How do tangible and intangible rewards encourage employee voice? The perspective of dual proactive motivational pathways

Abstract

Finding ways to motivate employees to speak up with suggestions and concerns is an important organizational concern. Drawing on the proactive motivation model, this research examines how organizational reward practices can encourage employee voice. We investigate whether tangible rewards (e.g. bonuses, pay increases, promotion) and intangible rewards (e.g. recognition, praise, positive feedback) can facilitate employee voice through the respective effects on employee psychological safety and organizational identification. Using three experiments across three different organizational and cultural contexts, we find consistent results supporting our hypotheses. Our three studies included working adults from the following regions: China (278 participants), United Kingdom (282 participants) and United States (272 participants). We conclude that employees make attributions about organizational reward practices whereby rewards signal to employees it is safe to voice and employees are valued. Our research demonstrates that both tangible and intangible rewards have indirect effects on employee voice by enhancing psychological safety, activating the ‘can do’ motivation process to voice, and by increasing their organizational identification that triggers the ‘reason to’ motivation process. We provide practical recommendations for organizations concerning how to use reward practices to best optimise psychological safety and organizational identification to encourage voice and suggest future research directions.

Keywords:

• Employee voice
• rewards
• proactive motivation
• psychological safety
• organizational identification
• human resource management, organizational behavior, China, United States of America, United Kingdom

Introduction

Converging evidence supports the benefits of voice behavior for employees’ own wellbeing and organizational effectiveness (Bashshur & Oc, 2015; Morrison, 2023). However, despite the fact voice can lead to these positive performance outcomes, employees will sometimes perceive it risky to speak up with suggestions and concerns to improve the current state of affairs in organizations (Liang et al., 2012), with concerns they may ‘rock the boat’ by highlighting some delicate underlying issues and stirring up related organizational problems (Grant, 2013). Speaking up may in fact have negative implications on their performance evaluations (Burris, 2012), leading to silence (Detert & Edmondson, 2011).

To address employees’ fears and concerns of how voice might have negative impacts and to ensure employees are more likely to voice, existing research has suggested that leaders should encourage and support voice (Urbach & Fay, 2021) and/or organizations should create a positive voice climate (Knoll et al., 2021) where voice is valued and encouraged and where employees feel it is safe and worthwhile to speak up. Despite the merits, prior empirical research has focused more on leader behavior or endeavors (with exceptions, see for example Hu & Jiang, 2018; Miao et al., 2020), rather than human resource management (HRM) practices deeply embedded in organizational structure and process (Barry and Wilkinson, 2022; Mowbray et al., 2021). In this paper, we expand this line of research by examining how a specific HRM practice, i.e. rewards for employees to voice, can also address their fears and concerns to express voice and thus motivate them to voice. As Lee et al. (2021, p.7) point out ‘employee voice requires resources to facilitate because it involves sustaining one’s attention on work-related affairs, identifying problems, formulating innovative ideas, and providing suggestions’. Hence, we argue that rewards are one method by which firms and leaders can provide resources (Ng & Feldman, 2012) to develop or maintain attention toward issues that can be voiced and to show support for voicing behaviors, and in doing so provide the impetus for employees to proactively voice.

Surprisingly, there have been very few studies on rewards and voice to date, which could be attributed to early conceptualizations of voice that it was a discretionary and non-rewarded behavior (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). However, dispelling this earlier belief and recognizing that voice is indeed rewarded (or punished) by leaders and organizations, some voice studies have since examined the relationship between rewards and voice, albeit with reward as a moderating variable (Choi et al., 2015) or as an outcome (Burris, 2012; Grant et al., 2009). More recently, Li and Tangirala (2022) included the rewarding of voice in their study design, however did not explicitly measure its effects. Similarly, Bai et al. (2019) argued for the importance of ethical leaders rewarding employee voice and its inclusion as a HR practice, but did not measure rewards in their study. Given there is burgeoning interest in the importance of reward to incentivize employee voice, it is timely for us to now understand whether and how reward does indeed motivate employees to voice, and how it does so through other antecedents to voice, which is the focus of this paper.

Specifically, in this paper we focus on two forms of individual rewards, i.e. tangible rewards and intangible rewards. As defined by Yoon et al. (2015b, p. 385), tangible rewards are those that are ‘concrete, visible, and [have] easily measurable characteristics, such as financial remunerations and promotions. Intangible rewards are relatively less observable and measurable, and … include social approval, verbal praise, and the acknowledgement offered by peers or the management’. We draw on the proactive motivational model (Parker et al., 2010) to theorize the mechanisms through which tangible and intangible rewards increase employee voice. This model proposes three major motivational pathways (‘can do’, ‘reason to’, and ‘energized to’) prompting individual proactive behaviors such as voice. In the current study, we focus on the ‘can do’ and ‘reason to’ pathways that are more theoretically relevant to the focus of our inquiry, namely reward practices for voice.

Among the multiple psychological variables that could represent the ‘can do’ and the ‘reason to’ motivational pathways (Parker et al., 2010), we choose to focus on employee psychological safety as indicative of the ‘can do’ pathway and organizational identification as indicative of the ‘reason to’ factor. Psychological safety has explicitly been identified in the proactivity literature as indicative of the ‘can do’ pathway, while organizational commitment Stinglhamber et al. (2015) has been identified as indicative of a ‘reason to’ factor (Cai et al., 2019). While these factors have already been explored as important antecedents to employee voice (Chamberlin et al., 2017; Liang et al., 2012), they have not been considered as motivational pathways that can link rewards with employee voice. Our extension is noteworthy not only because we provide a theoretical model to explain why and how tangible and intangible rewards influence employee voice, but also such relationships are established via more than one mediating mechanism. Psychological safety, defined as individuals’ ‘perceptions of the consequences of taking interpersonal risks in a particular context such as a workplace’ (Edmondson & Lei, 2014, p. 24), represents the ‘can do’ pathway because it captures the extent to which employees believe they are capable of engaging in voice without incurring too much personal risk. Similarly, organizational identification, which is concerned with perceptions of belonging and oneness and defined as the ‘cognition of membership of a group and the value and emotional significance attached to this membership’ (Tajfel, 1978, p. 63), represents the ‘reason to’ pathway because it provides employees with a greater purpose and more meaning to engage in voice behaviors. The inclusion of these two mediating factors adds to the novelty of our paper which consequently demonstrates how these two very important antecedents to voice can be increased by the presence of an organizational practice, i.e. rewards for voicing behavior, thereby addressing calls to better understand the antecedents to these factors as well (Edmondson & Bransby, 2023).

This paper contributes to the voice literature by providing a theoretical explanation for the effectiveness of rewards on employee voice behaviors. Much of the extant voice research especially drawn from OB has tended to ignore the role of HR practices in favour of psychological factors that can promote employee voice (see Chamberlin et al., 2017 meta-analysis). Indeed, reward has only been considered as a moderating variable (Choi et al., 2015) or as an outcome (Burris, 2012; Grant et al., 2009), rather than a distinct motivator for employee voice. Our research adds to the existing literature by unfolding why and how reward practices can activate both can-do and reason-to motivational mechanisms to enhance the tendency of employees to speak up, extending findings from prior research which has largely underestimated the influences of rewards, especially tangible rewards, on employee voice. Meanwhile, traditional approaches to understand the motivational pathways of workplace behavior have focused mainly on increasing employee intrinsic or extrinsic motivation (Gerhart & Fang, 2015; Hendijani et al., 2016). However, as a type of proactive behavior, voice is relatively less likely to be driven by one’s single intrinsic source of motivation (Li et al., 2021) compared to other workplace behaviors, such as work effort and creativity. Building on this argument and drawing on the proactive motivational model (Parker et al., 2010), we propose psychological safety and organizational identification as two unique motivational pathways that exemplify the can-do and reason-to mechanisms that transmit the effect of the tangible and intangible rewards on employee voice.

Second, we further the utilization of experimental methodology in voice research (Podsakoff & Podsakoff, 2019) to help us identify the precise causal relationships and underlying mechanisms to explain how rewards influence employee voice (Antonakis et al., 2010). In practice, rewards for voicing are usually embedded in the broader organizational reward management system (Perkins & Jones, 2020) that also includes many other reward schemes of different purposes, which sometimes lead to conflicting employee attitudes and behaviors (Nishii et al., 2008; Thomas et al., 2019). This makes it methodologically difficult to tease apart the influences of multiple reward practices to determine whether rewards for voice can effectively influence voice behavior. By using an experimental design, we can isolate the presence of tangible and intangible rewards and minimize other confounding factors such as temporality, culture, and line manager behaviors that may affect employee perceptions of voice and rewards (Kerr, 1975; Sue-Chan & Hempel, 2016). Hence, the current research overcomes obstacles associated with the study of specific reward practices (Bai et al., 2019; Li and Tangirala, 2022) and offers a new methodological approach for future research in this area.

Finally, we provide the first piece of empirical evidence to inform practitioners and managers of the effectiveness of individual rewards associated with voicing behavior. This evidence provides a different perspective from an earlier argument that rewards might be ineffective because employees might not understand why they must voice and what types of voice they should express to meet the objectives and expectations from their organizations and managers (Bashshur & Oc, 2015). Therefore, we provide practical insights that, to increase employee voice effectively and consistently, organizations could also choose to invest more in voice-related reward schemes, that in turn will help improve psychological safety and employees’ identification with their organization and its goals.

In the section that follows, we theorize that tangible and intangible rewards for voice can both increase employee psychological safety and organizational identification, which would in turn increase voice behavior (see Figure 1). Next, we discuss our methodology and findings, which included three randomized controlled experiments with diverse samples of workers and different operationalizations of the key variables. Our findings show consistent results that converge to provide strong support for our model. We conclude the paper with a discussion of our findings, including theoretical and practical implications, followed by limitations and future research.

Figure 1. Theoretical model.

Theory and hypothesis development

Rewards and proactive motivation

Proactive employees take control to initiate changes to improve their work context (Parker et al., 2010). Due to its challenging nature, motivation plays an important role in accounting for individual proactivity (Cai et al., 2019). According to Parker et al. (2010), proactivity is a goal-driven process that is prompted by three different motivational pathways: ‘can do’, ‘reason to’, and ‘energized to’. Specifically, in this paper we examine the ‘can do’ pathway, which is often concerned with perceptions of low cost, control, and self-efficacy; and the ‘reason to’ pathway, which provides the impetus to be proactive, particularly for long-term goals, by providing a ‘why’ for an action.

In organizations, tangible and intangible rewards are often offered to induce desired employee behaviors (Perkins & Jones, 2020), such as performance (Garbers & Konradt, 2014), innovation (De Spiegelaere et al., 2018; Kesting et al., 2016), creativity (Baer et al., 2003; Jiang et al., 2012; Yoon et al., 2015a, 2015b) and prosocial behavior (Exley, 2018). For example, research has examined how tangible and intangible rewards for creativity increase employees’ creative performance by influencing their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Malik et al., 2015; Yoon et al., 2015a). However, recent research on employee voice (Li et al., 2021) suggests that proactive behaviors such as voice might not be best explained by the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation framework, which seems to have better predictive power over employee proficient and adaptive aspects of work performance (Griffin et al., 2007).

The allocation of rewards for voice has been linked to managerial perceptions of proactivity (Park et al., 2022). As such, we argue that the proactive motivational model provides an alternative theoretical lens on how tangible and intangible rewards can motivate employees to voice proactively. That is, by increasing employees’ ‘can do’ motivation through improved perceptions of psychological safety (i.e. reducing potential risk and costs involved in voicing) and by increasing the ‘reason to’ motivation through organizational identification (i.e. providing employees with a greater sense of why they should be voicing as their own goals are aligned with those of their organization). In doing so, our work examines the key mechanisms of the proactive motivational model in the reward practices and employee voice context.

Psychological safety as the ‘can do’ pathway

Speaking up with issues, suggestions and concerns within an organization is often considered a risky behavior, as employees may fear repercussions such as lower performance ratings, especially if the content of the message is challenging management or the status quo (Burris, 2012; Milliken et al., 2003). Consequently, psychological safety is well documented as a phenomenon that can significantly influence employee voice behavior (Chamberlin et al., 2017; Lee et al., 2021; Liang et al., 2012). Yet, prior research has predominantly focused on how leadership shapes psychological safety, rather than HR or organizational practices (Detert & Burris, 2007; Liu et al., 2017). Compared with leadership actions, HR practices are more embedded in organizational structures and processes, are more stable and can have long-term impacts upon employee perceptions and actions.

While we do not explicitly test the relationship between psychological safety and risk or self-efficacy in our model, previous research (see Sherf, Parke, and Isaakyan’s 2021 meta-analysis) demonstrates that psychological safety pertains to behaviorally inhibiting factors that may thwart employees from voicing out, with Sherf et al.’s (2021) meta-analysis showing there are many studies that treat psychological safety as an important predictor or antecedent of individual voice. Moreover, preceding the proactive motivation model’s theorization about ‘can do’, ‘reason to’, ‘energized to’, they discuss proactive goal setting and proactive goal striving. If the person does not have ‘can do’, s/he probably won’t take efforts to achieve proactive goals and be persistent during the process. In this case, psychological safety reflects to what extent the focal employee may think it is possible to achieve a proactive goal and to what extent their proactive goal striving may succeed. Hence, we contend that psychological safety acts as a ‘can do’ by indicating less risk and thereby greater self-efficacy to voice.

Extending prior studies, we argue that psychological safety transmits tangible rewards’ positive effects on employee voice for several reasons. First, given the social context within organizations is multi-level, psychological safety is likely to be a factor not only at the individual and team level, but also the organization level (Cai et al., 2019), whereby organizational practices will influence organizational level psychological safety (Newman et al., 2017). Therefore, using tangible rewards to encourage employees to voice their views and concerns at the organizational level can avoid intervention from and screening by the immediate supervisor and uncooperative co-workers (Fast et al., 2014), as opportunities may be provided to reward voice more formally and beyond the supervisor or team, such as through a suggestion scheme or problem-solving group (Fairbank and Williams, 2001). Consequently, those employees who feel less safe to voice at the team level may feel greater psychological safety at the organizational level.

HR attribution theory (Van De Voorde & Beijer, 2015) can also be used to explain how employees attribute reward practices with psychological safety, with Yoon et al. (2015b) noting that employees will be cognizant that a specific reward practice will be targeted at driving a particular behavior. Tangible rewards convey cues (Van De Voorde & Beijer, 2015) to all employees that employee voice is acknowledged and encouraged as a valuable contribution to improve organizational effectiveness and employees will subsequently make attributions that it is safe to speak up (Connelly et al., 2011). Furthermore, when an employee witnesses other employees being rewarded for their voicing behavior, such as being given a promotion and/or a pay raise, this will signal to them that voice is expected and/or welcome by managers and will fortify their psychological contract (Rousseau, 1995) with the organization whereby they will more freely contribute their ideas and opinions as they can see that voice will be rewarded and are more confident of the positive outcomes of voicing. As such, tangible reward practices increase employees’ perceptions of justice and decrease their concerns about risk and retaliation (Takeuchi et al., 2012), triggering the ‘can do’ motivational state of psychological safety that make the employees feel psychologically safe to voice their own views and suggestions.

Hypothesis 1a. Psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between tangible rewards and employee voice.

We also expect intangible rewards to foster employee voice by increasing employees’ sense of psychological safety, particularly at the team level and with their immediate supervisor. If employees can expect to receive endorsement and recognition from the organization and their managers for expressing their ideas, this will enhance their perceived relationship with their manager/s and they would trust that they are less likely to be punished for challenging management or the status quo (Detert & Burris, 2007). Interpersonal appreciation and acknowledgement signals to employees their managers and co-workers are less likely to interpret their motives for speaking out as complaining or as merely rocking the boat or stirring up underlying issues (Cheng et al., 2013). Instead, these stakeholders are more likely to offer support and protection when these ideas are raised and/or implemented (Wayne et al., 2002), while positive feedback and recognition of ideas and suggestions from managers will help to foster a supportive and safe environment whereby employees attribute (Connelly et al., 2011) such support to the encouragement of voice (Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009). Using Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, Newman et al. (2017) suggest that employees will view organizational practices, such as rewards, as a resource that indicates the organization’s support, and as such employees will feel more psychologically safe to share their ideas in the belief that this will lead to them obtaining further resources. Similarly, Agarwal and Farndale (2017) use the job demands-resource model to explain the positive resource effects of high performance work systems whereby psychological safety is strengthened, leading to creativity implementation. Building on this, we argue then that as a result of the perception that intangible rewards act as a resource and signal support of voice, employees’ perception of psychological safety will be stronger leading to the belief that they ‘can’ voice and providing them with the motivation to voice out their concerns and suggestions. Therefore, we propose the following:

Hypothesis 1b. Psychological safety mediates the positive relationship between intangible rewards and employee voice.

Organizational identification as the ‘reason to’ pathway

The proactive motivational model suggests employees often engage in voice via the ‘reason to’ pathway—when they experience a strong driving force to speak out to express important values or to achieve goals and purposes that are important to themselves and the organization (Cai et al., 2019; Parker et al., 2010). When employees have a strong psychological attachment to their organization, they may identify their own positive self-regard with the success of the organization and would consider the consequences for their organization (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2008). As a result, one’s identification with the organization can be a major motivating factor for employee proactive behavior, such as voice (Liu et al., 2010).

Going a step further, we propose that organizational identification mediates the effect of tangible as well as intangible rewards on employee voice. First, going beyond instrumental concerns and monetary motivation (Grant et al., 2009; Gupta & Shaw, 1998), tangible rewards associated with voice convey cues suggesting their organization values and supports ideas and insights shared by the employees (Ng & Feldman, 2015) and that this pro-social motivation to voice will be reciprocated by the organization by way of reward. These signals remind employees of the importance of their role as a member of the organization and motivates them to identify more strongly with their organization. Mikkelsen and Humle (2020) suggested that those with strong organizational identification may be reticent to voice, particularly on conflictual issues. However, when tangible rewards for voice are present, this may mitigate these feelings. Indeed, Xenikou (2017) showed that when leaders used transactional contingent rewards, such as set performance criteria and rewards for effort expenditure, employees were more likely to have affective identification with their organization, as they strive to meet organizational goals by engaging in innovative behaviors. Certainly, prior research (Park et al., 2022) has shown that leaders will recognise and reward those employees who they perceive as having pro-social motivations to voice; hence, rewards can be used as a means to establish a stronger sense of what one should speak up about in order to align with those goals and to engage in pro-social voice. Moreover, when tangible rewards are provided, such as a bonus payment for suggestions that are raised through a suggestion scheme and subsequently implemented, this signals to employees they have both the opportunity to voice and that they are valued (Fuller et al., 2006). These perceptions would motivate employees to adopt a participatory mindset (Jønsson & Jeppesen, 2013), which in turn may change how they consider their connection with the organization, leading to enhanced organizational identification (Joensson, 2008).

Consequently, employees’ ‘reason to’ motivational state is activated, encouraging them to voice their views and align them with the organization’s goals, as their way to reciprocate the tangible rewards provided by the organization.

Hypothesis 2a. Organizational identification mediates the positive relationship between tangible reward practices and employee voice.

At the same time, we expect a similar role to be played by organizational identification in the relationship between intangible rewards and employee voice. Specifically, when organizations and its leaders provide formal or informal recognition for voicing episodes, this signals and reinforces those behaviours that are valued by the organization (Stajkovic & Luthans, 2003) and employees are motivated to align their own attitudes and behaviors with organizational needs and goals (Qi & Ming-Xia, 2014). Zhao et al. (2022) argued that recognition can stimulate employees’ psychological connection to the organization and hence they will show greater psychological ownership, leading to a strong belief and acceptance of organizational goals and values. Hence, when employees see these expressions of proactive voice intended to improve the organization’s functioning or the working conditions of co-workers being recognized, they will begin to take on the organization’s perspective and goals as their own (Van Knippenberg, 2000), which will increase their own organizational identification (Mael & Ashforth, 1992). In turn, this organizational identification will give employees a strong reason to voice and will motivate employees to contribute to the organization and proactively express voice (Fuller et al., 2006; Qi & Ming-Xia, 2014). Therefore, we propose the following:

Hypothesis 2b. Organizational identification mediates the positive relationship between intangible reward practices and employee voice.

Methodology

To establish causality and to address endogeneity and common method variance concerns (Antonakis et al., 2010; Podsakoff et al., 2003), we followed previous experimental studies on employee voice behavior (e.g. Fast et al., 2014; Guzman & Espejo, 2019; Liu et al., 2015; Park et al., 2022) and conducted three randomized controlled vignette-based experiments (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014). Our studies provide comparisons across different industry, cultural and national settings (China, the UK, and the US), which was not accounted for in previous voice and reward research (Burris, 2012; Choi et al., 2015; Grant et al., 2009). Specifically, we experimentally manipulated participants’ perception of the reward practices their organizations have adopted, measured their psychological safety and organizational identification using well established scales, and finally measured their behavioral tendency to voice at work.

An experimental approach was chosen over other possible designs (e.g. survey, interview) for several reasons. First, experiments are especially useful when investigating the impact of specific organizational practices (e.g. Claus Wehner et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2019), which is the central focus of the current research. This method enables us to extrapolate and isolate tangible and intangible reward practices from other organizational practices that may also contribute to the motivation of employee voice and to tease apart the causal effects of the reward practices on employee voice. Second, an experimental approach can help us avoid methodological issues embedded in the traditional field survey methods (e.g. endogeneity and common method concerns; Antonakis et al., 2010; Podsakoff & Podsakoff, 2019). By directly manipulating participants’ perception of the reward practices their organizations adopt and subsequently measuring psychological safety, organizational identification, and behavioral intention to voice, we can confidently conclude that any effect we can detect represents a causal impact of reward practices, not a result of artificial association resulted from endogeneity. Finally, we consider the survey approach to be impractical for the current research, because the tangible and intangible reward practices in a specific organization are usually universally applied to most if not all employees and the within-organization variance in the employees’ perception of these practices should thus be minimal.

Study 1a: experiment one – China

Sample and procedure

A total of 278 Chinese working adults¹ (62% female, M_age = 32.1, SD_age = 5.8, M_{working experience} = 8.5 years) completed a vignette-based experiment (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014) through Wenjuanxing (www.wjx.cn), the largest crowdsourcing platform in China (Guo et al., 2019). Specifically, an online survey was constructed on Wenjuanxing and participants who are working adults (age > 18) were invited to participate. Participants who started the survey and provided complete responses received a monetary compensation ($2). Materials were translated into Chinese through a back-translation procedure (Brislin, 1970). Following Lovett et al.s(2018) advice on improving crowdsourced data quality, we ensured that the experiment materials and instructions were well-written and well-formatted for different platforms (e.g. Mobile Phones), and provided a fair compensation (approximately $10/hour). To provide ex ante control for methodological issues, such as common method bias (Kock et al., 2021; Podsakoff et al., 2012), we ensured all studies reported in this paper were well designed (e.g. asked participants to provide honest answers, gave clear instructions, ensured anonymity of responses, avoided complex and ambiguous items, kept surveys concise).

The experiment adopted a 2 (high vs. low tangible reward for voice) × 2 (high vs. low intangible reward for voice) between-subject factorial design and participants were randomly assigned after giving consent. The random assignment procedure resulted in 69 participants in the low intangible reward and low tangible reward condition, 70 participants in the high intangible reward and low tangible reward condition, 68 participants in the low intangible reward and high tangible reward condition, and 71 in the high intangible reward and high tangible reward condition. Participants read a realistic workplace scenario containing a tangible reward for voice manipulation and an intangible reward for voice manipulation, and reported, as an employee in the organization described in the vignette, their psychological safety, organizational identification and finally inclination to engage in voice behavior.

Manipulations and measures

Unless otherwise specified, a 7-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) was used in our studies.

Workplace scenario

Participants read that they work as an employee in a large manufacturing company in the consumer goods industry. They work in a team on the factory production line and their job entails preparing and assembling materials, operating machinery, and cleaning and maintaining the working environment. They are required to work cooperatively with their teammates to complete work tasks and meet goals.

Before the tangible and intangible rewards for voice manipulations, we defined workplace voice to ensure participants fully understood the target behavior of the rewards. Participants read that while working they might have ideas on how to improve things, have an opinion about work policies or practices, or have concerns about serious issues and problems. Expressing these ideas may be beneficial for the organization but also might be viewed as threatening.

Tangible reward practices

We developed the manipulations of tangible and intangible reward practices based on the tangible and intangible rewards scales used by Yoon et al. (2015b), which were initially developed to measure extrinsic rewards for employee creativity in organizations (Malik et al., 2015). In the high/(low) tangible reward practices conditions, participants read: ‘you have noticed that when employees identify and raise concerns and suggestions, they often receive additional financial incentives and bonuses and their opportunities for promotion are enhanced/(they rarely receive additional financial incentives, bonuses or enhanced opportunities for promotion)’.

Intangible reward practices

In the high/(low) intangible reward practices conditions, the participants then read: ‘…they often/(rarely) receive praise, positive feedback and compliments from the company’.

Psychological safety

Participants completed five items from Liang et al. (2012; e.g. ‘I can freely express my thoughts’ and ‘Nobody will pick on me even if I have different opinions’; α = 0.79).

Organizational identification

Participants completed four items from Smidts et al. (2001; e.g. ‘I feel strong ties with the organization’ and ‘I am glad to be a member of this organization’; α = 0.88).

Employee voice

On a 7-point Likert scale (1 = very unlikely, 7 = very likely), participants completed the promotive and prohibitive voice scale from Liang et al. (2012; e.g. ‘Proactively develop and make new suggestions for issues that may influence your work unit’ and ‘Dare to point out problems when they appear in your work unit, even if that would hamper relationships with other colleagues’; α = 0.91).

Control variables.² We controlled for participant age and gender, which has been shown to influence employee voice. To provide a conservative test to check robustness, we also measured and controlled for participants’ general tendency to be assertive and voice their opinions at work. On a 7-point Likert scale (1 = very unlikely, 7 = very likely), participants completed the assertive scale (Hayes et al. 2005; e.g. ‘It’s easy for me to express my opinion around others who I think will disagree with me’; α = 0.80).

Results

Tangible reward practices manipulation check

After reporting voice, participants responded to a manipulation check question. The participants in the high tangible reward practices conditions reported higher likelihood of receiving additional financial incentives, bonuses and improved opportunities for promotion (M = 6.01, SD = 1.19) compared to those in the low tangible reward practices conditions (M = 3.36, SD = 2), F(1, 274) = 179.05, p < 0.001.

Intangible reward practices manipulation check

The participants in the high intangible reward practices conditions reported higher likelihood of receiving praises, positive feedback and compliments (M = 5.94, SD = 0.99) compared to those in the low intangible reward practices conditions (M = 3.64, SD = 1.89), F(1, 274) = 162.20, p < 0.001.

Table 1 summarizes descriptive statistics and inter-correlations.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and inter-correlations among variables in Study 1a.

Variables	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Age	32.06	5.80
2. Gender	1.62	.49	−0.22* *
3. Intangible reward	.51	.50	.04	.06
4. Tangible reward	.50	.50	.11	−0.05	.007
5. Psychological safety	4.55	1.14	.07	.02	.33**	.30**
6. Organizational identification	5.21	1.24	.09	−0.009	.20**	.42*	.70**
7. Employee voice	5.13	1.03	.08	−0.05	.20*	.29**	.61**	.70**
8. General assertiveness	4.11	.93	.09	−0.04	.13*	−0.002	.34**	.25**	.38**

* p < .05.

** p < .01. Gender (1 = male, 2 = female). Intangible reward (0 = low reward, 1 = high reward). Tangible reward (0 = low reward, 1 = high reward).

Common method bias

Given the mediators and voice were all reported from the same source, we followed past research to conduct the Harman’s single test (Fuller et al., 2016) with the scale items of psychological safety, organizational identification and voice, which showed that 47.5% of the variance were extracted by one factor. This is less than the suggested threshold of 50% (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986) and suggests that common method bias is not a pervasive issue in this study.³

Analysis software. We used PROCESS 4.2 for SPSS (Hayes, 2018; all reported PROCESS analyses used 5000 re-sampling iterations) across all studies.

H1a and H2a

We used Model 4 and entered tangible reward practices as the independent variable, psychological safety and organizational identification as parallel mediators, voice as the dependent variable, and intangible reward practices, age, gender, and general assertiveness as covariates. Results revealed that tangible reward practices significantly predict psychological safety (B = 0.59, SE = 0.12, t = 4.99, p < 0.001) and organizational identification (B = 0.95, SE = 0.13, t = 7.28, p < 0.001). However, when predicting voice simultaneously, psychological safety and organizational identification are significant predictors (B = 0.17, SE = 0.05, t = 3.07, p = 0.002 and B = 0.43, SE = 0.05, t = 8.76, p < 0.001, respectively) while tangible reward practices is not (B = −0.008, SE = 0.09, t = 0.02, p = 0.98), revealing two significant indirect effects of tangible reward on voice via psychological safety (B = 0.10, SE = 0.04, CI_95% = [0.03, 0.18]) and organizational identification (B = 0.41, SE = 0.09, CI_95% = [0.25, 0.60]) respectively. H1a and H2a are supported.

H1b and H2b

We used Model 4 in PROCESS with intangible reward practices as the independent variables, psychological safety and organizational identification as parallel mediators, voice as the dependent variable and tangible reward practices as a covariate. Intangible reward practices significantly predict psychological safety (B = 0.74, SE = 0.12, t = 6.25, p < 0.001) and organizational identification (B = 0.49, SE = 0.13, t = 3.80, p < 0.001). However, when predicting voice simultaneously, psychological safety and organizational identification are significant predictors (B = 0.17, SE = 0.05, t = 3.07, p = 0.002 and B = 0.43, SE = 0.05, t = 8.76, p < 0.001, respectively) while intangible reward is not (B = 0.07, SE = 0.09, t = 0.81, p = 0.42), revealing two significant indirect effects of intangible reward practices on voice via psychological safety (B = 0.12, SE = 0.05, CI_95% = [0.04, 0.22]) and organizational identification (B = 0.21, SE = 0.06, CI_95% = [0.10, 0.35]) respectively. H1b and H2b are supported.

Study 1b: experiment two – United Kingdom

Sample and procedure

To add to our confidence about the generalizability of the proposed model across different cultural contexts (Cooke, 2018), we replicated Study 1a using participants from the United Kingdom. A total of 282 working adults from the United Kingdom (M_age = 35.1, SD = 11.3, 59% female, M_{working experience} = 13.2 years) participated for £6/hour from Prolific, a popular crowd-sourcing data collection platform (Peer et al., 2017) that has been shown to be suitable for online experiments (Palan & Schitter, 2018). Specifically, the online experiment was hosted on Qualtrics.com and the link was posted on Prolific, inviting qualified participants to start and complete the survey for the monetary reward. The random assignment procedure resulted in 70 participants in the low intangible reward and low tangible reward condition, 69 participants in the high intangible reward and low tangible reward condition, 69 participants in the low intangible reward and high tangible reward condition, and 74 in the high intangible reward and high tangible reward condition. The design, procedure, and materials were identical to Study 1a, except that the materials were in English. The items measuring psychological safety, organizational identification, voice and general assertiveness were reliable (α = 0.87, 0.91, 0.91 and 0.90 respectively).

Results

Tangible reward practices manipulation check

The participants in the high tangible reward conditions reported higher likelihood of receiving additional financial incentives, bonuses and improved opportunities for promotion (M = 5.62, SD = 1.42) compared to those in the low tangible reward conditions (M = 2.06, SD = 1.41), F(1, 278) = 454.39, p < 0.001.

Intangible reward practices manipulation check

The participants in the high intangible reward conditions reported higher likelihood of receiving praise, positive feedback and compliments (M = 5.48, SD = 1.50) compared to those in the low intangible reward conditions (M = 2.36, SD = 1.57), F(1, 278) = 291.76, p < 0.001.

Table 2 summarizes descriptive statistics and inter-correlations.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics and inter-correlations among variables in Study 1b.

Variables	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Age	35.11	11.26
Gender	.59	.49	.09
Tangible reward	.51	.50	−0.04	−0.13*
Intangible reward	.49	.50	.10	.08	.02
Psychological safety	3.97	1.19	.01	−0.03	.13*	.28**
6. Organizational identification	4.13	1.21	.12*	.07	.16**	.34**	.56**
7. Employee voice	4.29	1.04	.04	−0.04	.22*	.21**	.55**	.53**
8. General assertiveness	3.95	1.27	.10	−0.12*	−0.05	.01	.11	.02	.18**

* p < .05. **p < .01. Gender: 0 = male, 1 = female. Tangible reward: 0 = low, 1 = high. Intangible reward: 0 = low, 1 = high.

H1a and H2a

The same analyses as in Study 1a were conducted. Tangible reward practices significantly predict psychological safety (B = 0.27, SE = 0.12, t = 2.18, p = 0.03) and organizational identification (B = 0.39, SE = 0.14, t = 2.89, p = 0.004). However, when predicting voice simultaneously, psychological safety and organizational identification are significant predictors (B = 0.33, SE = 0.05, t = 6.16, p <0.001 and B = 0.28, SE = 0.05, t = 5.80, p < 0.001, respectively) while intangible reward is also a significant predictor (B = 0.27, SE = 0.10, t = 2.74, p = 0.007), revealing two significant indirect effects of tangible reward practices on voice via psychological safety (B = 0.09, SE = 0.05, CI_95% = [0.006, 0.19]) and organizational identification (B = 0.11, SE = 0.05, CI_95% = [0.03, 0.21]) respectively. H1a and H2a are supported.

H1b and H2b

Intangible reward practices significantly predict psychological safety (B = 1.14, SE = 0.12, t = 9.16, p < 0.001) and organizational identification (B = 0.80, SE = 0.14, t = 5.87, p < 0.001). However, when predicting voice simultaneously, psychological safety and organizational identification are significant predictors (B = 0.33, SE = 0.05, t = 6.16, p<0.001 and B = 0.28, SE = 0.05, t = 5.60, p < 0.001, respectively) while intangible reward is not (B = -0.18, SE = 0.11, t = -1.65, p = 0.10), revealing two significant indirect effects of tangible reward practices on voice via psychological safety (B = 0.37, SE = 0.08, CI_95% = [0.23, 0.53]) and organizational identification (B = 0.23, SE = 0.06, CI_95% = [0.12, 0.34]) respectively. H1b and H2b are supported.

Discussion

The results of Study 1b successfully replicated the findings of Study 1a using a sample from the UK, again showing that tangible and intangible reward practices independently influence employee voice via two distinct indirect paths. Together, Studies 1a and 1b consistently provide strong support for our hypotheses based on the proactive motivational model (Parker et al., 2010), emphasizing the importance of ‘can do’ and ‘reason to’ motivational pathways through which tangible and intangible rewards increase employee voice.

To provide greater confidence in the robustness, generalizability and replicability of the findings in the first two experiments, it is important to replicate the key effects using alternative contexts, materials and samples. Thus, we conducted Study 2 to replicate the effects using a different industry and occupation, new manipulations of both tangible and intangible rewards, alternative scales for the mediators, and a sample from yet a different national/cultural background.

Study 2: experiment – American working adults

Sample and procedure

Study 2 had participants adopt the perspective of a consultant working in the business and finance consulting industry to test our model in a more prestigious and business-oriented setting. We also added more details in the manipulations of tangible and intangible reward practices to enhance realism. Finally, we used alternative scales for psychological safety and organizational identification that are also widely used in the literature to test whether the validity of our model goes beyond the measures we use.

A total of 272 American working adults (M_age = 36.1 years, SD = 9.9, 42.8% female, M_{working experience} = 11.9 years) completed the experiment on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace that enables researchers to efficiently obtain quality data from working American adults (Buhrmester et al., 2011). To ensure data quality, we only recruited Mturk Masters (i.e. Mturk workers who consistently provided high-quality data; Lovett et al., 2018). Consistent with Study 1b, the online experiment was hosted on Qualtrics.com and a link was posted on Mechanical Turk for qualified participants. The random assignment procedure resulted in 67 participants in the low intangible reward and low tangible reward condition, 70 participants in the high intangible reward and low tangible reward condition, 66 participants in the low intangible reward and high tangible reward condition, and 69 in the high intangible reward and high tangible reward condition. The experiment design and procedure are identical to Studies 1a and 1b.

Manipulations and measures

Workplace scenario

Participants read that they work as a business consultant in a large professional service company in the business and finance consulting industry. Their job entails approaching potential business clients to provide consulting solutions, meetings with clients to assess problematic situations, and executing business projects to meet business clients’ needs.

Tangible reward practices

In the high/(low) tangible reward condition, the participants read: ‘you have noticed that when employees identify and raise concerns and suggestions, they often receive monetary rewards or financial incentives for doing so, and doing so enhances their performance evaluation and opportunities for promotion/(they rarely receive monetary rewards or financial incentives for doing so, nor does doing so enhance their performance evaluation or opportunities for promotion)’.

Intangible reward practices

The participants in the high/(low) intangible reward condition then read: ‘…they often/(rarely) receive positive feedback and recognition, and are/(are rarely) complimented and praised publicly by the company’.

Psychological safety

Participants completed seven items from Edmondson (1999; e.g. ‘It is safe to take a risk in this organization’; α = 0.74).

Organizational identification

Participants completed six items from Mael and Ashforth (1992; e.g. ‘When I talk about HPJ, I would say “we” rather than “they”’ and ‘When someone praises HPJ, it feels like a personal compliment’; α = 0.92).

Employee voice

Same as Studies 1a and 1b (α = 0.92).

Controls. Same as Studies 1a and 1b (α = 0.79 for general assertiveness).

Results

Tangible reward manipulation check

Participants in the high tangible reward conditions reported higher likelihood of receiving monetary rewards, financial incentives, and improved performance evaluation and opportunities for promotion (M = 5.88, SD = 1.16) compared to those in the low tangible reward conditions (M = 4.08, SD = 2.32), F(1, 274) = 66.16, p < 0.001.

Intangible reward practices manipulation check

The participants in the high intangible reward conditions reported higher likelihood of receiving positive feedback, recognition, public praises and compliments for voicing in HPJ (M = 5.83, SD = 1.09) compared to those in the low intangible reward conditions (M = 3.93, SD = 2.30), F(1, 268) = 74.78, p < 0.001.

Table 3 summarizes the descriptive statistics and inter-correlations.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics and inter-correlations among variables in Study 2.

Variables	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Age	36.10	9.92
2. Gender	.43	.50	.04
3. Tangible reward	.51	.50	−0.03	.04
4. Intangible reward	.49	.50	.008	.02	.008
5. Psychological safety	4.17	.96	.06	.12*	.21**	.39**
6. Organizational identification	4.99	1.33	−0.07	.05	.14**	.29**	.50**
7. Employee voice	4.96	1.31	−0.09	.01	.10*	.32**	.59**	.66**
8. General assertiveness	3.62	1.01	.02	−0.09	−0.04	.12	.10	−0.14*	−0.09

* p < .05. **p < .01. Gender: 0 = male, 1 = female. Tangible reward: 0 = low, 1 = high. Intangible reward: 0 = low, 1 = high.

H1a and H2a

The same analyses as Studies 1a and 1b were conducted. Tangible reward practices significantly predict psychological safety (B = 0.39, SE = 0.11, t = 3.70, p < 0.001) and organizational identification (B = 0.35, SE = 0.15, t = 2.27, p = 0.02). However, when predicting voice simultaneously, psychological safety and organizational identification are significant predictors (B = 0.49, SE = 0.08, t = 6.40, p < 0.001 and B = 0.42, SE = 0.05, t = 8.11, p < 0.001 respectively) while tangible reward is not (B = −0.19, SE = 0.12, t = −1.60, p = 0.11), revealing two significant indirect effects of tangible reward on voice via psychological safety (B = 0.19, SE = 0.06, CI_95% = [0.08, 0.33]) and organizational identification (B = 0.15, SE = 0.07, CI_95% = [0.02, 0.29]) respectively. H1a and H2a are supported.

H1b and H2b

Intangible reward practices significantly predict psychological safety (B = 0.72, SE = 0.11, t = 6. 28, p < 0.001) and organizational identification (B = 0.80, SE = 0.15, t = 5.21, p<0.001). However, when predicting voice simultaneously, psychological safety and organizational identification are significant predictors (B = 0.49, SE = 0.08, t = 6.40, p < 0.001 and B = 0.42, SE = 0.05, t = 8.11, p < 0.001 respectively) while intangible reward is not (B = 0.05, SE = 0.13, t = 0.43, p = 0.67), revealing two significant indirect effects of intangible reward practices on voice via psychological safety (B = 0.35, SE = 0.10, CI_95% = [0.17, 0.54]) and organizational identification (B = 0.34, SE = 0.08, CI_95% = [0.19, 0.52]) respectively. H1b and H2b are supported.

Discussion

Despite variations in the materials and samples, three experiments converge to provide strong evidence for the robustness, generalizability, and replicability of the findings. These results support the theoretical vigor of the proactive motivational model (Parker et al., 2010) in explaining the effects of tangible and intangible reward practices on employee voice via the ‘can do’ and ‘reason to’ motivational pathways. Specifically, the presence of tangible reward practices and intangible reward practices both signal that voice is welcome and it is safe to speak up, thus increasing employees’ psychological safety and heightening this ‘can do’ motivation to fuel employees’ proactive tendency to voice. In addition, tangible and intangible reward practices can increase an employee’s ‘reason to’ voice by signalling to employees that they are a valued member of the organization and cueing employees on how to align voice content with the organization’s goals and aims. This increases their sense of belonging and identification with their organization and heightens this ‘reason to’ motivation to engage in proactive voice behaviors.

Theoretical implications

Our research provides the first empirical evidence to support the effectiveness of tangible and intangible reward practices in increasing employee voice and thus draws attention to an important HR practice that so far has been ignored in the voice research, which has focused predominantly on psychological antecedents of employee voice (Chamberlin et al., 2017), rather than on organizational HR practices. Though it is well-established that reward can elicit desired behaviors, these behaviors often aim to achieve task objectives and role expectations. However, voice is widely regarded as employees’ proactive and discretionary action (Morrison, 2014). Moreover, prior research has identified a plethora of reasons why employees will not engage in voice (see Sherf, Parke, and Isaakyan’s 2021 meta- analysis), many of which may keep employees from speaking up or voicing out even if they are rewarded. Thus, prior theoretical frameworks and perspectives cannot easily explain the association between reward and employee voice and may be why not many studies have explored the association between reward and employee voice. This is especially the case, given that a recent study has identified a motivation purity bias among organizational authority and decision makers (Derfler-Rozin & Pitesa, 2020). Under the influence of this bias, organizational authority and managers predominantly prefer actions prompted by intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic motivation. We resolve this challenge by focusing on a HRM practice adopted and enacted by the organization, which are more embedded in organizational structures and processes that can have stable and long-term impacts.

Furthermore, we provide extra theoretical precision by drawing on the proactive motivational model to identify and test two underlying motivational pathways where tangible and intangible reward practices can independently increase employees’ perceptions of the feasibility to and reason to engage in voice behaviors. To build on this, we theorize that employees make attributions about HR practices (Van De Voorde & Beijer, 2015), such as rewards, and that these attributions provide cues to employees about what is acceptable and valued voice behaviour, leading to increased levels of psychological safety; while employees will also perceive that the rewards signal they themselves are valued and supported, which will positively impact on their organizational identification. This theoretical advancement thus provides new theoretical insights into the relationship between reward practices and motivation and suggests that, compared to the dominant perspective in literature that focuses on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (e.g. Becton et al., 2008; Malik et al., 2015; Yoon et al., 2015a, 2015b), adopting a new theoretical framework such as the proactive motivational model might lead to new knowledge and understanding of proactive behaviors such as employee voice.

Further, we contribute to the voice literature by examining an understudied antecedent to voice, i.e. organizational reward practices, and demonstrate how this is associated with the psychological antecedents of psychological safety and organizational identification. Previous studies have found psychological safety and organizational identification are related to voice within the Western (Detert & Burris, 2007; Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006; Tangirama and Ramanujam 2008) and Asian contexts (Liang et al., 2012). However, beyond the influence of positive leader behaviors (Chughtai, 2016; Detert & Burris, 2007; Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006), how organizations can increase these psychological states in employees to encourage their voice is rarely considered. Against this backdrop, we offer a novel perspective that both tangible and intangible reward practices can effectively increase both psychological safety and organizational identification within Western and Eastern contexts, and eventually enhance employee voice behavior. This not only provides answers to the repeated calls for greater integration of HRM and organizational behavior studies (Mowbray et al., 2015; Wilkinson et al., 2019) but also furthers recent studies that have considered HR contextual factors on voice behavior (see Morrison, 2023), along with calls (Edmondson & Bransby, 2023) to better understand how important antecedents to voice, such as psychological safety and organizational identification, can be enhanced.

Practical implications

Our findings have important managerial implications as we show that proactive motivational states play an important role in motivating employee proactive behavior, such as voice (Li et al., 2021). Given both HR and managers are often responsible for creating formal mechanisms for enhancing employee motivation, our research suggests they should consider how to incorporate rewards within these mechanisms and practices to maximize employee proactive motivation.

Managers throughout the organization also play a key role in recognising voice episodes and administering the reward practices for employee voice (Detert & Burris, 2007). HR practitioners should develop training programs for managers to assist them to be more open to the importance of employee voice (Burris, 2012) and to show them how to recognize and reward it appropriately. Managers should ensure they give informal praise to employees when they speak up with suggestions, even when those suggestions may be perceived as more challenging. Consideration should also be given to formal verbal recognition in team meetings which will demonstrate to other employees within the team that there is the potential for them to be recognized if they also speak up. This may show employees that the manager is open to hearing that voice and will help to set a norm of what is valued by the organization (Brun & Dugas, 2008; Farndale et al., 2011). Transparent managerial practices that support the acknowledgement and rewarding of employee voice will assist in procedural and distributive justice perceptions that the system is fair (McFarlin and Sweeney, 1992), which in turn will create psychological safety. Drawing on agency theory (Eisenhardt, 1989), the use of rewards can be used by employers to direct employees to engage in certain behaviours that align employee-employer interests (Chang and Birtch, 2012). Therefore, it is important for organizations to align the reward with the specific type of voice that is sought, such as a bonus or recognition applied for the identification of weaknesses or problems within the organisation (that may be considered a more risky form of voice) in order to signal that it is safe to speak up with that type of voice content and for employees to have a better understanding of how they can align their voice with the values and goals of the organization.

Limitations and future research

There are several limitations in the present studies that can be addressed by future research. This research only focused on one type of HR practice—tangible and intangible rewards - which should not exclude other types of HR and managerial practices that might increase employee voice, via similar or different motivational pathways. Our findings suggest that other practices that aim at increasing psychological safety and organizational identification should also indirectly increase employee voice via these two motivational pathways. Indeed, studies could look at leadership training associated with feedback, openness, listening and coaching skills, which may help to create environments where employees are encouraged to speak up, or consider training for employees on problem-solving which may improve employees’ efficacy and safety to voice. In addition, some managerial practices might influence employee voice via very different motivational pathways, the investigation of which using other theoretical frameworks can also be a very promising direction for future research.

Second, as the first research to investigate the effectiveness of individual reward practices on voice, we did not explore the boundary conditions under which these effects can be strengthened or weakened, nor did we theorize under what circumstances the effects of intangible rewards on employee voice would differ from those of tangible rewards. Nevertheless, future research can consider more about the specific personal characteristics and organizational boundary conditions that are conducive for reward practices to be effective in increasing voice. For example, future research can test whether the effects of reward practices might be moderated by employee characteristics such as the sensitivity to reward (Torrubia et al., 2001) or preference for social harmony over personal gain. While our study used Liang et al.’s (2012) measure of voice that includes both promotive and prohibitive measures, for the purpose of this study we did not differentiate between them as we found no significant differences between these two types of voice when accounting for their relationship to the measures studied. Hence, we treated it as a complete measure of voice. However, given prohibitive voice is considered to be a more risky and challenging behavior, it is possible that future research could elucidate under what conditions reward may have a differential impact on promotive and prohibitive voice types.

One limitation of our study is the use of an experimental design, which we deemed most suitable for our phenomenon under interest. Future research could adopt qualitative and quantitative field studies to determine under what conditions tangible or intangible reward practices may be more likely to motivate employees to voice. For example, in our study, we were able to control the temporal nature of rewards, however the reality in the workplace may be that intangible rewards, such as verbal praises, happen at the time of the voicing episode, whereas a tangible reward, such as a positive performance appraisal and associated bonus, may occur sometime after the voice episode has occurred, thus making the association between reward and voice less salient. Other researchers can examine the influence of temporality on rewards and the voicing episode, the frequency of receiving a tangible reward versus intangible reward, and the frequency of seeing others within the organization receiving tangible and intangible rewards.

Third, in our vignette-based scenarios we broadly treated rewards as the same but in reality, rewards such as bonuses, prizes, promotion, praises and recognition are clearly different and require different managerial support and implementation, and thus might have very different effects on employees. Future research might benefit from further investigating which specific reward is the most effective and whether specific rewards have complementary effects on employee voice. For example, rewards associated more explicitly with career growth, such as promotion, may be more effective at motivating employees to voice than praise. Additionally, tangible and intangible rewards may be administered to the individual, or conversely may be a reward given to the team or group (Spiegelaere et al., 2018). This warrants further research to elucidate the differences between individual and team reward and the implications this may have on strengthening or weakening their effect on psychological safety and organizational identification. Furthermore, while our study found consistent results across the Western and Eastern contexts, similar to Edmonston and Bransby’s (2023) review of the psychological safety literature, other research has found that tangible rewards are more salient than intangible rewards for employees in high power distance and collectivist cultures (Chiang & Birtch, 2012). The focus of our study was not to explicitly examine or hypothesise on the differences between Western and Eastern contexts, therefore further studies focused on these differences may elucidate new findings, particularly in relation to comparison of team versus individual rewards and on how tangible versus intangible rewards may have different effects on psychological safety, organizational identification and voice within different cultural settings.

Finally, we acknowledge the limitations of the vignette-based methodology, such as the self-reported nature of the voice behavior as well as external validity issues (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014; Atzmüller & Steiner, 2010). To address these issues and to provide further support for our model, future research can adopt the field experiment method (Shadish & Cook, 2009) to test the key causal relationships that we have proposed in a field setting with real organizations.

Conclusion

To conclude, this present research helped to clarify the theoretical relationship between rewards and employee voice, by elucidating two proactive motivational pathways that support employees’ ‘can do’ to voice and ‘reason to’ voice. Using an experimental methodology, we were able to isolate the presence of tangible and intangible rewards and tease apart the influence of these reward practices on voice. Our results from three vignette studies show that managers can use tangible and intangible rewards for voice to improve employees’ psychological safety and organizational identification, which will improve employee’s sense of being able to voice and give reason to voice. In doing so, we have shown the importance of reward practices in triggering a proactive motivational state to voice, which holds across both Eastern and Western contexts. This has implications for organizations and managers in terms of how they design and administer their reward practices, with both tangible and intangible rewards having a positive effect on the promotion of voice behavior.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

Dataset is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 The results of Study 1a were fully replicated using a sample of 200 Chinese undergraduate students enrolled in a management course in a large university in East China (64% female, M_age = 19.3, SD_age = 1.6). To save space and to be comparable with Study 1b and Study 2, we only present the results from the working adult sample.

2 Removing the control variables does not change our results in all three studies in this paper.

3 Same Studies 1b and 2, where 48% and 47.9% of the variance were extracted by one factor respectively.