Overcoming the fear factor: How perceptions of supervisor openness lead employees to speak up when fearing external threat

By R. David Lebel. 2016

98 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract While fear is generally assumed to powerfully limit employee voice, a functional view of emotions suggests that responses to fear vary. Instead of assuming that fear is negatively associated with voice, I argue that this relationship may be more complex. Adopting a functional view of emotions, I hypothesize that fears from external sources focus attention on shared threat to the organization and may be positively associated with employee voice. This effect is likely contingent: when employees perceive their supervisors as open to input, they are motivated to speak up. Thus, perceptions of supervisor openness can help transform other-focused motives resulting from fearing external threat into information-sharing. Results from two studies suggest that fear of external threat positively relates to voice when employees perceive their supervisor as open to input. Additionally, results suggest that this interactive effect is mediated by prosocial motivation spurring employees to speak up when fearing external threat.

Subfields: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f68893747c7b10617a8a8c0cd198dada97df5eaa

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In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

In Social Psychology

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Received Respect and Constructive Voice: The Roles of Proactive Motivation and Perspective Taking (2019, background): “Given that voice is challenging in nature (Burris, 2012; Lebel, 2016) and entails much work even after the suggestion has been made (Baer, 2012), many employees choose to remain silent (Brinsfield, 2013; Milliken et al.”
COVID-19 event strength, psychological safety, and avoidance coping behaviors for employees in the tourism industry (2021, methodology): “…of external threat reflects the uncertainty of employees regarding their enterprise’s reaction to external threats such as economic or industrial downswings, the threat of competitors, technological change, or mergers and acquisitions (Ashford et al., 1989; Lebel, 2016; Schweiger & Denisi, 1991).”