Employer-Sponsored Voice Practices in South Korea: When do Employees Believe it Is Worth Speaking up?

Abstract

In South Korea, traditional indirect voice mechanisms are being replaced by formal direct voice mechanisms controlled by employers: employer-sponsored voice practices (ESVPs). This creates an opportunity to encourage employees to speak up about issues related to their work; however, the mere presence of ESVPs tells us little about how employees experience these management practices. Building from signaling theory, we develop a multilevel employee voice process model to investigate how an organization's ESVPs are associated with employees' perceived ESVPs and, in turn, employee perceptions of voice efficacy and voice safety. We suggest that this process is further moderated by the organizational climate for employee participation. A cross-level investigation of employee voice perceptions involving 476 employees across 22 organizations in South Korea was conducted. The results show that organizational ESVPs are indirectly positively related to employee perceptions of voice efficacy via perceived ESVPs, while the same pattern was not found for employee perceptions of voice safety. The results further demonstrate a moderation effect of participative climate on the relationship between perceived ESVPs and employee perceptions of both voice efficacy and safety. The findings have important implications for both employee voice theory and practice.