say it as it is: consequences of voice directness, voice politeness...

Say It as It Is: Consequences of Voice Directness, Voice Politeness, andVoicer Credibility on Voice Endorsement

Chak Fu LamCity University of Hong Kong

Cynthia LeeNortheastern University

Yang SuiUniversity of Science and Technology Beijing

To gain endorsement from their managers, should employees be direct with explicit change suggestions,or should they be indirect with questions and hints? We draw on psychological threat and communicationclarity theories to offer competing hypotheses with respect to the association between voice directnessand managerial endorsement. We then further draw from social judgment research to theorize whetherthe relationship between voice directness and managerial endorsement might be modified by voicerpoliteness and voicer credibility. The results of an experimental study and two field studies show thatbeing direct about change-oriented suggestions is associated with more frequent managerial endorsementwhen voicers are credible (Studies 1 and 2 in the United States) or polite (Study 3 in China). We discussimplications of these findings, limitations, and directions for future research.

Keywords: managerial endorsement, voice directness, voicer credibility, voicer politeness

“Holding to your opinion is important. . . . I would say it as it is.”—Vice President for Global Diversity, multinational company

(Baxter, 2008, p. 211)

Employee voice involves upward communication of ideas andsuggestions intended to benefit one’s workgroup or the organiza-tion (Liang, Farh, & Farh, 2012; Morrison, 2011; Van Dyne &LePine, 1998). Scholars have argued that increased employeevoice leads to more effective decision making (LePine & VanDyne, 1998), better error detection (Morrison & Milliken, 2000),and a greater ability for organizations to adapt to competitivebusiness environments (Dutton & Ashford, 1993; Floyd &Wooldridge, 1994). Empirical studies further show that voice is

associated with enhanced team learning (Edmondson, 2003), betterdecision making (Nemeth, Connell, Rogers, & Brown, 2001),improved work processes and innovation (Argyris & Schon,1978), better team safety (Li, Liao, Tangirala, & Firth, 2017), andstronger group performance (Behfar, Peterson, Mannix, & Tro-chim, 2008; Frazier & Bowler, 2015; Lam & Mayer, 2014; Li etal., 2017). These benefits appear especially likely when voicers(i.e., people who speak up) occupy more central positions in a team(Li, Zhao, Walter, Zhang, & Yu, 2015), when they share theirvoice with managers rather than peers (Detert, Burris, Harrison, &Martin, 2013), when they exhibit low trait voice dominance or hightrait reflectiveness (Sherf, Sinha, Tangirala, & Awasty, 2018), orwhen teams exhibit affiliative citizenship behaviors (MacKenzie,Podsakoff, & Podsakoff, 2011).

Given the desirable effects of voice for organizations, a prepon-derance of voice research focuses on the antecedents that canpromote or hinder voice engagement (Chamberlin, Newton, &LePine, 2017; Farh & Chen, 2018; Hussain, Shu, Tangirala, &Ekkirala, 2018; LePine & Van Dyne, 1998; Morrison, 2014), withless attention paid to differences in how voice is expressed andwhether the way it is expressed matters. As Morrison (2011, p.399) notes, “voice literature has conceptualized voice as a dichot-omous choice and has not focused very much on employees’choices about how to voice their views or concerns.” An employeewho has a suggestion that might challenge a manager’s authoritybut that could benefit the organization has a choice to make. Togain endorsement, should this employee be direct with explicitchange suggestions, or should the employee adopt an indirectapproach by using questions and hints? We seek to answer thisquestion by investigating how characteristics of the message(voice directness) and the source (voicer politeness and voicercredibility) might combine to influence managerial endorsement,

This article was published Online First November 8, 2018.Chak Fu Lam, Department of Management, City University of Hong

Kong; Cynthia Lee, Department of Management and Organizational De-velopment, Northeastern University; Yang Sui, Department of BusinessAdministration, Donlinks School of Economics & Management, Univer-sity of Science and Technology Beijing.

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant 71502012) to Yang Sui. We thank Sue Ashford, Scott DeRue, GretchenSpretizer, Rick Bagozzi, and Frank Yates from the University of Michigan fortheir insightful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. We are also grateful toChaim Letwin, Jennifer Dinger, Katrina Graham, Matt Karlesky, Sheila Web-ber, Laurie Levesque, and other participants of the Suffolk University BrownBag Series. We express sincere gratitude to participants at the Israel Organi-zational Behavior Conference for their feedback.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Yang Sui,Department of Business Administration, Donlinks School of Economics &Management, University of Science and Technology Beijing, 30 XueyuanRoad, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China. E-mail: [email protected]

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Journal of Applied Psychology© 2018 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 104, No. 5, 642–6580021-9010/19/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000358

642

mailto:[email protected]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000358

defined as the extent to which managers endorse, accept, or pos-itively receive a subordinate’s voiced suggestion (Baer & Brown,2012; Burris, 2012; Burris, Rockmann, & Kimmons, 2017).

Existing theory about the association between managerial en-dorsement and voice directness, or the explicitness with which anidea or suggestion is conveyed (Ayres, 1983; Blum-Kulka, 1987;Waldron, 1991; Weingart, Behfar, Bendersky, Todorova, & Jehn,2015), features two competing perspectives. On the one hand, apsychological threat perspective suggests that voice expressed in adirect manner challenges managers’ status and authority, makingthem feel vulnerable and defensive (Burris, 2012). Thus managersmight reject voice expressed in a direct manner. On the other hand,a communication clarity perspective (Grice, 1975; Weingart et al.,2015) suggests that voice expressed in a direct manner improvesmessage clarity, helps managers focus on the proposed ideas, andfacilitates the exchange of information relevant to the expressedideas, resulting in higher levels of managerial endorsement. Notingthese competing perspectives, we examine whether the effect ofvoice directness on managerial endorsement is positive or nega-tive. In doing so, we draw from two disciplines (e.g., organiza-tional behavior and communication) to facilitate our understandingof how employees express voice.

Another goal for this study is to deepen understanding of therelationship between voice directness and managerial endorsementby considering how managers’ judgments of voicers might act asa moderator. According to social judgment theory (Cuddy, Glick,& Beninger, 2011; Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953), people’sbehaviors toward a target are governed by their judgments of thetarget’s warmth (e.g., friendliness, kindness) and competence (e.g.,intelligence, skills). Therefore, we propose that both voicer polite-ness (a proxy for warmth) and voicer credibility (a proxy forcompetence) interact with voice directness to influence managerialendorsement. Specifically, voicer politeness, defined as the extentto which voicers use mannerly, courteous, and respectful languagewhen they express voice (Blum-Kulka, 1987, 1990; Brown &Levinson, 1987), should signal that the direct voice is driven by anintention to benefit the organization. As a result, managerial en-dorsement should be more positive when employees express voicein a direct and polite manner, compared with a direct and impolitemanner. In addition, voicer credibility, defined as the extent towhich employees appear competent and knowledgeable (Ferris,Blass, Douglas, Kolodinsky, & Treadway, 2003), can signal tomanagers that the content of the voice is useful and constructive.Thus, voice expressed in a direct manner should be associated withgreater managerial endorsement when the voicer is more credible.By integrating social judgment theory in a model of the interactionbetween message characteristics (voice directness) and sourcecharacteristics (voicer politeness and voicer credibility), we ad-vance research that has focused separately on either characteristicsof the message (Burris et al., 2017; Piderit & Ashford, 2003) orindividual characteristics (Burris, Detert, & Romney, 2013; Whit-ing, Maynes, Podsakoff, & Podsakoff, 2012) to predict voiceoutcomes. Finally, we test our hypotheses in two cultural con-texts—the United States and China—to determine whether andhow culture might influence the interaction of directness withpoliteness and credibility and the resulting outcomes in terms ofmanagerial endorsement. We summarize our theoretical model inFigure 1.

Theory Development and Hypotheses

Voice Directness

The concept of directness has appeared in multiple researchstreams. For example, Waldron (1991) indicates that subordinatesuse direct tactics, such as explicitly telling supervisors how theyexpect to be treated at work and offering straightforward opinions.Likewise, communication studies also suggest that people vary inthe amount of directness they use to exit a conversation, rangingfrom indirect tactics (e.g., hints) to direct tactics (e.g., departureannouncements; Kellermann & Park, 2001). Morrison (2011) alsoposits that employees might speak more directly or indirectly,depending on their status in the organization, their trust in theirmanager, and the amount of challenge their voice entails.

Based on past research, we define voice directness as the ex-plicitness that employees use to express their voice. Voice that isexpressed directly means that the employee conveys suggestionsexplicitly, makes it clear what he or she thinks should be done, anduses explicit statements about what needs to be changed. In con-trast, when voice is expressed less directly, the employee conveysan idea implicitly, using hints and reflective questions (Brett,2000) to signal that an issue exists, but does not state explicitlywhat the issue is, who or which party is responsible for it, or howthat issue might be addressed. Such indirectness does not meanthat the voice is not expressed; it is simply expressed less directly.

Competing Perspectives on the Relationship of VoiceDirectness and Managerial Endorsement

Psychological threat perspective. According to existing re-search on voice, managers feel threatened when subordinates ex-press change-oriented ideas, because suggestions to change exist-ing procedures represent potential criticisms of the manager(Burris, 2012; LePine & Van Dyne, 1998). This threat should beespecially salient because the source of such threat originates fromsomeone who is internal (Menon, Thompson, & Choi, 2006) andwho occupies a hierarchically lower position (i.e., subordinate).When managers perceive these situations as threats, they sufferrestricted information processing or a loss of control (Staw, San-delands, & Dutton, 1981), leading them to respond defensively(Burris, 2012). Based on this argument, we posit that when em-ployees express voice in a direct manner, managers might sense achallenge to their authority, competence, or status, prompting themto react more defensively. In contrast, voice expressed in anindirect manner is less likely to induce psychological defensive-ness among managers, because employees avoid stating directly

Figure 1. Conceptual model of voice directness.

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643VOICE DIRECTNESS AND MANAGERIAL ENDORSEMENT

who is responsible for the issue (e.g., the manager) or implyingthat the manager is incompetent or incapable. As a result, manag-ers do not view indirect voice as a threat, resulting in higher levelsof managerial endorsement.

Communication clarity perspective. A communication clar-ity perspective instead suggests a positive association betweenvoice directness and managerial endorsement. Directness ensuresthat the message is clear, the suggestion is unambiguous, and theproposal for change is obvious (Brett, Behfar, & Sanchez-Burks,2014; Weingart et al., 2015). The voice recipient thus may under-stand better how the change relates to him or her and what theassociated recommendations entail (Janz, Colquitt, & Noe, 1997;Ury, Brett, & Goldberg, 1993). When employees express an ideain a direct manner, they convey sufficient, accessible, and unam-biguous information, so the manager does not need to makeassumptions or seek additional information. This manager candevote cognitive resources to understanding the issue, accessingrelevant information, scrutinizing the idea, drawing inferences, andderiving an overall evaluation. Such elaboration of ideas mayincrease the likelihood that the suggestion will be understood andintegrated into managers’ cognition, thereby increasing thechances of managerial endorsement. In contrast, indirect voicefeatures hints and reflective questions, such that managers mustdevote effort to discerning the importance of an issue. That is, theyhave to expend cognitive resources to fully understand the em-ployee’s request, rather than considering whether and how toexecute the change. Thus, managerial endorsement may diminishwhen voice is expressed in an indirect manner. Indirect support forthis perspective comes from Oc, Bashshur, and Moore (2015), whofound that when individuals express candid opinion to power-holders about their unfair resource allocation in the past, thepower-holders are more likely to reduce their self-interested allo-cations over time.

Based on these two competing perspectives, we offer the fol-lowing competing hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a: Voice directness is negatively associated withmanagerial endorsement.

Hypothesis 1b: Voice directness is positively associated withmanagerial endorsement.

Moderating Role of Social Judgment: VoicerPoliteness and Voicer Credibility

Beyond examining these two competing perspectives, we positthat the relationship between voice directness and managerialendorsement might depend on the characteristics of the voicers. Asnoted previously, social judgment theory suggests that peoplejudge a target’s warmth and competence, then use those judgmentsto determine how they will behave toward the target (Cuddy et al.,2011; Hovland et al., 1953; Wojciszke, 1994). We use voicers’politeness and credibility as proxies for source warmth and com-petence, respectively, and predict their moderating effects.

Moderating effect of voicer politeness. Research suggeststhat perceptions of warmth signal whether a speaker has positive ornegative intentions (Cuddy et al., 2011). When a speaker isfriendly, courteous, and respectful, a recipient likely infers that thisperson has positive intentions, prompting open-mindedness and

positive reactions (Brown & Levinson, 1987). In contrast, when aspeaker is rude and disrespectful, the recipient likely infers nega-tive intentions or a motivation to harm. Consistent with this rea-soning, physicians who express more respect toward patients areless likely to be sued (Ambady et al., 2002). Likewise, creativitystudies also indicate that radical ideas are more likely to gainendorsement when they are described in considerate and friendlytones (Sijbom, Janssen, & Van Yperen, 2015). For our investiga-tion of voice directness, we propose that employees can expresstheir voice more or less directly and with more or less politeness.When employees express voice directly and politely, they sharetheir ideas in an explicit manner and also employ respectfullanguage, such as greetings (“Dear . . .,” “Good morning”), inclu-sive activity descriptions (“We should do this” versus “You shoulddo this”), polite adjuncts (“Please”; Morand, 1996), or positivetones that signal respect (LaPlante & Ambady, 2003). Likewise,employees may express voice indirectly with more or less polite-ness. For example, they may use hints with high levels of polite-ness that feature respectful language. Alternatively, they mayexpress voice indirectly but avoid respectful language, such as byrelying on irony (Brown & Levinson, 1987).

Drawing from social judgment theory, we predict that voicerpoliteness moderates the relationship between voice directness andmanagerial endorsement. We again turn to the competing perspec-tives on voice directness and managerial endorsement to derivetwo alternative hypotheses. First, when employees express voicedirectly and impolitely, the suggestions may be explicit, but thelanguage or tones convey disrespect. A psychological threat per-spective suggests that this impoliteness leads managers to perceivedirect voice as challenge to his or her authority or even harmfulintent. In response, managers likely grow defensive, resulting inlower levels of managerial endorsement. In contrast, when em-ployees express voice directly and politely, managers should per-ceive the suggestion as evidence of helping intentions, rather thanchallenging their authority. Therefore, the negative effect of directvoice on managerial endorsement may be mitigated when voice isexpressed directly and politely.

Second, according to the communication clarity perspective,employees who voice suggestions in a direct and polite mannersignal that they are offering these explicit suggestions with theintention to help the organization. As a result, managers should bemore open to their proposed ideas and channel their attentiontoward the explicitly conveyed suggestions, leading to increasedmanagerial endorsement. In contrast, impoliteness may divertmanagers’ attention from the suggestion, because they becomedistracted and disturbed by the lack of respect shown by employ-ees. Even when voice is expressed in a direct manner, its positiveeffect on managerial endorsement should be attenuated by a lackof politeness. Accordingly, we propose the two following hypoth-eses:

Hypothesis 2a: The association between voice directness andmanagerial endorsement is moderated by voicer politeness,such that the association is less negative when the voicer ismore polite.

Hypothesis 2b: The association between voice directness andmanagerial endorsement is moderated by voicer politeness,such that the association is more positive when the voicer ismore polite.

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644 LAM, LEE, AND SUI

Moderating effect of voicer credibility. Voicer credibilitysignals whether an employee’s ideas are likely to be useful or con-structive. Employees with better reputations are perceived as morelegitimate and trustworthy (Gioia & Sims, 1983; Hochwarter, Ferris,Zinko, Arnell, & James, 2007; Ostrom, 2003; Posner, 1997). Studiesof social influence also suggest that an audience is more likely to bepersuaded by a credible speaker, even when the content is identical(Hovland & Weiss, 1951). Whiting et al. (2012) showed that voiceraised by a more credible source tends to be perceived as moreconstructive, resulting in better performance evaluations of thatvoicer.

Drawing from existing research on credibility, we again developtwo predictions, reflecting the psychological threat and communi-cation clarity perspectives. First, from a psychological threat per-spective, when voicers have low levels of credibility, managerscould risk damaging their own reputation if they were to acceptideas from them (Ashford, Rothbard, Piderit, & Dutton, 1998),because ideas raised by less credible employees are likely lessconstructive. In contrast, when voicers have higher levels of cred-ibility, managers are not exposed to risk of damage to their ownreputation even if they accept ideas that these credible employeesexpress in a direct manner, because their ideas tend to be usefuland valuable. The negative effect of voice directness on manage-rial endorsement should be mitigated when the voicer is morecredible.

Second, a communication clarity perspective suggests that voiceexpressed in a direct manner should be associated more positivelywith managerial endorsement when the voicers are perceived ascredible. Credibility serves as a signal about which employeesdeserve managers’ attention. When voicers are credible, the voiceexpressed in a direct manner should prompt managers to channeltheir attention toward what credible voicers have to say. In con-trast, ideas or suggestions raised by less credible employees areunlikely to attract managers’ attention. Therefore, even if theyexpress their voice directly, the positive effect of voice directnesson managerial endorsement should be mitigated. In accordancewith these two perspectives, we offer the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3a: The association between voice directness andmanagerial endorsement is moderated by voicer credibility,such that the association is less negative when the voicer ismore credible.

Hypothesis 3b: The association between voice directness andmanagerial endorsement is moderated by voicer credibility,such that the association is more positive when the voicer ismore credible.

Overview of Studies

We conducted two pilot studies, an experiment, and two fieldstudies to test these hypotheses. The two pilot studies (a) examinethe basic assumption that voice directness and voice behavior areempirically distinct constructs and (b) test the validity of ourexperimental manipulations, which use a vignette adapted fromBurris (2012). In Study 1, we use the experimental materials fromthe pilot studies to examine the basic effects in a controlled settingand establish internal validity. Then in Study 2, we collect weeklysurveys to trace how employees speak up and whether managersendorse or reject their voice. With this weekly, episodic-level

study, we gain insights into whether employees vary their levels ofvoice directness, as well as how such variation might interact withvoicer politeness and voicer credibility to influence managerialendorsement. Finally, Study 3 uses a two-wave, time-lagged in-vestigation to determine whether our findings can be replicated ina different cultural setting, namely, China. Pilot Studies 1 and 2and Studies 1 and 3 all received human subject approval underInstitutional Review Board #836995 (Voice Directness) at SuffolkUniversity. Study 2 received human subject approval under Insti-tutional Review Board #00063713 (Project Title: Voice at work:How People Speak Up to their Manager) at University of Michi-gan.

Pilot Study 1: Distinction Between Voice Behavior andVoice Directness

With Pilot Study 1, we seek evidence of the empirical distinc-tion between voice behavior and voice directness by examiningwhether participants perceive a recommendation in low versushigh directness conditions. If participants identify a recommenda-tion even when it is expressed indirectly, voice behavior and voicedirectness are empirically distinct. Yet if participants only perceivethat a recommendation has been made in the high, not in the low,directness condition, voice behavior and voice directness might beidentical constructs (i.e., voice expressed indirectly is not actuallyvoice).

Method

Participants. We recruited 150 participants from AmazonMechanical Turk (Mturk) to take part in a vignette experiment inexchange for $1.50. As Oppenheimer, Meyvis, and Davidenko(2009) recommend, we included an attention check item, such thatparticipants had to click a “Strongly disagree” box, to ensure theywere paying attention. Seven participants did not pass the attentioncheck item and were removed from the analyses (95.3% responserate). Among the remaining 143 participants, 50.3% were women.Their mean age was 38.41 years (SD � 12.07), and most (93.7%)were employed and had been working for their current companyfor an average of 7.48 years (SD � 7.17). In terms of education,25.2% had a high school diploma or equivalent, 59.5% had anassociate’s or bachelor’s degree, 11.9% had a master’s degree, and3.5% had a doctoral or professional degree.

Design and procedure. After obtaining informed consent, weasked participants to read a vignette, adapted from Burris (2012),involving the design and implementation of new bus routes for atransportation services company. In the high directness condition,participants read the following vignette (the underlined phrases areincluded for emphasis):

Several days before the new routes would start, during your weeklystaff meeting with all of your bus drivers and maintenance crewmembers, Brandon, your maintenance scheduler, raised his hand andasked to address a concern with your new plan. He proceeded to telleveryone that he was not sure your proposal would work because youhad not allotted enough time for the daily bus maintenance, scheduledbreaks (fueling, cleaning the bus, breaks for the drivers, etc.), andmonthly maintenance (changing the oil, checking the brakes, enginetune-ups, etc.). Because of this lack of maintenance, he insisted thatwithin a month the buses would begin to experience significant

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problems with increasing regularity, with costs soaring within threemonths. The maintenance scheduler then proposed a new plan thatcalled for more maintenance time and personnel.

In the low directness condition, participants read:

Several days before the new routes would start, during your weeklystaff meeting with all of your bus drivers and maintenance crewmembers, Brandon, your maintenance scheduler, raised his hand. Hehinted that the team was having maintenance time and personnelissues, and wondered what would happen to some of the buses andtheir costs within the next three months. He then proceeded to askwhat everyone thought about the new plan, regarding the daily busmaintenance and scheduled breaks (fueling, cleaning the bus, breaksfor the drivers, etc.) and monthly maintenance routine (changing theoil, checking the brakes, engine tune-ups, etc.). During the conversa-tion, the maintenance scheduler made statements about how the teamare currently short of staff and often run out of maintenance time.Finally, he pondered as to whether the new route plan would needfurther discussions.

After reading one of these two descriptions, participants an-swered the question: “What is Brandon’s recommendation?” Fi-nally, they provided demographic information.

Results and Discussion

We asked two organizational behavior doctoral students whowere familiar with the concept of voice to code participants’written responses regarding whether Brandon had made a recom-mendation (1 � “Brandon made a recommendation,” 0 � “Bran-don did not make a recommendation”). The two coders initiallyagreed on 130 responses (86.1%); they resolved any disagreementsthrough discussion, together with the first author, after which weachieved 100% agreement. All but two participants (2.7%) in thehigh directness condition recognized Brandon’s recommendation.In the low directness condition, 14 participants (of 75, 18.6%)indicated that Brandon did not recommend anything but simplyexpressed concern with respect to the proposed bus route. Thesequalitative data suggest that the majority (81.3%) of participants inthe low directness condition recognized that Brandon had made arecommendation. Voice behavior and voice directness thus appearempirically distinct.

Pilot Study 2: Creating Scenarios for Directness,Politeness, and Credibility

In Pilot Study 2, we (a) use an existing measure of voice tofurther investigate whether voice behavior and voice directness areempirically distinct constructs, and (b) seek to create voice sce-narios that can manipulate all our study variables successfully.

Method

Participants. We recruited 293 participants from Mturk, sepa-rate from Pilot Study 1, to complete an online survey in exchange for$1.50. Twenty-one participants did not pass the attention check,resulting in a final sample of 272 participants (92.8% response rate).Among these participants, 48.5% were women. Their mean age was35.34 years (SD � 9.46), and the majority of them (92.3%) werecurrently employed and had been working for their current companyfor an average of 5.83 years (SD � 5.16). In terms of education,

34.2% had a high school diploma or equivalent, 53.7% had anassociate’s or bachelor’s degree, 9.9% had a master’s degree, and2.2% had a doctoral or professional degree.

Design and procedure. Participants were randomly assigned toone of the 2 (low versus high voice directness) � 2 (low versus highvoicer politeness) � 2 (low versus high voicer credibility) between-subjects conditions. Before the vignette, participants read about Bran-don’s credibility, followed by a manipulation check measure of voicercredibility. Participants then proceeded to read the vignette that ma-nipulated voice directness and voicer politeness, followed by therelevant manipulation check measures. Next, we asked participants tocomplete a measure of voice behavior (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998).Finally, we collected demographic information.

For the manipulation of voice directness, the descriptions were thesame as those in Pilot Study 1. For the manipulation of voicerpoliteness, we added a word to the sentence “the maintenance sched-uler then proposed a new plan that called for more maintenance timeand personnel” (high directness condition) and “The maintenancescheduler made statements about how the team is currently short ofstaff” (low directness condition), such that in the high voice politenesscondition, we included “respectfully,” but in the low voicer politenesscondition, we added “disrespectfully.” For the manipulation of voicercredibility, the high voicer credibility condition included a line thatread, “Brandon is an experienced maintenance scheduler who is anexpert in what he does. He has a reputation of producing the highestlevels of performance.” The low voicer credibility condition insteadindicated, “Brandon is a new maintenance scheduler who is a novicein what he does. He has yet to earn a reputation of producing thehighest levels of performance.”

Measures.Voice directness. We adapted four items from Holtgraves’s

(1997) conversational directness scale to develop a measure ofvoice directness (� � .89): “Brandon is direct,” “Brandon is clearabout what he desires to improve,” “Brandon is explicit about whathe hopes for,” and “What Brandon suggested is straightforwardand to the point.”

Voicer politeness. We adapted four items from Colquitt’s(2001) measure of interactional justice to measure voicer polite-ness (� � .94): “Brandon has treated his manager in a politemanner,” “Brandon has treated his manager with dignity,” “Bran-don has treated his manager with respect,” and “Brandon hasrefrained from improper remarks or comments.”

Voicer credibility. To measure perceptions of Brandon’s cred-ibility, we employed Ohanian’s (1990) five-item measure (� �.97): “Brandon is an expert in what he does,” “Brandon is expe-rienced,” “Brandon is knowledgeable,” “Brandon is qualified,”and “Brandon is skilled.”

Voice behavior. We measured participants’ perception ofBrandon’s voice with Van Dyne and LePine’s (1998) six-itemmeasure of voice behavior (� � .87). Sample items include “Bran-don develops and makes recommendations concerning issues thataffect this workgroup,” and “Brandon communicates his opinionsabout work issues to others in this group even if his opinion isdifferent and others the group disagree with him.”


With Pilot Study 2, we sought to confirm whether voice direct-ness and voice behavior are empirically distinct constructs by

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assessing voice behavior with a validated measure. We conducteda one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test whether partic-ipants in the high voice directness condition perceived Brandon’sbehavior as indicative of more voice behavior than did participantsin the low voice directness condition. The results show that thosein the high voice directness condition perceive Brandon’s behavioras exhibiting slightly more voice behavior (Mhigh � 5.88, SD �.86; Mlow � 5.63, SD � .86; p � .029). The bivariate correlationbetween voice directness and voice behavior is significant butsmall in magnitude, r � .14, p � .020, suggesting that they arerelated but conceptually distinct constructs.

A second goal of Pilot Study 2 was to establish effectivemanipulations of voice directness, voicer politeness, and voicercredibility. A three-way ANOVA shows that participants in thehigh voice directness condition indicated that Brandon was moredirect than those in the low voice directness condition (Mhigh �5.73, SD � 1.13; Mlow � 5.28, SD � 1.19; F(1, 268) � 10.17, p �.002; �p

2 � .037). Similarly, participants in the high voicer polite-ness condition rated Brandon as significantly more polite thanthose in the low voicer politeness condition (Mhigh � 5.10, SD �1.59; Mlow � 4.49, SD � 1.64; F(1, 268) � 9.94, p � .002; �p

2 �.036). Finally, participants in the high voicer credibility conditionrated Brandon as more credible than those in the low voicercredibility condition (Mhigh � 5.55, SD � 2.04; Mlow � 3.39;SD � 2.06; F(1, 268) � 174.70, p � .001; �p

2 � .41). Thus, ourmanipulations of voice directness, voicer politeness, and voicercredibility were successful.

Overall, these two pilot studies achieved two purposes. First, wehave demonstrated that voice directness and voice behavior areempirically distinct constructs. Second, we have developed vi-gnette scenarios that meaningfully manipulate voice directness,voicer politeness, and voicer credibility. In Study 1, we leveragethese research materials to examine the casual effect of voicedirectness on managerial endorsement, as well as the moderatingeffects of voicer politeness and voicer credibility.

Study 1: Casual Effects of Voice Directness, VoicerPoliteness, and Voicer Credibility on

Managerial Endorsement

Method

Participants. We initially recruited 248 participants fromMturk, separate from the pilot studies, to participate in an onlinesurvey. To ensure response accuracy, we included two attentioncheck items and removed 43 participants who failed either or bothitems, resulting in a final sample of 205 respondents (82.7%response rate). Approximately 52.8% were women, their mean agewas 32.98 years (SD � 10.08), and the majority (80.1%) had beenworking for their current company for 4.61 years (SD � 4.97). Inaddition, 28.5% had a high school diploma or equivalent, 43.2%had an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, 15.5% had a master’sdegree, and 2.8% had a doctoral or professional degree.

Design and procedure. We employed a 2 (high versus lowvoice directness) � 2 (high versus low voicer politeness) � 2(high versus low voicer credibility) between-subjects design, withthe same procedure as in Pilot Study 2. Participants were firstrandomly assigned to either the low or high voicer credibility

condition, followed by the manipulation check (“Brandon isknowledgeable”). They then were assigned to one of four scenarios(High Voice Directness � High Voicer Politeness, High VoiceDirectness � Low Voicer Politeness, Low Voice Directness �High Voicer Politeness, or Low Voice Directness � Low VoicerPoliteness), which asked them to imagine themselves as Brandon’smanager. They then read a scenario detailing Brandon’s direct/indirect and polite/impolite voice. Participants then responded to aseries of manipulation checks (e.g., “Brandon is direct,” “Brandonis polite”) and Burris’s (2012) measure of managerial endorsement(� � .89). Finally, they provided demographic information.


The means and standard deviations by condition appear in Table1. We first examined whether the manipulations were effectiveusing a 2 (high versus low voice directness) � 2 (high versus lowvoicer politeness) � 2 (high versus low voicer credibility)between-subjects ANOVA. Participants in the high voice direct-ness condition indicated that Brandon was more direct than thosewho read the low voice directness passage (Mhigh � 6.10, SD �.84; Mlow � 5.27, SD � 1.33; F(1, 201) � 28.45, p � .001, �p

2 �.12). Similarly, participants in the high voicer politeness conditionrated Brandon as significantly more polite than those in the lowvoicer politeness condition (Mhigh � 5.37, SD � 1.41; Mlow �3.22, SD � 1.40; F(1, 201) � 121.75, p � .001, �p

2 � .38). Finally,participants in the high voicer credibility condition rated Brandonas more credible than those in the low voicer credibility condition(Mhigh � 6.51, SD � .64; Mlow � 3.92, SD � 1.01; F(1, 201) �428.84, p � .001, �p

2 � .68). Thus, the manipulations were effec-tive.

To test our hypotheses, we conducted a three-way ANOVA toexamine the effect of voice directness on managerial endorsement(Hypotheses 1a/1b), the interaction of voice directness and voicerpoliteness (Hypotheses 2a/2b), and the interaction of voice direct-ness and voicer credibility (Hypotheses 3a/3b), using participants’ratings of managerial endorsement as the dependent variable.Consistent with Hypothesis 1b, but not Hypothesis 1a, we find asignificant, positive main effect of the voice directness manipula-tion on managerial endorsement (Mhigh � 5.41, SD � 1.23;Mlow � 4.86, SD � 1.18; F(1, 201) � 14.93, p � .001; �p

2 � .069).There is also a significant, positive main effect of the voicerpoliteness manipulation (Mhigh � 5.53, SD � 1.05; Mlow � 4.68,SD � 1.27; F(1, 201) � 31.88, p � .001; �p

2 � .14) and the voicercredibility manipulation on managerial endorsement (Mhigh �5.59, SD � 1.13; Mlow � 4.67, SD � 1.17; F(1, 201) � 38.33, p �.001; �p

2 � .16).

Table 1Experimental Conditions and Outcomes of Voice Directness,Voicer Politeness, and Voicer Credibility on ManagerialEndorsement (Study 1)

OutcomeLow

directnessHigh

directness

1. Low politeness and low credibility 4.09 (1.01) 4.12 (1.27)2. High politeness and low credibility 4.93 (0.92) 5.53 (0.81)3. Low politeness and high credibility 4.77 (1.15) 5.90 (0.70)4. High politeness and high credibility 5.57 (1.15) 6.10 (0.96)

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In contrast with Hypotheses 2a and 2b, we find no significantinteraction effect between voice directness and voicer politenesson managerial endorsement, F(1, 198) � .006, p � .94; �p

2 � .00.Also in contrast with Hypotheses 3a and 3b, the interaction be-tween voice directness and voicer credibility only approachessignificance for managerial endorsement, F(1, 198) � 3.42, p �.066; �p

2 � .02)�. We performed independent sample t tests toexamine the nature of this interaction more closely. For partici-pants in the high voicer credibility condition, ratings of managerialendorsement are higher in the high than in the low voice directnesscondition (Mhigh � 6.01, SD � .85; Mlow � 5.20, SD � 1.21;t(100) � 3.87, p � .001), whereas in the low voicer credibilitycondition, the ratings of managerial endorsement do not differacross directness levels (Mhigh � 4.82, SD � 1.27; Mlow � 4.52,SD � 1.05; t(101) � 1.36, p � .18).

Overall, the interaction between voice directness and voicercredibility approaches significance in the hypothesized direction,providing initial evidence that managers may be more likely toendorse voice expressed in a direct manner when the voicers aremore credible. The interaction between voice directness and voicerpoliteness, however, is not significant. This lack of a significantinteraction effect may arise because the impact of social judgmentof politeness may be less realistic in a vignette experiment inwhich participants have relatively little information about thevoicer. Therefore, to enhance the external validity of our research,we test the hypotheses in an organizational setting in Study 2.

Study 2: Diary Study of Voice Directness, VoicerPoliteness, Voicer Credibility, and Managerial

Endorsement (United States)

Method

Participants and procedures. The participating organizationfor Study 2 was a support service management company thatdelivered janitorial and food services to hospitals, health caresystems, long-term care facilities, and continuing care retirementcommunities in the United States. The firm placed a team of twoto six qualified individuals at each site. Their daily work includedimplementing established procedures and programs to ensure aclean, safe environment and conducting quality inspections inassigned areas to ensure quality and satisfaction levels. Eachfacility also included an onsite manager who provided the ratingsof managerial endorsement for our study.

Before administering the main survey, we interviewed threemembers of the senior top management team and three supervi-sors, recommended by the top management team, to gain an initialunderstanding of the types of suggestions that employees made inthis organization. We presented them with a description of “voice”adapted from Detert et al. (2013): “Voice refers to upward com-munication of IDEAS or PROPOSALS to benefit workgroup ororganizational effectiveness.” We then asked them to describe oneor two voice episodes their employees would typically raise atwork. The most commonly raised suggestions include concernsabout work progress and group-related functioning (e.g., schedul-ing, lack of communication). The participating organization alsohad an initiative in place to enhance employee engagement, sosome interviewees indicated that employees would raise ideasrelated to employee training.

We then employed an event-sampling, diary method (Bolger,Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003) with two data collection phases. For Phase1, we sent an e-mail to all participants and invited them to fill outa questionnaire that included basic demographic informationitems. Managers also received an online questionnaire with ques-tions about their perceptions of the credibility of each of theirsubordinates. Those who participated in Phase 1 received a US$10gift card as a token of appreciation and were invited to participatein Phase 2. All surveys were administered online.

Phase 2 began two weeks after Phase 1. The structure andmethodology of the weekly survey was patterned after a criticalincident technique (Flanagan, 1954). In the middle of the week(Wednesday), we provided a survey to participants that began witha general description of the phrase “speaking up,” followed by aseries of open-ended questions asking participants to reportwhether they spoke up during the course of the week. If they didnot, the survey was completed, and they were thanked for partic-ipating. If they did, we asked them to describe their suggestions,what they said to their manager, and how their manager reacted.We then included a survey that assessed voice directness andvoicer politeness. By the end of the week (Friday), we e-mailed theparticipants’ managers with a brief description of their suggestionsand asked each manager to provide ratings of the dependentvariable (managerial endorsement). Phase 2 lasted for four weeks.Participants received a US$5 gift card per week, and managersreceived a US$1 gift card for each rating of managerial endorse-ment.

Among 169 possible participants, 88 took part in Phase 1 of theStudy. In Phase 2, we received information about 223 voiceepisodes from these 88 participants, representing an initial re-sponse rate of 2.53 episodes per participant. Of the voice episodesreported, we received 129 matched responses from both the par-ticipants (who provided ratings of voice directness and voicerpoliteness) and the managers (who provided ratings of voicercredibility and managerial endorsement). We removed five voiceepisodes that managers indicated they did not recall. In total, weobtained 124 voice episodes from 53 participants and 33 managers,representing 55.6% (voice episode) and 23.8% (participants) re-sponse rates. The average number of voice episodes per participantin the final sample was 2.34, and the average number of partici-pants nested within each manager was 1.61. Among the 53 par-ticipants, 64.2% were women. Their mean age was 44.15 years(SD � 11.2), their average years of industry experience were 15.34(SD � 10.84), and they had been working with their currentmanager for an average of 2.62 years (SD � 3.50). In addition,71.2% of the participants held a high school diploma, 24.5% hadsome college or an associate’s degree, and 3.8% had earned amaster’s degree.

Measures. Participants and their managers responded to thesurvey items according to the following prompt: “To what extentdo you agree with the following statement?” The multiitem vari-ables used seven-point scales ranging from 1 (very strongly dis-agree) to 7 (very strongly agree).

Voice directness and voicer politeness. The voice directnessand voicer politeness scale, administered in Phase 2, began withthe stem, “When I engaged in speaking up about this idea . . .,”followed by the same items used in Pilot Study 2 and Study 1 tomeasure voice directness and voicer politeness. A sample item forvoice directness was “What I suggested was straightforward and to

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the point” (� � .89), and a sample item for voicer politeness was“I have treated my manager with respect” (� � .94).

Voicer credibility. To measure managers’ perceptions of eachparticipant’s credibility, in Phase 1 we employed the measure fromStudy 1 (� � .95). A sample item was “This person is an expert inwhat he/she does.”

Managerial endorsement. To minimize managerial fatigue inrating multiple subordinates, we used a reduced three-item mana-gerial endorsement scale (Burris, 2012; � � .88). These itemsinclude: “This subordinate’s suggestion has been, is being, or willbe implemented,” “I agree with this subordinate’s comments,” and“This subordinate’s recommendation is valuable.”

Control variable. We controlled for voice frequency by count-ing the number of times (1–4) an employee expressed voice to hisor her manager throughout the 4-week diary study. This measureaccounts for the possibility that voice frequency and voice direct-ness are empirically similar constructs.

Analysis. We first examined whether the Likert-type multii-tem measures for each episode (voice directness, voicer politeness,and managerial endorsement) could be modeled as distinct con-structs. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using LISREL 8.8(Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993) shows that the three-factor model withall items loading on their respective factors fit the data better (rootmean square error of approximation [RMSEA] � .08, nonnormedfit index [NNFI] � .95, confirmatory fit index [CFI] � .96,regulatory fit index [RFI] � .91; Bentler, 1990; Browne & Cu-deck, 1993) than the best two-factor model, with voice directnessand voicer politeness loading on one factor (RMSEA � .20,NNFI � .81, CFI � .85, RFI � .79), and than a one-factor modelwith all items loading on a common factor (RMSEA � .28,NNFI � .62, CFI � .70, RFI � .61). All standardized factorloadings were above .40 and significant. Thus, the three episode-level variables are distinct constructs.

We checked for systematic within- and between-person variancein the ratings of episode-level variables. The episode-level vari-ance was 75.8% for managerial endorsement, 37.2% for voicedirectness, and 39.5% for voicer politeness. Most of the variancein the episode-level factors could be attributed to within-episodevariation, which indicates that voice directness, voicer politeness,and managerial endorsement differ substantially from one episodeto another. In addition to this within-episode variation, our data setconsists of multiple levels (i.e., episodes are nested within subor-dinates, who are nested within managers). Therefore, we employedthree-level Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to test the hy-potheses (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). We group-mean-centered

voice directness and voicer politeness and grand-mean-centeredvoicer credibility to examine their interactive effects on manage-rial endorsement (Hofmann & Gavin, 1998).


The means, standard deviations, and correlations for the keystudy variables are shown in Table 2, and the voice content resultsappear in Table 3. Based on the categories identified in theprestudy interview, the authors sorted each voice episode providedby the participants into categories independently and resolved anydiscrepancies through discussion, thereby achieving complete con-sensus. Results indicate that participants mainly raised suggestionsabout work-related procedures (53.6%), group-related functioningsuch as scheduling and personnel concerns (19.0%), communica-tion (13.1%), and employee training (10.2%).

Hypothesis 1a predicted that voice directness would be nega-tively associated with managerial endorsement, whereas Hypoth-esis 1b predicted that voice directness would be positively asso-ciated with managerial endorsement. As Table 4 (Model A) shows,the coefficient of the main effect of voice directness is positive andsignificant (� � .44, SE � .11, p � .001), in support of thecommunication clarity perspective (Hypothesis1b) rather than thepsychological threat perspective (Hypothesis 1a). These resultshold even after we control for voice frequency over the course ofthe study. To check the robustness of this finding, we includedvoicer politeness and voicer credibility as main effects, becauseprior research suggests that high levels of warmth and competencemay enhance social influence (Cuddy et al., 2011). As shown inTable 4 (Model B), the coefficient term of voice directness issignificant (� � .39, SE � .17, p � .027), beyond the effect ofvoicer politeness (� � .13, SE � .20, p � .51) and voicercredibility (� � .41, SE � .10, p � .001). Thus, Hypothesis 1breceives full support.

To test the interactive effects of voice directness and voicerpoliteness (Hypotheses 2a/2b) and voice directness and voicercredibility (Hypotheses 3a/3b) on managerial endorsement, weentered voice directness, voicer politeness, voicer credibility, andtheir interaction terms into the random coefficient equations. Theresults in Table 4 (Model C) indicate a nonsignificant coefficientfor the interaction between voice directness and voicer politeness(� � .07, SE � .13, p � .58) but a significant coefficient for theinteraction between voice directness and voicer credibility (� �.26, SE � .11, p � .023). Figure 2 depicts these findings, usingPreacher, Curran, and Bauer’s (2006) procedure. We first classi-

Table 2Means, Standard Deviations, and Zero-Order Correlations Among Variables (Study 2)

Variable Ma SDa Mb SDb 1 2 3 4 5

1. Voice frequency 2.53 1.22 — — — — —2. Voice directness 5.48 0.85 5.50 0.95 �.03 — .62�� — .34��

3. Voicer politeness 6.05 0.83 6.00 0.91 �.12 .60�� — — .19�

4. Voicer credibility 5.78 1.01 �.11 .01 .14 — —5. Managerial endorsement 5.82 1.01 5.78 1.13 �.04 .28� .12 .43�� —

Note. Correlations below the diagonal are person-level correlations (N � 53). Correlations above the diagonalare episode-level correlations (N � 124).a Means and standard deviations at the person level. b Means and standard deviations at the episode level.� p � .05. �� p � .01.

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fied the two moderators (voicer credibility) into high (1 SD) andlow (�1 SD) groups, then tested the significance level for thesimple slopes. The simple slope analyses reveal that the associa-tion between voice directness and managerial endorsement issignificant when voicer credibility is higher (B � .60, SE � .17,p � .001), but they are unrelated when voicer credibility is lower(B � .07, SE � .21, p � .73). Therefore, Hypotheses 2a, 2b, and3a are not supported, but Hypothesis 3b receives support.

Consistent with a communication clarity and social judgmentperspective, Study 2 shows that voice directness is positivelyassociated with managerial endorsement when the credibility ofthe voicer is higher. This suggests that those who are more crediblebenefit from speaking up directly, more so than those who are lesscredible.

Although Study 2 provides evidence that voice directness isassociated with higher levels of managerial endorsement whenvoicers are credible, we again fail to find the hypothesized inter-action effect of voice directness and voicer politeness on manage-rial endorsement. A possible explanation may focus on culturalinfluences; in a cultural setting that emphasizes task completion,such as the United States, managers may be more concerned aboutthe credibility of the voicers than about their level of respectful-ness when they speak up. In a cultural setting that prioritizesrelationship and hierarchical values, however, respect for manag-ers may be more expected, and the moderating effect of voicerpoliteness on the association between voice directness and mana-gerial endorsement could be more pronounced. Therefore, in Study

Table 3Types of Voice Content, Incidence Rate, and Representative Quotes

Voice content Incidence rate Representative quotes

Work-relatedprocedures

53.6% (Study 2) Study 2:“I suggested creating a ‘Kudos Board’ so staff members could recognize each other for helpful or nice

things that they have done for one another.”51.2% (Study 3) “I brought up the idea that the room service person should always check for room service trays when they

take new trays up for room service. There is a cart for dirty trays and it would be a big help if they justchecked it for the person. This would be one less cart that the dish room person would have to check atthe end of their shift.”

Study 3:“I suggest more experiments should be conducted to test the temperature for a carbon element to work

properly.”“I proposed that the leader should negotiate with his manager to obtain more resources to deploy our plan.

Obviously, we cannot make it if our staff is in short.”Group-related

functioning19.0% (Study 2) Study 2:

“I suggested to my manager that the scheduling should be reworked to be more consistent; currently, wehave no employee scheduled off on Mondays. With this schedule, we need to have more employees offon Mondays and less off during the end of the week when production needs are higher.”

14.9% (Study 3) “I recently approached one of my managers about how lax I felt she was when it came to writing upemployees for poor work performance and attendance.”

Study 3:“I proposed that people are shirking responsibilities, and this results in the delay in product delivery.”“I expressed my concern about their working overtime during the weekend and the premium pay policy. If

no changes are made, this policy will harm employees’ enthusiasm and decrease their efficiency.”Communication 13.1% (Study 2) Study 2:

“I expressed the idea of daily pre-shift meetings with the staff. In our line of work, it is important tocommunicate with the staff regularly so that they feel they are ‘in the loop’ so to speak. This is a practicethat I have implemented in every position that I have held in the past, and it brings additional benefits tous as leaders as well. It allows us to ensure that each employee is in full uniform and fully prepared for asuccessful shift. Additionally, it gives us the opportunity to hear ideas from the staff, as the best ideas doin fact usually come from the staff.”

21.5% (Study 3) “This week, I suggested that we, as management staff, communicate better with each other about our ownschedules, such as when we will be out of the office.”

Study 3:“The top management’s decision was made without sufficient discussion with the representatives of

employees. Though I think the decision is correct, I still have questions about its legitimacy. I suggestedto my manager that they should follow the due procedures because other employees may have the sameconcern as I do.”

“We need to coordinate and communicate more frequently with other departments to improve our plan.”Training 10.2% (Study 2

only)“I made a suggestion to my manager regarding cross-training all of our older associates in the Emergency

Department.”“I proposed preparing a new training program for new hires.”“I suggested to my manager that we cross-train one of our current employees so that way he can cover

some of this particular shift if needed.”Income equality 12.4% (Study 3

only)“The income discrepancy between the senior and the junior is huge. Although B joined in the organization

later than A, B has been selected as star employee for three years. This is unfair, and we needed to dosomething about it.”

“I suggested that the fact is that some capable employees do almost all the job. . . . I think those incapableemployees should be notified explicitly, and they need more training and share others’ workload.”

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3, we examine whether our results hold in China, a culture inwhich the norm of respect for managers tends to be prominent.

Study 3: Time-Lagged Study of Voice Directness,Voicer Politeness, Voicer Credibility, and Managerial

Endorsement (China)

Method

Participants and procedures. We collected data from em-ployees of a privately owned, solar energy manufacturing firm insouthwestern China that supplies poly silicon products and solarpanels to markets in Taiwan, mainland China, and overseas. Wefollowed the same prestudy procedure described in Study 2 toconduct informal interviews with 15 employees from five majordepartments (manufacturing, planning, equipment, quality control& inspection, and sales & procurement) to understand the nature ofvoice content. In total, we received descriptions of 21 voiceepisodes. Through two rounds of independent coding and group

discussions by the authors, we analyzed these episodes and clas-sified them into four categories: work-related procedures (relatedto improving workgroup effectiveness), group-related functioning(e.g., personnel issues), communication issues, and income in-equality issues (see Table 3 for samples). Two doctoral studentsthen independently coded the 21 voice episodes into the fourcategories and achieved excellent accuracy (95.2%). We then usedthese four dimensions in the main survey to examine the types ofvoice that employees raised most frequently in this organization.

Accordingly, we invited 869 employees and their 132 directsupervisors, from the same five departments in which we con-ducted the prestudy, to participate in a two-wave, time-laggedsurvey. Participants were organized into teams, in which theyshared information and resources to accomplish their work tasks,and a supervisor assigned to each group was responsible for itsperformance. Because participants worked at different stations, weinvited them to a nearby conference room, explained how to fillout the survey with clear instructions, and guaranteed the confi-dentiality of all individual responses, to encourage candidness anddecrease evaluation apprehension. We then allowed sufficient timefor participants to complete the questionnaires, which they placedinto sealed envelopes immediately thereafter. Each employee com-pleted items related to voice directness, voicer politeness, the typesof voice content (as identified in the prestudy; e.g., “Which of thefollowing types of ideas do you most frequently raise?”), anddemographic information (Time 1). Each employee’s immediatesupervisor provided ratings of his or her perception of each voic-er’s credibility (Time 1). At Time 2, about a month later, we askedmanagers to provide ratings of managerial endorsement. Somemanagers oversaw more than 20 subordinates. Therefore, follow-ing Wang, Law, Hackett, Wang, and Chen (2005), we asked themto identify 10 subordinates, half with high levels of managerialendorsement and the other half low on managerial endorsement.We entered all respondents in a lottery draw for 30 watches, worthabout US$10 each, to thank them for their participation.

Table 4Three-Level Hierarchical Linear Model of Voice Directness, Voicer Politeness, VoicerCredibility, and Managerial Endorsement (Study 2)

Variable

Managerial endorsement

Null model Model A Model B Model C

Intercept 5.88�� (0.14) 5.87�� (0.15) 5.83�� (0.13) 5.83�� (0.14)Voice frequency .01 (.12) .10 (.10) .09 (.10)Voice directness .44�� (.11) .39� (.17) .34� (.16)Voicer politeness .13 (.20) .14 (.19)Voicer credibility .41�� (.10) .38�� (.10)Voice Directness � Voicer Politeness .07 (.13)Voice Directness � Voicer Credibility .26� (.11)Level 1 residual variance (2) .79 .77 .65 .63Pseudo-R2a .04 .18 .21Model devianceb 365.09 347.60 329.90 327.51

Note. N (Level 1) � 124; N (Level 2) � 53; N (Level 3) � 33. Entries corresponding to the predictive variablesare estimates of the random effects, gamma (�), with robust standard errors.a Pseudo-R2 values were calculated on the basis of the formula provided by Kreft and De Leeuw(1998). b Model deviance, as an indicator of model fit, is based on �2 � log likelihood. In line with thesmaller-is-better criterion, the model with the smallest value indicates a better overall fit (Burnham & Anderson,2002).� p � .05. �� p � .01.

Figure 2. Interactive effect of voice directness and voicer credibility onmanagerial endorsement (Study 2).

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In total, we obtained responses from 706 employees and their109 supervisors (average of 6.48 subordinates per supervisor), forresponse rates of 81.2% for employees and 82.6% for supervisors.Of the 706 employees, 66.9% were men. Their mean age was30.63 years (SD � 7.52), they had worked for the company for3.50 years on average (SD � 3.21), and they had been on the teamfor 2.88 years (SD � 2.93). Nearly half (48.3%) of the participantsheld a high school diploma, 50.3% had some college or an asso-ciate’s degree, and 1.4% had earned a master’s degree. Supervisorshad worked at the organization for an average of 10.25 years(SD � 8.63) and with the team for 4.73 years (SD � 3.76).

Measures. Participants and their managers received the fol-lowing prompt to assess the multiitem variables: “To what extentdo you agree with the following statement?” We measured theirresponses on five-point scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree)to 5 (strongly agree) and presented all the survey items in Chinese.Two independent bilingual researchers translated the items fromEnglish into Chinese, and then back-translated them into English(Brislin, 1986).

Voice directness and voicer politeness. To measure voice di-rectness (� � .94) and voicer politeness (� � .91), we modified thestem of the measure to be consistent with the time-lagged nature of thestudy (i.e., “During the past month, when I was engaging in voice. . .”), followed by the scales from Studies 1 and 2.

Voicer credibility. We used the same measure of voicer cred-ibility as in Studies 1 and 2 (� � .76).

Managerial endorsement. We asked each manager to provideratings of managerial endorsement (� � .82). The scale began withthe stem, “To what extent do you agree with the following? Duringthe past month . . .,” followed by the managerial endorsementitems we employed in Study 2.

We conducted a CFA to ensure that the multiitem measures on theindividual level (voice directness, voicer politeness, voicer credibility,and managerial endorsement) could be appropriately modeled asdistinct constructs. The four-factor model fit the data better (RMSEA �.05, NNFI � .97, CFI � .98, RFI � .95) than the best three-factormodel with voice directness and managerial endorsement loading onone factor (RMSEA � .13, NNFI � .78, CFI � .82, RFI � .76); atwo-factor model with voice directness, voicer politeness, and man-agerial endorsement loading on one factor (RMSEA � .23, NNFI �.31, CFI � .42, RFI � .30); or a one-factor model with all itemsloading on a common factor (RMSEA � .25, NNFI � .19, CFI � .32,RFI � .19). All standardized factor loadings were above .40 andsignificant. Thus, the four individual-level variables are distinct con-structs.

We checked for systematic within- and between-person variancein the ratings of the within-level variables. The within-level vari-ance reached 100.0% for managerial endorsement (reflecting ourprocedure, which asked managers to identify some subordinateshigh on endorsement and others low on endorsement) and 76.6%for voicer credibility. The within-level variable of managerialendorsement exhibit extreme values, but as Nezlek (2008) recom-mends, we adopt multilevel modeling because the data structure ismultilevel (i.e., participants nested within manager). Therefore, weconducted two-level HLM (HLM 6.08) to test the hypotheses(Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992) and group-mean-centered all thepredictor variables (Hofmann & Gavin, 1998).


The means, standard deviations, and correlations appear inTable 5, and the voice content results appear in Table 3. Partici-pants raised suggestions about work-related procedures (51.2%),as well as group-related functioning (14.9%), communication(21.5%), and income inequality (12.4%). Hypothesis 1a predictedthat voice directness would be negatively associated with mana-gerial endorsement, whereas Hypothesis 1b predicted that voicedirectness would be positively associated with it. Consistent withStudies 1 and 2 (Table 6, Model A), we find that the coefficient ofthe main effect of voice directness is positive and significant (� �.37, SE � .04, p � .001), in support of the communication clarityperspective in Hypothesis 1b. To examine the robustness of thisfinding, we included voicer politeness and voicer credibility asmain effects. As shown in Table 6 (Model B), the coefficient termof voice directness remains significant (� � .27, SE � .05, p �.001), even after we control for voicer politeness (� � .29, SE �.03, p � .001) and voicer credibility (� � .16, SE � .06, p � .008).Hypothesis 1b thus receives full support.

To test whether voice directness and voicer politeness (Hypoth-eses 2a/2b) or voice directness and voicer credibility (Hypotheses3a/3b) interact to influence managerial endorsement, we enteredvoice directness, voicer politeness, voicer credibility, and theirinteraction terms into the random coefficient equations. The resultsin Table 6 (Model C) indicate that the coefficient of the interactionterm of voice directness and voicer politeness is significant (� �.07, SE � .03, p � .041). We plotted the graph using Preacher etal.’s (2006) procedure. As Figure 3 shows, the association betweenvoice directness and managerial endorsement is significantly pos-itive when voicer politeness is higher (B � .30, SE � .05, p �.001) than when voicer politeness is lower (B � .16, SE � .06, p �.001), in support of Hypothesis 2b but not Hypothesis 2a. Theinteraction coefficient of voice directness and voicer credibility isnonsignificant (� � .03, SE � .05, p � .59), so neither Hypotheses3a nor 3b is supported.

Overall, the results from Study 3 show that the associationbetween voice directness and managerial endorsement is morepositive when voicers speak up in a courteous and respectfulmanner. This overall finding indicates that respect for managersmay be important in a Chinese work setting, where some degree ofpoliteness is expected, but less important in a U.S. setting, inwhich voicer credibility has greater significance.

General Discussion

Does expressing a change-oriented idea to managers in a directmanner contribute to more or less managerial endorsement? And

Table 5Means, Standard Deviations, and Zero-Order Correlations(Study 3)

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4

1. Voice directness 3.20 0.96 —2. Voicer politeness 3.06 1.37 .18�� —3. Voicer credibility 3.60 0.81 .05 .11�� —4. Managerial endorsement 3.63 1.09 .31�� .16�� .11�� —

Note. N � 706.�� p � .01 (two-tailed tests).

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how do the characteristics of voicers alter this relationship? Toanswer these questions, we have tested two competing perspec-tives: a psychological threat view that suggests that voice direct-ness threatens managers, leading them to reject voice, versus acommunication clarity view, which suggests that voice directnesshelps convey ideas clearly and directs managers’ attention towardchange, leading manages to endorse voice. We also incorporatesocial judgment research to understand how voicer politeness andvoicer credibility might modify the association between voicedirectness and managerial endorsement. Results from two U.S.samples indicate that credible employees who are direct are morelikely to gain endorsement from their manager than less credibleemployees who are direct. In a Chinese sample, we find that beingdirect and polite is more likely to produce managerial endorsementthan being direct and impolite. Overall, these findings indicate thatthere are benefits to maintaining both credibility (in the U.S.) andpoliteness (in China) for employees who express their voice di-rectly.

Theoretical Contributions

Our studies contribute to extant literature in two main ways.First, we emphasize the need to specify how people communicate

in terms of the levels of directness they use to communicate theirideas to managers. Prior research identifies voice as a challenge-oriented citizenship behavior that is interpersonally risky (Morri-son, 2011), because it might threaten the manager’s status andauthority and elicit unfavorable reactions, such as rejection (Bur-ris, 2012). This logic suggests that speaking up in a direct mannershould result in managerial defensiveness and reduce managerialendorsement (Burris, 2012). But our findings challenge this as-sumption and instead support a communication clarity perspective.The direct communication of ideas, suggestions, or concerns re-lated to workgroup effectiveness enhances managerial endorse-ment when the speaker is credible (in U.S. samples) or expressesvoice politely (in a Chinese sample). This support for the commu-nication clarity perspective over the psychological threat perspec-tive likely stems from two elements. That is, the majority of thevoice episodes in both field studies focused on workgroup effec-tiveness. Directly speaking up about such issues might not beperceived as threatening to managers (see Table 3). To examinethis possible explanation, future research should explicitly measurethe extent to which managers feel threatened by each suggestion,and how levels of voice directness interact with the perceivedthreat to influence managerial endorsement. Furthermore, manag-ers receive a vast amount of information daily (Ashford, Sutcliffe,& Christianson, 2009; Tengblad, 2013). The direct communicationof suggestions saves them time and mental energy; they do notneed to work to decipher the meaning. Therefore, managers mayprefer direct over indirect communication, even if that voice mightbe threatening. To test this possibility, future research could assessmanagers’ explicit preferences for subordinate voice directness(Holtgraves, 1997), then test whether the way voice gets expressed(directly versus indirectly) and managerial preferences of voicedirectness would interact to influence managerial endorsement.

Our conceptualization of voice directness might also be ex-tended meaningfully to other forms of proactive behavior (Grant &Ashford, 2008). For example, when managers decide to reject asubordinate’s voice behavior, do they do so directly, by explainingthat the idea is not useful, or indirectly, by hinting at the voicer’slack of credibility or ignoring the voice altogether? Likewise,

Table 6Two-Level Hierarchical Linear Model of Voice Directness, Voicer Politeness, Voicer Credibility,and Managerial Endorsement (Study 3)

Variable

Managerial endorsement

Null model Model A Model B Model C

Intercept 3.62�� (0.04) 3.61�� (0.04) 3.61�� (0.04) 3.62�� (0.04)Voice directness .37�� (.04) .27�� (.05) .24�� (.05)Voicer politeness .29�� (.03) .29�� (.03)Voicer credibility .16�� (.06) .17�� (.06)Voice Directness � Voicer Politeness .07� (.03)Voice Directness � Voicer Credibility .03 (.05)Level 1 residual variance (2) 1.21 1.06 .80 .74Pseudo-R2a .13 .34 .39Model devianceb 2174.06 2087.75 1966.03 1958.83

Note. N (Level 1) � 706; N (Level 2) � 109. Entries corresponding to the predictive variables are estimatesof the random effects, gamma (�), with robust standard errors.a Pseudo-R2 values were calculated on the basis of the formula provided by Kreft and De Leeuw(1998). b Model deviance, as an indicator of model fit, is based on �2 � log likelihood. The model with thesmallest value indicates a better overall fit (Burnham & Anderson, 2002).� p � .05. �� p � .01.

Figure 3. Interactive effect of voice directness and voicer politeness onmanagerial endorsement (Study 3).

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when employees seek feedback (Ashford & Cummings, 1983),help coworkers (Lee, Bradburn, Johnson, Lin, & Chang, 2018;Podsakoff & MacKenzie, 1997), mentor or coach subordinates(Higgins & Kram, 2001), break rules (Morrison, 2006), or causeharm (Griffin & Lopez, 2005), do they use direct or indirecttactics? In response to their direct or indirect exhibits of proactiv-ity, do proactivity recipients react positively or negatively? Ourresearch on voice directness helps advance these conversationsbeyond discussing just the frequency of these behaviors to address-ing the ways ideas actually get expressed. In turn, we hope thisconceptualization of voice directness encourages future researchinto how other forms of proactive behaviors might be performeddirectly or indirectly, as well as why these different levels ofdirectness in proactivity performance matter for organizations.

Second, our work integrates research on voice with social per-suasion to explore how source characteristics moderate the asso-ciation between voice directness and managerial endorsement.Exploring this interaction provides new insights into the voiceoutcomes that result from factors other than solely content (An-dersson & Bateman, 2000; Burris, 2012; Burris et al., 2017;Dutton, Ashford, O’Neill, & Lawrence, 2001; Piderit & Ashford,2003) or individual characteristics (Whiting et al., 2012). Specif-ically, we show that an interactionist approach to understandingmanagerial endorsement may be more suitable for predicting man-agerial endorsement than studying content or voicer characteristicsexclusively.

The moderating effects of voicer politeness and voicer credibil-ity on the association between voice directness and managerialendorsement reveal interesting cultural patterns that warrant dis-cussion. In Studies 1 and 2, conducted in the United States, we findthat voice expressed in a direct manner by someone who is morecredible is more likely to be endorsed. However, in Study 3,conducted in China, voice expressed in a direct manner by some-one who also uses polite voice evokes more managerial endorse-ment. These findings are consistent with extant research thatsuggests that in a task-oriented culture, whose members are con-cerned with “getting things done” (Hofstede, 2001), managers maybe willing to listen to what highly experienced employees have tosay. In contrast, in a relationship-oriented culture whose membersare more concerned with relationship building (Hofstede, 2001), amanager instead might become more defensive in response to anyemployee who speaks up directly and impolitely. We encouragefuture research to examine the effects of message characteristicsand the source on voice consequences in various cultural settings.

By incorporating social persuasion together with voice litera-ture, our study also highlights the importance of consideringsource characteristics in relation to the individual consequences ofvoice behavior in organizations. Voicer politeness (Studies 1 and3) and voicer credibility (all three studies) independently predictmanagerial endorsement, so people who express voice politely orwho are perceived as credible are more likely to gain managerialendorsement. In doing so, we respond to calls to examine observ-ers’ perceptions of voicers to understand when voice outcomesmay be positive or negative (Lam, Rees, Levesque, & Ornstein,2018; Whiting et al., 2012). Moreover, our empirical distinctionbetween directness and politeness has implication for voice liter-ature. A common assumption is that directness and politenessoperate on the same continuum, such that higher levels of direct-ness seemingly are more impolite, and a lack of directness is

polite. Across three studies, however, we find that voice directnessand voicer politeness are theoretically and empirically distinctconstructs. Whereas voice directness pertains to efficiency, voicerpoliteness relates to social appropriateness (Kellermann & Park,2001). The use of direct statements is not necessarily more impo-lite than the use of hints and questions, nor is the use of hints andquestions necessarily more polite than the use of direct statements.Speakers can convey politeness or impoliteness through both ver-bal (e.g., presence or lack of greeting) and nonverbal (e.g., facialexpressions that convey respect or annoyance) signals. Althoughsome empirical studies distinguish directness and politeness(Blum-Kulka, 1990; Kellermann, 1992; Lee-Wong, 1994), wehighlight the value of this distinction for voice research: Anemployee may challenge a manager directly but remain respectfulto gain endorsement. By clarifying these two constructs, we sug-gest that employees can convey change-oriented suggestions di-rectly and respectfully at the same time.

Practical Implications

Our findings offer valuable insights for employees and manag-ers. Voicer credibility is an important moderator of the associationbetween voice directness and managerial endorsement, so employ-ees should be cognizant of their own credibility before speakingup. Especially for a new employee with low credibility, voicing ina direct manner likely will have little effect in terms of evokingmanagerial responses. It may be better for these less credibleemployees, especially if they work in the United States, to buildtheir credibility first, before speaking up in a direct manner.Speaking up in a respectful, friendly manner also is important ifthe employee is eager to contribute, especially if she or he worksin a cultural setting that expects the use of respectful communica-tion (Morand, 1996). Our findings suggest that employees shouldconsider using more polite markers (e.g., “please”) and attentive,concerned, and empathic tones of voice when they speak updirectly (Ambady, Koo, Lee, & Rosenthal, 1996; LaPlante &Ambady, 2003).

Limitations and Future Research

Notwithstanding the contributions of this study, several limita-tions point to areas for future research. First, we employed self-reported measures of voice directness and voicer politeness in thefield studies to avoid common method bias across our independent,moderating, and outcome variables. Yet this approach could raisethe concern that self-ratings of voice directness and voicer polite-ness might differ from supervisors’ ratings, because managerialperceptions of voice directness and voicer politeness might not beidentical to self-reports. We encourage researchers to collect bothemployees’ and managers’ ratings of voice directness and voicerpoliteness to examine whether they converge, as well as whetherour findings hold with measures of perceived voice directness andperceived voicer politeness.

Second, we do not directly examine the psychological mecha-nisms by which voice directness, voicer politeness, or voicercredibility affect managerial endorsement. Research that investi-gates these mechanisms—using constructs such as the perceivedclarity and understanding of the message (due to voice directness),perceived motives for voice (due to voicer politeness), and ex-

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pected usefulness of voice (due to voicer credibility)—might beable to explain the relationships more accurately.

Third, we do not include other potential voice tactics, such asfactual appeals (Fu & Yukl, 2000), coalition building (Gardner,2012), private versus public discussion (Piderit & Ashford, 2003),or solution presentations (Whiting et al., 2012). It is possible thatat least some of these tactics may be incorporated in the directnessand politeness framework. For example, presenting a solution maybe conceptualized as a direct and polite tactic, whereas building acoalition with higher-level leaders may be conceptualized as adirect and impolite tactic. A possible extension of our research isto examine how influence tactics and voice directness may jointlyinfluence the consequences of voice.

Fourth, because managers had to rate multiple employees, weused a shortened measure of managerial endorsement to reduce therisk of fatigue in Studies 2 and 3 (Rogelberg & Stanton, 2007;Stanton, Sinar, Balzer, & Smith, 2002). The reliability of themanagerial endorsement measure is good across all three studies,but future research might test all five items to represent themeasure more fully than in the present studies.

In addition to addressing these limitations, researchers couldpursue several extensions. Management scholars might examinethe antecedents of voice directness for example. The quality of therelationship might be an important determinant of voice directness,such that a better relationship allows the interaction partners to bemore direct and polite (Waldron, 1991). A person’s ability toregulate his or her emotions also could be an important predictorof voice directness (Grant, 2013). Emotional regulation refers to“the processes by which individuals influence which emotionsthey have, when they have them, and how they experience andexpress these emotions” (Gross, 1998, p. 275). Because peoplewith stronger emotional regulation skills can engage in both sur-face and deep acting (Grandey, 2003), they may experience lessanxiety associated with voice directness. As another antecedent,scholars could investigate the impacts of different communicationmedia (e.g., virtual versus face-to-face versus mediated) on thedegree of voice directness (Butts, Becker, & Boswell, 2015; Rosenet al., 2018). For example, employees might be less direct whenthey express an idea through e-mail, because managers can retaina copy of the message, and thus employees could not later protectthemselves by claiming that they never engaged in voice. Whenthey express voice face-to-face, employees instead may be moredirect; they can explain and clarify their point without worryingthat their voice is on the record. We encourage research to examinethese potential antecedents and their impacts on managerial reac-tion.

Another direction for future research would be to examinewhether and how employees raise different types of issues indistinct ways. In a qualitative study of silence, Milliken, Morrison,and Hewlin (2003) identify eight issues commonly raised byemployees (e.g., concerns about a colleague’s or supervisor’sperformance, problems with the organizational process, pay con-cerns). In this study, we found that some voice contents werecommon across organizations (e.g., improving work-related pro-cesses and group-related functioning), whereas some voice con-tents (e.g., employee training and income inequality) were reportedin one organization but not the other. Employees may feel morejustified raising ethical or fairness issues, which is the morallyright thing to do (Sonenshein, 2007), so they might be more direct

in this case than they would be about other types of issues (e.g.,disagreement with company policies). It would be helpful to de-termine whether employees use varying levels of directness andpoliteness, depending on the issues they raise.

An examination of how employees speak up from a genderperspective might offer new insights as well (McClean, Martin,Emich, & Woodruff, 2017). According to social role theory,women tend to be penalized for acting in ways that conflict withgender stereotypes (Eagly, Makhijani, & Klonsky, 1992), such asassertively. For example, Bolino and Turnley (2003) report thatmanagers assign lower likability ratings to female subordinateswho express intimidating behavior than to male subordinates whoexhibit similar behaviors. Extending social role theory to our studycontext, men might be excused more readily for a lack of warmthor politeness, but women who lack politeness might not be. Theelaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) also sug-gests that when people are not motivated to process informationthoroughly, their attitude depends on peripheral cues, such asgender. In voice directness and managerial endorsement settings,managers seemingly should be motivated to process each ideacarefully before endorsing it, because endorsing a bad idea wouldundermine their credibility. In such a setting, peripheral cues suchas gender may exert less influence. We call on future research toexamine the role of gender and thus broaden understanding of theconsequences of how employees express voice.

Finally, researchers might consider the relational effects thatresult for those who speak up directly with more or less politenessand credibility. Even if managers endorse direct voice raised bycredible employees, they could feel embarrassed by employeeswho are credible but impolite. As a result, they might limit futurecareer advancement opportunities or issue negative performanceevaluations (Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001; Whiting et al.,2012). Indeed, Huang, Xu, Huang, and Liu (2018) demonstratedthat too much prohibitive voice—or voice that focuses on pointingout problems—is associated with lower levels of performanceevaluation and ratings of promotability. We encourage futureresearch to examine the effects of message and source character-istics on relational outcomes, such as managerial trust, liking, andsupport of voicers (Bashshur & Oc, 2015).

Conclusion

Existing research on voice mainly seeks to identify antecedents,associated with whether employees express voice, not how voice isexpressed and whether the way it is expressed matters. In response,we explicitly examine the interaction between the characteristicsof the message (voice directness) and the source (voicer politenessand voicer credibility). The results based on an experimental studyand two field studies show that voice directness is positivelyassociated with managerial endorsement when voicers are polite orcredible. By integrating research on communication and socialjudgment theory, we open new avenues for research that examinesthe consequences of voice.

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Received January 23, 2015Revision received August 3, 2018

Accepted August 22, 2018 �

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