Amj 2

Academy of Management Journal
The Voice Bystander Effect: How Information Redundancy

Inhibits Employee Voice
Journal: Academy of Management Journal
Manuscript ID AMJ-2017-0245.R2
Manuscript Type: Revision
Group/team characteristics (General) < Group/team characterisitics <

Organizational Behavior < Topic Areas, Communication < Group/team
Keywords:
processes < Organizational Behavior < Topic Areas, Organizational
behavior (General) < Organizational Behavior < Topic Areas
Employees often remain silent rather than speak up to managers with

work-related ideas, concerns, and opinions. As a result, managers can
remain in the dark about issues that are otherwise well known to, or
universally understood by, frontline employees. We propose a previously
unexplored explanation for this phenomenon: Voice is prone to bystander
effects, such that the more certain information is shared among
employees, the less any particular employee feels individually responsible
for bringing up that information with managers. We theorize that such
Abstract: bystander effects are especially likely to occur when peers of focal
employees, on average, enjoy high quality relationships with managers and
thereby have adequate relational access to voice up the hierarchy. Using a
correlational study involving managers and employees working in teams in
a Fortune 500 company, and two experimental studies (a laboratory study
involving undergraduate students working in a hierarchical setting, and a
scenario study with a sample of U.S.-based workers), we provide evidence
for our conceptual model. We discuss the theoretical and managerial
implications of our findings.
Page 1 of 49 Academy of Management Journal
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5 The Voice Bystander Effect: How Information Redundancy
6 Inhibits Employee Voice
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10 INSIYA HUSSAIN
11 University of Maryland
12 insiya.hussain@rhsmith.umd.edu
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RUI SHU
16 Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
17 shu.rui@mail.shufe.edu.cn
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19 SUBRAHMANIAM TANGIRALA
20 University of Maryland
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stangirala@rhsmith.umd.edu
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24 SRINIVAS EKKIRALA
25 Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
26 srinivas.ekkirala@iimb.ac.in
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51 Author Note
52 We thank Vijaya Venkataramani and Jian Liang for their helpful feedback while developing this research.
53 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Rui Shu, Shanghai University of Finance
54 and Economics, Shanghai, P. R. China. Email: shu.rui@mail.shufe.edu.cn.
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Academy of Management Journal Page 2 of 49
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3 THE VOICE BYSTANDER EFFECT: HOW INFORMATION REDUNDANCY
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INHIBITS EMPLOYEE VOICE
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8 ABSTRACT
9 Employees often remain silent rather than speak up to managers with work-related ideas,
10 concerns, and opinions. As a result, managers can remain in the dark about issues that are
11 otherwise well known to, or universally understood by, frontline employees. We propose a
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previously unexplored explanation for this phenomenon: Voice is prone to bystander effects,
14 such that the more certain information is shared among employees, the less any particular
15 employee feels individually responsible for bringing up that information with managers. We
16 theorize that such bystander effects are especially likely to occur when peers of focal employees,
17 on average, enjoy high quality relationships with managers and thereby have adequate relational
18 access to voice up the hierarchy. Using a correlational study involving managers and employees
19
working in teams in a Fortune 500 company, and two experimental studies (a laboratory study
20
21 involving undergraduate students working in a hierarchical setting, and a scenario study with a
22 sample of U.S.-based workers), we provide evidence for our conceptual model. We discuss the
23 theoretical and managerial implications of our findings.
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25 Keywords: employee voice; proactivity; teams; LMX
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29 “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without
30 doing anything.”
31 Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
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33 “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”
34 Robert Swan (polar explorer and environmentalist)
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37 The proverbial “elephant in the room” refers to a problem that is apparent to all but is
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never publicly brought up. Popular fables such as “The Emperor’s New Clothes” speak to a
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42 similar phenomenon in which observers, who all notice that the emperor is naked, fail to point it
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44 out. Such reticence exists beyond idioms and bedtime stories, as there is prevalence of employee
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silence in business organizations where multiple individuals detect work-related problems or
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49 opportunities but each desists from voicing up or escalating issues to an appropriate degree (e.g.,
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51 Detert & Burris, 2016; Maxfield, 2016). For instance, ideas for improvement in work processes
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53 as well as concerns about errors or undesirable behaviors at work often remain “open secrets” on
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3 the frontlines and are not shared with upper management (e.g., Bowes-Sperry & O’Leary-Kelly,
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6 2003; Jones, 2002; Milliken, Morrison, & Hewlin, 2003).
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8 This raises the question of why employees do not bring potentially actionable issues that
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10 are often widely recognized in the peer-group to the attention of managers who have the
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influence and resources to address them. Although research has explored multiple hurdles to
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15 employees’ voice, or the upward expression of work-related suggestions, opinions, and concerns
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17 (e.g., see Morrison, 2014, for a review), extant scholarship might not provide a fully satisfactory
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answer. For instance, employees are said gain confidence in bringing up information that is
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22 shared within teams as they might be able to crosscheck the validity of that information with
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24 their peers (e.g., Wittenbaum, Hollingshead, & Botero, 2004). Further, employees are presumed
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26 to be wary of sharing uncommon opinions owing to fear of being singled out for contradicting
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29 the predominant viewpoint within the group (e.g., Edmondson, 2003). These findings from
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31 existing voice-related literatures suggest that common knowledge about issues within teams can
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33 induce a sense of “safety in numbers and thereby instill confidence among individuals to speak
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up, enabling to issues to more, rather than less, easily percolate up the organizational hierarchy.
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38 Such patterns do not, therefore, explain why the opposite often occurs.
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40 We provide an alternative perspective by building on theories of the bystander effect and
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the volunteer’s dilemma (Darley & Latané, 1968; Diekmann, 1985). When multiple employees
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45 have similar knowledge about a work issue—i.e., when there is, what we term, information
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47 redundancy among them—we propose that they become susceptible to diffusion of
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49 responsibility, or the perception that they are not solely responsible for bringing the issue to the
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52 attention of management and that the responsibility for action is shared among many (Bickman,
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54 1972). This diffusion of responsibility, we argue, diminishes the willingness of employees to
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3 speak up on the issue. Moreover, bystander effects are more pronounced when an individual is in
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6 the presence of others who have sufficient capability to effectively intervene (Latané & Nida,
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8 1981). Voice often critically depends on having a positive relationship with the manager that can
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10 open up a direct line of upward communication (Liu, Tangirala, & Ramanujam, 2013). Hence,
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we additionally predict that voice bystander effects are exacerbated such that employees
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15 individually become less likely to speak up about topics of common knowledge when peers
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17 within the group possess good quality relationships with the manager—i.e., when peers, on
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average, enjoy higher LMX with the manager (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995).
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22 By examining these relationships, we make several contributions. First, we highlight how
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24 concerns and ideas that are widely shared among employees at lower levels can fail to make their
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26 way up the hierarchy. We suggest that when employees possess overlapping information about
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29 work-related issues, each of them can feel less personally responsible to speak up with that
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31 information. This can create negative informational cascades in organizations, where the inaction
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33 of an individual can trigger or add up to collective inaction (Krueger & Massey, 2009) and
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prevent managers higher up from recognizing critical frontline issues. In explicating the origins
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38 of the voice bystander effect, we propose that commonality of opinion does not necessarily
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40 increase voice by making people feel confident or safe in expressing that opinion, because such
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sharedness of opinion triggers a different psychological process characterized by diffusion of
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45 responsibility to personally speak up. In doing so, we extend voice research that has
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47 predominantly focused on other explanations for why employees don’t speak up, such as lack of
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49 efficacy (personal confidence in speaking up) and lack of psychological safety (the perception
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52 that voice would not be punished) (Morrison, 2014).
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3 Second, we extend the literature on bystander effects. Although the bystander effect is
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6 empirically well established, reviews have noted that research needs to make conceptual
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8 advances by explicating its boundary conditions (Fischer et al., 2011). We draw on recent
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10 scholarship that has indicated that employees pay careful attention to the nature of relationships
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among their peers and leaders when deciding on their own actions (e.g., Venkataramani, Green,
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15 & Schleicher, 2010) to highlight how the average LMX that fellow observers (peers) have with
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17 the target of voice (manager) can influence the extent to which the focal actor (employee) feels a
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responsibility to speak up on topics of common knowledge in the observer-group. In making this
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22 case, we underscore how behaviors potentially subject to bystander effects are influenced by the
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24 pattern of relationships in the social environment in which they occur. In fact, a majority of
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26 bystander effect studies have focused on inaction among a group of strangers who come together
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29 to observe an event (Latané & Nida, 1981). We point out that in non-stranger contexts, such as
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31 workplaces, individuals are likely to scan the environment for others who have adequate
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33 relational access to the target and, consequently, diminish their own involvement when those
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others seem relationally capable of taking on the burden of action. Bystander effect theory is
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38 increasingly being applied to work contexts (e.g., Blair, Foster Thompson, & Wuensch, 2005)
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40 where long-standing interpersonal relationships can substantially modify interactions and
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behavioral patterns amongst actors (e.g., Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). Hence, our conceptual
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45 arguments highlight the critical need for the theory to incorporate discussions of the relational
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47 context in which the phenomenon unfolds, with particular attention to the nature of relationship
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49 between other observers and the target.
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52 Finally, we extend the theoretical conversation on the antecedents of diffusion of
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54 responsibility at work. Prior research has indicated that employees feel compelled to take on
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3 responsibility for work events when they are placed in a motivating task environment. Factors
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6 such as job autonomy, job complexity, and initiated work interdependence are said to enhance a
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8 sense of work ownership (e.g., Hackman & Oldham, 1975; Kiggundu, 1981; Shalley, Zhou, &
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10 Oldham, 2004), which is a crucial facilitator of constructive work behaviors in employees (e.g.,
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Parker, Bindl, & Strauss, 2010). Although scholars have suggested that access to information
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15 about problems and issues might have a similar motivating effect by acting as a personal call to
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17 action (e.g., Blanchard, Carlos, & Randolph, 1999), empirically, information access, by itself,
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has often failed to enhance employees’ psychological responsibility to initiate change (e.g.,
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22 Fuller, Marler, & Hester, 2006). Our theory predicts that information similarly available to all
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24 does not necessarily inculcate a sense of personal responsibility in individuals to constructively
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26 take action on that information. Rather, we argue that it is important to examine information
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29 overlap on key issues in teams in order to understand when such information might lose its
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31 ability to encourage change-oriented behaviors. This is because information redundancy can
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33 create a diffusion of responsibility that prevents each individual who is in the know from acting
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as a vocal change-agent at work.
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38 THEORY AND HYPOTHESES
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40 Voice is an important means of transferring knowledge across levels of hierarchy. Voice,
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which sheds light on inefficiencies and opportunities related to work, has been shown to help
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45 teams increase innovation and productivity (e.g., Lam & Mayer, 2014; Li, Liao, Tangirala &
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47 Firth, 2017; Mackenzie, Podsakoff, & Podsakoff, 2011), as well as prevent accounting
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49 malpractices (Gordon, 2004), product safety problems (O’Connell, 2004), and medical errors
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52 (Edmonson, Bohmer, & Pisano, 2001). However, employees frequently desist from speaking up
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54 at work, and concerns or ideas that are widely known among employees fail to flow up the
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3 organizational hierarchy (Milliken et al., 2003). Instead, employees often only discuss their
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6 concerns with peers, a behavior that can be less beneficial to team outcomes than actively
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8 sharing problems with managers further up in the hierarchy who more likely have the resources
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10 and influence to effect change (Detert et al., 2013).
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We propose that employees are more likely to remain silent on an issue with their
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15 managers when there is information redundancy—i.e., when an employee holds similar opinions
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17 or concerns about work-related issues vis-à-vis peers in the team, as this can lead to diffusion of
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responsibility for raising issues of common knowledge up the hierarchy. Information redundancy
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22 on work-related issues can develop for several reasons (e.g., Dutton, 1993; March & Simon,
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24 1958; Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005; Lorrain & White, 1971). First, employees in a peer
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26 group often witness or experience common events (e.g., customer interactions on the floor of a
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29 department store) that make them develop similar explanations or interpretations of those events
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31 (e.g., the notion that store procedures pertaining to customers’ product returns are inefficient).
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33 Due to such objectively shared experiences of work events, employees within a peer group might
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begin to hold similar opinions about those events. Second, the interpretation of work experiences
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38 is often the result of a process of co-creation, emerging from the collective sense-making actions
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40 of employees as they communicate with each other. Employees frequently confront ambiguous
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work stimuli and seek to comprehend them via conversations with peers either formally when
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45 interacting or exchanging work products within the workflow, or more informally over water
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47 coolers and lunches. Such discussions can create echo chambers whereby employees develop
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49 shared understandings of, and opinions on, work events as they transpire.
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3 Effects of Information Redundancy on Voice
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6 Theories of the bystander effect and the volunteer’s dilemma together provide a
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8 framework for understanding why information redundancy can prevent issues from being
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10 communicated across hierarchical boundaries. Literature on the bystander effect describes how
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individuals fail to respond to an event demanding proactivity when others who are capable of
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15 taking action are similarly aware of the situation (Latané & Nida, 1981). For instance, when
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17 among other observers who can potentially also respond, individuals are less likely to assist
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someone who is injured (Latané & Darley, 1968), help a motorist in distress (Hurley & Allen,
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22 1974), call attention to a potential fire (Latané & Darley, 1968), and report theft (Shaffer, Rogel,
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24 & Hendrick, 1975). A meta-analysis of the bystander effect using over 105 independent research
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26 samples and 7,700 participants has showed a significant negative effect of the presence of other
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29 observers on an individual’s likelihood of intervention (Fischer et al., 2011). This bystander
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31 effect has been formally modeled using a game theoretic lens as a special case of the volunteer’s
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33 dilemma, in which a group is faced with a need for a public good that can be provided by just
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one volunteer in the group. This volunteer would bear the costs of providing the public good
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38 (e.g., time, effort, and risks), but the entire group would be able to enjoy its benefits (e.g.,
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40 Diekmann, 1985; Franzen, 1999; Krueger & Massey, 2009; Thomas, De Freitas, DeScioli, &
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Pinker, 2016). Literature studying the bystander effect, in particular, and the volunteer’s
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45 dilemma, in general, has noted that a key reason why volunteers do not emerge to provide public
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47 goods is that it is psychologically and strategically convenient for individuals to wait for others
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49 to potentially volunteer rather than take action themselves.
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52 From the perspective of these theories, behaviors such as voice can represent a classic
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54 volunteer’s dilemma from the focal actor’s point of view. Although an employee can gain
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3 personal rewards for speaking up, such positive outcomes are uncertain and conditional (e.g.,
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6 Burris, 2012; Whiting, Podsakoff, & Pierce, 2008). At the same time, voice presents salient
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8 direct as well as indirect costs (e.g., Milliken et al., 2003). Because managers hold relatively
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10 greater power in the organization (Dépret & Fiske, 1993), voice can be interpersonally risky and
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an employee who intends to speak up needs to carefully consider on how best to approach and
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15 articulate concerns to the manager. The process of preparing for and engaging in voice can also
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17 necessitate time and energy away from the employee’s core job responsibilities (e.g., Bergeron,
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Shipp, Rosen, & Frust, 2013; Bolino & Turnley, 2005). However, when an employee does bring
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22 ideas or concerns to the attention of the manager, there is potential for positive change that
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24 benefits all members of the team, such as improved team processes or the removal of barriers
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26 impeding performance (Detert et al., 2013; Lam & Mayer, 2014; Li et al., 2017).
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29 When faced with such a volunteer’s dilemma, individuals typically scan their immediate
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31 social environments to assess whether it is really necessary for them to take on the costs of
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33 volunteering and whether others could potentially step up to volunteer instead (Krueger &
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Massey, 2009). That is, they try to predict what other “observers” of the event could do, and
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38 based on that assessment, adjust their own efforts (Franzen, 1999). In the context of voice, we
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40 propose that employees will likely attempt to gauge what information they are uniquely aware of
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(and thus would be solely responsible for bringing up) versus information that others are privy to
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45 as well. Generally, in circumstances where an individual sees that he or she possesses knowledge
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47 that another agent also possesses, the individual becomes less likely act on that knowledge, as he
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49 or she no longer feels compelled or obliged to personally bear the costs of volunteering for the
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52 common good (Diekmann, 1985; Thomas et al., 2016). In fact, an extensive body of research on
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54 social loafing (e.g. Harkins & Petty, 1982; Latané, Williams, & Harkins, 1979) similarly shows
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3 that individuals exhibit a sizeable decrease in effort when working in groups relative to working
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6 alone, largely because they expect others to take on responsibility for group performance
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8 (Wagner, 1995) and perceive their own efforts to be relatively dispensable to the group’s success
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10 (Kerr & Brunn, 1983). In line with these findings, we expect that when there is information
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redundancy regarding issues in the workplace—i.e., when there is widespread awareness of
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15 work-related issues in the employee peer group—each individual employee is less likely to
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17 engage in voice1.
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Hypothesis 1. Information redundancy is negatively related to voice.
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22 The Moderating Role Of Peers’ Leader-Member Exchange
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24 A close reading of the theories of the bystander effect and the volunteer’s dilemma
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26 suggests that it is not merely the presence of others in the situation that determines the degree of
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29 initiative that an individual displays, but also the individual’s assessment of whether or not
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31 others can properly intervene (e.g., Latané & Nida, 1981). Specifically, when other observers are
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33 seen as having adequate resources to take action, bystander effects are strengthened, and the
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focal individual is more likely to remain inactive on the issue. By contrast, when other observers
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38 are seen as lacking the ability to intervene, bystander effects are weakened, and the focal
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40 individual is more likely to take personal initiative. For instance, individuals tend to be more
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passive in responding to a victim when placed with another observer who is physically available
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45 to help the victim rather than one who is not (e.g., Bickman, 1971).
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51 1
52 We conceptualize this process as unfolding purely at the individual level of analysis, and make
53 no assumption that employees engage in collusion or explicit coordination of any kind with
54 others when making their choice of whether to speak up or remain silent. Rather, employees are
55 merely responding to their personal experience of information redundancy, which reduces their
56 individual voice to the managers.
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3 Applying this principle to the specific context of voice in organizational settings, we
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6 argue to that when other observers have an open and trusted channel of communication with the
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8 manager, the focal actor’s motivation to speak up would be lowered. That is, we propose that the
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10 negative effects of information redundancy on voice strengthen when peers of the focal
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employee possess high quality relationships with the manager (LMX; Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995).
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15 We focus on the quality of the relationships that peers, on an average, have with their managers
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17 (average peer-LMX) as the moderator for various reasons. First, employees who possess high-
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quality LMX with the manager have direct and frequent access to the manager (Dienesch &
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22 Liden, 1986; Sparrowe & Liden, 1997). Unsurprisingly, LMX is associated with greater
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24 exchange of ideas, concerns, and viewpoints between employees and managers (e.g., Burris,
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26 Detert, & Chiaburu, 2008; Liu et al., 2013). We thus expect that when peers, on average, enjoy
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29 high-quality LMX with the manager, they are likely to be seen by the focal employee as
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31 potentially having the trust and confidence of the manager to effectively engage in voice.
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33 Second, there is emerging evidence that employees pay close attention to the LMX of
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peers and managers when deciding on their own actions (e.g., Venkataramani et al., 2010). That
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38 is, employees have reliable knowledge about existing patterns of LMX relationships in the work
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40 environment (Duchon, Green, & Taber, 1986), and use that knowledge to navigate interpersonal
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interactions at work, including decisions about whether or not to speak up (e.g., Liu et al., 2013).
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45 Hence, when individuals are confronted with the type of volunteer’s dilemma presented by voice
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47 and need to weigh whether to personally take on the costs of intervening to the benefit of the
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49 group (Franzen, 1999), we expect that the extent to which peers have positive relationships with
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52 the manager will serve as a key factor in deliberation. That is, we argue that information
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54 redundancy has stronger negative effects on an employee’s voice to the manager when other
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3 observers (peers), on average, share high-quality LMX with the manager. Employees would
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6 thereby be especially less likely to engage in voice when peers are both aware of focal issues and
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8 possess strong relationships with the manager that would make them appear well-poised to speak
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10 up.
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It is important to note here that we are proposing that high average peer-LMX will
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15 strengthen bystander effects on voice regardless of LMX that the focal employee personally
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17 enjoys with the manager or the extent to which the employee’s LMX differs from or exceeds that
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of his or her peers. Our rationale derives from conceptual arguments in the literature on the
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22 bystander effect, which has highlighted that a passive mentality arises in an individual the
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24 moment he or she perceives that others can adequately take action, irrespective of the
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26 individual’s own personal capabilities to act (e.g., Bickman, 1971; Ross & Braband, 1973). That
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29 is, from a game theoretic point of view (e.g., Frazen, 1999), the putative volunteer’s motivations
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31 are diminished so long as fellow observers have sufficient capability to provide the public good
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33 that the team can enjoy. Neither the volunteer’s own capability by itself, nor his or her capability
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relative to those of other observers, should affect the calculations; the focus is on the extent to
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38 which fellow observers are deemed to adequately meet the threshold for acting on behalf of the
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40 group. We thus expect that an employee becomes less likely to engage in voice when he or she
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perceives that others possess redundant information and have, on an average, high LMX with the
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45 manager, regardless of whether or not the employee similarly enjoys high LMX with the
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47 manager. Taking these arguments together, we propose the following:
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49 Hypothesis 2. Average peer-LMX moderates the relationship between information
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52 redundancy and voice such that the relationship is more negative when average peer-LMX
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54 is higher.
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3 The Mediating Role of Diffusion of Responsibility
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6 Theories of the bystander effect and the volunteer’s dilemma propose that a key reason
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8 why an individual often refrains from intervening in situations where multiple potential helpers
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10 are present is not because the individual doesn’t care about the issue at hand, but because he or
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she perceives that others will possibly step in, rendering the individual’s own initiative redundant
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15 or unrequired (Diekmann, 1985; Darley & Latané, 1968). Specifically, when multiple people are
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17 aware of a situation, the responsibility to act becomes diffused or distributed among all
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observers, such that each individual observer perceives that he or she is not solely responsible for
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22 intervening and that the responsibility for action is shared among many (e.g., Bickman, 1972).
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24 Thus, inaction stems not from indifference to the situation itself, but rather from the bystander’s
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26 response to other observers (Darley & Latané, 1968).
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29 By contrast, when only a single bystander is present or cognizant of an issue, it becomes
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31 plain to the individual that he or she is solely responsible to intervene, as there would be no
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33 reasonable way to rationalize that someone else would do so (Darley & Latané, 1968; Staub,
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1970; Tilker, 1970). Indeed, prior research has found that when individuals know that immediate
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38 or imagined others cannot possibly help, there is no diffusion of responsibility and individuals
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40 behave as though alone (Bickman, 1972; Korte, 1971). Integrating these arguments, we propose
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that diffusion of responsibility mediates both the main (negative) effects of information
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45 redundancy and the interactive effects of information redundancy and average peer-LMX on
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47 voice. Specifically, when multiple employees have similar knowledge about issues within the
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49 team, each individual employee might fail to convey those issues up the organizational hierarchy
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52 due to diffusion of responsibility. Furthermore, we predict that an employee feels a greater
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54 diffusion of responsibility with respect to voicing when he or she perceives that others possess
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3 redundant information and have, on an average, high LMX with the manager. Consequently, by
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6 moderating the first stage (link) of the information redundancy diffusion of responsibility
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8 voice mediated chain of relationships, average-peer LMX should make the indirect effects of
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10 information redundancy on voice stronger. This leads us to formally propose the following set of
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hypotheses that represent our integrated model.
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15 Hypothesis 3. The negative relationship between information redundancy and voice is
16
17 mediated by diffusion of responsibility.
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19
Hypothesis 4. The interactive relationship between information redundancy and average
20
21
22 peer-LMX on voice is mediated by diffusion of responsibility.
23
24 OVERVIEW OF STUDIES
25
26 We progressively tested our hypotheses in a set of three studies. In Study 1, we used
27
28
29 multi-source data from employees, peers, and managers in a field setting in India to examine the
30
31 unconditional and conditional main effects of information redundancy (inferred using each
32
33 employee’s position in his or her team’s workflow) on voice (Hypotheses 1 and 2). In Study 2, a
34
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36
laboratory experiment utilizing undergraduate students in United States, we manipulated
37
38 information redundancy directly. We examined whether such information redundancy had direct
39
40 negative effects on employees’ willingness to speak up the hierarchy (Hypothesis 1) and whether
41
42
these negative effects were mediated by diffusion of responsibility (Hypothesis 3). As LMX
43
44
45 relationships can be difficult to effectively manipulate in short-term laboratory contexts, in Study
46
47 3 we utilized a realistic work scenario that asked an online panel of U.S.-based workers to
48
49 imagine a work situation in which their peers in a team had good (versus poor) relationships with
50
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52 the manager, and examined how they would respond to information redundancy within the team.
53
54 In this study, we constructively replicated support for Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3. Additionally, we
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1
2
3 demonstrated that the interactive effects of peer-LMX and information redundancy on voice are
4
5
6 mediated by diffusion of responsibility (Hypothesis 4). In all the three studies, to establish the
7
8 incremental validity of information redundancy, we investigated its effects over alternative
9
10 explanatory variables known to influence voice such as efficacy (confidence in one’s abilities to
11
12
13
speak up), instrumentality (perceptions that voice can make a difference), and psychological
14
15 safety (belief that voice is not punished) (Morrison, 2014). Via these three studies, we sought to
16
17 provide converging support for our theoretical model. The data and analyses syntaxes for the
18
19
studies can be found on Open Science Framework:
20
21
22 https://osf.io/s9xze/?view_only=80bba28ba68449998430e97fc9ca2144.
23
24 STUDY 1
25
26 Sample and Procedures
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28
29 We collected data from the India branch of a Fortune 500 electronics company servicing
30
31 consumer and business markets. The organization was an ideal setting for our research as
32
33 employees worked in well-defined teams, each under the leadership of a manager. We invited
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36
144 employees from 25 teams to participate in a survey on workplace opinions. We informed
37
38 participants of confidentiality in order to alleviate evaluation apprehension and increase the
39
40 candidness of responses. The final sample comprised 132 employees (92% response rate) and 25
41
42
managers (100% response rate). Team size ranged from 3 to 8 employees (M = 5.70, SD = 1.43).
43
44
45 Owing to a gender imbalance in the company for technical positions, all participants in the
46
47 sample were male. The average age of the sample was 30.29 years (SD = 3.05) and average
48
49 tenure was 2.49 years (SD = 1.68). Also, 77% of employees held a Master’s degree or higher.
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1
2
3 Measures
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6 Voice. Managers rated the extent to which they observed voice from each of their
7
8 employees using a 4-item voice scale utilized in prior literature (e.g., Tangirala & Ramanujam,
9
10 2012, derived from Van Dyne and LePine, 1998). The scale was designed to capture the extent to
11
12
13
which the employee’s opinions and ideas were brought to the manager’s attention (1 = “never” to
14
15 7 = “always”). A sample item is: “This employee has developed and made recommendations
16
17 concerning issues that affect this work group.”
18
19
Information redundancy. In this study, our scale of the dependent variable (voice)
20
21
22 represented the extent to which an employee, in general, speaks up in the presence of the
23
24 manager. To match the generality of such a scale, we sought to measure our independent variable
25
26 (information redundancy) as the typical extent to which an employee, given the nature of his or
27
28
29 her structural position in the team’s workflow, would hold information or knowledge that is
30
31 likely to be commonly known by others in the team as well. That is, we attempted to capture the
32
33 extent to which an employee, in general, possessed common or redundant information vis-à-vis
34
35
36
his or her peers about work-related issues. Consequently, we operationalized information
37
38 redundancy as the average degree of structural equivalence in an employee’s job with respect to
39
40 peers on the team. Structural equivalence measures the extent to which two people in a network
41
42
are connected to the same others (Burt, 1976; Burt, 2000; Lorrain & White, 1971; Wasserman &
43
44
45 Faust, 1994, p. 356). Two employees are completely structurally equivalent when they have
46
47 identical ties to all other actors in the network. In having such an identical pattern of ties,
48
49 structurally equivalent actors “have the same sources of information and therefore provide
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51
52 redundant information benefits” (Burt, 2001, p. 35). We examined structural equivalence in the
53
54 context of the workflow network of a team. This network represents the flow of information and
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1
2
3 work-related outputs among members in the team. Two employees who are fully structurally
4
5
6 equivalent in the workflow network would be considered as “substitutable” for one another, in
7
8 terms of having identical patterns of work interactions within the team. They would thus be
9
10 likely to possess very similar knowledge as one another about work-related issues, or to have
11
12
13
redundant information as a function of their work relative to one another.2 The average of an
14
15 employee’s workflow structural equivalence with respect to each of his or her peers on the team
16
17 represented his or her score on information redundancy.
18
19
Following other network researchers (e.g., Sparrowe & Liden, 2005; Umphress,
20
21
22 Labianca, Brass, Kass, & Scholten, 2003), we constructed the workflow network by providing
23
24 employees with a roster of fellow team members and asking them to rate each team member on
25
26 the following question in a round-robin style survey: “To what extent do you interact with (team
27
28
29 member name) as part of your required job responsibilities (e.g., receiving completed work from
30
31 them or sending them your finished work)?” (1 = never, 7 = always). Although multi-item
32
33 measures are generally desirable, it is often acceptable to use single-item measures when
34
35
36
collecting network data, as the requirement to providing ratings on multiple items for several
37
38 team members can result in fatigue and poor response rates (e.g., Marsden, 1990). We generated
39
40 25 workflow matrices, one for each team, and used these to calculate structural equivalence
41
42
scores for each employee using the UCINET software (Borgatti, Everett, & Freeman, 2002).
43
44
45
46
2
47 We conducted a supplementary vignette study to more affirmatively establish that structural
48 equivalence is associated with the experience of information redundancy by individuals in a team
49 context. One-hundred and eighty-six U.S.-based workers recruited through an online panel were
50
shown their putative positions in a hypothetical workflow network within a team. Participants
51
52 whose positions indicated high structural equivalence vis-à-vis a peer, compared to those whose
53 positions indicated low structural equivalence, reported experiencing greater information
54 redundancy with that peer. Supporting our operationalization, this study indicated that people
55 view structurally equivalent peers as likely to possess similar work-related information. Full
56 materials and results of the study are available upon request from the first author.
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1
2
3 Notably, UCINET calculates a structural equivalence score for each dyad in the team using an
4
5
6 algorithm applying Euclidean distance (Burt, 1976). We reverse-scored the values, such that
7
8 lower distance (that is, more structural “closeness” or equivalence), would represent greater
9
10 information redundancy. Additionally, for each employee in our dataset, we averaged the
11
12
13
structural equivalence scores he or she had, at the dyadic level, with all his or her peers within
14
15 the team to arrive at the overall extent to which a particular employee was likely to experience
16
17 information redundancy with his or her peers during daily work operations.
18
19
Average peer-LMX. Employees rated the quality of their relationship (LMX) with the
20
21
22 manager with 7 items from Scandura and Graen (1984) (1 = “strongly disagree” to 7 = “strongly
23
24 agree”). Sample items include, “my [manager] has enough confidence in me that he/she would
25
26 defend and justify my decisions if I was not present to do so,” and “my working relationship with
27
28
29 my immediate [manager] is effective.” We computed each employee’s peer-LMX score by
30
31 averaging the self-reported LMX scores of each of the employee’s team members, excluding the
32
33 employee him or herself. This reflected the extent to which an employee’s peers, on average,
34
35
36
held high-quality relationships with the manager.
37
38 Control variables. Given concerns about suppression effects caused by control variables
39
40 (Becker, 2005), we conducted all our main analyses without any control variables. However, to
41
42
guard against omission of key variables as well as establish the incremental validity of our
43
44
45 predictors, in our robustness checks we examined whether the inclusion of relevant control
46
47 variables impacted our results. In particular, we considered the following controls: Age, tenure,
48
49 and education, as it is possible that older, more experienced, or more educated employees might
50
51
52 have greater status to speak up at work. Further, given the possibility for an employee’s own
53
54 relationship with the manager to confound results for average peer-LMX, we examined whether
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60
1
2
3 controlling for each employee’s own ratings on the LMX scale (self-LMX) impacted the pattern
4
5
6 of results. Moreover, we explored whether our results were robust to the addition of alternative
7
8 voice predictors (e.g., Sherf, Tangirala, & Weber, 2017; 1 = “strongly disagree” to 7 = “strongly
9
10 agree”). These were, (a) psychological safety measured with 4 items from Edmonson (1999),
11
12
13
which captured the extent to which employees felt they could engage in behaviors such as voice
14
15 without interpersonal risk (sample item: “It is safe to take a risk on this team”); (b) efficacy,
16
17 captured using the 3-item competence sub-scale of Spreitzer (1995), which in line with the
18
19
measurement of our independent variable that focused on work activities in general, represented
20
21
22 employees’ confidence in their work abilities (sample item: “I am self-assured about my
23
24 capabilities to perform my work activities”); and (c) instrumentality, measured using the 3-item
25
26 impact sub-scale of Spreitzer (1995), which represented employees’ belief that their actions
27
28
29 impact work outcomes (sample item: “I have significant influence over what happens in my
30
31 department”).
32
33 Analytical Approach
34
35
36
Our theoretical interest lies at the individual (employee) level of analysis. That is,
37
38 although the described bystander psychology unfolds when an individual is in the social presence
39
40 of fellow observers (i.e., in a team context), via our theoretical model we are only seeking to
41
42
explain how the information redundancy experienced by an individual influences his or her
43
44
45 personal choice to speak up or remain silent. However, in our sample, individuals were nested
46
47 within teams. In order to account for the non-independence of observations, we conducted our
48
49 regression analyses using cluster-robust standard errors using the Mplus software package
50
51
52 (Muthén & Muthén, 2005; McNeish, Stapelton, & Silverman, 2016). This option uses a
53
54
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1
2
3 maximum-likelihood estimator and accounts for non-independence by correcting for clustering
4
5
6 bias in the standard error estimates.
7
8 -------------------------------------------------
9 Insert Table 1 about here
10 -------------------------------------------------
11
12
13
Results
14
15 Table 1 reports descriptive statistics and correlations, and Table 2 displays the results of
16
17 our regression analyses. Hypothesis 1 proposed that information redundancy is associated with
18
19
lower voice. Results indicated that information redundancy had a negative influence on voice (b
20
21
22 = -.13, SE = .06, p < .05). Hypothesis 1 was thus supported. Hypothesis 2 predicted that high
23
24 average peer-LMX would strengthen the negative effect of information redundancy on voice.
25
26 Information redundancy and average peer-LMX significantly interacted to predict voice (b = -
27
28
29 .14, SE = .06, p < .05). As shown in Figure 1, when average peer-LMX was low, there was no
30
31 effect of information redundancy on voice (b = -.02, SE = .08, ns). However, when average peer-
32
33 LMX was high, there was a significant negative effect of information redundancy on voice (b = -
34
35
36
.22, SE = .04, p < .01). These results supported Hypothesis 2.
37
38 Robustness Checks
39
40 To examine the robustness of our findings, we performed several checks. First, we
41
42
examined whether our results held when controlling for potential omitted variables and
43
44
45 alternative voice predictors—i.e., age, tenure, education, self-LMX, psychological safety,
46
47 efficacy, and instrumentality. The pattern of results remained unchanged, as there was a negative
48
49 effect of information redundancy on voice (b = -.13, SE = .05, p < .05). Additionally, information
50
51
52 redundancy interacted with average peer-LMX (b = -.15, SE = .06, p < .05) such that it had no
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
1
2
3 effect on voice when average peer-LMX was lower (b = -.01, SE = .08, ns) but a negative effect
4
5
6 when average peer-LMX was higher (b = -.22, SE = .04, p < .01).
7
8 Next, using this full model including the relevant controls, we tested whether our findings
9
10 also held for an alternative operationalization of information redundancy. In our main analysis,
11
12
13
we had examined the average structural equivalence that employees had with all their peers as an
14
15 indicator of the extent to which they possessed redundant information vis-à-vis every other
16
17 member at their level in the team. However, it is possible that “local” information redundancy
18
19
that employees confront with peers in the immediate vicinity of their workflow network matters
20
21
22 more than such redundancy spread globally across all members in the team. Hence, we examined
23
24 whether our results replicate using information redundancy operationalized as cohesion in the
25
26 ego-network of the employee (Burt, 1992, p. 54-56). Cohesion represents the extent to which the
27
28
29 focal actor has direct ties to peers who themselves are connected with each other. Given that
30
31 cohesive connections lead to reduced variation in information, it is a feasible measure of
32
33 information redundancy in an actor’s immediate work environment. Specifically, following the
34
35
36
lead of prior research, we examined constraint as an index of cohesion in the ego (workflow)
37
38 network of each employee (e.g., Gargiulo & Benassi, 2000; Reagans & McEvily, 2003;
39
40 Tortoriello, Reagans, & McEvily, 2012; Yu, Gilbert, & Oviatt, 2011). In line with our theory,
41
42
there was a significant negative effect of constraint on voice (b = -1.97, SE = .72, p < .01).
43
44
45 Constraint also interacted with average peer-LMX (b = -1.44, SE = .71, p < .05) such that there
46
47 was no effect of constraint on voice when average peer-LMX was lower (b = -.98, SE = .80, ns)
48
49 but a significant negative effect when average peer-LMX was higher (b = -2.97, SE = .94, p <
50
51
52 .01). These results mirror our findings using structural equivalence as the operationalization,
53
54 providing further support for Hypotheses 1 and 2.
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60
1
2
3 Third, research has shown that an individual’s centrality in the workflow—the extent to
4
5
6 which an actor is the hub of task-related interactions in the team—is positively associated with
7
8 his or her voice, as he or she may possess greater personal influence over team decisions that
9
10 motivates him or her to speak up (Venkataramani & Tangirala, 2010). Such centrality is distinct
11
12
13
from structural equivalence, in that centrality indicates how “prominent” an individual is as
14
15 result of the number of work ties to peers, whereas structural equivalence measures how
16
17 “substitutable” an individual is as a result of having similar patterns of work ties vis-à-vis those
18
19
peers (Borgatti, Everett, & Johnson, 2013, p. 208). Thus, we would expect that while structural
20
21
22 equivalence negatively relates to voice, centrality should positively relate to voice. Once again,
23
24 regression analysis using the full model indicated that, as expected, centrality was positively
25
26 associated with voice (b = .03, SE = .01, p < .05), in contrast to structural equivalence that was
27
28
29 negatively related to such voice (see our results section above). This divergent pattern provided
30
31 support for the theoretical distinction between centrality and structural equivalence, the latter
32
33 measure being more appropriate as an operationalization of information redundancy.
34
35
36
Discussion
37
38 Results of Study 1 upheld our predictions that an employee possessing redundant
39
40 information is less likely to speak up (Hypothesis 1), particularly when his or her peers enjoy
41
42
high-quality relationships with the manager (Hypothesis 2). These effects were robust to controls
43
44
45 such as the employee’s age, tenure, education, own LMX with the manager, psychological
46
47 safety, efficacy, and instrumentality, as well as to alternative operationalizations of information
48
49 redundancy. Study 1 provided an externally valid test for our conceptual model. However, this
50
51
52 study also had limitations. Although we triangulate evidence for information redundancy
53
54 multiple ways, we did ultimately infer such redundancy from the nature of an employee’s
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60
1
2
3 position in the team’s workflow. To address this issue, in Studies 2 and 3 we more directly
4
5
6 examined information redundancy by manipulating it in the context of a specific issue that an
7
8 individual could choose to speak up about. Additionally, in Study 1, we did not measure the
9
10 proposed mediator. In Studies 2 and 3, we establish diffusion of responsibility as an explanatory
11
12
13
mechanism. In Study 2, we demonstrate diffusion of responsibility as a mediator of the effects of
14
15 information redundancy on voice (combined test of Hypotheses 1 and 3). In Study 3, we build on
16
17 Study 2 to test our theoretical model in its entirety and highlight how diffusion of responsibility
18
19
not only transmits the main, but also the interactive, effects of information redundancy and peer-
20
21
22 LMX to voice (Hypotheses 1-4).
23
24 -------------------------------------------------
25 Insert Table 2 and Figure 1 about here
26 -------------------------------------------------
27
28
29 STUDY 2
30
32
33 One hundred and sixty-three undergraduate students of a business school at a large Mid-
34
35
36
Atlantic university in the United States (mean age = 21.36, SD = 1.36; 81 male, 82 female)
37
38 participated in a laboratory experiment in exchange for course credit. We manipulated
39
40 information redundancy (low vs. high) in a between-subjects design, with participants randomly
41
42
assigned to experimental conditions. Participants were told that, for the task, they would serve as
43
44
45 stand-in members of the university’s Student Affairs Committee (SAC), a real-life campus
46
47 organization that collects opinions from students about how to improve campus life and
48
49 potentially raises those issues with the University Senate. The University Senate was said to be
50
51
52 composed of several taskforces (e.g., an athletics taskforce), each taskforce led by a director.
53
54 Participants were further told that in recent months the SAC had been understaffed, and several
55
56
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60
1
2
3 student issues had piled up that had not yet been brought to the attention of relevant taskforce
4
5
6 directors. Thus, for the duration of the lab session, we were asking participants to help out by
7
8 serving as a real-life, stand-in team member of the SAC. Their task was to decide, as a SAC team
9
10 member, whether to personally raise the following student issue with the relevant taskforce
11
12
13
director at the University Senate:
14
15 “Issue Concerning University Shuttles. Students have raised a concern that there are not
16 enough university shuttles on campus. Students often have classes at buildings located
17 very far from one other, and the lack of shuttles operating between specific buildings
18 often makes it difficult to reach classes on time.”
19
20
21 Participants were informed that if they opted to voice the issue to the relevant director,
22
23 they would need to write a short statement introducing the issue to the director and explaining
24
25 why it might be important for the director to consider. Participants were also told that they might
26
27
be contacted later for an optional opportunity to volunteer their opinions about the issue to the
28
29
30 director at a University Senate staff meeting. The purpose of having participants write a
31
32 statement about the issue and mentioning the possibility of a follow-up meeting with the director
33
34 was to create realism in the act of voice, which often comes with costs such as time, effort, and
35
36
37 interpersonal risk.
38
39 Information redundancy manipulation. We told participants about the extent to which
40
41 their student peers on the SAC were aware about the issue regarding university shuttles. In the
42
43
44 high information redundancy condition (n = 84), participants read: “Your fellow team members
45
46 on the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) are fully aware of this concern. That is, your team
47
48 members at SAC have exactly the same information that you have on this issue.” In the low
49
50
information redundancy condition (n = 79), participants read: “Your fellow team members on the
51
52
53 Student Affairs Committee (SAC) are not at all aware of this concern. That is, you are the only
54
55 one at SAC who currently has information about this issue.”
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60
1
2
3 Measures
4
5
6 Voice. Participants were asked, “Based on the information provided, as a SAC team
7
8 member do you elect to personally speak up about the university shuttles issue to the taskforce
9
10 Director? (0 = “no”, 1 = “yes”). By using a binary dependent variable we were able to obtain a
11
12
13
behavioral measure of voice, which reflected participants’ decision of whether to speak up.
14
15 Diffusion of responsibility. We assessed diffusion of responsibility using 5 items that
16
17 were developed to match the scenario. These items captured the extent to which employees felt
18
19
that they were not solely responsible for bringing up the issue with the director and that the
20
21
22 responsibility for doing so was shared with their peers on the SAC team. The items were: “I
23
24 would feel that it was up to me to bring up the issue about the university shuttles with the
25
26 director” (reverse-coded), “I would feel that bringing up the issue about the university shuttles
27
28
29 was my responsibility” (reverse-coded), “I would feel that it was personally my responsibility to
30
31 share concerns regarding the university shuttles with the director” (reverse-coded), “I would feel
32
33 that my team members would bring up the issue about the university shuttles with the director,”
34
35
36
and “I would feel that my team members have responsibility for speaking up about the issue to
37
38 the director” (α = .80; 1 = “strongly disagree,” 5 = “strongly agree”).
39
40 Alternative explanations for voice. Similar to Study 1, as robustness checks for our main
41
42
experimental results, we examined whether those results held when factoring in the following
43
44
45 alternative explanations for voice (1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”) that
46
47 referenced the specific features of the experiment: Psychological safety was measured using 3
48
49 items from Liang, Farh, and Farh (2012; e.g., “In a meeting with the Director, I would feel
50
51
52 welcome to express my true feelings”; α = .74). Efficacy was measured using 3 items adapted
53
54 from Tangirala, Kamdar, Venkataramani, & Parke (2013; e.g., “I would feel confident about my
55
56
57
58
59
60
1
2
3
ability to voice concerns about the university shuttles to the Director”; α = .88). Instrumentality
4
5
6 was measured using 3 items adapted from Spreitzer (1995; e.g., “By expressing my concerns on
7
8 the issue with the Director, I will make a difference”; α = .83).
9
10
11 -------------------------------------------------
12 Insert Table 3 about here
13 -------------------------------------------------
14
15
Results and Discussion
16
17
18 Manipulation checks. To check the efficacy of our manipulation of information
19
20 redundancy, we examined whether participants understood the extent to which they were
21
22 uniquely versus commonly aware of the issue regarding university shuttles. Results showed that
23
24
25 77 out of 79 participants in low redundancy condition indicated that, in their team, they were
26
27 solely aware of the issue; by contrast, in the high redundancy condition, 83 out of 84 participants
28
29 indicated that others in the team were also aware of the issue (chi-square = 151.23 (1), p < .01).
30
31
32
Main analysis. Table 3 displays correlations for Study 2. Hypothesis 1 proposed that
33
34 information redundancy is associated with lower voice. Results indicated that, indeed,
35
36 information redundancy had a negative influence on participants’ voice (b = -.92, SE = .34, p <
37
38
.01). The ratio of the odds of voice in the high information redundancy condition compared to
39
40
41 the odds of voice in the low redundancy condition was .40, indicating a substantial decrease in
42
43 voice in the high information redundancy condition. Hypothesis 1 was supported. Hypothesis 3
44
45 indicated that the negative association between information redundancy and voice is mediated by
46
47
48 diffusion of responsibility. Results indicated that information redundancy was positively
49
50 associated with diffusion of responsibility (b = .91, SE = .12, p < .01). Moreover, diffusion was
51
52 associated with reduced willingness of the participants to voice (b = -2.20, SE = .37, p < .01)
53
54
55
controlling for information redundancy, which was no longer associated with voice in the
56
57
58
59
60
1
2
3 presence of the mediator (b = .80, SE = .49, ns). Indirect effects analysis for a binary dependent
4
5
6 variable with a continuous intervening variable indicated significant mediation (Z = -4.71, p <
7
8 .05), such that diffusion of responsibility explained 75% of the estimated total effect of
9
10 information redundancy on voice (MacKinnon & Dwyer, 1993). Bootstrapped indirect effects
11
12
13
analysis (2,000 replications) additionally indicated that the indirect effect of information
14
15 redundancy on voice via diffusion of responsibility was significant (b = -.83, 95% CI: [-1.13, -
16
17 .59], supporting Hypothesis 3.
18
19
Robustness checks. Robustness checks indicated that diffusion of responsibility
20
21
22 continued to be negatively associated with voice after controlling for alternative mechanisms of
23
24 psychological safety, efficacy, and instrumentality (b = -1.77, SE = .34, p < .01) and the
25
26 meditational effect also remained significant (b = -1.89, SE = .54, 95% CI: [-2.98, -1.06]).
27
28
29 Discussion. Study 2 thus provided support for our argument that when peers are similarly
30
31 aware of an issue, an individual might be less inclined to personally raise the issue with higher-
32
33 ups (Hypothesis 1). Additionally, these effects were driven by the individual’s sense that he or
34
35
36
she is not solely responsible for speaking up on the issue, and that such responsibility also lies
37
38 with other members of the team (Hypothesis 3). Our use of a laboratory experiment helped us
39
40 address questions of causality. However, within a laboratory setting using undergraduate
41
42
students as participants, it is difficult to realistically establish and manipulate patterns of LMX
43
44
45 that often take time to naturally emerge within teams. Hence, we conducted Study 3, in which we
46
47 sought to replicate our findings from Study 2 while also examining the effects of peer-LMX
48
49 (Hypotheses 2 and 4) using a scenario-based experiment that utilized working adults as
50
51
52 participants. Scenarios, when properly designed around plausible work situations, can allow
53
54 individuals to credibly place themselves in the specified work roles and relationships, and reflect
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1
2
3 and report on how they would feel and behave in those situations (Aguinis & Bradley, 2014).
4
5
6 Hence, this approach allowed us to experimentally test our conceptual model in its entirety.
7
8 STUDY 3
10
11 We recruited 440 United States-based workers through the market research firm,
12
13
14 ClearVoice. The benefit of this approach was the ability to test our theory using employees from
15
16 a variety of jobs and occupations who were pre-screened to be employed at least full-time or
17
18 part-time in formal organizations (i.e., not self-employed). The average age was 45.16 years (SD
19
20
21 = 9.26), work experience was 23.15 years (SD = 10.05) and 43% of the participants were female.
22
23 They were randomly assigned to 4 experimental conditions in a 2 (information redundancy: low
24
25 vs. high) × 2 (average peer-LMX: low vs. high) between-subjects design. They read a scenario
26
27
asking them to adopt the role of an employee working at a mobile game development company,
28
29
30 Paradise Inc. in the role of a technician who tests games before they are launched. The scenario
31
32 told participants that they worked closely in a team of four other people that had designed a
33
34 promising new mobile game, which members of the organization hoped would help Paradise re-
35
36
37 gain its leading market position. Further, they were told that their manager, Bob, was planning
38
39 the release of the game to the market. However, participants were informed that they felt that the
40
41 game had a few issues—such as being unstable and prone to crashing on certain devices. Given
42
43
44 concerns about the game, participants had to decide whether to approach Bob and relay their
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46 opinions about delaying the release of the game.
47
48 Information redundancy. We manipulated information redundancy by informing
49
50
participants about the extent to which their peers were similarly aware of technical issues with
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52
53 the mobile game. In the high (low) information redundancy condition, participants read: “Most
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55 of your colleagues are also fully aware (not at all aware) of the problems with the game and
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1
2
3 about their severity. That is, most of them have exactly the same (do not have the same)
4
5
6 information and knowledge that you have on this issue, and you are not the only person (are one
7
8 of the only people) on your team who knows about the issue.”
9
10 Average peer-LMX. We manipulated average peer-LMX by informing the participants
11
12
13
about the nature of their peers’ relationships with the manager. In the high (low) average peer-
14
15 LMX condition, participants read: “Your colleagues are on very good terms (not on particularly
16
17 good terms) with Bob and enjoy very high-quality (have relatively low-quality) relationships
18
19
with him. This means that your colleagues are very close (not very close) with Bob and that Bob
20
21
22 trusts, respects, and likes (does not trust, respect, or like) your colleagues very much.”
23
24 Measures
25
26 Voice. We measured voice using 5 items that asked participants about the extent to which
27
28
29 they would personally speak up to their manager about the new mobile game. Sample items:
30
31 “Bring up concerns about issues with the new mobile game to our manager, Bob,” “Spend time
32
33 explaining my concerns to Bob about issues with the new mobile game,” and “Refrain from
34
35
36
personally speaking up about the issue with the new mobile game to Bob” (α = .90; 1 = “strongly
37
38 disagree,” 5 = “strongly agree”).
39
40 Diffusion of responsibility. We assessed diffusion of responsibility with the same 5-item
41
42
scale employed in Study 2, adapted to the scenario. Sample items: “I would feel that it was up to
43
44
45 me to bring up the issue of the software bugs with our manager, Bob” (reverse-coded) and “I
46
47 would feel that my team members have responsibility for speaking up about the problem to Bob”
48
49 (α = .75; 1 = “strongly disagree,” 5 = “strongly agree”).
50
51
52 Alternative explanations for voice. Similar to Study 2, as a robustness check, we
53
54 examined whether our experimental results held when factoring in the following explanations for
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1
2
3 voice (1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”) that referenced the specific features of the
4
5
6 scenario. Psychological safety was measured using 3 items from Liang et al. (2012; e.g., “In a
7
8 meeting with the manager, I would feel welcome to express my true feelings”; α = .80); efficacy
9
10 using 3 items adapted from Tangirala et al. (2013; e.g., “I would feel confident about my ability
11
12
13
to voice concerns about task-related issues to my manager”; α = .91); and instrumentality using 3
14
15 items adapted from Spreitzer (1995; e.g., “By expressing my concerns on issues with the new
16
17 mobile game with my manager, I will make a difference”; α = .83).
18
19
Results and Discussion
20
21
22 Manipulation checks. To check the efficacy of our manipulation for information
23
24 redundancy, we examined whether our participants understood the extent to which they were
25
26 uniquely versus commonly aware of problems with the mobile game. Results showed that 199
27
28
29 out of 214 participants in the low redundancy condition indicated that, in their team, they were
30
31 solely aware of the issue; by contrast, 218 out of 226 participants in the high redundancy
32
33 condition indicated that others in the team were also aware of the issue (chi-square = 353.03 (1),
34
35
36
p < .01). To check the efficacy of our manipulation of average peer-LMX, we examined
37
38 participant responses to the following question: “How would you rate the quality of the
39
40 relationships of your colleagues with the manager, Bob?” (1 = “very low quality,” 5 = “very high
41
42
quality”). Participants in the high average peer-LMX condition reported that their peers had
43
44
45 higher-quality relationships with the manager (M = 4.52, SD = .06) as compared to participants
46
47 in the low peer-LMX condition (M = 1.75, SD = .06), t(438) = -32.70, p < .01. Hence, both
48
49 manipulations were effective.
50
51
52 -------------------------------------------------
53 Insert Table 4 and Table 5 about here
54 -------------------------------------------------
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60
1
2
3 Main analysis. Table 4 displays correlations and Table 5 presents the results of our
4
5
6 regression analyses. We examined Hypothesis 1 that information redundancy would decrease
7
8 voice. Information redundancy was negatively related to voice (b = -.37, SE = .08, p < .01),
9
10 supporting Hypothesis 1. Next, we examined Hypothesis 3 that diffusion of responsibility
11
12
13
mediates the effects of information redundancy on voice. Information redundancy was positively
14
15 related to diffusion of responsibility (b = .77, SE = .07, p < .01). Further, diffusion of
16
17 responsibility was negatively related to voice, controlling for information redundancy (b = -.76,
18
19
SE = .04, p < .01). Bootstrap-based analysis (2,000 replications) indicated that indirect effect of
20
21
22 information redundancy on voice via diffusion of responsibility was significant (b = -.58, SE =
23
24 .06, bias-corrected 95% CI: [-.71, -.46]), supporting Hypothesis 3.
25
26 We tested Hypothesis 2 that high average peer-LMX would strengthen the negative effect
27
28
29 of information redundancy on voice. There was a significant interaction between information
30
31 redundancy and average peer-LMX on voice (b = -.34, SE = .16, p < .05), with simple effects
32
33 mirroring those found in Study 1. Specifically, as shown in Figure 2, for participants in the low
34
35
36
average peer-LMX condition, there was no significant difference in voice under conditions of
37
38 low information redundancy (M = 4.30, SD = .75) relative to high information redundancy (M =
39
40 4.11, SD = .74) (contrast = .19, ns). However, among participants in the high peer-LMX
41
42
condition, those with high information redundancy reported lesser willingness to speak up (M =
43
44
45 3.69, SD = .88) as compared to those with low information redundancy (M = 4.22, SD = .94)
46
47 (contrast = .53, p < .01). Hence, Hypothesis 2 was supported. Next, we examined Hypothesis 4
48
49 that information redundancy and peer-LMX interacted to predict the mediator, diffusion of
50
51
52 responsibility, and thereby indirectly affect voice (first-stage mediated moderation). As expected,
53
54 information redundancy and peer-LMX interacted to predict diffusion of responsibility (b = .32,
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57
58
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60
1
2
3 SE = .13, p < .05). As shown in Figure 3, for participants in the low average peer-LMX
4
5
6 condition, there was a significant difference in diffusion of responsibility when peers had, on
7
8 average, low information redundancy (M = 1.88, SD = .66) versus high information redundancy
9
10 (M = 2.48, SD = .67) (contrast = .60, p < .01). In comparison, among participants in the high
11
12
13
average peer-LMX condition, those with high information redundancy experienced a relatively
14
15 greater extent of diffusion of responsibility (M = 3.01, SD = .61) as compared to those with low
16
17 information redundancy (M = 2.09, SD = .86) (contrast = .92, p < .01). Thus, results indicate that
18
19
peer-LMX strengthened the positive effects of information redundancy on diffusion of
20
21
22 responsibility. Further, bootstrap-based analysis (2,000 replications) indicated that when peer-
23
24 LMX was low, there was a negative indirect effect of redundancy on voice through diffusion of
25
26 responsibility (coeff. = -.46, SE = .08, bias-corrected 95% CI: [-.61, -.32]). When peer-LMX was
27
28
29 high, there was an even stronger significant negative indirect effect of redundancy (coeff. = -.70,
30
31 SE = .09, bias-corrected 95% CI: [-.87, -.53]). The difference between the two indirect effects
32
33 was significant (coeff. = .24, SE = .11, bias-corrected 95% CI: [.04, .45]), indicating that the
34
35
36
negative indirect effect of information redundancy on voice (via diffusion of responsibility) was
37
38 strengthened at higher peer-LMX. Hypothesis 4 was supported.
39
40 Robustness checks and discussion. As a robustness check, we assessed whether
41
42
alternative explanations might account for the relationship between information redundancy and
43
44
45 voice. Results indicated that information redundancy did not interact with average peer-LMX to
46
47 predict psychological safety, efficacy, and instrumentality (p > .05). Further, diffusion of
48
49 responsibility continued to negatively predict voice when controlling for those alternative
50
51
52 variables (b = -.51, SE = .03, p < .01), and those variables did not explain or modify either the
53
54 unconditional or conditional indirect effects of information redundancy on voice. Overall, via
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60
1
2
3 Study 3, we demonstrated that information redundancy had negative main, and interactive,
4
5
6 effects on voice. Diffusion of responsibility mediated those effects, lending support for our
7
8 overall theoretical model. Findings from Studies 1, 2, and 3 taken together thus demonstrated a
9
10 consistent and convergent pattern of support for our conceptual model.
11
12
13
-------------------------------------------------
14 Insert Figure 2 and Figure 3 about here
15 -------------------------------------------------
16
17 DISCUSSION
18
19
We proposed that voice is prone to bystander effects. Using a field study (Study 1), a
20
21
22 laboratory study (Study 2), and a vignette study (Study 3), we present convergent evidence that
23
24 employees who possessed redundant information about work issues experienced diffusion of
25
26 responsibility and were less likely to speak up with that information. This pattern was
27
28
29 accentuated when peers had stronger relationships with the manager (higher average peer-LMX).
30
31 We demonstrated the negative main effect of information redundancy on voice across all three
32
33 studies. Our field (Study 1) and vignette (Study 3) studies highlighted the moderating role of
34
35
36
average peer-LMX. Our laboratory (Study 2) and vignette (Study 3) studies established diffusion
37
38 of responsibility as the explanatory mechanism.
39
40 Theoretical Contributions
41
42
Implications for the voice literature. We theorized that voice represents a case of the
43
44
45 volunteer’s dilemma, in that voice can incur personal costs—in terms of effort, energy, and
46
47 interpersonal risk—for the employee (Bergeron, 2007; Milliken et al., 2003). At the same time,
48
49 the entire team, and not merely the employee who volunteers to speak up, enjoys the potential
50
51
52 benefits of such voice (Li et al., 2017). In that context, when peers are also cognizant of an issue,
53
54 an employee can more easily justify, from a psychological standpoint, passing on the
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60
1
2
3 responsibility for speaking up to them. Such passivity by individuals in the presence of others
4
5
6 can manifest as a voice bystander effect.
7
8 In highlighting this effect, we challenge several assumptions in the voice literature. For
9
10 instance, scholars have suggested that employees often feel psychologically unsafe standing out
11
12
13
as minority opinion holders and are especially wary of speaking against dominant viewpoints
14
15 within the team (e.g., Edmondson, 2003). Similarly, studies on group dynamics have suggested
16
17 that employees might more confidently bring up information that is shared among peers in the
18
19
team because it is deemed more valid and reliable (e.g., Wittenbaum et al., 2004). This view is
20
21
22 reiterated in research on closure in knowledge networks, which is said to allow focal actors
23
24 greater confidence in the opinions they possess (Coleman, 1988; Yu et al., 2011). We make a
25
26 contrary case that rather than create a “safety” or “confidence” in numbers dynamic, information
27
28
29 redundancy can instead lead to diffusion of responsibility that impedes speaking up across
30
31 hierarchical boundaries. Empirically, across all the three studies, this effect manifested after
32
33 controlling for efficacy, psychological safety, and instrumentality, enhancing our confidence in
34
35
36
the robustness of the proposed voice bystander account.
37
38 Moreover, our findings point to a potential reason why knowledge gaps may exist in
39
40 organizations. Generally, one might imagine that when multiple employees know about an issue,
41
42
it becomes more likely that someone would bring up the issue to the attention of managers.
43
44
45 However, we demonstrate that the probability of any particular employee speaking up on the
46
47 issue reduces precisely because it is so widely shared in the peer group. Such individual
48
49 decisions of employees to remain silent can create domino effects or informational cascades,
50
51
52 where the overt inaction of an individual in the team triggers further passivity in others who
53
54 interpret it as an implicit signal that their own inaction is justifiable (Krueger & Massey, 2009).
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60
1
2
3 This can add up to or manifest as collective silence in the lower ranks of organizational
4
5
6 hierarchies (Morrison & Milliken, 2000) and prevent managers higher up from recognizing and
7
8 addressing critical frontline issues. Our research therefore underscores how information flows
9
10 across hierarchical boundaries are impeded not merely by managerial actions that convey an
11
12
13
absence of psychological safety or instrumentality for employees, but also by patterns of
14
15 information overlap that diffuse responsibility for action among employees.
16
17 Implications for the literature on bystander effects. Scholars, in their reviews of the
18
19
bystander effect literature, have called for more conceptual work in elucidating the boundary
20
21
22 conditions of such an effect (see Fischer et al., 2011). We address these calls in this paper. We
23
24 draw on the insight that employees often pay attention to the nature of relationships among their
25
26 peers and leaders when deciding on their own actions (e.g., Venkataramani et al., 2010) to
27
28
29 highlight how the average LMX that peers have with the leader can affect an employee’s voice
30
31 on issues of common knowledge in the peer group. Consequently, we underscore how bystander
32
33 effects are influenced by the patterns of relationships in the social environments in which they
34
35
36
occur. In particular, in contexts where the targets of a behavior (the leader), the focal actor (the
37
38 employee) and other observers (peers) often intimately know each other, such as in workgroups
39
40 and teams, the focal actor is likely to factor in the relational connections between the other
41
42
observers and the target before committing to take action vis-à-vis the target. This insight, to our
43
44
45 knowledge, is currently not considered in the extant theory and research on bystander effects.
46
47 Additionally, we demonstrate that average peer-LMX strengthened the voice bystander
48
49 effect controlling for the LMX that employees had with the manager (self-LMX). When we
50
51
52 further examined data in Study 1, we found that neither self-LMX nor the differential LMX
53
54 employees had vis-à-vis peers (relative LMX; Hu & Liden, 2013) impacted the emergence of the
55
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60
1
2
3 bystander effect (i.e., they did not interact with information redundancy to predict voice; p >
4
5
6 .10). Moreover, controlling for variation in the LMX of peers—computed as the variance of the
7
8 LMX scores of each of an employee’s peers, excluding the focal employee him or herself—did
9
10 not impact the pattern of results and did not have any main effects or interactive effects (either
11
12
13
two-way or three-way) in conjunction with information redundancy and average peer-LMX on
14
15 voice (p > .10). This lends support to our theory that a passive bystander mentality arises in an
16
17 employee as soon as he or she deems that his or her peers have sufficient capability to
18
19
communicate with the leader by the strength of those peers’ relationships with the leader. As
20
21
22 expected, the personal LMX of an employee did not, either by itself or relative to the LMX of
23
24 peers, affect the willingness of employees to pass on responsibility to peers for action. Moreover,
25
26 variations in the LMX of peers had no impact on the manifestation of the bystander effect. This
27
28
29 highlights how voice represents a classic case of the volunteer’s dilemma in that a putative
30
31 volunteer’s concerns regarding the provision of a public good (voice) can be satiated when other
32
33 observers can adequately act on behalf of the group, irrespective of the volunteer’s own
34
35
36
capabilities to perform the action or variations in the capabilities of peers to do so.
37
38 Implications for research on diffusion of responsibility. Our findings shed new light on
39
40 the antecedents of diffusion of responsibility. Prior work has indicated that employees take on
41
42
responsibility for work events when they perceive a task environment characterized by
43
44
45 motivating factors such as job autonomy and job complexity (e.g., Hackman & Oldham, 1975;
46
47 Shalley et al., 2004). However, enhanced information availability about problems and issues has
48
49 not similarly led to a consistent increase in employees’ feelings of ownership about initiating
50
51
52 change at work (e.g., Fuller et al., 2006). Our study provides an explanation for this by indicating
53
54 that information that is uniformly offered to all might not make employees feel an individual
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60
1
2
3 sense of responsibility to take up constructive action on that information. In this sense, we make
4
5
6 a case that scholars should pay attention to the idea that although free flow of information within
7
8 organizations might have motivating potential, such potential can be off-set by a psychological
9
10 sense of “redundancy” that experienced by individual employees when they perceive that the
11
12
13
information coming their way is not unique relative to the information possessed by others.
14
15 Limitations and Future Directions
16
17 We acknowledge several limitations that could be addressed by future research. First, in
18
19
Study 1, we did not measure the mediating mechanism—i.e., diffusion of responsibility.
20
21
22 Although we found support for this mechanism in our experimental replications (Studies 2 & 3),
23
24 future research should test for mediation in the field. Second, Study 1 examined a small number
25
26 of teams (132 employees nested within 25 teams); it would be useful for future studies to test our
27
28
29 conceptual model in a larger sample of teams. Our sample in Study 1 also did not have gender
30
31 diversity. However, we were able to replicate our effects in our other studies that had greater
32
33 gender diversity among participants. Moreover, meta-analytic summaries of prior work have
34
35
36
found that there are no significant differences between male and female participants in their
37
38 susceptibility to bystander effects (except in extreme cases of situations that require exertion of
39
40 physical strength; see Fischer et al., 2011). However, future studies should continue examining
41
42
the robustness of our findings across samples that have different gender compositions.
43
44
45 Third, we examined average peer-LMX as a moderator of the effects of information
46
47 redundancy on voice. Future research might explore other relevant moderators that could explain
48
49 when shared information decreases voice. For instance, it is possible that individuals with certain
50
51
52 personality traits, such as conscientiousness, might be less likely to experience diffusion of
53
54 responsibility compared to those who lack such traits. Similarly, it is possible that employees are
55
56
57
58
59
60
1
2
3 more willing to pass on responsibility for voice to peers when those peers are seen as possessing
4
5
6 the necessary competencies for voicing up the hierarchy (e.g., communication or political skills).
7
8 It is also likely that employees might experience more diffusion of responsibility for certain
9
10 types of voice. For example, voice that is more challenging in nature might present higher risks
11
12
13
to employees speaking up (Burris, 2012) and may therefore be more susceptible to bystander
14
15 effects. Similarly, employees might be less likely to experience a lowered sense of personal
16
17 responsibility to speak up on issues that present clear and unambiguous threat to the team
18
19
(Roberto, Bohmer, & Edmondson, 2006). Additional research may seek to uncover these
20
21
22 different aspects of the voice bystander phenomenon.
23
24 Practical Implications and Conclusion
25
26 Managers should be cognizant that due to diffusion of responsibility, employees may opt
27
28
29 to passively stand by and wait for their peers to speak up at work. Paradoxically, positive
30
31 organizational practices that encourage wide sharing of information and the formation of strong
32
33 relational ties between managers and employees might inadvertently trigger psychological
34
35
36
processes that can make employees experience diffusion of responsibility in raising or escalating
37
38 issues up the organizational hierarchy. Managers can reduce such diffusion of responsibility for
39
40 voice by making employees feel that they each can make a unique contribution to the group,
41
42
irrespective of whether their peers have similar informational access to work issues and
43
44
45 relational closeness to the managers. Indeed, studies have found that social loafing is reduced
46
47 when individuals perceive they can uniquely contribute to the group, even when their
48
49 contributions are unidentifiable (Latané et al., 1979). Managers should thus emphasize that the
50
51
52 voice of each individual is important and is not extraneous. In sum, our research reveals that
53
54
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1
2
3 organizations may benefit by acknowledging the potential for voice bystander effects and
4
5
6 instituting practices to avoid them.
7
8
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1
2
3 TABLE 1 Study 1: Means, Standard Deviations, and Inter-Correlations Among Key Variablesa
4
5 Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6
7 1. Age 30.29 3.05 -
8 b
2. Education 0.77 0.42 -.09 -
9
10 3. Tenure 2.49 1.68 .27* -.06 -
11
12 4. Self-LMX 5.41 1.38 -.01 -.01 -.23* (.96)
13 5. Psychological safety 4.74 1.13 -.09 .04 -.08 .25* (.74)
14
15 6. Efficacy 6.32 0.63 .02 .00 -.06 .39* .10 (.70)
16 7. Instrumentality 5.49 1.18 -.04 .03 -.06 .29* -.09 .46* (.79)
17
18 8. Information redundancy 5.70 1.97 -.09 -.02 -.18* .01 .06 .01 -.02 -
19
9. Average peer-LMX 5.41 0.69 .10 .07 -.05 .06 .17 -.10 -.12 .10 (.96)
20
21 10. Voice 4.02 1.10 -.01 -.10 .13 .05 .03 -.06 -.09 -.24* -.16 (.84)
22 a
Employee n = 132; Standardized internal consistency reliability estimates (alphas) appear in parentheses along the diagonal.
23 b
0 = Bachelor’s degree or below, 1 = Master’s degree or above
24
* p < .05
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
1
2
3 TABLE 2 Study 1: Regression Analysis Results for Voice as the Dependent Variablea
4
5 Model 1: Model 2: Model 3:
Variables
6 IR Main Effect IR and P-LMX Main Effects Interaction
7
8 Intercept 4.02* (.17) 4.02* (.17) 4.04* (.16)
9
Independent variables
10
11 Information redundancy (IR) -.13* (.06) -.12* (.06) -.12* (.05)
12
13
Average peer-LMX (P-LMX) -.22 (.17) -.12 (.17)
14 Moderation
15
16 IR × P-LMX -.14* (.06)
17 R2 .06 .08 .11*
18 2
19 ∆R .02* .03*
20 a
Employee n = 132; Group n = 25. Model reflects unstandardized regression coefficients with standard errors in parentheses. Information redundancy and
21 average peer-LMX are grand-mean centered. Cluster-robust standard errors used to account for nested structure of the data.
22 * p < .05
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
1
2
4
5 Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6
7 1. Information redundancy 0.52 .50
8
9
2. Average peer-LMX 0.54 .50 .04
10 3. Voice b
0.35 .48 -.22* .11
11 *
12 4. Diffusion of responsibility 3.05 .88 .52 -.04 -.59* (.80)
13 5. Psychological safety 3.76 .85 -.08 .17* .17* -.27* (.75)
14 * *
15 6. Voice efficacy 3.93 .84 -.07 .06 .24 -.27 .53* (.88)
16 * ** * * *
7. Voice instrumentality 3.32 .83 -.18 .21 .43 -.43 .19 .31* (.83)
17
18 a
Employee n = 163; Standardized internal consistency reliability estimates (alphas) appear in parentheses along the diagonal.
b
19 0 = no, 1 = yes
20 * p < .05
21
23
24 Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
25
26 1. Information redundancy 0.51 0.50
27 2. Average peer-LMX
28 0.50 0.50 .02
29 3. Voice 4.07 0.87 -.21* -.15* (.90)
30 * *
31
4. Diffusion of responsibility 2.38 0.82 .47 .23 -.67* (.77)
32 5. Psychological safety 3.59 0.91 -.16* .02 .51* -.31* (.82)
33
34 6. Voice efficacy 4.23 0.81 -.12* -.01 .56* -.39* .50* (.92)
35 * * * *
7. Voice instrumentality 3.73 0.76 -.15 -.05 .45 -.27 .45 .36* (.83)
36
a
37 Employee n = 440; Standardized internal consistency reliability estimates (alphas) appear in parentheses along the diagonal.
38 * p < .05
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
1
2
3
4 TABLE 5 Study 3: Regression Analysis Results for Diffusion of Responsibility as the Mediator and Voice as the Dependent
5
6 Variablea
7 Diffusion of Responsibility Voice
8
9
Predictor variable Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6
10
11 Intercept 1.98* (.05) 1.80* (.06) 1.88* (.07) 4.26* (.06) 4.39* (.07) 4.30* (.08)
12
13 Independent Variables
14
Information redundancy (IR)b .77* (.07) .76* (.07) .60* (.09) -.37* (.08) -.36* (.08) -.19 (.11)
15
c
16 Average peer-LMX (P-LMX) .37* (.07) .21* (.10) -.26* (.08) -.09 (.11)
17
18
Interaction
19 IR × P-LMX .32* (.13) -.34* (.16)
20 2
21 R .22* .27* .28* .05* .07* .08*
22 ∆ R2 .05* .01* .02* .01*
23 a
n = 286. Model reflects unstandardized regression coefficients with standard errors in parentheses.
24 b
25 0 = Low information redundancy, 1 = High information redundancy
c
26 0 = Low average peer-LMX, 1 = High average peer-LMX
27 * p < .05
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
1
2
3 FIGURE 1 Study 1: Simple Slopes for Employee Voice
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28 FIGURE 2 Study 3: Moderating Effect of Average Peer-LMX on Voice
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
1
2
3 FIGURE 3 Study 3: Moderating Effect of Average Peer-LMX on Diffusion of
4
5 Responsibility
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33 Insiya Hussain (insiya.hussain@rhsmith.umd.edu) is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational
34 Behavior at the R. H. Smith School of Business at University of Maryland. Her research
35 examines how employees can be successful in changing the status quo at work through assertive
36 and proactive behavior, including voice and social advocacy efforts. Relatedly, she is interested
37
in the functions and dysfunctions of hierarchy and inequality within organizations.
38
39
Rui Shu (shu.rui@mail.shufe.edu.cn) is an Assistant Professor at Shanghai University of
40
41 Finance and Economics. He received his Ph.D. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His
42 research interests include employee proactivity, communication in the workplace and social
43 network.
44
45 Subrahmaniam Tangirala (stangirala@rhsmith.umd.edu) is Professor of Management and
46 Organization at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. He received
47 his Ph.D. from Purdue University. In his research, he explores why employees might fail to
48 speak up when they have concerns, opinions, or ideas to share, and the consequences for
49
50
organizations when employees remain silent.
51
52
Srinivas Ekkirala (srinivas.ekkirala@iimb.ac.in) is a Professor in the Organizational Behavior
53 and HRM Area at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), India. He received his
54 Ph.D. from Osmania University. He has designed and delivered executive education programs
55 for over 50 leading organizations. His current research interests include leadership, proactivity,
56 emotions, well-being, mindfulness, self-regulation and Indian psychology.
57
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The Voice Bystander Effect: How Information Redundancy

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Group/team characteristics (General) < Group/team characterisitics <

Employees often remain silent rather than speak up to managers with

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