep voice at the person level or expand it to the collective level. This decision goes backto the end objective of voice, benefits and costs, and strategies. Even if voice has only aconstructive organisational improvement goal, it may be more effectively delivered and acted

upon in group form, such as quality circle or company-wide employee council, if production

has significant organisational or knowledge interdependencies. Also affecting the

individual/collective choice are various organisational failures and social traps (Miller, 1991),such as under-supply of individual voice due to the free rider problem and the lack of trust that

the other party would not behave opportunistically (per the prisoner’s dilemma game). Another

important variable affecting employees’ desire for collective voice is perceptions of

organisational fairness (Goldberg et al., 2011) – a variable with a strong psychological

foundation but not listed in the Morrison voice model.Particularly salient to the individual/collective voice decision, but omitted from OB studies,

is the distributive pie-sharing and ‘muscle’ element. Worker voice is able to exert more

influence and power as it is collectively organised, and thus provides workers with more

effective say, protection and leverage over work terms and conditions. Employers, therefore,may find a productivity advantage from expanding voice up the escalator to a collective level

but nonetheless keep voice at a low level from dual fears. The first fear (Freeman and Lazear,

1995; Marsden and Cañibano, 2010; Kaufman, 2014b) is that collective voice at some point starts

to raise costs and reduce profit by giving employees more ability to improve wages, job security

and work conditions (i.e. pie-sharing starts to dominate pie-growing); the second is that givingworkers training in and access to collective voice may backfire and lead them to want even

stronger voice in the firm of an independent union with collective bargaining (Timur et al.,2011). These dual costs to employers have been identified as major reasons why voice is

systematically under-supplied in workplaces, evidenced in survey data that show that a large‘participation–representation gap’ exists within and across nations (Freeman et al., 2007). The

costs to firms in profit and managerial control have also been linked to empirical findings that

managers retaliate against employees who voice a complaint, file a grievance or express a desire

for a union (Gall and Dundon, 2013; Lewin, 2014).

Voice demand and supply

The confluence of all of these considerations in Figure 2 leads employer and employee(s) to

formulate decisions about desired amount, form and type of voice. The employer’s desiredamount is labelled voice demand in the diagram, and the employees’ decision, both individual





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and collective, is labelled voice supply. (Alternatively, employers can be depicted as supplying

and employees demanding voice; the two views are opposite sides of the same coin.) In a

non-union firm with no formal voice structure, voice on the employee side is scattered and

informal; as the firm establishes more formal involvement and participation structures, the

employees’ voice is increasingly aggregated, centralised and formalised, such as in a workscouncil, collective bargaining and co-determination.

For a variety of collective action and organisational failure reasons, the sum of individual

demands and supplies that go into the voice system boxes may not aggregate to the amountsthat come out in expressed demand and supply. For example, individual plant managers may

see the performance advantage of voice, but the corporate chief financial officer sees mostly the

expense side and uses his/her superior power to nix it. In a similar way, labour unions, such

as through a median voter process, aggregate the voices of individual workers, and some voices

therefore get more weight than others (Kaufman, 2012).

Adjustment-interaction process

One last step is required. The organisation’s demand for voice usually differs from theemployee(s)’ desired supply in terms of amount, form and type. This divergence alsocharacterises other items in the employment contract, such as wages, work speed and schedule

flexibility. Accordingly, these dual preferences for voice have to be adjusted, negotiated and

reconciled into a single amount, perhaps in writing as part of a formal agreement, or more

likely as an implicit understanding in a psychological contract.

This adjustment-interaction process takes place through a variety of methods. Workers may exita low-voice organisation and take a job at a high-voice organisation; at the same time, the

low-voice firms come under pressure to increase voice supply due to expensive turnover and

desire to not increase wages to fill empty positions (Riordan et al., 2005). In these examples, the

labour market helps coordinate voice demand and supply. Actions by company managers and behaviour changes by employees are an alternative method. Workers who feel dissatisfied, for

example, provide low voice, and other OCBs and managers react by identifying and correcting

the sources of dissatisfaction, which then encourage more voice. On the other hand, if managers

do not respond, then dissatisfied workers have other options, such as organising a union forcollective bargaining (Timur et al., 2011), or electoral politics and street protests to pressure

government to mandate more workplace voice.

A variety of channels, therefore, help match the organisation’s voice demand with its

employees’ voice supply. As earlier indicated, however, empirical studies find that on average

workers want more voice and influence than firms provide, suggesting that the equilibratingprocess is slow and only partially successful (Freeman et al., 2007). This finding also suggests

that when employer and employee voice preferences do not match, it is the employer’spreference that typically predominates and employees bear the gap (employees are on the ‘long

side’ of the voice market). The size of the voice gap depends on relative power positions andseriousness of market and organisational failures (Kaufman, 2014b). Although the different

contingencies in Figure 2 appear to typically favour employers, in some situations the power

position favours employees and they effectively set the level of voice. An example is a strong

union bargaining with a small firm.

Voice outcome

Out of the interaction of employer and employees in the employment relationship, conditioned

by numerous external and internal contingencies, emerges at the bottom of the diagram theamount, form and type of employee voice. Voice, in turn, travels back through feedback loops to

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affect higher parts of the model (e.g. management decision making, the national legislative

process) in a recursive adjustment process, indicated by the upward arrows.

Voice is the dependent variable and can be conceptualised as a low-high frequency

distribution, with individual/informal/cooperative voice at one end and collective/

formal/adversarial voice at the other. An empirical example is the frequency distribution of voice forms, ranging from ‘no formal voice’ to ‘union voice’, provided by the WERS (Work

Employment Relations Survey) data set for Great Britain (Willman et al., 2009) and depicted in

Kaufman (2014b,c). The purpose of theorising is to identify the factors that determine thematrix of employee voice characteristics, its variation in a cross-section or over time, economic

and social outcomes, and feedback effect of voice on higher order parts of the model (two

upward arrows). Consistent with this perspective, Morrison (2011) states that the research goal

is ‘identifying factors that increase or decrease the amount of voice that an employee engages in’

(p. 385, emphasis added), and KOBW claim that their integrative review ‘allows for us toexplore the different factors that have been found to inhibit or encourage forms of workplace

voice’ (p. 322, emphasis added).

The central point of critique is that these OB studies frame employee voice in an overlyconstricted manner and model voice with numerous omitted variables and mis-specified causalrelationships. The end product is a voice model with low R-square, biased coefficients and poor

predictive performance in research, and a paucity of actionable, reliable and quantitatively

significant managerial implications. A revealing indicator is trying to use the OB model to

understand, predict and improve employee voice in real-life organisations. Other fields, suchas IR and HRM (e.g. Gollan et al., 2014), feature many case studies on voice with concrete action

points for managers. OB research, on the other hand, features an ever-expanding set of

psychological constructs with complex statistical analysis of survey data sets (frequently

obtained from students) to explain voice but with little illustration or evidence from case

studies (e.g. no case studies are discussed by Morrison, KOBW or Brinsfield, 2014).

CONCLUSION

Huselid and Becker (2011) recently observed that ‘[a] significant divide between the micro andmacro levels of theory and analysis is evident in many areas of the organizational sciences’, and

concluded that ‘the consequences of this trend can be unfortunate’ (p. 421). This article has been

a case study of both propositions with respect to the subject of employee voice. Specialisation

and division of labour are productive in all areas of life, including academic research onemployee voice. The OB side of voice research, however, has carried specialisation too far with

the result its models and empirical studies are truncated entities inhabiting a narrow

psychological, individualist, managerialist and scholastic silo having little contact with forcesand ideas in the larger outside world, research in other voice-related fields, or the practice of employee voice in real-life organisations. In order for this article to be not just critical voice, I

have also sketched the basic building blocks for a more integrative model combining micro and

macro dimensions in the spirit of the broad and inclusive field of ER.

Notes

1. Also see Morrison (2014) – a modestly different but complementary survey article on voicewhich the author learned of only after this article had gone through the review process and

was in close-to-final form. The most important difference between the two articles regarding

theorisation of voice is that she modestly reconfigures the diagrammatic model (Figure 1 in both articles) so the box ‘Motive to Help the Organisation’, which is independently repre-





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sented in the earlier article, is made one of three elements in a ‘Motivators’ box in the later

article. Since the two articles are quite similar in terms of substance, no significant inaccuracy

is introduced by restricting focus only to Morrison (2011).

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