Exploring the influence of paternalistic leadership on voice behavior. A moderated mediation model
| Date | 01 January 2020 |
| Published date | 01 January 2020 |
| Pages | 542-560 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-06-2019-0263 |
| Author | Jianfeng Jia,Shunyi Zhou,Long Zhang,Xiaoxiao Jiang |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
Exploring the influence of
paternalistic leadership
on voice behavior
A moderated mediation model
Jianfeng Jia
School of Business Administration, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China
Shunyi Zhou
School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China,
Beijing, China, and
Long Zhang and Xiaoxiao Jiang
Business School, Hunan University, Changsha, China
Abstract
Purpose –Drawn upon the perspective of implicit voice theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore the
underlying mechanism as well as the boundary effect in the relationship between paternalistic leadership and
voice behavior.
Design/methodology/approach –Multiple-wave survey data from a sample of 368 employees in China
were used to test the hypothesized moderated mediation model.
Findings –The findings show that both benevolent leadership and moral leadership related positively to
voice behavior, whereas authoritative leadership played a negative role in influencing voice behavior.
Employees’implicit voice belief played a partial mediating role between paternalistic leadership and voice
behavior. Furthermore, perceived HRM strength weakens both the mediation relationship among benevolent
leadership, implicit voice belief and voice behavior, and the mediation relationship among moral leadership,
implicit voice belief and voice behavior. However, the moderated mediation effect of implicit voice belief on
the relationship between authoritative leadership and voice behavior is not significant.
Practical implications –Leaders are encouraged to behave benevolently and morally whereas to avoid
excessive authoritative style at work, so that employees can be encouraged to speak out. Organizations are
advised to introduce management practices like training and development sessions and to improve
employees’perceived HRM strength so that the implicit voice belief can be reduced, and the voice behavior
can be stimulated.
Originality/value –The research provided a fresh theoretical perspective on the underlying mechanism
between paternalistic leadership and employees’voice behavior by unveiling employee implicit voice belief’s
partial mediating role between paternalistic leadership and employee voice behavior. Furthermore, the study
contributed to the literature of voice by adopting a more integrative perspective and exploring the role of the
implementation of the organization’s system, i.e., perceived HRM strength that provided a boundary condition
in the above mediation model.
Keywords Employee behaviour, Moderated mediation, Voice behaviour, Human resource management,
Paternalistic leadership, Implicit voice belief
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Employee voice has become an essential source of innovation and improvement for leaders
and enterprises(Donovan et al., 2016). However, recent research showedthat most employees
admit that they are more willing to remain silent in the organization (Duan et al., 2017).
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 42 No. 2, 2020
pp. 542-560
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-06-2019-0263
Received 27 June 2019
Revised 21 October 2019
29 November 2019
Accepted 2 December 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos 71672031,
71802077 and 71972032); LiaoNing Revitalization Talents Program (Grant No. XLYC1807218) and
Young Scientists Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, China
(Grant No. 2019JJ50059).
542
ER
42,2
Notably, the Chinese culture is found to have high power distance, and emphasizes the
authority of leaders and “top-down”influences, rather than the employees’“bottom-up”
influences (Lin etal., 2016; Zhang et al., In press). Therefore,employees in this context areless
likely to speakout in front of the leaders or institutions (i.e.the organization) (Ellis et al., 2017).
On this account, enterprises in China need to spend many resources trying to develop a
desirable system toencourage employees to engage in voice behaviors (Jawor-Joniewicz and
Sienkiewicz, 2016).
Leaders, as an important factor in affecting employees’attitudes and behavior, often play an
important role in employees’voice behavior (Walumbwa and Schaubroeck, 2009; Lee et al.,
2017). Moreover, given the Chinese collectivist culture, leaders in China tend to show
paternalistic leadership style, which includes three dimensions –fatherly majesty
(i.e. authoritarian leadership) (Zhang, Peace and Han, 2016), higher morality (i.e. moral
leadership) (Cheng and Wang, 2015) and motherly care (i.e. benevolent leadership), to their
employees (Aycan, 2015; Chen et al., 2015). Incorporating a mix of these three leadership
styles, the influences that paternalistic leadership brought to employee voice behavior are
complex and dynamic. Previous research found that while authoritative leadership led to a
negative effect on voice behavior, benevolent leadership and moral leadership positively
impacted voice behavior (Li and Sun, 2015; Chen, 2017). However, there are still two questions
that need to be further explored. First, in the investigation of the mechanism of employee
voice behavior, most of the previous research considered employees as pure rational people
(Willman et al., 2006). They proposed that employees’behaviors were often based on
deliberations (Detert and Edmondson, 2011). However, this perspective ignores the possibility of
“bounded rationality,”such that humans sometimes behave irrationally based on
self-perceptions or beliefs (Aguiar and Serrano, 2017). According to the implicit voice theory,
the implicit voice belief, due to its spontaneity and unconsciousness, would be more effective in
predicting human behavior than explicit ones (Detert and Burris, 2007). Detert and Edmondson
(2011) labeled five aspects of implicit voice belief that potentially lead to employee silence.
First aspect is the presumed target identification, meaning that employees regard voice as a
challenge to the leader’s self-image and self-worth. Second, employees need reliable data or
perfect solutions for speaking out in safe; alternatively, they would remain silent. Third aspect is
the belief of “Don’t bypass the boss upward”(Detert and Edmondson, 2011, p. 467). Fourth
aspect is the belief that “Don’t embarrass the boss in public”(Detert and Edmondson, 2011,
p. 467). Fifth aspect includes employees’concern about potential negative career consequences
after voice behavior. We summarized these five aspects of implicit voice belief into two
dimensions –the perception of the safety (i.e. feeling safe to speak out) and the perception of
acceptance (i.e. voice behavior is acceptable). Second, while at the organizational level,
organizational factors have huge impacts on individuals’attitudes and behaviors (Chao et al.,
1994; Wu et al., 2015), prior studies mainly focus on a single aspect of organizational context,
such as organizational policies or organizational climate (Cheung, 2013; Chen and Hos, 2016).
Bowen and Ostroff (2004), from a more integrated perspective, pointed out that scholars should
pay attention to not only the system per se, but also the implementation process of the system.
HRM strength, which refers to a series of HRM meta-properties, is such an implementation
process that transmits the HRM information and policies into practices (Bowen and Ostroff,
2004). Therefore, the current research develops an integrated perspective to investigate the role
of HRM strength in influencing the transmission process from paternalistic leadership to
employee voice behavior.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. First, it examines the direct effect of
paternalistic leadership on voice behavior, the mediating effect of implicit voice belief
between them and the moderating effect of HRM strength in this mediation relationship.
It then reports the method details. Finally, it presents discussions, limitations and
suggestions for future research.
543
Influence of
paternalistic
leadership
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