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ABSTRACT
This study analyses the relationship between two kinds of employee voice mechanisms and voice behaviour among portfolio career workers in Japan, Korea and China. Using the conservation of resources theory, we focus on the role of managerial leadership. Under similar sampling procedures, data on 400 managers in each country were collected via web-based surveys conducted for Japan and Korea in 2017 and for China 2018. The findings are as follows: First, the number of team voice mechanisms is positively and directly related to voice behaviour in each country. Second, the number of representative voice mechanisms is positively and indirectly related to voice behaviour in Japan and China. Third, the number of team voice mechanisms is positively and directly related to transformational leadership in each country. Fourth, the number of representative voice mechanisms is positively and indirectly related to the level of transformational leadership in Japan and China. Fifth, transformational leadership is positively related to leader group prototypicality in Japan and China. Finally, leader group prototypicality is positively related to voice behaviour in Japan and China.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by grants from the Japanese Association of Industrial/Organisational Psychology research support system for graduate students, 2017-2018.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Here, the reason for using ‘newly’ is that even in the OB field in the 1980s, employee voice was defined as the expression of informal complaints and dissatisfaction by individual employees in the workplace (Farrell Citation1983; Rusbult et al. Citation1988).
2. Theoretically, the relationship between workplace injustice and union participation can be explained in two ways depending on the direction of the causal relationship. One explanation is that as workplace injustice increases, employees’ union participation also increases. The other explanation is that workplace injustice is corrected as employees’ union participation increases. The former claims a positive causal relationship, while the latter claims a negative causal relationship. In the current study, the additive effect of representative voice mechanisms supports the latter causal relationship.
3. This study assumes that voice is an effective investment strategy for acquiring standing within the group and the right to speak. However, the issue of the glass ceiling and gender discrimination in Asian management (Cooke Citation2005; Patterson and Walcutt Citation2013, Citation2014; Yukongdi and Benson Citation2005) raises the possibility that this assumption may not apply to women. For example, the long-term employment practices of Japanese-style business were limited to men. Moreover, men have also been given priority for management promotion and career development opportunities. This kind of gendered belief structure (e.g. consciousness of gender role separation) may act as an exogenous variable in this study’s analysis. In fact, it has been demonstrated that the impact of voice on standing within the group and the emergence of leaders is more pronounced among men than women (McClean et al. Citation2018).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Seonjo Kim
Seonjo Kim, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of College of Business at Rikkyo University. His research focuses on integrative approaches towards employee voice in terms of Organisational Behaviour, Human Resource Management, and Employment Relations.
Jun Ishikawa
Jun Ishikawa, PhD, is a Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management and a head of The Institute for Leadership Studies at Rikkyo University. His research interests include leadership, R&D management, and strategic human resource management.