I Am Sure I Can Speak Up:

The Role of Efficacy on Employee Voice

Unika Prihatsanti

1,2

, Seger Handoyo

and Rahkman Ardi

Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Airlangga

Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Diponegoro

Keywords: general self-efficacy, speak-up, promotive voice, prohibitive voice

Abstract: Employee voice is important to improve organizational function and effectiveness through the contribution

of employees. Efficacy is defined as a belief in one's competence to cope with various pressing or

challenging demands. This study aims to prove empirically the relationship between efficacy and employee

voice. The study involved 163 research participants from various companies in Indonesia and those who

answered online questionnaires. To measure general self-efficacy and employee voice, questionnaires were

circulated via instant messaging application and several social media platforms. The participants answered

some questions and fill out questionnaires. Based on a simple regression analysis, it is evident that efficacy

can predict employee voice. It means that the higher the self-confidence, the higher the desire to produce

voice and it is stronger in male participants. The limitation was that researchers did not control the type of

work that may influence employee voice. Thus, the next researchers need to differ the working

characteristics and other demographic data.

1 INTRODUCTION

Employee voice studies have drawn several

researchers’ attention in the last two decades.

Although many researchers have identified several

influential factors, further researches are still needed

to provide a clearer insight into the antecedent of

employee voice (Morison, 2011). Detert and Burris

(2007), Van Dyne, Ang & Botero (2003) suggested

that more researches are required to clarify and

provide better precision relating to employee voice

antecedents. Researchers have understood that an

organization needs to identify its employees’ voice

behavior since it is one of the most reliable ways to

ensure continuous improvement and competitiveness

(Botero and Van Dyne, 2009). An organization

requires input based on its employees’ knowledge

and ideas to adapt to the rapidly changing

environment in order to compete against its

competitors and to become the superior.

Therefore, many self-efficacy researches have

been conducted in many fields such as health,

athletics and business (Bandura, 1997). Most

researches used Western populations, normally

Americans (Klassen, 2004). Although it has been

proven that employees’ performance has become the

major predictor, only a few have studied how self-

efficacy functions in Eastern individuals. Klassen

(2004) discovered that the level of efficacy depends

on the cultural context where non-Western culture

efficacy differs from Western culture.

Kozan (1997) stated that Asians appreciate co-

operative behavior by accommodating conflict

avoidance rather than competing with others. Based

on that, employees will consider their behavior more

carefully. If their behavior is considered negative,

they will not do it. On the other hand, if their

behavior is considered constructive, they will uphold

it or even, in some cases, increase the frequency.

This is also implemented in voice. When it is

accepted as something constructive and has good

intention, the employees will give out their voice.

Park and Kim (2018) proved that cultural value has a

significant role in influencing employee voice.

Moreover, they explained that collectivism, face

saving and conflict avoidance influence employee

voice. This has shown the difference between

Koreans and Americans.

There are several interesting reasons behind this

research. First, Indonesia is the country with the

biggest archipelago, which consists of 17,508

islands with more than 300 ethnicities or tribes.

224

Prihatsanti, U., Handoyo, S. and Ardi, R.

I Am Sure I Can Speak Up: The Role of Efﬁcacy on Employee Voice.

DOI: 10.5220/0008587502240229

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Psychology in Health, Educational, Social, and Organizational Settings (ICP-HESOS 2018) - Improving Mental Health and Harmony in

Global Community, pages 224-229

ISBN: 978-989-758-435-0

Implied communication is the most appropriate term

to describe the Indonesians’ common

communication style. This cultural standard is

marked by symbolic and non-straight forward

messages (Panggabean, Tjitra, and Murniati, 2011).

Communication is an indirect, negative and hidden

feedback (Hofstede, 1967). Hence, it has certain

implications for employees’ willingness to speak

and provide suggestion to their supervisors. In line

with Morison and Caitlin (2015), in reality, when an

employee is facing the option of expressing his/her

ideas concerning the current issues, they will choose

to remain silent. Morison, Miliken and Hewlin

(2003) discovered that 85% of professional

employees and managers were aware of their failure

in revealing the crucial things, which should have

been the company’s main attention. Only 51%

indicated that they were comfortable speaking to

their supervisor or the management concerning the

current issues happening.

Second, some deeper reviews have summarized

several research findings based on employee voice

literature using the data from several decades in the

past (Morrison, 2011, 2014; Ng and Feldman, 2012,

Botero, 2013, Chamberlin, Newton and Lepine,

2017). In the review, a number of constructions were

identified giving more confidence for the employees

to express their ideas. Both theoretical and empirical

literatures have shown different individual

characteristics such as locus of central, proactive

personality (Botero, 2013; Morrison, 2011, 2014),

employees’ attitude such as bond and work

satisfaction (Morrison, 2011, 2014) and organization

context such as the organization structure and

support (Morrison, 2011, 2014) are the main

predictors of voice. Other researchers considered

that further researches can possibly influence the

necessary voice process (LePine and VanDyne,

1998; Liang, Farh and Farh, 2012). According to the

review, the cultural factor has not been the focus of

the research. Therefore, employee voice has become

the important topic to be studied. One rationale is by

involving self-efficacy variable as the antecedent of

employee voice.

Self-efficacy is a central concept by Bandura

(1997) on social learning theory and refers to the

confidence that people are competent and that their

task completing effort will be effective. Bandura

emphasized that self-efficacy works in a specific

situation and is able to develop over time.

Conversely, general self-efficacy is conceptualized

as core self-evaluation, which is relatively stable

over time and situation (Landau, 2009). General

self-efficacy is a person’s confidence on their

competence in dealing with various pressuring

demands while self-efficacy is limited to certain

tasks. General self-efficacy can represent mastery

experience. Life experience is the strongest factor

influencing general self-efficacy. Employees

gradually gain experience of success, which

generates more specific self-efficacy such as the

efficacy to speak. Researchers have proven that

general self-efficacy is closely related to certain self-

efficacy like occupational self-efficacy (Chen, Gully

and Eden, 2001)

The correlation between general self-efficacy

and social cognitive variable e.g. intention,

implementation intentions, outcome expectancies,

and self-regulation behavior-specific self-efficacy,

health behaviors, well-being, and coping strategies

were examined (Luszczynska, Scholz, and

Schwarzer, 2005). Frese, Teng and Wijnen (1998)

discovered the positive connection between self-

efficacy and having ideas, a precursor to voice.

Meanwhile, McNab and Worthley (2007) found that

general self-efficacy is positively related to internal

whistle blowing. Whistle blowing is similar to voice

construct where a whistle blowing employee reveals

another member’s illegal, immoral or unofficial

conduct to others or organizations. This behavior has

wider scope, as it is not only a form of

communication but also inappropriate behavior,

which affects both internal and external elements of

the organization. It is different from voice as it has a

more specific focus, only on the information of

inappropriate attitudes. Thus, it becomes more

appealing to scrutinize the influence of general self-

efficacy on employee voice. In general efficacy

researches, it becomes a universal construction,

which is related to optimism, self-regulation and

self-esteem, and it is negatively related to depression

and anxiety (Luszczynska, Don ̃a and Schwarzer,

2005). Employee voice will emerge when employees

believe that they have something to say and feel

competent. Also, they will take risk if they think that

they can gain something from their action, i.e. their

suggestion brings positive changes to their

organization.

Researches on voice have developed (1995 –

now) by conceptualizing voice in various ways in

literatures. Van Dyne and LePine (1998) considered

voice as the extra behavior and defined it as

employees’ constructing expression, which has the

purpose of improving the organization’s function.

The definition itself was well known explicitly as a

form of behavior which has a vision to improve the

organization’s function and effectiveness by

applying constructive ideas, opinions, suggestions

I Am Sure I Can Speak Up: The Role of Efﬁcacy on Employee Voice

225

and comments. Since VanDyne and LePine (1998),

there have been many researches exploring the

dimension of voice. In general, in literature review

(Burris, 2012, Klaas, Olson-Buchanan and Ward,

2012, Liang & Farh, 2012; Maynes and Podsakoff,

2014, Morrison, 2011, 2014; VanDyne and Ang, and

Botero, 2003), voice has the scope as (a) providing

ideas on new or better methods in doing something;

(b) providing suggestions relating to doing

something out of the box; (c) expressing concerns on

job-related issues in the organization which was

previously identified but has not been addressed; (d)

providing opinion on potential transformation which

can help to finish a project and work effectively.

Those four items have main characteristics such as

speaking with the intention of challenging or trying

to change the status quo in order to improve the

organization’s function (Morrison, 2014). In this

research, employee voice is defined as the unforced

communication by employees to provide ideas,

suggestions, attention, information and concern

about issues or opinions relating to work to the right

person to encourage improvement or change.

Unforced means that it is not decided based on its

role with no clear regulation and no consequence for

the individual. Hence, deciding voice possesses

more considerable challenges. Landau (2009) stated

that there are four conditions in which an individual

chooses to be more expressive or not. They are (1) it

must be a message to deliver, (2) it must be

considered as a part of responsibility, (3) it must be

believed as an agent of change, (4) it must believe

that the suggestion will be considered seriously and

give impact to the organization.

From the explanation above, it is interesting to

conduct further study on the role of self-efficacy in

promoting employee voice from an Indonesian

culture perspective. This can result in different

output from Western culture (Morrison, 2011).

The research aims to prove empirically whether

self-efficacy influences employee voice. The

hypotheses proposed in this study are:

H1. Self-efficacy is connected to employee voice.

H2. There are gender differences between male and

female workers. Male workers tend to be more

vocal than female.

2 METHOD

2.1 Procedure

The survey was conducted from April to May 2018

and was administered online. The link was

distributed on various social media and chat rooms

via several instant messaging apps. All of them were

informed about the purpose of the research and

assured about their identity anonymity and the

confidential status of the data.

2.2 Participants

Participants were employees from various

companies in Indonesia involving 163 participants.

Participants were mostly females (58.9%), and

males (41.1%). Their level of education ranged from

secondary school 8%, diploma 6.1%, Bachelor’s

degree 63.8%, post-graduated 22.1% with age

ranged between 20 and 60 years old.

2.3 Measures

2.3.1 Employee Voice

Employee voice was measured using a 5-point

Likert scale by applying the Liang, Farh and Farh

(2012) scale which consisted of 10 items.

Participants were asked to provide responses

describing their voice by selecting the option of

never, rarely, sometimes, often and always with

coefficient alpha employee voice 0.86.

2.3.2 Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy was measured using the Schwarzer and

Jerusalem (1995) scale. General Self Efficacy scale

developed was converted into many languages

including Indonesian. The psychometric

instrument’s characteristics have been tested in 25

countries and the results have confirmed the

assumption that it can work inter-culture (Scholz, et

al., 2002). The coefficient alpha of GSE is 0.88.

2.4 Data Analysis

Linier regression analysis was used to investigate

whether self-efficacy would influence employee

voice. An independent t-test was also implemented

to distinguish male and female employee voice. The

hypotheses of the research were that self-efficacy

contributes to employee voice and there is a

difference between male and female employee voice.

ICP-HESOS 2018 - International Conference on Psychology in Health, Educational, Social, and Organizational Settings

226

Statistical analysis used JASP (JASP Team, 2008).

Researchers also examined the effect size and post

hoc or achieved statistical power for hypothesis

using G*Power (Faul, et al., 2007).

3 RESULTS

The regression analysis results show correlation

between self-efficacy and employee voice (r=0.274,

p<0.001), which means that self-efficacy is a strong

predictor of employee voice. This assumption would

be subsequently confirmed with linear regression

analysis (Table 1).

Independent sample t-test shows different

employee voice from both male and female subjects.

Levene’s test showed both group variances were

equal, so independent sample t-test with equal

variances assumption was used. Employee voice

(t(163)=3.713, p=0.00, d=0.591) was significantly

different across the groups.

Data of respondents (n = 163) showed that 92

respondents (54.6%) tended to be silent, while 71

respondents (43.6%) chose to vote. The self-efficacy

data showed 88 respondents (54%) had low efficacy

and 75 respondents (46%) had high efficacy.

4 DISCUSSION

This research is aimed to prove empirically the

correlation between self-efficacy and employee

voice. Results have proven that self-efficacy holds a

key role in employee voice. Employee voice is

verbal behavior, which aims for direct correction

specifically to the person in charge in an

organization (Detert and Burris, 2007). General self-

efficacy is related to several organizational

behaviors such as work performance (Judge and

Bono, 2001) and extra-role promotive behaviors.

General self-efficacy may also influence whether

they believe that their behavior can really make a

difference. Employees will only take risks if they

perceive some benefits for their action. When they

are confident, they are able to tell their supervisors

about their ideas, suggestions or concerns to provide

positive changes to their organization (Morrison,

2011).

Kish-Gephart. et al. (2009) described two

reasons causing the emergence of voice behavior.

First, employees with high voice effectiveness tend

to consider that the environment around them is still

manageable with a low level of threat. Researches

also showed that personal self-control has a positive

correlation with voice (Tangirala and Ramanujam,

2008). Second, employees believe that they have

survived the challenge in speaking up. One

challenge that hampers employee voice is the high

personal cost when management refuses to even

consider the voice which may potentially cause the

loss in employees’ confidence, respect, promotion

opportunity or career progress as their suggestion is

considered a threat and may harm others’ feelings

(Milliken, Morrison and Hewlin, 2003). Voice is

considered as something risky and stressful (Ng and

Feldman, 2012). However, when employees believe

that the management appreciates their voice, the fear

of personal cost will reduce.

A number of researchers have conceptualized

general self-efficacy in wide-scope and stable

Table 2: The different employee voice between male and female (N = 163)

Dependent

Variables

Gender n Mean SD Levene’s

Tes

t df p Cohen’s

Power

(1-β)

EV Male 67 38.19 4.819 .222 3.713 161 .000 0.591 1.00

Female 96 35.03 5.691

otes: 1-

= achieved statistical

ower, *

< 0.01.

Table 1: Determinant of Self-Efficacy to Employee Voice (N = 163)

Variables Unstandardized

SE F p-value aR

VIF Power

(1-β)

Self-Efficacy

Constan

24.870 3.202 13.032 .000* .069 1.000 1.00

GSE 0.354 0.098 .000*

SE = standard error, aR

= adjusted R

, VIF = collinearity diagnostics, 1-β = achieved statistical power, *p <

0.01.

I Am Sure I Can Speak Up: The Role of Efﬁcacy on Employee Voice

227

personal competence when dealing with stressful

situations (Schwarzer and Jerusalem, 1995). This

means that a high level of voice efficacy must be

present before speaking up. The result is in-line with

Duan, Kwan and Ling (2014) who proved that

general efficacy gives rise to voice efficacy, which

eventually will lead to employee voice.

The behavior included is the way in expressing

concern related to the current work practice.

Therefore, employees’ confidence will affect their

urge in raising their voice concerning the

organizational issues whether it can produce certain

innovation or organization evaluation. The efficacy

felt represents a person’s confidence in using their

skill in resisting temptation, dealing with stress and

mobilizing resources required to deal with several

situational demands (Bandura, 1997). After several

actions, employees with high self-efficacy have put

in more effort and survived better than those with

low efficacy. As a result, the ones with high self-

efficacy have realized that they can overcome any

obstacle and focus on the opportunity.

Results also prove that there are differences in

employee voice of female and male workers. There

is a tendency that male workers are more able to

speak up than female. Males tend to participate more

especially in task-related issues. That males tend to

initiate communications and provide their opinions,

whereas females tend to be more reactive and strive

for consensus (Strodtbeck and Man cited by LePine

and VanDyne, 1998). Females may have lower

confidence that they will be heard above members.

This research provides a theoretical contribution

in explaining the correlation between self-efficacy

and employee voice, which also provides a practical

contribution. Respondents in this study had low

efficacy levels and tended to choose not to speak.

Thus, providing practical implications for managers

can provide opportunities to improve efficacy with

positive experiences. Self-efficacy has become a part

of an organization’s responsibility, which provides

the means to develop employees’ personal capacity.

With the increasing employee self-efficacy,

employees will also believe that they have the

competence to do something which results in the

employees’ responsibility in giving their finest

contribution to the corporation in form of ideas and

suggestions in order to improve the organization’s

performance.

4.1 Limitation & Future Research

Direction

Employee voice is considered crucial for employees’

performance (Van Dyne and Le Pine, 1998) and the

organization’s effectiveness (Dettert and Burris,

2007). This research has applied social cognitive

theory and provided an insight into several issues

relating to general self-efficacy. Although Van Dyne

and LePine (1998) reported that employee voice in

form of self-report was stable from time to time and

positively related to co-workers’ and supervisors’

judgment, it has common method bias. Therefore,

the next researchers need to make use of other

resources to obtain the data. Second, researchers did

not control the type of work, which may influence

employee voice, so the next researchers need to

differ the working characteristics and other

demographic data such as how long they have

worked, education background and age. Third, this

research used one data source, which was employees

with the possible common method bias. The next

researchers need to consider obtaining the data from

other sources such as co-workers or supervisors.

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