Participative Supervisory Behavior and the Importance of Feeling Safe and Competent to Voice

In our field study of 147 employees and their supervisors, we tested a moderated mediation model, investigating how participative supervisory behavior relates differently to promotive and prohibitive voice. Overall, we found a significant effect of participative supervisory behavior on promotive and prohibitive voice, and this effect was mediated by psychological safety for prohibitive voice, but not promotive voice. Unexpectedly, we did not find a direct moderation effect of occupational self-efficacy. However, our results suggest that occupational self-efficacy creates a conditional indirect effect for prohibitive voice. Accordingly, our results shed light on the boundary conditions of participative supervisory behavior and illustrate the usefulness of conceptualizing voice as promotive and prohibitive. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.