An exploratory examination of voice behavior from an impression management perspective.

In order to cope with dynamic and competitive environments, organizations are pushing their employees to work harder and to seek out opportunities for constructive change. In fact, initiative is seen by many as a major source of competitive advantage and organizational success (Crant, 2000; Parker, 2000). Voice behavior is the form of proactive behavior that has received the most empirical attention. Van Dyne and LePine define voice behavior as a form of organizational citizenship behavior that involves "constructive change-oriented communication intended to improve the situation" (1998: 326). Voice entails challenging the status quo with constructive suggestions, even when others disagree (Van Dyne and LePine, 1998). Research concerning voice behavior is important for several reasons. First, making constructive suggestions is the essential "first step" in the innovation process (LePine and Van Dyne, 1998; Scott and Bruce, 1994). By drawing attention to opportunities for improvement, voice behavior serves as the "seed corn" for continuous improvement and organizational adaptation (Ashford et al., 1998; Van Dyne and LePine, 1998). Second, unlike organizational exit or neglect (Hirschman, 1970), voice behavior makes it possible for an organization to channel employees' dissatisfaction with the status quo toward correcting mistakes, improving processes, and formulating novel solutions to organizational problems (Zhou and George, 2001). Further, as illustrated by the Challenger incident and Enron's demise, a lack of voice behavior can lead to serious organizational problems. Finally, voice behavior can also result in benefits for the individual worker such as the appearance of competence (Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001) or higher performance evaluations (Thompson, 2003). Thus, research examining the antecedents and consequences of employee voice is extremely relevant to both researchers and practitioners. Unfortunately, LePine and Van Dyne (1998) note that researchers have not been very successful in predicting voice behavior. There are at least three possible explanations for this. First, most studies focus exclusively upon main effects, rather than analyzing interactional models, despite the likelihood that employee voice may be highest when individual differences lead some individuals to respond to favorable situational factors (LePine and Van Dyne, 1998). Second, voice behavior promotes change and challenges the status quo. This makes it a potentially risky behavior for employees. If voice is perceived as complaining or personal criticism, it can upset interpersonal relationships or create negative impressions (LePine and Van Dyne, 1998; Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001). Finally, researchers have not explicitly taken a functional approach to voice behavior (cf. Snyder, 1993). Functional analysis is pervasive in areas of psychology that emphasize purposeful action to obtain desired ends and concerns the "reasons and purposes, the needs and goals, the plans and motives that underlie and generate psychological phenomena" (Snyder, 1993: 253). In the current context, a functional approach focuses upon identifying the purpose served by engaging in or not engaging in voice behavior. Our research is designed to address each of the issues raised in the preceding paragraph. We attempt to gain a greater understanding of voice behavior by exploring the extent to which worker personality (i.e., self-monitoring) interacts with a contextual feature of the workplace (past performance) to predict when some people engage in voice behavior. Our model is based upon a functional approach that suggests that voice may, in some situations, serve impression management purposes. Our model also takes into account the potential risk involved in voice behavior. In addition, we engage in an exploratory examination of how these factors interact to influence worker promotability. VOICE BEHAVIOR AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT Impression management is defined as "the process whereby people seek to control or influence the impressions that others form" (Rosenfeld et al. …