Speaking up at Work: The Impact of Voice Endorsement and Supervisor Justice on Employee Emotions and Work Outcomes

Abstract

Though early voice research generally cast the supervisor as both the recipient of voice and the one responsible for facilitating it, recent scholarship has begun to explore the supervisors’ role in responding to voice and reasons why they may or may not endorse it. The present study explores the employee outcomes of supervisor voice endorsement decisions, which may be particularly crucial in situations where the supervisor is unable to endorse the voiced issue. Drawing from fairness theory and affective events theory, we examine the impact of voice endorsement, supervisor justice, and employee discrete emotions on behavioral intentions of the voicer. Across two experimental studies, we find that informational justice and interpersonal justice mitigate the negative effects of non-endorsed voice on employees’ behavioral intentions. We also find that the impact of voice endorsement on behavioral intentions occurs through employees’ discrete emotions, particularly anger and pride. These findings begin to address an understudied phenomenon, which is how employees react, and how supervisors can encourage future voice, especially when voice is not endorsed.