Subordinate‐Superior Upward Communication: Power, Politics, and Political Skill

• Author: Sushanta Kumar Mishra,Kunal Kamal Kumar
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21814
• Date: 01 November 2017
• Published date: 01 November 2017

Human Resource Management, November–December 2017, Vol. 56, No. 6. Pp. 1015–1037

© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21814

Correspondence to: Kunal Kamal Kumar, Associate Professor, Human Resource Management Area, T. A. Pai

Management Institute (TAPMI), Manipal, Karnataka India, PIN: 576104, Phone: +91-820-2701082,

E-mail: kunal@tapmi.edu.in

SUBORDINATE-SUPERIOR UPWARD

COMMUNICATION: POWER,

POLITICS, AND POLITICAL SKILL

KUNAL KAMAL KUMAR AND SUSHANTA KUMAR

MISHRA

A multiphase study involving 1,285 respondents was conducted to answer an

important yet overlooked question: for a job requiring frequent informal com-

munication with superiors, should an organization focus more on selecting

employees with higher trait-like willingness to communicate or on providing

an environment where the fl ow of communication is easy and aided? We found

support for the latter. Further, we observed that subordinates alter their com-

munication behaviors based on the perception of superior’s power, politics in

the organization, and their own political skills. The study contributes to a better

understanding of how situational variables affect subordinate-superior upward

communication. Implications of the study are also discussed. © 2016 Wiley

Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: communication, organizational politics, personality, supervisor/

subordinate relations

“I am much more excited about the effi -

ciency or ineffi ciency of upward com-

munication than of that which passes

downward through the channels. Why?

Because I hold the deep conviction that

the effi ciency of downward commu-

nication is going to be improved sig-

nifi cantly only when top management

better understands the attitudes, the

opinions, the ideas and the suggestions

of the people at the bottom of the whole

structure.”

These are the words of late Professor

Emeritus Ralph G. Nichols (1962, p. 4).

What Nichols wrote in an article more

than 50 years ago remains relevant today.

Subordinate-superior communication

remains an underresearched area (Welbourne,

2011). Moreover, decoding the reasons why some

employees keep to themselves is a much needed

and an exciting area of research. It is to this area

that the study attempts to contribute.

Communication between a subordinate

and her/his superior is argued to have tremen-

dous implications for the survival and growth

of the organization (Morrison, 2011). Studies

have highlighted the importance of subordinate-

superior communication for effective decision

making (Morrison & Milliken, 2000), organiza-

tional learning (Detert & Burris, 2007; Tangirala

& Ramanujam, 2008), and enhanced productivity

(Clampitt & Downs, 1993). Subordinates having

open lines of communication with their superi-

ors are more likely to identify strongly with the

organization (Bartels, Pruyn, de Jong, & Joustra,

2007), deal effectively with job stressors (Tepper,

1016 H UMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2017

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

Communication

originating from the

subordinates and

targeted towards

their immediate

superiors is

termed as upward

communication.

subordinates’ upward communication behavior,

as this would help us answer an important yet

overlooked question: for a job requiring frequent

informal communication with superiors, should

an organization focus more on selecting employ-

ees with higher trait-like willingness to communi-

cate or on providing an environment where the

flow of communication is easy and aided? To this

end we have adopted the interactionist model

of personality research. The interactionist model

studies individual traits, situations, and their var-

ied interactions (George, 1992).

Subordinate-Superior Upward

Communication: Employee Voice

While literature on upward communication is

limited, we could trace the work of Saunders,

Sheppard, Knight, and Roth (1992) as one of the

early studies wherein upward communication in

an organization was studied with a strong focus

on situational variables. Saunders and colleagues

(1992) explored the dynamics of upward commu-

nication by examining employees’ perception of

their supervisors and their likelihood to engage

in upward communication. They termed the

act of upward communication as employee voice.

Employee voice has been conceptualized as a

behavioral construct that focuses on subordinate-

superior upward communication.

Employee voice has been studied by a num-

ber of disparate yet interrelated disciplines such

as human resource management, political sci-

ence, psychology, law, and industrial relations

(Wilkinson & Fay, 2011). With such wide applica-

tion range, there is no specific definition. Further,

the construct of employee voice has a long and

divergent history in organizational science

(Morrison, 2014; Wilkinson & Fay, 2011) adding

to a lack of conceptual clarity (Dietz, Wilkinson,

& Redman, 2010). In fact, there are attempts to

expand the conceptualization of employee voice

(see an interesting article by Maynes & Podsakoff,

2014).

Most of the research on employee voice has

adopted the framework proposed by Hirschman

(1970), which assumes voice to be a political

“unfolding art.” In contemporary debate, how-

ever, there is an increased emphasis on how

employees can communicate work related issues

within the organization (Wilkinson & Fay, 2011).

Moreover, there is a renewed interest in informal

voice. The day-to-day relationship between super-

visors and their subordinates that allows subordi-

nates to exert some influence over their work and

the condition under which they work is termed as

informal voice (Strauss, 2004).

Moss, Lockhart, & Carr, 2007), and contribute

to organizational productivity (Tsai, Chuang, &

Hsieh, 2009). Given its importance, studies have

suggested various means to improve subordinate-

superior communication within the organization

(Atwater & Waldman, 2008; Downs, Adrian, &

Downs, 2004).

Communication originating from the sub-

ordinates and targeted toward their immediate

superiors is termed as upward communication.

We focus on immediate superiors for two reasons.

First, subordinate-superior relationship is believed

to be the most central dyadic unit in the organi-

zation (Dienesch & Liden, 1986) as subordinates

differentiate between the support received from

their immediate superiors and support from the

top management (Basford, Offermann, & Wirtz,

2012). Second, prior research has

indicated that immediate superiors

are better suited to perform men-

toring roles (Scandura & Williams,

2004) and several possibilities open

up for subordinates who speak up to

their most proximate leaders (Detert

& Treviño, 2010).

While immediate superiors are

important both for structural and

systemic reasons, it is often the case

that employees prefer not to speak

up (Morrison, See, & Pan, 2015).

The reasons behind the silence

may lie with individuals’ traits or

situational concerns. To illustrate, it

could be the case that subordinates

are reticent by nature and hence are nonwilling

to communicate their concerns (Richmond &

Roach, 1992); that is, their inhibition is trait-like.

Similarly, it could be argued that subordinates feel

a sense of inhibition in upward communication

because of situational concerns, such as speaking

up only when it is considered socially desirable

(Wei, Zhang, & Chen, 2015), limiting the act of

speaking up when faced with an abusive superior

(Xu, Loi, & Lam, 2015), or speaking up to a supe-

rior who displays positive affect (Liu, Song, Li, &

Liao, in press).

While scholars have long attested that both

traits and situational variables affect subordi-

nate-superior upward communication (Bowen

& Blackmon, 2003; Premeaux & Bedeian, 2003),

focus on subordinates’ traits has attracted scant

attention. In light of this gap, we attempt to

answer the following question: Are subordinates

with high willingness to communicate more likely

to engage in upward communication? In addi-

tion, we intend to investigate which variables—

traits or situations—have a stronger effect on