The Influence And Mechanisms Of Group Process On Employees'Voice Behavior

With increasingly complexity and dynamic of organizational environment, and organizations are gradually turning to group-based structure, upward flow of information, multi-source and multi-channel opinions in groups are becoming more and more importanct to group decision-making and healthy. Then, employee voice behavior, defined as "expressing work-related ideas, opinions, and information based on cooperative motivation", is of obvious importance to groups in organizations. According to IPO (Input-Process-Output) model, group process, shared perception or experience, is likely to play a critical role in creating safe climate of voice. However, group-level contextual variables have been ignored in voice literature. In addition, voice divided into two forms: promotive voice and prohibitive voice, the difference between two forms of voice behavior triggers research into different predictors and mechanisms of them. Therefore, the dissertation attempts to explore the relations and mechanisms between group process (task conflict, trust, and system responsiveness within groups) and voice behavior.Based on literature review, the relations and the mechanisms between group process (conflict, coworker trust, and system responsiveness within groups) and voice behavior were tested in three studies. The first study tested the relations and mechanisms between task conflict and promotive and prohibitive voice. On the analysis of pairing data from180employees and their immediate superiors within68groups using HLM, the results showed that task conflict was negatively related to promotive voice, rather than prohibitive voice, relational conflict fully mediated the relation between task conflict and promotie voice, and participative leadership moderated the relation of relational conflict and promotive voice.The second study explored the relations and mechanisms of coworker trust and two forms of voice behaivor. Based on data from231full-time employees and their superiors within77groups, results of HLM analysis revealed that coworker trust was positively associated with both promotive and prohibitive voice behavior significantly. Psychological safety partly mediated the relationship between coworker trust and both two types of voice, consisting with prior findings. In addition, our results revealed that assertive impression management motive did mediate the linkages between coworker trust and prohibitive voice, rather than the relation of coworker trust and promotive voice.The third study examined the relations and mechanisms of system responsiveness and two forms of voice. On the analysis of data from264employees and their immediate superiors in95groups, the findings showed that group system responsiveness was positively associated with both promotive voice and prohibitive voice significantly, beyond individual psychological safety and superior interactional justice. That is, when suggestion system in groups treats suggestions adequately, fairly, and understands and implements the suggestions where possible, individual promotive voice and prohibitive voice are likely to increase. Second, the results revealed that individual organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) mediated the relations between system responsiveness and two forms of voice behavior, and individual tradionality negatively moderated the relations of system responsiveness and OBSE. That is to say, compared with employees with high traditionality, for for employees with low traditionality, the positive relation of system responsiveness and OBSE was stronger. In addition, group bureaucracy (formalization and centralization) negatively moderated the relations of OBSE and prohibitive voice, and the moderating roles of OBSE and promotive voice was not supported.Finally, it summarized the main research conclusions, and pointed out the imitations of this study as well as the future research directions.