How Employees' Voice Helps Teams Remain Resilient in the Face of Exogenous Change

Teams often confront exogenous events that induce discontinuous change and unsettle existing routines. In the immediate aftermath of such events (the disruption stage), teams experience a dip in their performance and only over time regain their previous performance levels (in the recovery stage). We argue that prohibitive voice that allows teams to manage errors better is instrumental for preventing performance losses in the disruption stage. Whereas, promotive voice that helps teams innovate or improve team processes, can facilitate steeper and more positive performance trajectories in the recovery stage. We also propose that voice is especially functional when teams confront higher change intensity and, thereby, highlight that voice is particularly important when change events cause greater discontinuity in the task environment. We found general support for our theory in a correlational field study involving 172 production teams in which we examined over time trajectories in objective team performance, and a field experiment involving 88 teams in a different production setting, where team members were trained, incentivized, and provided opportunities to engage in voice. We discuss the implications of our findings for literature on voice, team adaptation, and resilience.