Voicing by Adapting and Innovating Employees: An Empirical Study on How Personality and Environment Interact to Affect Voice Behavior

This article reports two studies exploring how cognitive style preferences for adaption-innovation affect the likelihood that employees will voice ideas for organizational change toward their supervisors. As hypothesized, Study 1 demonstrates that innovatively compared to adaptively predisposed police officers are less likely to voice conventional ideas and more likely to voice novel ideas for solving work-related problems. Besides a replication of these findings, Study 2 shows how work satisfaction and the quality of the supervisor as voice manager shape the impact of adaption-innovation on employee likelihood to voice. That is, compared to innovators, adaptors are more likely to voice conventional ideas when they are dissatisfied rather than satisfied with work and perceive their supervisors as effective rather than ineffective voice managers. On the other hand, innovators compared to adaptors report greater likelihood to voice novel ideas when they are satisfied rather than dissatisfied with work and perceive their supervisors as effective rather than ineffective voice managers. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.