Mind the channel! An affordance perspective on how digital voice channels encourage or discourage employee voice

• Author: Markus Ellmer,Astrid Reichel
• Date: 01 January 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12297
• Published date: 01 January 2021

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Mind the channel! An affordance perspective on

how digital voice channels encourage or

discourage employee voice

Markus Ellmer | Astrid Reichel

Department of Social Sciences and

Economics, University of Salzburg, Salzburg,

Austria

Correspondence

Department of Social Sciences and

Economics, University of Salzburg,

Kapitelgasse 5-7, Salzburg A-5020, Austria.

Email: markus.ellmer@sbg.ac.at

Abstract

We apply an affordance lens on qualitative data from

three case organisations using a digital voice channel

providing employees with the opportunity to speak up

via answering periodic mini-surveys and making com-

ments in an anonymous mini-forum. We find that imbri-

cations of material and social agencies (i.e., the voice

channel's features and managerial reactions to voice) in

the respective organisational contexts culminate in

employees perceiving the channel as either affording or

constraining voice, leading to perceived voice outcomes

that eventually encourage or discourage them to speak

up. Whether voice is encouraged or discouraged partly

results from the mere interaction between employees

and the digital voice channel independent of managerial

reactions. Our findings thus challenge the emphasis

on managerial behaviour and reactions to voice in

explaining voice behaviour and outcomes in extant

literature.

KEYWORDS

affordances, E-HR, employee involvement, employee voice,

participation

Received: 25 February 2019 Revised: 29 April 2020 Accepted: 30 April 2020

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12297

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2020 The Authors. Human Resource Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Hum Resour Manag J. 2021;31:259–276. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj 259

Practitioner notes

What is currently known about the subject matter

•Digital voice can have positive and adverse consequences at the individual and organisational level.

•Extant research mainly links employee voice behaviour with managerial reactions to voice.

•Research hardly considers features of digital voice channels as affecting employee voice behaviour.

What the paper adds to this

•We use an affordance approach conceptualising digital voice channels as technological artefacts with

material agency.

•We show how interplays between human agency and a channel's material agency encourage or discour-

age digital voice.

•We find digital voice encouraged or discouraged dependent on but also independent of managerial

reactions.

•Our findings thus demonstrate that features of digital voice channels considerably shape employee

voice behaviour.

Implications for practitioners

•To encourage voice, a channel’s material agency should be configured in a way that facilitates synergetic

effects with managerial agency.

•Voice visibility, employees' anonymity, regular managerial reactions and managers' accountability

encourage digital voice.

•Concepts of affordances, constraints and material agency increase awareness of complex socio-

technical interrelations in digital voice.

1|INTRODUCTION

Employee voice refers to all mechanisms, structures or practices through which employees attempt to have a say

about, and influence, their work and the functioning of their organization (Lavelle, Gunnigle, & McDonnell, 2010;

Wilkinson, Barry, & Morrison, 2020). As a fundamental element of workplace democracy, voice can have a range of

positive but also negative outcomes (Burris, Detert, & Romney, 2013; Dundon, Wilkinson, Marchington, & Ackers,

2004; Morrison, 2011).From the perspective of employees, voice can promote self-expression, visibility and impact

and increase transparency at the workplace (Dundon et al., 2004; Knudsen, Busck, & Lind, 2011). Voice systems,

however, can also fail and lead to negative outcomes, such as disillusion, marginalisation, frustration and dissatisfac-

tion among employees (Dundon et al., 2004; Harlos, 2001). Outcomes perceived at the employee level can translate

into outcomes at group or organisational level, including positive or negative effects on, for example, performance,

turnover or commitment (Bryson, Charlwood, & Forth, 2006; Farndale, van Ruiten, Kelliher, & Hope-Hailey, 2011;

Morrison, 2011, 2014). Understanding the antecedents and consequences of voice outcomes from the view of

employees is thus vital from an Human Resource Management (HRM) perspective.

Recent developments in information and communication technology opened numerous opportunities for esta-

blishing digital employeevoice, that is, digitally mediated mechanisms,structures or practicesthrough which employees

can speak up in their organisation (Dromey, 2016; Lavelle et al., 2010; Martin, Parry, & Flowers, 2015). Given the

increasing prevalence of digital voice channels, for example, in the form of corporate social media (Dromey, 2016;

260 ELLMER AND REICHEL