Kaufman-2015-Human Resource Management Journal

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12056
Theorising determinants of employee voice: an

integrative model across disciplines and levels of
analysis
Bruce E. Kaufman, Department of Economics, Georgia State University, and Centre
for Work, Organization and Wellbeing, Department of Employment Relations and
Human Resources, Griffith University
Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 25, no 1, 2015, pages 1940
This article critiques organisational behaviour (OB) research on employee voice and presents a
broader-based conceptual model that integrates ideas and concepts across employment relationship
disciplines and levels of analysis. OB studies err by taking an overly individualistic, psychological,
managerialist and de-institutionalised perspective on employee voice. This criticism is documented and
illustrated with numerous examples from the OB literature. To provide a constructive step forward, the
article presents an enlarged model of employee voice that not only includes OB but also brings in
important contributions from the HRM, industrial relations, labour economics and labour process fields.
The model provides an integrative framework for theoretical and empirical studies of voice and yields a
number of research and practice implications.
Contact: Bruce E. Kaufman, Department of Economics, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
30303, USA. Email: bkaufman@gsu.edu
Keywords: employee voice; HRM; employment relationship; organisational behaviour; industrial relations
INTRODUCTION
he employee voice concept was popularised in the research literature by Freeman and
Medoff (1984), although its roots go back more than two centuries (Kaufman, 2014a). The
number of books and articles on employee voice began to mushroom 10 years later and
spread into industrial sociology, labour law and behavioural science fields, such as
industrial-organisational psychology, organisational behaviour (OB) and HRM. Illustratively,
symposia on employee voice have been featured in the Journal of Management Studies
(September 2003), Socio-Economic Review (May 2006), Human Relations (March 2010), Human
Resource Management (January 2011) and Industrial Relations (January 2013). Also recently
published is a 29-chapter Handbook of Research on Employee Voice (Wilkinson et al., 2014).
Naturally, researchers in these many different fields and disciplines explore the voice topic
from different frames of reference and with different concepts and methods. Also, the ongoing
trend towards academic specialisation both across and within fields tends to fragment the
research literature on employee voice into self-contained and self-referential silos (Wilkinson
and Fay, 2011) referred to by Suddaby (2012), editor of the Academy of Management Review, as
the balkanization of management theory (p. 7).
This article seeks to break down some of these employee voice silos and foster a more
integrative and cross-disciplinary research dialogue. No field is free of excessive specialisation
and narrowness of approach; however, the OB segment of the voice literature seems
particularly divorced from the historical mainstream of the subject and theories and findings
in other employment-related fields (Godard, 2014; Mowbray et al., 2014; Pohler and Luchak,
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015
19
2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Kaufman, B.E. (2015) Theorising determinants of employee voice: an integrative model across disciplines and
levels of analysis. Human Resource Management Journal 25: 1, 1940.
Integrative model of employee voice
2014). Hence, this article proceeds in a two-step process of critique and reformulation. The first
step is to outline the OB model of employee voice, using recent articles by Morrison (2011) and
Klaas et al. (2012) as a focal point, and identify its important shortcomings (also see Brinsfield,
2014). The second step is to take the OB perspective and build on it a more integrative and
broad-based voice model by incorporating key concepts and ideas from other fields, such as
HRM, industrial relations (IR), labour economics (LE) and the labour process (LP) part of
industrial sociology. These perspectives receive chapter-length treatment in the Wilkinson et al.
(2014) research handbook, and this article can be viewed as an attempt to formalise a greater
conceptual unity among them in the spirit of the original cross-disciplinary and multilevel
employment relations (ER) field (Edwards, 2003; Budd, 2004; Kaufman, 2004).
OB: CONCEPTUALISATION AND MODEL OF EMPLOYEE VOICE

The OB-centred literature on employee voice was recently summarised and synthesised in two
lengthy review articles in top-tier journals by Morrison (2011) and Klaas et al. (KOBW, 2012).1
Both articles are billed in their titles as integrative and include in their bibliographies more than
two hundred studies. These articles do not speak for all OB researchers; a search of the
literature can always find exceptions to the criticisms and generalisations made here, and the
two articles and literature they summarise may have a discernible American slant.
The place to start is the definition and conceptualisation of employee voice. Morrison (2011)
states, I offer the following integrated conceptualization of voice: discretionary communication
of ideas, suggestions, concerns, or opinions about work-related issues with the intent to
improve organizational and unit functioning (p. 375). She also lists these specific features of
employee voice: verbal expression, individual choice, face-to-face, prosocial and constructive
intent. Her article focuses on psychological antecedents, processes and outcomes of voice at the
individual and small group levels, and excludes from coverage the voice literatures in
organisational justice, HRM and IR (LE is not mentioned) on the grounds that they have not
considered discretionary voice behaviors, nor the causes or consequences of this behavior . . .
[but] a wide range of formal mechanisms (p. 381, emphasis in original).
Unexpectedly for a review article, KOBW do not provide a definition of the voice construct.
However, their perspective is also centred in micro OB, and in particular psychological
determinants and processes. For example, KOBW describe voice as a discretionary choice made
by the individual employee that typically consists of communicating ideas, opinions and
preferences upward to superiors in the organisation. They also observe that the dominant
assumption that voice is functional for the organisation (p. 337) brings benefits to managers
(p. 328) and takes a prosocial orientation (pp. 337338). They cite seven determinants of voice
(p. 316), and these have a heavy micro OB orientation, such as trait-like individual differences,
satisfaction-commitment-loyalty and organisational culture. Unlike Morrison, however, KOBW
give some consideration to formal and collective forms of voice, and posit not only a prosocial
orientation but also a justice orientation rooted in dissatisfaction and potential conflict of
interests. This facet leads KOBW to briefly discuss grievance systems and mention collective
bargaining; they do not, however, specifically introduce HRM or IR into their integrative review
(LE is not mentioned).
Based on her review and synthesis of the micro organisational literature, Morrison depicts
in a diagram the core independent and dependent variables and causal orderings for a model
of employee voice. It is reproduced as Figure 1. KOBW do not present a diagram, but the
discussion in their article closely follows Figure 1.
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Bruce E. Kaufman
Figure 1 Morrisons voice model
Does the OB model depicted in Figure 1 capture the strategic must have elements necessary
for a manager or researcher to adequately understand the basics of employee voice? As
preliminary evidence, consider these 10 features.
1. Employees are included as active decision makers, but organisations and managers are
treated as autonomous contextual factors (top left-hand box).
2. The amount and type of voice is explained without reference to the goals, strategy and
performance of organisations and their managers (none included in the Contextual Factors
box).
3. Voice is explained without reference to programmes, policies and strategies that companies
create for HRM, employee involvement and workplace governance.
4. Also omitted is the influence on voice of conditions in the organisations external
environment, such as prosperity level of the economy, laws governing employee voice,
extent of trade unionism and individual versus collective cultural attitudes (none are
included in the top two boxes).
5. The assumption is that employees want to speak up to help managers and the organisation,
but this predisposition is never explained (lower left-hand box).
6. The benefit the organisation motive appears to rest on an implicit assumption that the ER
is typically unitarist, cooperative and mutual gain.
7. Economic considerations, such as the effect of voice on the organisations profit and
employees wages, are not included as contingencies in the choice process or voice
outcomes (the outcome employee rewards being closest to an exception).
8. Only individual voice is modelled; collective forms of voice are omitted and no distinction
is made between direct and indirect (representative) voice.
21
9. Ignored are other dimensions of voice besides communication and problem-solving, such as
exercising power, providing democratic governance, solving organisational failures,
maintaining justice, and protecting employee rights.
10. Voice is portrayed as typically good for organisational performance (the numerous plus
signs in the organisational outcome box) so managers should revise organisational practices
to encourage more of it, but no positive feedback loop is included and no explanation given
where the upward voice cycle stops.
No model can include all relevant factors; further, a model has to be tailored to the level of
analysis and research question. This articles contention, however, is that these 10 items
represent strategic omissions even at the individual level of voice research. The amount, quality
and value-added of individual employee voice, for example, surely depend on the firms
business strategy, use of traditional or high-performance HRM practices, availability of
formal/group voice mechanisms, cooperative versus adversarial tenor of employee relations,
employee cultural attributes (e.g. power distance, individual vs. collective orientation), and
whether alternative jobs are plentiful or scarce. As argued by Godard (2014),
Mowbray et al. (2014), Pohler and Luchak (2014), and Cullinane and Donaghey (2014), a broader
and more inclusive model that gives balanced consideration to all stakeholder roles and
interests is needed.
ALTERNATIVE ER MODEL
Voice takes place within an employment relationship that crosses traditional disciplinary borders.
HRM is often framed as management of the employment relationship, and for this reason is said
to be cross-disciplinary (Wilkinson et al., 2010). Academic researchers, however, are trained in
narrow areas of specialisation, and the broader cross-disciplinary dimension is often neglected
and sometimes defensively greeted per the observation by Burris (2012) that [v]oice that
fundamentally challenges is likely to be met with resistance (p. 853). Given this lacuna, Figure 2
presents an alternative model of employee voice with roots in the cross-disciplinary field of ER.
The model is necessarily a generalised and broad-brush representation with only the most
strategic features of voice included from the various literatures. It is, nonetheless, a model as
opposed to a classification system or catch-all list of variables culled from each field because the
component parts are conceptual entities linked together in a causeeffect structure that yields
hypotheses and explains patterns in the dependent variable.
The model starts at the top and proceeds to the bottom. The final step in the structure is the
determination of the outcome variable, employee voice. The most important causal and
feedback relationships are indicated with arrows; many links are omitted, however, to keep the
diagram legible. Individual components, such as the firms desired amount of voice and the
role of ER climate in the firm, are theorised in greater detail in Kaufman (2014b,c).
Employee voice: defined and conceptualised
Employee voice is the dependent variable to be explained. One reason the voice literature
remains fragmented is that the voice construct is not commensurate across authors and fields.
OB writers, for example, define voice as individual expression for problem-solving, while many
labour economists define voice as synonymous with unions and collective bargaining (e.g.
Addison, 2005).
An alternative approach is to ask managers how they conceive voice. Wilkinson et al. (2004)
conclude from field interviews that voice encompasses consultation, communication, and say, and
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Bruce E. Kaufman
Figure 2 Employment relations (ER) model of employee voice determinants

External Environment
Legal
Economic
Organisational
Configuration
Social-Cultural
Employment Relationship
Governance
Structure
Authority
Voice System
Internal Contingencies
Employer
Production Technology
Managerial Quality
Organisational Culture
Employee
Psycho-Social Dispositions
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities
Demographics
Individual versus Collective

Topics and Agenda
Communication versus Influence
Desired
Voice
Demand
Voice System
Individual versus Collective
Topics and Agenda
Communication versus Influence
ER Climate
Conflict/
Adversary
Employee
Goal: Enhanced Well-Being
Benefits
Costs
Strategy
Labour Market
Labour Market
Employer
Goal: Efficiency and Profit
Benefits
Costs
Strategy
Cooperation/
Partner
Interaction Process
Markets
Management
Individual
Desired
Voice
Supply
Employee Voice
varies along dimensions of form (direct vs. indirect), agenda (shared vs. contested) and influence
(power or muscle). Accordingly, employee voice to managers has both integrative/
pie-growing and distributive/pie-sharing dimensions, and takes place in highly variegated
forms and settings ranging from an informal 5-minute problem-solving discussion to collective
bargaining. Voice also includes not only face-to-face talk but also other forms of
communication, such as emails, grievance filings and striking.
This conceptualisation of employee voice is far wider than commonly used in OB. However,
it accords with the definition used by other researchers who take a broad ER perspective. The
editors of the voice research handbook, for example, define voice as the ways and means
through which employees attempt to have a say and potentially influence organizational affairs
relating to issues that affect their works and the interests of managers and owners (Wilkinson
et al., 2014).
This definition encompasses all employment relationships and includes both the
communication and influence dimensions of voice. Also, this conceptualisation can be
measured in workplace surveys, such as along the dimensions of form, agenda and influence.
These data can then be converted into a low-to-high ranking, similar to the way individual
HRM practices are combined into a composite index for firm performance studies and
represented as a voice frequency distribution (Kaufman and Miller, 2011; Kaufman, 2014b).
External environment
The model starts with an organisations external environment. This category includes factors such
as economy (e.g. macro cycles, industry growth), legal (e.g. employee rights, union organising and
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bargaining regulation, co-determination) and cultural-social (e.g. individualist vs. collective

attitudes; authority-conformity norms).
Morrison and KOBW almost entirely omit external environment contingencies on the
argument their focus is on individual choice about an extra-role behaviour outside of formal
voice structures. Surely, however, the type and intensity of workplace problems, the manner
workers choose to present them to management, and the financial ability of firms to
constructively address them are significantly influenced by whether the economy is in recession
or at full employment, the law allows companies to easily terminate workers or switch from
permanent to temporary/contingent workers, and if workers are located in Sweden, China or
Brazil. In support of this position, the authors of the introduction chapter to the Sage Handbook
of Organizational Behavior (Hoption et al., 2008) state that organisations have to be theorised as
open systems and any explanation of individual-level employee behavior that ignores these
external events will likely result in a narrow perspective of OB (p. 8).
Illustratively, Ng and Feldman (2012) perform a meta-analysis of 55 studies on the
relationship between job stress and voice, find a negative association, and suggest in the
managerial implications section that to get more voice managers should try to reduce high
levels of work and organizational demands (p. 230). They fail, however, to square this
recommendation with the widespread conclusion in the management literature that firms over
the last several decades are facing intensifying market competition and therefore have to get
more performance from employees at the same time they hold down labour and HR costs (e.g.
Paauwe et al., 2013; Kaufman, 2014d). Indeed, LP scholars (Marks and Chillas, 2014) argue that
it is the essence of capitalism that markets continually erode profit margins and increase the
pressure/stress on owners-managers to get more for less from employees. In this situation,
constructive prosocial voice is likely to atrophy, while self-oriented voice from greater job stress
and work intensification creates a growing volume of complaints, criticisms and demands.
The lack of attention in micro OB studies to the external environment of organisations makes
the models and conclusions particularly susceptible to ethnocentric bias because so much of
their explanatory power comes from potentially culture-specific motivations, attitudes, norms
and psychological frames. These considerations are omitted by Morrison (2011) and mentioned
in one place by Klaas et al. (2012: 321), implying either these articles are implicitly meant for
largely a North American audience or the psycho-social determinants of voice have universal
fit across regions of the world.
Also important are complementarities among external environment variables that create
distinct national employment/voice systems (Katz and Darbishire, 2000; Wood et al., 2009).
Voice breadth, depth and form, for example, are likely considerably different in a liberal market
economy, such as America, versus a coordinated market economy, such as Germany, because
the former emphasises individual employee exit into competitive labour markets as the route
to improved job satisfaction, while the latter emphasises collective voice in regulated labour
markets through works councils, trade unions, co-determination and other organisational
forms.
Organisational configuration
Positioned below the external environment in Figure 2 is a roof. It represents the form and
structure of an organisation. At the ends of the roof are written, respectively, organisational
configuration and governance structure. Their left/right position on the roof is not important for
the components underneath.
Organisational configuration represents alternative organisational designs and management
systems, such as size, division and coordination of tasks, hierarchical versus flattened structure,
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Bruce E. Kaufman
command/control versus participative management, and standardisation-formalisation of

processes (Short et al., 2008). Organisational configurations exhibit large diversity, starting with
mechanistic versus organic designs and extending to more finely grained forms such as
represented by simple, machine, bureaucracy and commitment models (Cordery and Parker,
2007). Component parts of organisations, such as the employment system, HR function and
work team, also have configurational structures (Verburg et al., 2007).
Research shows that the amount and form of employee voice vary across these
configurations, being low and informal in simple structures, and high and formalised in
commitment organisations (Toh et al., 2008). Employee voice, for example, is considered a
linchpin practice in firms with a high-involvement system, and according to Lawler (1986) is
encouraged by greater delegation to employees of four critical voice ingredients: information,
knowledge, rewards and power (p. 3). These resources for voice have large variation not only
across firms (e.g. fast food restaurants vs. consulting firms) but also within firms (e.g. clerical
vs. technical), per emphasis in HRM on strategic differentiation of high-performance practices
across work groups (Huselid and Becker, 2011). KOBW omit consideration of organisational
configuration; Morrison lists organisational structure in the contextual factors box but discusses
it in the narrow context of how bureaucracy and hierarchy stifle face-to-face upward voice.
Governance structure
On the other side of the roof is governance structure. Every organisation is not only a formal
structure of positions, departments and functions coordinated by a management system but
also a political structure that contains executive, legislative and judicial rule-making and
enforcement functions. All three functions may be performed by a single person, such as the
owner/entrepreneur, or may be delegated and decentralised within the organisation, such as
through various voice institutions (e.g. works council, arbitration board). The governance
structure determines decision-making rights, the distribution and exercise of authority and
power, and the rights and responsibilities of subordinates (Kaufman et al., 1995; Rousseau and
Shperling, 2003; Budd, 2004). It also determines whose interests get included in decision
making, how much influence and participation employees are given, and expresses an
organisations ethical values and moral commitments to employees (Van Den Berg, 2004;
Verhezen, 2010). A governance structure consideration omitted by Morrison and KOBW, for
example, is the effect of a shareholder versus stakeholder model of the firm on the amount and
form of employee voice behaviour (presumably more voice in the latter). More generally, both
sets of authors observe that employees are fearful of speaking up to superiors for fear of
retaliation which, presumably, suggests strengthening the governance structure.
One set of writers, such as Burris (2012), follow Morrison and are silent on the governance
subject and instead recommend increased training for managers and employees so the former
are more open to voice and the latter tailor voice to be more constructive and non-threatening
(referred to as high-quality voice by Morrison). Another set, such as Takeuchi et al. (2012),
follow KOBW and recommend that managers consider increased protection for employees who
use voice, principally in the form of a grievance or alternative dispute resolution programme.
OB writers in both groups, partly due to their emphasis on individual and direct types of voice,
do not go further and recommend revising the governance system to include a form of
collective/representative voice or greater legal protection, such as an employee council or
legislative just-cause termination requirement. Actually, these topics are ruled out by Morrison
(2011) when she delimits OB research to discretionary behaviours and not formal mechanisms (p.
381) although later in the article she observes that individuals are more likely to voice . . .
where there are structural mechanisms for providing input (p. 386).
25
A rationale for employee voice going back more than a century is that it balances power in
organisations and introduces democratic elements of representation, participation, influence
and due process into otherwise authoritarian top-down organisations (Webb and Webb, 1897;
Leiserson, 1922; Foley, 2014). Present-day researchers in IR, HR and LE carry forward this
perspective, noting that organisations use different governance structures that provide
employees with varying degrees of power (and empowerment) and opportunities for
individual/collective and informal/formal voice and participation (Gospel and Pendelton,
2010; Lewin, 2014; Willman et al., 2014). Also central is the idea that employment relationships
inevitably contain conflicts of interest among participants, and workers on moral and ethical
grounds deserve voice to protect and promote their well-being (Budd, 2004; Kaufman, 2005;
Guest, 2008).
Employment relationship
Under the roof is the employment relationship, also called the employeeorganisation relationship
(Shore et al., 2012). The ER comes into existence when a business owner or managerial agent
hires a person who agrees for a wage or salary to work as directed. The employment
relationship may include as few as two people or as many as hundreds of thousands.
The employment relationship utilises two alternative coordination modes with, respectively,
horizontal and vertical dimensions. One coordinating mode is the labour market where firms
go to get new employees (or return employees no longer needed) and workers go to find jobs.
In the diagram, the labour market is outside the walls of the organisation and the flow of labour
in and out of the firm is depicted by the horizontal arrows. The matching process through
demand and supply establishes a market-wide pattern of wages and other terms and conditions
for jobs and workers of different characteristics and provides incentives for both parties to live
up to their side of the agreement. For example, dissatisfaction leads to turnover, which imposes
a cost on both firm and the worker.
The second coordination mode is the organisation where production takes place and
managers direct employees in the performance of their jobs. Per the organisational
configuration discussion above, most organisations have a hierarchical pyramid structure with
coordination achieved by a vertical command and control process where authority and
decision-making rights are located at the top and through directives and administration are
passed down (or delegated) from managerial order-givers to production worker order-takers.
Employment contract law, earlier known as the law of master and servant, reinforces the
vertical authority/command structure (the downward arrow from authority) by stipulating that
as a condition for keeping the job the employee must faithfully follow the directions and
policies of management. Inside the firm, the visible hand of HRM, rather than the invisible
hand of demand/supply, sets wages and other terms and conditions, recruits, develops and
motivates employees, and monitors and enforces work performance.
Also fundamental to the employment relationship is the incomplete nature of the labour
contract (Simon, 1951; Marsden, 1999; Edwards, 2003). The employer and worker reach an
understanding, sometimes formally articulated in words or writing, about the contents of the
exchange, such as pay, work hours and job duties, but many aspects are left implicit and filled
in later as the job proceeds. Here originate three important constructs in OB voice theory:
psychological contracts, social exchange and organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs).
Because the labour contract is incomplete, the employer and the employee develop mental
beliefs about the expected terms and conditions of the exchange and what each side owes the
other. These expectations involve not only the economic dimensions of the exchange but also
social dimensions, such as respect and fair treatment. Social exchange is regulated by a norm
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Bruce E. Kaufman
of reciprocity, and if one side fails to deliver on expectations or obligations the other perceives
a violation of the psychological contract and reduces discretionary contributions (Farndale et al.,
2011). Many discretionary contributions are conceived of as OCBs, such as conscientiousness,
hard work and loyalty. Thus, the incomplete nature of the labour contract provides an
opportunity for employee voice to help solve unanticipated problems and contribute
productive ideas, but employees are only motivated to provide this discretionary extra-role
OCB if managers not only honor their side of the psychological contract but also reciprocate
with extra-role inducements. The end result, if all goes well, is a virtuous win-win voice helps
firms perform better and firms reward employees with valued economic/social goods.
Given this outline of the employment relationship, consider implications. To begin, note that
Morrisons model represents a highly truncated version of an employment relationship. Only
the employee side is represented in Figure 1 as an active agent in the voice process. The model
also omits the labour market half of the ER, and thus the economic part of the exchange
process. Indeed, omitted are all external influences on voice that originate outside the walls of
the organisation (none in the Contextual Factors box). To put this feature in perspective, the
parallel situation is if an economist constructed a voice model that includes only markets and
the external environment, and leaves blank in Figure 2 everything inside the walls of the
organisation.
To further accent this lacuna, consider omission of the labour market part of the employment
relationship. Both Morrison and KOBW emphasise that employees choose to provide the
amount/type of voice based on a cognitive evaluation of the benefits/costs of speaking up. The
costs principally involve negative consequences for the employee from management retaliation,
such as lower performance ratings and being fired. The state of the labour market, say as
measured by unemployment rate in the workers local area, is surely an important cost
determinant. For example, if the labour market is strong and many jobs are available, workers
perceive a lower cost of speaking up since if retaliated against they can more easily switch
employers (the exit option); high unemployment, however, tilts employee choice towards
silence (Kaufman, 2014b).
The state of the labour market should, therefore, be included as a context variable in Figure 1
and control variable in empirical studies. Van Dyne and Lepine (1998), for example, perform a
cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis (21 organisations over 6 months) of individual
employees voice contributions. Six control variables are used but none pertain to the determinants in the external environment. It seems plausible, however, that if the unemployment rate in
(say) Ohio in 1998 is twice as high as in Nebraska in 1997, the effect should be a lower level of
employee voice and also lower critical message type in the former.
Going further in seriousness, taking into account external trends in the employment
relationship seriously weaken OBs social exchange and OCB pillars. HRM writers, for example,
frequently argue that markets have become more competitive, thus necessitating the use of
high-performance practices (Kaufman, 2014d). A way to conceptualise this trend is that the
external labour market (ELM) outside the organisation in Figure 2 is growing larger and more
powerful, while the internal labour market (ILM) inside the firm is growing smaller and
weaker. This result is said to have given rise to a new employment relationship. Tsui and Wu
(2005: 116) observe, the new employment relationship is a quasi-spot contract . . . Employers
. . . are interested primarily in a high level of employee task performance without requiring
commitment . . . Additionally, employees do not expect the employer to provide long-term job
security.
What are the implications of the new employment relationship for employee voice? First,
with the new employment relationship, power shifts in favour of firms and they want less, not
27
more, employee voice. Hollowed and shrunken ILMs need less voice to facilitate efficient
management coordination, and likewise spending money to promote voice via a fair and just
workplace becomes an increasingly poor investment as turnover increases and job tenure and
organisational loyalty fall. Second, employees also have less desire for organisational voice in
a more market-mediated employment relationship because they increasingly rely on exit if
dissatisfied, correctly realise they can be more quickly and inexpensively replaced if speaking
up irks a manager, and see no pay-off to helping the company with discretionary OCBs when
they are not likely to be around to share in the gains. Finally, the norm of reciprocity upon
which rests the power of social exchange theory shrinks in lockstep with the disappearance of
employeremployee commitment to cooperate together in a long-term mutual gain
relationship. Following the theoretical insights of Nobel laureates Coase (1937), Simon (1951)
and Williamson (1985), one can package these ideas as an argument that technological change
and market deregulation have lowered transaction cost of using markets, and accordingly
ELMs, transactional employment contracts and exit are supplanting ILMs, relational contracts
and voice (Kaufman, 2010, 2013; Willman et al., 2014). Also implied is that social exchange
theory in general, and OCB theory of prosocial voice in particular, have shrinking relevance and
explanatory power.
A focus on the employment relationship provides two other important insights omitted from
OB voice research. Owners of capital only hire employees if doing so is expected to generate
an economic surplus above cost. Employers gain from employee cooperation, therefore, because
the extra discretionary work effort and OCBs increase the surplus and amount available for
profit. However, workers expect a share in return for their contribution, such as provision of
prosocial voice.
OB writers assume this sharing process takes place through the social exchange process and
norm of reciprocity. Omitted, however, are these considerations. First, the reciprocity norm may
be a weak-to-non-existent force in short-term employment relationships or hire/fire
employment systems; when high unemployment makes threat of job loss a cheaper and more
potent cooperation motivator than investing money to build good will and commitment; and
when employers can substitute a technological process for getting discretionary effort (e.g.
electronic surveillance of workers in call centres) in place of a more expensive psychological
process (Marks and Chillas, 2014). Second, employers are incented by competition, financial
markets and self-interest to surplus-share with employees only to the minimal extent it helps
profit; hence, the indeterminacy of the labour contract creates an inherent distributive conflict
over how the larger pie from cooperation is divided (Edwards, 2003). The OB conception of
voice is, in this respect, one-sided and employer-friendly because it restricts the subject to the
pie-growing function from cooperation, omits (or denigrates as self-centred and harmful) the
role of voice as a bargaining/influence tool to gain for employees more of the fruits of
cooperation, and focuses on the voice type (individual prosocial communication) which is least
powerful for employees and least threatening for firm profit and managerial control. Third, the
labour contract is not only incomplete but also terminable at-will (absent legal restriction),
which gives firms an incentive to opportunistically terminate employees in order to keep more
of the surplus, such as from lay-offs made possible by productivity improvements and culling
out long-service employees close to pension. Employee voice, in this case, serves a protective
function and needs muscle to be effective (Holland et al., 2012).
Decision making and voice choice
The next step is to go to the individual employer and employee levels and specify the
decision-making process by which both parties make choices about their desired level and form of
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Bruce E. Kaufman
voice. Decision making and choice are particularly salient theory topics for an OB model of
voice because the focus is on the individual and discretionary behaviour. As Morrison (2011)
states, individuals choose whether or not to engage in this behavior (p. 375). Since decision
making is a much-researched subfield within in OB (e.g. the journal Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes), one would expect this dimension of employee voice to be well
articulated in OB studies. Surprisingly, it is only lightly discussed by Morrison and KOBW and
problematically presented.
The Morrison model can usefully be thought of in a regression equation context:
V = 0 + 1CF + 2IF + 3CFPCE + 4IFPCE, where V is voice amount, CF is the vector of
variables in the contextual factors box (Figure 1), IF is the vector of factors in the individual
factors box, and PCE is a moderator variable (specified as an interaction term) representing the
factors in, respectively, the perceived costs and efficacy boxes. This representation brings to
attention an anomalous aspect of her model. She states that the primary driving motive behind
voice (p. 382) is a persons desire to benefit the organisation. This motive is taken as a given
for the individual, is therefore outside the persons decision-making process, and hence goes
into the constant term 0 with the maintained hypothesis 0 > 0. Variation in prosocial motives
across individuals thus explains part of voice variation through up and down movements in
the intercept of the regression line but explains zero of the discretionary part. A similar problem
applies to the numerous personality traits that both Morrison and KOBW cite as voice
determinants. KOBW, for example, argue that part of voice variation is explained by individual
differences in stable personality traits, such as self-efficacy and proactivity. Like the prosocial
motive, these individual trait differences (constants at the employee level) explain intercept
changes but none of the discretionary variation in voice.
A theory of discretionary voice, therefore, has to include a model, however simple, of human
choice and decision making. Thus, KOBW state that the decision to use voice contains a
significant calculative element (p. 323), and likewise Morrison argues that the discretionary
part of voice comes from an expectancy like calculus (p. 384) and cites Vrooms expectancy
theory of motivation.
It seems surprising in light of the strong emphasis in OB on explaining discretionary voice
and the large OB literature on decision making that authors such as Morrison and KOBW give
this subject such cursory and ill-formulated treatment. Of course, the issue is whether the
omission makes a substantive difference for management science and practice on voice. To
provide an affirmative answer, and also point a way forward, Figure 2 outlines elements of a
serviceable model of voice choice, drawing inspiration from models in both IR and LE. The
argument is much less in favour of any particular choice model, however, and much more to
suggest that OB research on voice will remain muddled without some articulated model.
The decision making model in Figure 2 has four elements, briefly described below and with
applications to voice. The model, in the ER tradition, is built on a rational choice foundation
but with behavioural amendments (Kaufman, 1999; Budd, 2004).
Action goal The first component for decision making is specification of each agents action goal
or end-state objective. This step is important in order to predict choice because it is otherwise
impossible to say if a voice outcome represents a perceived benefit or cost to the decision
maker. For example, Morrison argues that workers will not provide voice if it is seen as futile
(no benefit), but whether an action is futile depends on the desired outcome. For example,
writing a negative blog post about management or demonstrating outside a store may be futile
for personal job advancement but effective for exposing social injustice. Economic voice models
solve this problem by including the agents diverse end goals (e.g. personal advancement, social
29
justice) as variables in a utility function (utility = well-being), specify determinants of each end
goals benefits and costs, and derive the equilibrium solution. This choice model can be
modified to incorporate behavioural elements, such as uncertainty, imperfect information and
fairness. Details aside, the salient point is that to explain and predict an employees
discretionary voice decision, some assumption has to be made about the goal that motivates
behaviour as is well recognised in OB theories of motivation (e.g. Barrick et al., 2013).
Morrisons model only includes a role for employee decision making. Surely, however, the
breadth, depth and form of voice are also critically influenced by decisions of managers. To use
an apt metaphor from economist Marshall (1890), a model that purports to explain the amount
of voice in organisations but includes only the employee side is akin to trying to cut a piece
of paper with one-bladed scissors. Accordingly, in keeping with the employment relationship
concept in Figure 2, underneath it is included two decision-making parties: the employer (left
side) and employee (right side).
Individual well-being is the end goal for employees, but according to Sirmon et al. (2007)
[t]he primary pursuit of business is creating and maintaining value (p. 273, emphasis added).
Value is multidimensional and firms have numerous goals (Boxall, 2007), but ultimately they
telescope into running the firm efficiently to maximise the capitalised value of profit and return
on capital of necessity given the role of profit/loss as capitalisms selection criterion for firm
survival and demise. Figure 2, therefore, lists efficiency and profit as the goal objective for the
employer decision maker. (An objective of higher performance begs the question of how
performance is measured and evaluated.)
Here surfaces a hugely important omitted variable in OB voice models: profit-making. Voice
form and amount are explained by individual differences in employee motives and
psychological dispositions, but the financial side of voice is neglected. Illustratively, the word
profit is not mentioned by either Morrison or KOBW, her diagram excludes financial
determinants of voice, and voice is limited to prosocial forms which by definition benefit firm
performance. But in a business world where companies decide resource investments, including
in people and voice, on the size of the prospective rate of return, how is it possible to accurately
theorise the amount and form of employee voice with attention only to psychology and none
to finance, profit-making and the stock price? Workers in two firms may be identical on every
measureable psychological trait and disposition, but the voice amount will nonetheless show
large variance and systemic effects if it leads to larger profit in one (e.g. Costco, Southwest) and
lower profit in another (e.g. Walmart, Ryan Air). Likewise, a profit perspective, much more than
a psychological perspective, explains why managers systematically welcome individual and
constructive voice more than collective and confrontational voice (Cullinane and Donaghey,
2014).
Benefits and costs The second set of items in the choice process depicted in Figure 2 specifies
the benefits and costs of voice, as subjectively estimated by employer and employee. They
include both pecuniary and psychological-social consequences and are influenced by the
cognitive and affective states emphasised in OB studies. The benefits of voice for an employer,
for example, include improved productivity and a more positive organisational climate, while
the costs include higher wages and diluted authority. For employees, a benefit of voice is higher
wages (the mirror image of the cost to the employer) and praise from the boss, while costs are
potential job termination and interpersonal conflict.
To predict behaviour, it is not enough to simply list the benefits and costs in a box-arrow
diagram (e.g. last two boxes in Figure 1). Benefits and costs get explanatory traction as they
influence the ability of employee and employer to attain their utility and profit goals. Here
30

Bruce E. Kaufman
enters a decision-making insight from economics, which greatly improves the predictive
content of voice theory but is neglected in OB (and HRM). It is the marginal method. Assume
for sake of argument that, in line with OB research, greater employee voice improves firm
financial performance. This finding, however, is surely not open-ended (e.g. 4 hours of
employee voice per day?), yet without the marginal method the optimal stopping point in voice
cannot be determined. The decision rule for both employee and employer is similar: increase
voice as long as the marginal gain exceeds the marginal cost and when the two are equal utility
and profit are maximised (Freeman and Kleiner, 2000; Kaufman, 2014b). From this perspective,
one reason many firms feature little employee voice is that managers have calculated that it
soon costs more than it brings in.
Strategy Another determinant of choice omitted by Morrison and KOBW is, respectively,
employer and employee strategy (Dundon and Gollan, 2007). In an uncertain and fast-changing
environment, employers and employees cannot flawlessly peer into the future and foresee the
best route to reach their goals. Hence, they must formulate a strategy. Some employees, for
example, conclude that they are more likely to get ahead by staying under the radar and
hence will seldom voluntarily offer opinions or voice dissent; others, however, conclude the
opposite and use a strategy of using voice to push the envelope. Others may have little desire
for voice because their career strategy is to acquire human capital by frequently moving from
company to company (Royer et al., 2008). Similarly, one employer may choose a low-cost
strategy to attain competitive advantage, along with a complementary HRM strategy of
hire/fire, and therefore desire small-to-little employee voice. A different employer, however,
uses a product quality strategy, along with a high involvement HRM strategy, and hence desires
considerable employee voice (Lepak et al., 2005; Chi et al., 2011). Of an entirely different nature,
an organisations strategy towards unions (e.g. hostile vs. accommodative; suppression vs.
substitution) also influences voice amount and form (Cooper and Briggs, 2009; Marginson et al.,
2010).
Internal contingencies
Benefits, costs and strategy are not themselves independent variables but mediating variables
influenced by a variety of other factors. Some of these factors are contained in other parts of
the model, such as external environment, organisational configuration and governance
structure. Another block of determinants in Figure 2 (not entirely separate) is internal
contingencies, that is, factors internal to the organisation and employee, respectively. A
representative sample of factors for each is identified in the middle box under the roof. Internal
organisational contingencies include, for example, production technology, managerial quality
and organisational culture. Internal employee contingencies include factors such as the
workforces psycho-social attitudes towards work and management, knowledge, skills and
abilities, and demographics.
The internal contingencies box of Figure 2 subsumes the factors in the contextual factors
and individual factors boxes in Morrisons diagram, and in this respect is a repackaging rather
than substantive new addition. (The boxes below them on perceived costs and efficacy are
embedded in the decision making boxes of Figure 2.) With respect to the KOBW article, the
internal contingencies listed for the employer in the top part of box is new; that is, KOBW give
considerable attention to the role of the employees psychological structure (traits, dispositions,
etc.) as voice determinants but mostly omit the firms organisational structure (production
technology, organisational configuration). Whether the firm has an assembly line, self-managed
team or bureaucratic form of production surely has as much probably a great deal more
31
influence on the amount and form of discretionary voice than whether workers are low or high
in self-efficacy and extroversion (i.e. the assertion is that for a one standard deviation in CF and
IF, 1 > 2).
Further, since workers with heterogeneous traits and attitudes sort among firms to find the
best person/job fit, much of the cross-section statistical evidence presented in OB studies on
traits and dispositions as determinants of voice is systematically biased and unreliable. For
example, Crant et al. (2011) find that proactive personality is the strongest predictor of voice.
They inform managers (pp. 294295):
Organizations that rely on employee suggestions as a source of continuous
improvement are advised to identify the extent to which job applicants possess
proactive personality, and to evaluate the proactivity of current employees as part
of promotion decisions . . . [and] as part of a broader selection process.
Neglected is the fact that the positive effect of proactivity on voice is statistically inflated
because proactive people sort into firms providing more opportunity for voice. The advice that
firms alter selection procedures to target applicants with proactive personalities is also flawed.
If this trait is in limited supply and gives firms higher productivity, the workers with this trait
gain through demand/supply competition a higher wage implying that the extra
performance value of the trait brought into the firm through the selection process in the end
accrues not to the firm (higher profit) but the worker (higher wage), as theorised in the
resource-based view of the firm (Barney and Clark, 2007: ch. 2).
At this point in Figure 2, the employer and employee, influenced by all the factors and
influences described above, have decided on the amount of individual voice they desire.
Morrison and KOBW effectively end the theory of voice determinants here and proceed to voice
outcomes (the last two boxes in Figure 1). A more integrative and complete model, however,
requires four more parts.
ER climate
Morrison and KOBW mention climate at several places as a contextual and mediating factor,
and in a different article Morrison and colleagues give explicit attention to conceptualising
climate and identifying its effect on voice (Morrison et al., 2011). They say climate as a generic
construct refers to collective beliefs or perceptions about the practices, behaviors, and activities
that are rewarded and supported in a given work environment (p. 184). They then define voice
climate as a two-dimensional construct encapsulating shared beliefs about, respectively,
whether speaking up is safe versus dangerous, and effective versus futile. As noted earlier,
these boxes in Figure 1 are also central to her voice decision making model (utilising Vrooms
expectancy model of motivation), and thus climate affects voice rather narrowly through
individual perception of benefits and costs of speaking up.
A climate construct is also used in voice studies in other fields, such as HRM/IR. Pyman et al.
(2010), for example, define IR climate as a subset of organisational climate, and say that it refers
to the atmosphere, norms, attitudes and behaviors reflecting and underpinning how workers,
unions, and managers interact collectively with each other in the workplace (p. 463). Other
studies equate climate with organisational culture (Clapham and Cooper, 2005) or distinguish a
specific component of organisational culture, such as justice climate (Goldberg et al., 2011).
All of these conceptualisations are helpful but also too narrowly tailored to specific voice
dimensions and organisational contexts. Figure 2 introduces a broader conceptualisation, called
ER climate. ER climate is the perceived tenor or good-bad quality of relations between
management and workers in organisations. A way to model the ER climate is to use the ER
32

Bruce E. Kaufman
four frames of reference model (Budd and Bhave, 2008; Kaufman, 2014c). Employment
relationships fall into four categories market, unitarist, pluralist and critical based on how
the two sides perceive their relation. End points are 100 per cent conflict/adversary (worst) and
100 per cent cooperation/partner (best). These frame of reference end points create similar ER
climate end points, as indicated in Figure 2. Bad ER climate is associated with the critical frame,
good climate with the unitarist frame, and a mix of conflict/cooperation and adversary/partner
with the pluralist frame. [The market frame is not relevant to climate since the employment
relationship is entirely transactional and impersonal (no climate).] The distribution of
organisations among these three frames creates a similar frequency distribution of ER climates
(depicted as a bell-shaped curve). This distribution can be further refined by introducing, in
addition to broad frames of reference, alternative employment systems (e.g. simple, machine,
bureaucratic, commitment, adhocracy); also, the distribution changes shape and shifts left/right
in reaction to external and internal contingencies.
The hypothesis advanced is that the tenor of ER climate influences the amount and type of
employee voice (Kaufman, 2014c). Since OB studies recognise this link, the contribution made
here is to broaden and generalise it. When viewed against the entire climate frequency
distribution and its determinants, one sees, for example, that the OB field has structured the
analysis to include only-to-mostly voice situations and outcomes in the high-end tail of the ER
climate distribution. KOBW, for example, note that OB studies of prosocial voice posit a
unitarist-type employment relationship featuring mutuality of interests (p. 327), thus helping
create a positive ER climate (top end of the distribution) that, in turn, feeds into higher job
satisfaction for workers and, via the reciprocity norm, a desire to provide helpful other-related
voice that benefits the organisation.
Morrison et al. (2011) qualify this perspective by noting that some firms have a climate of
silence. A broad ER model of voice, as in Figure 2, suggests that many firms deliberately engineer
a climate of silence, even if it puts them on the low side of the ER climate distribution, because
a lean and mean HR strategy (pay cuts, work intensification, downsizing) is more profitable
particularly in a short-term finance-driven economy with intense competition than a long-term
partnership-mutual gain strategy (Cullinane and Donaghey, 2014; Kaufman, 2014d). These
ER-level factors are omitted by Morrison and co-authors, however, and instead they link a climate
of silence to the shortcomings of individual leadership style and behaviour. The contrary
hypothesis is that a climate of silence arises not from the shortcomings of individual managers
(although in individual cases it may) but from their strategic decision to tightly control/suppress
voice to restrict employee power resources and keep a lid on unwelcome and potentially costly
complaints and demands paradoxically, a consideration well recognised in the OB literature on
organisational power (Anderson and Brion, 2014). Illustrative of the unbalanced managerialist
slant in this literature, KOBW devote a section to the dark side of voice but does not discuss in
it managers using coercion to silence employees (Thompson and Harley, 2007; Gall and Dundon,
2013) but workers using voice for revenge, harassment and embarrassment of managers.
Voice system
The next step in the voice model is voice system for employer and employee, respectively. The
employer and employee have made a choice, based on benefits and costs as shaped by strategies,
external contingencies and internal contingencies, regarding their desired level of voice (a
behaviour). The level of voice cannot be separated from form and type of voice (a structure),
however, because these dimensions are inextricably connected. In particular, if all of the
enumerated factors cause the employer and employee to desire a high voice workplace, then the
two sides cannot simply rely on extensive extra-role face-to-face communication, as focused on
33
in micro OB studies. Rather, as desire for voice moves from low to high, it necessitates that both
parties to the employment relationship introduce broader and more formalised voice procedures
and structures (Gollan et al., 2014). Wilkinson et al. (2010: 11) conceptualise this idea as an
escalator of participation. Included in this process is transition from individualised and informal
voice procedures, such as direct voice methods of workersupervisor discussion and open-door
dispute resolution, to progressively more formalised and representative voice structures, such as
elected employee plant councils, multi-step arbitration-mediation systems, collective bargaining
and co-determination. Viewed in this light, it seems paradoxical for OB writers to limit voice to
the lowest step of the escalator not only because collective voice forms can benefit firms but also
because individual voice behaviours are readily studied in formal voice structures as
researchers in employment psychology, industrial sociology and IR teamed up to do more than
a half century ago (Kornhauser et al., 1954). (Morrisons claim that HRM/IR studies do not study
individual behaviours is a very large caricature see, for example, Luchak, 2003; Pyman et al.,
2010; Marchington and Suter, 2013).
Also, part of individual decision making for both employee and employer is about whether
to keep voice at the person level or expand it to the collective level. This decision goes back
to the end objective of voice, benefits and costs, and strategies. Even if voice has only a
constructive organisational improvement goal, it may be more effectively delivered and acted
upon in group form, such as quality circle or company-wide employee council, if production
has significant organisational or knowledge interdependencies. Also affecting the
individual/collective choice are various organisational failures and social traps (Miller, 1991),
such as under-supply of individual voice due to the free rider problem and the lack of trust that
the other party would not behave opportunistically (per the prisoners dilemma game). Another
important variable affecting employees desire for collective voice is perceptions of
organisational fairness (Goldberg et al., 2011) a variable with a strong psychological
foundation but not listed in the Morrison voice model.
Particularly salient to the individual/collective voice decision, but omitted from OB studies,
is the distributive pie-sharing and muscle element. Worker voice is able to exert more
influence and power as it is collectively organised, and thus provides workers with more
effective say, protection and leverage over work terms and conditions. Employers, therefore,
may find a productivity advantage from expanding voice up the escalator to a collective level
but nonetheless keep voice at a low level from dual fears. The first fear (Freeman and Lazear,
1995; Marsden and Caibano, 2010; Kaufman, 2014b) is that collective voice at some point starts
to raise costs and reduce profit by giving employees more ability to improve wages, job security
and work conditions (i.e. pie-sharing starts to dominate pie-growing); the second is that giving
workers training in and access to collective voice may backfire and lead them to want even
stronger voice in the firm of an independent union with collective bargaining (Timur et al.,
2011). These dual costs to employers have been identified as major reasons why voice is
systematically under-supplied in workplaces, evidenced in survey data that show that a large
participationrepresentation gap exists within and across nations (Freeman et al., 2007). The
costs to firms in profit and managerial control have also been linked to empirical findings that
managers retaliate against employees who voice a complaint, file a grievance or express a desire
for a union (Gall and Dundon, 2013; Lewin, 2014).
Voice demand and supply
The confluence of all of these considerations in Figure 2 leads employer and employee(s) to
formulate decisions about desired amount, form and type of voice. The employers desired
amount is labelled voice demand in the diagram, and the employees decision, both individual
34

Bruce E. Kaufman
and collective, is labelled voice supply. (Alternatively, employers can be depicted as supplying
and employees demanding voice; the two views are opposite sides of the same coin.) In a
non-union firm with no formal voice structure, voice on the employee side is scattered and
informal; as the firm establishes more formal involvement and participation structures, the
employees voice is increasingly aggregated, centralised and formalised, such as in a works
council, collective bargaining and co-determination.
For a variety of collective action and organisational failure reasons, the sum of individual
demands and supplies that go into the voice system boxes may not aggregate to the amounts
that come out in expressed demand and supply. For example, individual plant managers may
see the performance advantage of voice, but the corporate chief financial officer sees mostly the
expense side and uses his/her superior power to nix it. In a similar way, labour unions, such
as through a median voter process, aggregate the voices of individual workers, and some voices
therefore get more weight than others (Kaufman, 2012).
Adjustment-interaction process
One last step is required. The organisations demand for voice usually differs from the
employee(s) desired supply in terms of amount, form and type. This divergence also
characterises other items in the employment contract, such as wages, work speed and schedule
flexibility. Accordingly, these dual preferences for voice have to be adjusted, negotiated and
reconciled into a single amount, perhaps in writing as part of a formal agreement, or more
likely as an implicit understanding in a psychological contract.
This adjustment-interaction process takes place through a variety of methods. Workers may exit
a low-voice organisation and take a job at a high-voice organisation; at the same time, the
low-voice firms come under pressure to increase voice supply due to expensive turnover and
desire to not increase wages to fill empty positions (Riordan et al., 2005). In these examples, the
labour market helps coordinate voice demand and supply. Actions by company managers and
behaviour changes by employees are an alternative method. Workers who feel dissatisfied, for
example, provide low voice, and other OCBs and managers react by identifying and correcting
the sources of dissatisfaction, which then encourage more voice. On the other hand, if managers
do not respond, then dissatisfied workers have other options, such as organising a union for
collective bargaining (Timur et al., 2011), or electoral politics and street protests to pressure
government to mandate more workplace voice.
A variety of channels, therefore, help match the organisations voice demand with its
employees voice supply. As earlier indicated, however, empirical studies find that on average
workers want more voice and influence than firms provide, suggesting that the equilibrating
process is slow and only partially successful (Freeman et al., 2007). This finding also suggests
that when employer and employee voice preferences do not match, it is the employers
preference that typically predominates and employees bear the gap (employees are on the long
side of the voice market). The size of the voice gap depends on relative power positions and
seriousness of market and organisational failures (Kaufman, 2014b). Although the different
contingencies in Figure 2 appear to typically favour employers, in some situations the power
position favours employees and they effectively set the level of voice. An example is a strong
union bargaining with a small firm.
Voice outcome
Out of the interaction of employer and employees in the employment relationship, conditioned
by numerous external and internal contingencies, emerges at the bottom of the diagram the
amount, form and type of employee voice. Voice, in turn, travels back through feedback loops to
35
affect higher parts of the model (e.g. management decision making, the national legislative
process) in a recursive adjustment process, indicated by the upward arrows.
Voice is the dependent variable and can be conceptualised as a low-high frequency
distribution, with individual/informal/cooperative voice at one end and collective/
formal/adversarial voice at the other. An empirical example is the frequency distribution of
voice forms, ranging from no formal voice to union voice, provided by the WERS (Work
Employment Relations Survey) data set for Great Britain (Willman et al., 2009) and depicted in
Kaufman (2014b,c). The purpose of theorising is to identify the factors that determine the
matrix of employee voice characteristics, its variation in a cross-section or over time, economic
and social outcomes, and feedback effect of voice on higher order parts of the model (two
upward arrows). Consistent with this perspective, Morrison (2011) states that the research goal
is identifying factors that increase or decrease the amount of voice that an employee engages in
(p. 385, emphasis added), and KOBW claim that their integrative review allows for us to
explore the different factors that have been found to inhibit or encourage forms of workplace
voice (p. 322, emphasis added).
The central point of critique is that these OB studies frame employee voice in an overly
constricted manner and model voice with numerous omitted variables and mis-specified causal
relationships. The end product is a voice model with low R-square, biased coefficients and poor
predictive performance in research, and a paucity of actionable, reliable and quantitatively
significant managerial implications. A revealing indicator is trying to use the OB model to
understand, predict and improve employee voice in real-life organisations. Other fields, such
as IR and HRM (e.g. Gollan et al., 2014), feature many case studies on voice with concrete action
points for managers. OB research, on the other hand, features an ever-expanding set of
psychological constructs with complex statistical analysis of survey data sets (frequently
obtained from students) to explain voice but with little illustration or evidence from case
studies (e.g. no case studies are discussed by Morrison, KOBW or Brinsfield, 2014).
CONCLUSION
Huselid and Becker (2011) recently observed that [a] significant divide between the micro and
macro levels of theory and analysis is evident in many areas of the organizational sciences, and
concluded that the consequences of this trend can be unfortunate (p. 421). This article has been
a case study of both propositions with respect to the subject of employee voice. Specialisation
and division of labour are productive in all areas of life, including academic research on
employee voice. The OB side of voice research, however, has carried specialisation too far with
the result its models and empirical studies are truncated entities inhabiting a narrow
psychological, individualist, managerialist and scholastic silo having little contact with forces
and ideas in the larger outside world, research in other voice-related fields, or the practice of
employee voice in real-life organisations. In order for this article to be not just critical voice, I
have also sketched the basic building blocks for a more integrative model combining micro and
macro dimensions in the spirit of the broad and inclusive field of ER.
Notes
1. Also see Morrison (2014) a modestly different but complementary survey article on voice
which the author learned of only after this article had gone through the review process and
was in close-to-final form. The most important difference between the two articles regarding
theorisation of voice is that she modestly reconfigures the diagrammatic model (Figure 1 in
both articles) so the box Motive to Help the Organisation, which is independently repre36

Bruce E. Kaufman
sented in the earlier article, is made one of three elements in a Motivators box in the later
article. Since the two articles are quite similar in terms of substance, no significant inaccuracy
is introduced by restricting focus only to Morrison (2011).
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Theorising determinants of employee voice: an

2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Integrative model of employee voice

OB: CONCEPTUALISATION AND MODEL OF EMPLOYEE VOICE

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Figure 1 Morrisons voice model

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Figure 2 Employment relations (ER) model of employee voice determinants

Individual versus Collective

Integrative model of employee voice

bargaining regulation, co-determination) and cultural-social (e.g. individualist vs. collective

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

command/control versus participative management, and standardisation-formalisation of

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

Integrative model of employee voice

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 1, 2015

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