Employee voice and silence in multinational corporations in the mobile telecommunications industry in Nigeria
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-04-2017-0073 |
| Published date | 07 January 2019 |
| Pages | 228-252 |
| Date | 07 January 2019 |
| Author | Jude Chukwuemeka Emelifeonwu,Reimara Valk |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Employee voice and silence in
multinational corporations in the
mobile telecommunications
industry in Nigeria
Jude Chukwuemeka Emelifeonwu
Department of Management,
Curtin University of Technology –Sarawak Campus Malaysia,
Miri, Malaysia, and
Reimara Valk
Department of Facility and Hotel Management,
Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Heerlen, The Netherlands
Abstract
Purpose –The purposeof this paper is to explore employeevoice and silence in the mobiletelecommunication
industry in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach –An exploratory qualitative case study methodology was employed in
this study. Participant selection was done through a purposeful intensity sampling technique, which resulted
in 30 employees from two different multinational organizations and an indigenous organization taking part in
in-depth interviews.
Findings –Findings show the presence of fear of victimization in the Nigerian workplace embellished by the
Sub-Saharan culture and the state of the labor market, which resulted in employee silence. The study revealed
that the implementation of culturally adapted employee voice mechanisms within organizations in the mobile
telecommunication industry in Nigeria promotes employee voice and organizational performance, whereas a
lack thereof results in organizational failure.
Research limitations/implications –A limitation is that the purposive sample of employees from three
organizations in the mobile telecommunications industry only permits theoretical and analytic generalization.
Practical implications –A focus on the co-creation of a high-performance work environment and the
development of a powerful employee value proposition would foster employee voice.
Social implications –It will enable multinationals operating in Nigeria understand better how to operate
employee voice in order to obtain optimal performance from workers in Sub-Sahara Africa.
Originality/value –This paper contributes to the literature on employee/industrial relations by showing
that a high-power-distance national culture and a high unemployment rate affect employee voice and silence,
which brings to the fore the importance of adequate employee voice mechanisms through which employees
express their voice in order to arrive at beneficial individual and organizational outcomes.
Keywords National cultures, Nigeria, Labour market, Employee voice, Employee silence
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Employee voice is an HR instrument through which employee(s) can sway the employer in
his/her decision-making process through informal and formal channels for the purpose of
cultivating communication, engaging employees and increasing workers’obligations and
performance (Armstrong, 2006; Marchington, 2007; Newcombe, 2012; Donoghue and
Siegel, 2005). Voice can thus be perceived as a mechanism for productive cooperation
between capital and labor which invariably increases the long-term sustainability of a firm
and the economic welfare of workers (Wilkinson and Barry, 2016). Hence, the importance of
voice cannot be overemphasized because the contrary position would be for workers to
either exit the company, keep silent about work issues with fellow co-workers or about being
dissatisfied about managerial decisions and possible faults in work activities (Donaghey
et al., 2011; Wilkinson et al., 2014).
Employee Relations
Vol. 41 No. 1, 2019
pp. 228-252
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-04-2017-0073
Received 3 April 2017
Revised 22 April 2018
Accepted 26 April 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
228
ER
41,1
Why employees do or do not speak up when they hold potentially usefulinformation is
an important question for employee relations (ER)/industrial relations (IR) scholars to try
to answer, becaus e if voice is withheld within an or ganizational context, both performance
and employee morale may suffer, hence the consequences may be significant (Morrison,
2014). There is evidence suggesting that voice isinfactstifledinmanyorganizations,and
that employees are often very hesitant to engage in voice, particularly when the
information could be viewed by the recipient as negative or threatening (Detert et al., 2010;
Milliken et al., 2003; Morrison et al., 2015). It is perhaps for the above reason that human
resource commentators (Kaufman and Taras, 2010) argue that representative employee
voicecansometimesbedisruptivebecauseof industrial action associated with this
kind of voice, resulting in loss of man hours and increased cost of labor. Subsequently
making the firm unable to compete in the global marketplace and giving credence to the
premise that some form of managerial control over employee voice is necessary (Kaufman
and Taras, 2010).
Nevertheless,Morrison (2014) asserted that in order to enhance workplace relationships, it
is important for management to understand both the value of having employee voice
mechanisms in the workplace as well as identifying factors and conditions that motivate
employees to speakup when they have suggestions, information or opinions. Morrison(2014)
further believed that there is an opportunity for research on the effects of macro-level
contextual factors on employee voice, so that ER/IR scholars can understand variations in
voice and silence not just across individuals andwork groups, but also across organizations,
industries and parts of the world. Therefore, the present study focuses on employee voice in
an unexploredpart of the world, Nigeria, andinvestigates how macro-levelcontextual factors,
specifically the Sub-Saharan African culture and the labor market situation, affect employee
voice across organizations in the telecommunicationsindustry in Nigeria. There is a dearth of
literatureon employee voice and silencewithin the Nigerian IR environment, which makes this
paper pertinent and a valuable contribution to understanding employee voice and silence
within the context of Sub-Sahara Africa. The purpose of this paper is to increase the
understanding of the influence of macro-contextual factors on employee voice and silence in
Nigeria as well as to provide insight into effective employee voice mechanisms.
The research questions to be answered are as follows:
RQ1. How do macro-level contextual factors, specifically the Sub-Saharan culture and
the labor market conditions in Nigeria, affect employee voice and silence?
RQ2. What employee voice mechanisms do employees in Nigeria use to challenge
managerialbehavior and/or to bringabout improvement orchange in the workplace?
The first contribution of this paper to the literature on organizational behavior (OB) and
ER/IR is that it expands the understanding of employee voice and silence contextualized
in the Sub-Saharan culture and the external labor market situation in Nigeria, providing
guidance to multinational organizations that wish to ensure that voice is not being stifled
or ignored.
The second contribution of this paper is that it introduces culturally adapted employee
voice mechanisms in the mobile telecommunication industry in Nigeria thatenable employees
to express themselves, which benefits individual and organizational performance.
Theoretical framework: antecedents and outcomes of employee voice and
silence
Employee voice and silence
Employee voice has emerged as an important concept for ER/IR and OB scholars who are
interested in understanding the antecedents of the decision of employees to engage or not
229
Employee
voice and
silence
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