Voice as a Signal of Human and Social Capital in Team Assembly Decisions

Team membership in today’s open talent economy is more fluid and interchangeable than ever before. In light of these dynamics, we consider how team members’ signaling of human and social capital, in the form of challenging or supportive voice, informs our understanding of how individuals across an organizational network self-assemble into temporary work teams. We test our hypotheses in two separate multiwave studies and find support for our hypotheses above and beyond the effects of homophily. In Study 1, we find support for a human capital pathway in which challenging voice in a team fosters perceptions of quality work that enhance one’s personal reputation in the broader network. Personal reputation, in turn, predicts team assembly decisions. In Study 2, we consider a social capital pathway alongside the human capital pathway. We find that supportive voice in a team fosters friendship that enhances the extent to which one is trusted in the broader network, and trust subsequently influences team assembly decisions. Potential team members appear to prioritize the social capital signaled by supportive voice more so than the human capital signaled by challenging voice, although those who possess both human and social capital are also highly sought during team formation. We discuss the implications of these findings for the literatures on voice and team assembly.