James Detert
Organizational Behavior PhD

Dissertation Chair: Prof. P. Marsden

To Speak or Not to Speak: The Multi-Level Leadership Influences on Voice and Silence in Organizations

This dissertation examines leadership behavior as an influence on employee perceptions of the safety and utility of speaking up to insiders in positions of authority. Drawing on Lewin's notion of the "life space," the dissertation's primary goal is to develop and support a theoretical argument that leadership is an antecedent of organizational voice and should be conceptualized as a multi-level force involving both direct and indirect effects of both proximate (e.g., immediate supervisors) and distal (e.g., senior leaders) leaders. Based on multi-level analyses of extensive interview and survey data from a large multinational corporation, I find that leadership chains influence voice perceptions and that attention to the functions played by leaders at each level of the chain and the forums in which leader-subordinate interactions occur provides a basis for understanding why the critical links in leadership chain influences on voice may differ systematically. I then present the voice motivation model (VMM) as a unifying explanation for the links between leadership behavior (and other voice antecedents) and subordinate voice perceptions. The VMM examines the cognitive and affective processing involved in the formation of voice perceptions in much greater detail than previous conceptions (e.g., those explicitly or implicitly referring to the "safety" and/or "utility" of speaking up). I discuss both individual- and system-level implications of the findings for those interested in improving conditions for organizational voice.

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Resources

• Baker Library | Bloomberg Center
• Harvard Business Review
• Harvard Business Publishing
• HBS Working Knowledge