The contours of employee voice in SMEs: the importance of context

• Author: Mark Gilman,Amanda Pyman,Simon Raby
• Published date: 01 November 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12086
• Date: 01 November 2015

The contours of employee voice in SMEs: the

importance of context

Mark Gilman, Birmingham City Business School, Birmingham City University

Simon Raby, Kent Business School, University of Kent

Amanda Pyman, Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Law, Deakin

University

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 25, no 4, 2015, pages 563–579

This article develops a context-sensitive approach to analyse how and why voice operates in small- to

medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), an area that remains under-theorised and under-researched. By

building on a priori frameworks with proven ability to unpack complexity and take account of the wider

context of SMEs, this article explores how resources (human and social capital) and constraints (product

market, labour market and strategic orientation) interact to shape voice practices. The article finds

significant differences between ‘reported’ compared with ‘actual’practices in situ, and identifies different

types of firms (‘strategic market regulation’, ‘strategic market-led’ and ‘non-strategic market-led’) along

with the factors that influence the form and practice of voice. Overall, the article argues that researchers

should further pursue research that appreciates the layered nature of ontology and the role played by firm

context to explain complex organisational phenomena, if we are to advance our understanding of voice

practices in SMEs and beyond.

Contact: Professor Mark Gilman, Birmingham City Business School, Birmingham City Univer-

sity,4 Cardigan Street, Birmingham, West Midlands B4 7BD, UK. Email: Mark.Gilman@bcu.ac.uk

Keywords: employee voice; SME; HRM; employment relations

INTRODUCTION

Despite the burgeoning literature on human resource management (HRM) practices in

small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the study of employee voice in a smaller

firm context remains under-theorised and under-studied. More broadly, there have been

calls to build an understanding of people management in SMEs and how context influences

firm choice and behaviour (e.g. Edwards and Ram, 2006; Edwards et al., 2006; Harney and

Dundon, 2006; Gilman and Edwards, 2008). Key questions still remain: What form does

employee voice take in SMEs? How do employees in SMEs contribute to decision-making? To

what extent do the characteristics and contexts within which SMEs operate, shape the forms

and practice of employee voice? These are important questions that this article will address,

developing collective thinking on voice, employment relations and HRM in SMEs.

A key contribution of this article to the existing literature on HRM in SMEs is borne out of

its contextual approach. We place an emphasis on the ‘contours’ of employee voice in SMEs,

by which we refer to the role, meaning(s) and practice of voice in an SME context. Our premise

is this: through understanding the contours of voice – how and why employee voice operates

in SMEs – we are able to develop a lucid understanding of firms’ broader approaches towards

employment relations and HRM. In order to execute such an analysis, we develop a contextual

lens capable of identifying the process through which employee voice plays out in SMEs,

paying attention to the ‘how’ and the ‘why’. This is an approach that acknowledges

organisations are open, complex systems. Our contextual lens builds on a priori frameworks that

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doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12086

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 25 NO 4, 2015 563

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Gilman, M., Raby, S. and Pyman, A. (2015) ‘The contours of employee voice in SMEs: the importance of context’.

Human Resource Management Journal 25: 4, 563–579.

have proven ability to unpack complexity and take account of the wider SME context (e.g.

Paauwe, 2004; Edwards and Ram, 2006; Edwards et al., 2006; Gilman and Edwards, 2008). This

article operationalises this contextual approach through the constructs of resources (human and

social capital) and constraints (product market, labour market and strategic orientation). We use

these constructs to explore, in-depth, employee voice in SMEs.

The article is structured as follows. First, we introduce the central concept of interest in this

article: employee voice in SMEs. Second, the research method is described and the rationale for

using a contextual approach to answer the research questions is justified, drawing on five case

study organisations. Third, the results are presented and discussed. Our contextual approach

is applied to unpack the forms and practice of employee voice in the five case organisations.

Finally, in the concluding section, we discuss the value and contribution of our approach to the

theory and practice of employment relations and HRM in SMEs.

EMPLOYEE VOICE IN SMEs

Employee voice has been categorised as either consultative or substantive. A consultative

approach involves the solicitation of workers’ suggestions on issues important to their daily

activities and about which they have significant information (Levine and Tyson, 1990; Dundon

et al., 2004; Kim et al., 2010). The substantive perspective entails the creation of formal, often

permanent structures (such as work teams) as a means to facilitate a role in workplace decisions

(Kim et al., 2010). Dundon et al. (2004) employ a different analytical approach, categorising

voice as: individual (dis)satisfaction, collective organisation, contribution to management

decision-making and mutuality of interest. This framework widens the debate, avoiding

polarised dichotomies, by recognising the existence and importance of complexity (Dundon

et al., 2004). Wilkinson et al. (2014) similarly argue that research and analysis have grown

around employee voice in a variety of disciplines, including HRM, political science,

organisational behaviour, psychology, law and industrial relations. The multiplicity of

perspectives examining voice has meant that the concept is elastic, meaning different things to

different policy, academic and practitioner actors.

In addition to the form that employee voice takes, it is important to consider the scope of

decisions, the amount of influence workers exercise over management and the level at which

decisions are made (Wilkinson and Fay, 2011). These dimensions of voice will be influenced by

both internal and external factors impacting on firms (Harney and Dundon, 2006).

Despite an increased focus on the study of HRM practices in SMEs (e.g. Moore and Read,

2006; Rainnie, 1989; Ram, 1994; Ram and Edwards, 2003; Chell and Tracey, 2005), the concept

of employee voice in SMEs remains under-theorised and under-researched (Saridakis et al.,

2008; Sameer and Ozbilgin, 2014). The HRM literature does however raise important points that

are worth considering when investigating voice in SMEs. First, SMEs have generally been

found to have an overwhelming preference for informal management of the employment

relationship (Moore and Read, 2006; Brown and Nash, 2008; Saridakis et al., 2008). Informal

practices in SMEs have been linked to resource constraints, including a lack of human resource

(HR) expertise and familial/paternalistic organisational cultures (Rainnie, 1989; Ram, 1994;

Moule, 1998). Second, empirical evidence from the Workplace Employment Relations Surveys

in Britain has shown that employees in SMEs are content with the different forms of employee

voice available to them compared with those employees in larger firms (Wilkinson, 1999; Forth

et al., 2006; Tsai et al., 2007; Wilkinson et al., 2007). For example, employees in SMEs have been

shown to perceive that they have: a greater degree of influence over management decisions;

greater job autonomy, influence and security; lower work intensity; and, higher general

The contours of employee voice in SMEs

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© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.