When Employees Stop Talking and Start Fighting: The Detrimental Effects of Pseudo Voice in Organizations

Many organizations offer their employees the opportunity to voice their opinions about work-related issues because of the positive consequences associated with offering such an opportunity. However, little attention has been given to the possibility that offering voice may have negative effects as w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics 2012-01, Vol.105 (2), p.221-230
Main Authors: de Vries, Gerdien, Jehn, Karen A., Terwel, Bart W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Audio interfaces
Autocracy
Business and Management
Business Ethics
Conflict
Conflict management
Corporate strategies
Deceit
Education
Employees
Ethics
Health care
Health care industry
Health care management
Health policy
Intragroup conflict
Intragroup relations
Job performance
Management
Management education
Management styles
Managers
Mathematical models
Mediation
Netherlands
Organization
Organizational behavior
Philosophy
Pseudo voice
Quality of Life Research
Regression analysis
Social responsibility of business
Statistical analysis
Studies
Surveys
Voice behavior
Voice control
Voice opportunity
Workers' participation
Working conditions
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Summary:Many organizations offer their employees the opportunity to voice their opinions about work-related issues because of the positive consequences associated with offering such an opportunity. However, little attention has been given to the possibility that offering voice may have negative effects as well. We propose that negative consequences are particularly likely to occur when employees perceive the opportunity to voice opinions to be "pseudo voice"—voice opportunity given by managers who do not have the intention to actually consider employee input (i. e., managerial disregard). The effects of this kind of deception were examined by means of a survey among employees (N = 137) and managers (N = 14) of a Dutch healthcare organization. We hypothesized and found that perceived pseudo voice led to reduced voice behavior and, as a result, increased intragroup conflict. These results imply that while offering voice opportunity is mostly seen as an effective management strategy, negative effects are likely to occur when a manager is perceived to try to deceive employees by pretending to be interested in their points of view.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
DOI:10.1007/s10551-011-0960-4