Research On The Double-Edged Sword Effect Of Voice Endorsement On Subordinate’s Behaviors

In the context of intensified global business competition and complex and changeable market environment,leaders’ "one-voice" decision-making method under the traditional management model has been unable to meet the complexity and diversification needs of current organizational operations.Voice has become a significant channel for employees to contribute their own wisdom to the organization and promote the development of the organization.Whether the leaders can adopt the voice of employees is the key to whether the voice can play a positive role in the organization and promote the organization to achieve a "qualitative leap".Nevertheless,the current academic research on voice endorsement is still in its infancy,and most research on voice endorsement focus on its influencing factors,ignoring the exploration of the effects of voice endorsement.This paper will focus on the theme of the effect of voice endorsement,and deeply explore the impact,mechanism,and potential boundary conditions of voice endorsement on subordinates’ behavior,so as to help leaders maximize the positive effect of employees’ voice behavior,and reduce the possible negative effects.Firstly,combined with the practical and theoretical background,this paper clarified the research question.Then,the relevant literature on the core variables involved in this research was sorted out.Furthermore,the article expounded the connotation and application of the two basic theories of this article,namely Social Information Processing Theory and Social Exchange Theory,and constructed a theoretical model of the influence of voice endorsement on subordinates’ behavior under this framework.Then,after the design and modification of the questionnaire,a measurement tool with good reliability and validity is finally formed to collect the final data.Afterwards,the paired data of 186 leaders and 787 subordinates from 5 enterprises and institutions were collected.Finally,through the structural equation model,the researcher has carried out data analysis on the collected questionnaire data,so as to verify the research hypothesis proposed in this paper.The main conclusions of this study are as follows.First,voice endorsement can increase employees’ work engagement and reduce their workplace deviance via perceived insider status.Voice endorsement can make employees feel the support and recognition from leaders,and enhance employees’ perceived insider status.On the one hand,when employees’ perceived insider status is enhanced,in order to enhance organizational value,employees will increase their work engagement.On the other hand,when employees regard themselves as part of the organization,in order to maintain the efficiency of the organization,employees will regulate their behaviors to conform to organizational norms and interpersonal norms,that is,try to avoid workplace deviance.Second,voice endorsement can reduce employees’ work engagement and increase their workplace deviance via psychological entitlement.Since leaders will not accept all the suggestions of all employees,employees whose suggestions are adopted will have the idea of being unique in the organization,and then have the belief that they should be given preferential treatment,that is,psychological entitlement.When employees have psychological entitlement,they tend to think that they have made enough contributions to the organization,and then reduce their work commitment.After receiving the leader’s voice endorsement and generating psychological entitlement,employees also tend to believe that even if they violate organizational and interpersonal rules,they should not be punished.Correspondingly,their workplace deviance behavior will increase significantly.In terms of the overall effect,the positive impact of voice endorsement on subordinates’ behavior is greater than the negative impact,that is,compared with the increase of workplace deviance behavior,voice endorsement is more conducive to the improvement of employees’ work engagement.Third,leader-member exchange can play a moderating role in the direct relationship between voice endorsement and perceived insider status,and the direct relationship between voice endorsement and psychological entitlement,respectively.Firstly,a highquality leader-member exchange means that leaders provide employees with more support,recognition,and trust.When a leader takes the advice of an employee with a high-quality leader-member exchange,that employee feels more support from the leader and thus experiences a stronger sense of perceived insider status.Secondly,high-quality leader-member exchange is a scarce resource,and individuals with high-quality leadermember exchange consider themselves unique.When their voices are adopted by leaders,this sense of uniqueness will be enhanced,and employees’ psychological entitlement will also significantly be enhanced.Fourth,leader-member exchange can play a moderating role in the indirect relationship between voice endorsement and work engagement,and the indirect relationship between voice endorsement and workplace deviance behavior,respectively.Specifically,firstly,leader-member exchange can positively moderate the mediating role of perceived insider status between voice endorsement and work engagement.Secondly,leader-member exchange can positively moderate the mediating role of perceived insider status between voice endorsement and workplace deviance behavior.Thirdly,leadermember exchange can positively moderate the mediating role of psychological entitlement between voice endorsement and job engagement.Fourthly,leader-member exchange can positively moderate the mediating role of psychological entitlement between voice endorsement and workplace deviance behavior.The contributions of this paper are as follows.First,this paper explores the positive impact of voice endorsement on employees,and enriches the relevant research on the effects of voice endorsement.Although some scholars have begun to focus on the field of voice endorsement,most studies focus on the influencing factors of voice endorsement,ignoring the effect of it,especially its potential impact on subordinates’ follow-up work behavior.This paper breaks the convention and shifts the focus of previous research on voice endorsement to exploring the effects of it.By revealing the positive impact of voice endorsement on subordinates’ behavior,this research enriches the relevant research on the effects of voice endorsement,and makes a useful supplement to the research on voice endorsement.Second,this paper excavates the negative impact of voice endorsement on subordinates,and reveals the "double-edged sword" effect of it.With the in-depth research on voice endorsement,some scholars have recognized the positive effect of voice endorsement on employees’ behavior,but they still ignore the possible negative effects of it.From the perspective of social information processing,and on the basis of exploring the positive effects of voice endorsement,this paper reveals the "double-edged sword" effect of voice endorsement by digging into the negative effects of it.This paper not only fills the research gap in the field of voice endorsement,but also provides a new research perspective for scholars to understand the effect of voice endorsement more comprehensively,and promotes the development of existing theories to a great extent.Third,this paper reveals the “black box” of the effect of voice endorsement on the behavior of organization members,and enriches the research limitations of the mechanism of voice endorsement.By introducing a new perspective of social information processing,this paper explores the way that voice endorsement affects subordinates’ behavior from both positive and negative aspects.On the one hand,this paper confirms that voice endorsement has a beneficial effect on employees,that is,by enhancing subordinates’ perceived insider status,thereby increasing employees’ work engagement and reducing their workplace deviance behaviors.On the other hand,this paper verifies the path that voice endorsement has a detrimental effect on employees,that is,by stimulating subordinates’ psychological entitlement,reducing their work engagement and increasing workplace deviance behaviors.This paper opens the "black box" of the relationship between voice endorsement and subordinates’ follow-up behavior.At the same time,this research responds to the call for further discussion on the mechanism of voice endorsement in previous studies,filling a research gap in this area.Fourth,this paper explores the boundary condition of the effect of voice endorsement from the perspective of leader-member relationship,and expands the related research on contextual factors.Although existing studies have explored the contextual factors of the effects of voice endorsement,they have not explored in depth the contextual factors at the dual level when voice endorsement has an effect.This research both verifies the positive and negative effects of leader-member exchange,and responds to the call of existing studies to include the voicer and the receiver of voice into a study.This paper not only provides possible explanations for the different effects of voice endorsement,but also helps to understand when voice endorsement can play a role in a more comprehensive way.Moreover,this paper also enriches the relevant research on the function boundary of voice endorsement,and lays a research foundation for further understanding of the effect of it.