When Will Employees Voice Up? Leader-Member Exchange Similarity and Leader Group Prototypicality

Voice, defined as employees’ expression of ideas with an intention to improve team or organizational functioning, is often directed to their immediate leader. This makes the quality of the leader-member relationship—conceptualized as leader-member exchange (LMX)—a key predictor of voice. However, research has largely overlooked the fact that the influence of one's LMX is also shaped by the LMX relationships that others have with the same leader. Drawing on the social identity perspective, we propose two ways in which the LMX of others can shape the LMX-voice relationship: (a) LMX similarity (i.e., similar LMX quality between the focal employee and team members) emphasizes a shared collective identity, thereby motivating voice; and (b) LMX positive dissimilarity (i.e., having a better LMX relationship than others) highlights a unique relational identity with the leader, which may also motivate voice. We further argue that leader group prototypicality—the extent to which the leader is seen as embodying the team's collective identity—moderates which of these dynamics is more salient in predicting voice. These interactive effects are expected to be more pronounced for prohibitive voice (suggestions to discontinue a practice) than for promotive voice (suggestions to improve work practices), as the former entails greater social risk and thus depends more heavily on social identity considerations. Using multilevel polynomial regression and response surface analyses on field data of 321 leader-member dyads nested in 47 teams, we found support for most of our predictions.