Implicit Voice Delivery: Its Antecedents, Consequences, and Boundary Conditions

Although many organizations encourage employees to voice, employees maybe reluctant to voice directly because they are afraid that their supervisors will perceive it aschallenging their face (i.e., the positive image or social value of an individual). Alternatively,employees could deliver improvements or express concerns to their supervisors usingindirect and implicit approaches, which we refer to as ‘implicit voice delivery’. Applyingface theory, we examine the antecedents and outcomes as well as two boundary conditionsof implicit voice delivery in organizations with two studies. In Study 1, we define theconstruct and develop a measure of implicit voice delivery. In Study 2, we test our proposedmodel with supervisor-subordinate dyadic data from a time-lagged survey. Resultsdemonstrate that concern for other people’s face drives employees to express their voicesimplicitly and that this relationship is stronger when supervisors’ concern for their own faceis high rather than low. In addition, implicit voice delivery is associated with supervisors’favorable response in terms of voice endorsement. Furthermore, the effect on voiceendorsement is stronger when the supervisor is more able to infer meaning from implicitmessages. Theoretical contribution and managerial implications are discussed.