An exploratory examination of voice behavior from an impression management perspective.

In order to cope with dynamic and competitive environments, organizations are pushing their employees to work harder and to seek out opportunities for constructive change. In fact, initiative is seen by many as a major source of competitive advantage and organizational success (Crant, 2000; Parker, 2000). Voice behavior is the form of proactive behavior that has received the most empirical attention. Van Dyne and LePine define voice behavior as a form of organizational citizenship behavior that involves "constructive change-oriented communication intended to improve the situation" (1998: 326). Voice entails challenging the status quo with constructive suggestions, even when others disagree (Van Dyne and LePine, 1998).

Research concerning voice behavior is important for several reasons. First, making constructive suggestions is the essential "first step" in the innovation process (LePine and Van Dyne, 1998; Scott and Bruce, 1994). By drawing attention to opportunities for improvement, voice behavior serves as the "seed corn" for continuous improvement and organizational adaptation (Ashford et al., 1998; Van Dyne and LePine, 1998). Second, unlike organizational exit or neglect (Hirschman, 1970), voice behavior makes it possible for an organization to channel employees' dissatisfaction with the status quo toward correcting mistakes, improving processes, and formulating novel solutions to organizational problems (Zhou and George, 2001). Further, as illustrated by the Challenger incident and Enron's demise, a lack of voice behavior can lead to serious organizational problems. Finally, voice behavior can also result in benefits for the individual worker such as the appearance of competence (Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001) or higher performance evaluations (Thompson, 2003). Thus, research examining the antecedents and consequences of employee voice is extremely relevant to both researchers and practitioners.

Unfortunately, LePine and Van Dyne (1998) note that researchers have not been very successful in predicting voice behavior. There are at least three possible explanations for this. First, most studies focus exclusively upon main effects, rather than analyzing interactional models, despite the likelihood that employee voice may be highest when individual differences lead some individuals to respond to favorable situational factors (LePine and Van Dyne, 1998). Second, voice behavior promotes change and challenges the status quo. This makes it a potentially risky behavior for employees. If voice is perceived as complaining or personal criticism, it can upset interpersonal relationships or create negative impressions (LePine and Van Dyne, 1998; Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001). Finally, researchers have not explicitly taken a functional approach to voice behavior (cf. Snyder, 1993). Functional analysis is pervasive in areas of psychology that emphasize purposeful action to obtain desired ends and concerns the "reasons and purposes, the needs and goals, the plans and motives that underlie and generate psychological phenomena" (Snyder, 1993: 253). In the current context, a functional approach focuses upon identifying the purpose served by engaging in or not engaging in voice behavior.

Our research is designed to address each of the issues raised in the preceding paragraph. We attempt to gain a greater understanding of voice behavior by exploring the extent to which worker personality (i.e., self-monitoring) interacts with a contextual feature of the workplace (past performance) to predict when some people engage in voice behavior. Our model is based upon a functional approach that suggests that voice may, in some situations, serve impression management purposes. Our model also takes into account the potential risk involved in voice behavior. In addition, we engage in an exploratory examination of how these factors interact to influence worker promotability.

VOICE BEHAVIOR AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

Impression management is defined as "the process whereby people seek to control or influence the impressions that others form" (Rosenfeld et al., 2002: 4). Consistent with a functional approach to behavior, we argue that voice behavior may serve the purpose of making a positive impression on others at work. Assertive impression management (Morrison and Bies, 1991) is linked to opportunities to improve one's image and is therefore proactive in nature (Bozeman and Kacmar, 1997). Voice behavior might potentially enhance an employee's image (Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001) because it draws attention to the person engaging in the behavior (LePine and Van Dyne, 2001) and may enhance perceptions that the individual is competent (Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001). Voice may also promote the perception that the employee is concerned about the welfare of the organization and its members, which may result in an enhanced reputation for the individual within the organization (Thompson, 2003).

Voice may also result in image enhancement because it fosters attributions of leadership capability. A potentially key function of a leader is to promote change (Kotter, 1990) and research examining leadership prototypes has found that people generally associate voice-related behavior (e.g., specifying problems, making suggestions, proposing solutions, offering plans for change) with effective leadership (Foti et al., 1982; Lord et al., 1984). Thus, individuals who engage in behavior that challenges the status quo in order to effect constructive change may be viewed as demonstrating behavior consistent with leadership (Morrison and Phelps, 1999).

Another form of impression management is defensive impression management, which is reactive in nature and is aimed at preventing damage to one's image (Bozeman and Kacmar, 1997; Morrison and Bies, 1991). Individuals appear to take the potential costs and benefits associated with proactive behavior into account when deciding to engage in the behavior (Ashford and Tsui, 1991). For example, Morrison and Bies (1991) suggest that in some situations individuals may engage in feedback seeking in order to enhance their image, while refraining from feedback seeking in situations where they feel it might harm their image. The same could be true for voice. In some situations individuals may engage in voice behavior in order to enhance their image (i.e., to create an impression of competence, caring, or leadership capability), but refrain from voice in situations where it might harm their image (i.e., be interpreted as complaining or personal criticism). Because voice is generally considered extra-role behavior, refraining from engaging in voice behavior is likely to be a relatively safe means of protecting one's image (Benveniste, 1977). In summary, engaging in voice may be viewed as an image enhancement tactic, while refraining from engaging in voice behavior due to fear of image damage may be viewed as a defensive impression management (Van Dyne et al., 2003).

Self-monitoring and Impression Management

Voice behavior may help individuals manage the impressions that others have of them, but some individuals may utilize it more effectively than others. Thus, certain individual difference variables should be associated with the effective use of voice. Perhaps the most relevant individual difference variable is self-monitoring, a construct that is based on the idea that individuals differ in their ability and desire to control their expressive behavior (Snyder, 1974). High self-monitors are sensitive to situational and interpersonal cues related to behavioral appropriateness and are willing and able to adapt to contextual demands. Low self-monitors are less sensitive to social cues and their behavior is more consistent across situations, since it is a reflection of personal dispositions. Self-monitoring is particularly relevant to the present study because it concerns the degree to which individuals focus upon actively constructing their public selves in order to achieve enhanced social status. That is, self-monitoring reflects a predisposition to engage in impression management (Gangestad and Snyder, 2000).

High self-monitors tend to compete more effectively than their coworkers who are low self-monitors, and researchers generally attribute this to high self-monitors' behavioral flexibility (Hall et al., 1998; Kilduff and Day, 1994; Mehra et al., 2001). For example, high self-monitors are more likely than low self-monitors to capitalize upon opportunities to engage in impression management (Zanzi and O'Neill, 2001), which is considered to be a form of political or self-serving behavior (Zellars and Kacmar, 1999). High self-monitors also tend to emerge more frequently as leaders (Hall et al., 1998; Zaccaro et al., 1991), perform better in boundary-spanning jobs (Caldwell and O'Reilly, 1982) and experience greater career success (Kilduff and Day, 1994) than low self-monitors. Yet little is known about the specific behaviors high self-monitors use to "get ahead" (Hall et al., 1998; Day et al., 2002; Gangestad and Snyder, 2000).