Should I Speak Up? How Supervisory Communication, Team Culture, and Team Relationships Determine Employees’ Voice Behavior

Abstract

The extent to which employees convey or withhold useful information has important implications for organizational effectiveness. Nevertheless, employee voice is under-researched in the public relations literature. Grounded in social exchange theory and internal communication literature, the current study addressed this research gap by arguing that leaders’ communication style plays a pivotal role in employee voice behavior. Drawing data from the U.S. ( N = 441) and India ( N = 354), this study tests a normative model linking leaders’ motivating language, team culture, employee-team relationships, and employees’ voice behavior. Notably, in both samples, motivating language was positively related to a healthy team culture, which in turn, is positively associated with employees’ relationship quality with their working unit, and ultimately, employees’ voice. The Indian sample showed similar patterns as the U.S. sample, except that there was no direct relationship between leader motivating language and employee voice for the Indian sample.