The cross‐cultural study of LMX and individual employee voice: The moderating role of conflict avoidance

• Date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon,Joo‐Young Park
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12158
• Published date: 01 January 2018

s_bs_banner

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The cross‐cultural study of LMX and individual

employee voice: The moderating role of conflict

avoidance

Joo‐Young Park

1

|Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon

2

1

Human Resources and Organization

Department, Samsung Economic Research

Institute, Seoul, South Korea

2

School of Labor and Human Resources,

Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

Correspondence

Kritkorn Nawakitphaitoon, School of Labor

and Human Resources, Renmin University of

China, Beijing 100872, China.

Email: kengha_di@hotmail.com

Abstract

This article examines the role of national culture, measured by con-

flict avoidance, on the relationship between leader–member

exchange (LMX) and individual employee voice. Using data collected

from automotive industry employees in the United States and

Korea, the findings show that conflict avoidance is negatively

related to employee voice and also moderates the relationship

between LMX and employee voice in the Korean sample. In partic-

ular, the relationship between LMX and voice becomes less positive

when conflict avoidance is high. On the other hand, conflict avoid-

ance does not have a direct effect on employee voice as well as

an interactive effect with LMX on employee voice in the U.S. sam-

ple. This study, therefore, highlights the importance of the national

culture in the comparative study of employee voice.

KEYWORDS

conflict avoidance, individual employee voice, LMX, national culture

1|INTRODUCTION

Since the publication of Hirschman's Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations and states

(1970), the topic of employee voice has received significant attention across various research domains. For instance,

in the field of procedural justice, research has convincingly shown that voice is one of the key determinants that leads

people to more positive reactions, such as enhanced perceived procedural justice (Lind, Kanfer, & Earley, 1988; Lind &

Tyler, 1990), and less negative affect, such as anger against officials (Tyler, 2003). In organizational behaviorresearch,

employee voice is a critical issue, because the challenges raised by global competition and rapidly changing

organizational environments highlight the importance of organizational innovation, flexibility, productivity, and

responsiveness to changing external conditions. In HRM–employment relations, employee voice is centered around

the notion of participation of employees in the decision‐making process and the resulting improvements in employee

and organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Farndale, Van Ruiten, Kelliher,

& Hope‐Hailey, 2011; Pohler & Luchak, 2014).

Received: 30 November 2015 Revised: 12 April 2017 Accepted: 21 April 2017

DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12158

14 © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Hum Resour Manag J. 2018;28:14–30.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/hrmj

Despite impressive advances in the empirical and theoretical research on employee voice over the last four

decades, there is still much more to be uncovered for better understanding the mechanism of employee voice. For

example, one stream of research considers cross‐national diversity by focusing on the role of institutional differences

(e.g., economic, social, and political conditions), and how they influence different levels of employee voice across

countries (Frege & Godard, 2010; Wailes & Lansbury, 2010). Another stream of research considers national culture

and its influence on employee voice (Botero & Van Dyne, 2009). Previous studies have suggested that national

cultural dimensions influence work‐related psychological and behavioral phenomena (Markus & Kitayama, 1991);

however, relatively few national culture studies have focused on employee voice per se. Further, there is a dearth

of comparative research that examines the cross‐cultural features of voice. Instead, those studies have focused on

analyses of voice within a single national culture (for example, LePine & Van Dyne, 1998 [the United States]; Choi,

2007 [South Korea]). Therefore, further cross‐national culture research was proposed as one of the most deserving

areas for future research in employee voice (Botero & Van Dyne, 2009; Edwards & Greenberg, 2009; Landau,

2009; Price et al., 2001). To fill this research gap, our study is aimed at examining if and how national culture can

influence individual voice behavior at work in different cultural settings.

In addition, previous studies found that leader–member exchange (LMX), defined as the quality of exchange

relationship between the supervisor and individual subordinates, where supervisors could have different quality of

work relationships with different subordinates (Graen & Uhl‐Bien, 1995), is an important contextual climate

affecting employees' voice behaviors (Burris, Detert, & Chiaburu, 2008; Van Dyne, Kamdar, & Joireman, 2008).

Particularly, high‐LMX relationships, which are characterized by mutual trust, respect, reciprocal influence, loyalty,

liking, and a sense of obligation with their leaders (Graen & Uhl‐Bien, 1995), provide employees more opportunities

to speak up, exchange information or ideas with their supervisors, and use more communication channels compared

to those in low‐LMX relationships. Yet relatively few studies have investigated the relationship between LMX and

employee voice across cultural settings (Botero & Van Dyne, 2009). Therefore, this study also examines whether

national culture can influence the relationship between LMX and individual employee voice at two different cultural

settings.

Considering that most of the previous studies on employee voice have been focused on Western countries such

as the United States, more research is needed to better understand the possible contribution of different national

cultures. For instance, it is plausible to believe that, when deciding to exercise their voices, employees may have

different considerations in Asian countries, where culture is heavily influenced by the principles of harmony, loyalty,

and hierarchical obligation (Kim & Park, 2003). For example, in Asian countries, employees may hesitate to exercise

their voices because they may have concerns about how others will judge their voice behavior or whether the

organization's culture allows their voice behaviors. On this line, the main questions in this study are as follows:

1. Does national culture have a different effect on individual employee voice in the South Korean setting compared

with that in the U.S. setting?

2. Does national culture make a difference in the relationship between LMX and individual employee voice in the

South Korean setting compared with that in the U.S. setting?

To answer these questions, this study focuses on the role of conflict avoidance as a measure of cultural value

(Hofstede, 1980), particularly found in the Asian setting, and it is defined as refusing to recognize a conflict and

engage in any active action toward its resolution (Ohbuchi & Takahashi, 1999). In particular, we examine the impacts

of conflict avoidance on the individual employee voice as well as its moderating effect on the relationship between

LMX and employee voice, using a comparative test with two samples—in the United States and in South Korea.

Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model being tested in this study.

The structure of this article is as follows. Section 2 summarizes the previous literature and hypotheses. Section 3

describes the data collection and related variables. Section 4 presents the descriptive statistics and main findings. The

last section concludes and discusses theoretical and practical implications and limitations.

PARK AND NAWAKITPHAITOON 15

s_bs_banner