Moved to speak up: How prosocial emotions influence the employee voice process

Abstract

Employees often notice issues as they go about their work, but they are more likely to remain silent than to voice about those issues. This means that organizations miss out on critical opportunities for improvement. We deepen understanding of why and when employees do speak up by theorizing about voice episodes that arise when organizational issues (e.g. policies, actions) cause others to suffer. We suggest that when employees feel prosocial emotions—empathic concern, empathic anger, and/or guilt—in response to another’s suffering, they are more likely to voice about the issues creating that suffering. Specifically, we propose that these other-oriented emotions make it more likely that employees will see an opportunity for voice, feel sufficiently motivated to voice, and assess the potential benefits of speaking up as greater than the possible costs. We also posit that three contextual factors—relationship to sufferer, relational scripts, and emotional culture—influence whether (and how intensely) employees experience prosocial emotions in response to suffering triggered by an organizational issue, and thus affect the likelihood of voice. By theorizing the mechanisms through which prosocial emotions animate a specific episode of voice, we provide a foundation for understanding how employees can be moved to speak up.