A Study On The Underlying Mechanisms Of Supervisory Response To The Subordinates' Voice Behavior

When subordinates express some constructive opinions to their leaders(Voice Behavior),how will the leaders response? This question has received considerable attention from scholars,and the results of some research are inconsistent: Employee voice behavior can help the organization to improve its operating efficiency,thus the leader may give these employees positive response;However,in some other cases,leaders may think that the employee's voice is not only useless,but also erodes their leading status in the organization,resulting in giving out negative response.Based on the self-esteem threat model,this study try to explain the internal mechanism for the leader's response to the subordinate' voice from the leader's self-esteem perspective.The second chapter depicts the definitions,measurements and researches of several variables and reviews previous research.Based on theories of self-esteem threat model and regulatory focus theory,the third chapter hypothesizes that the leader will have two kinds of perception——subordinate support and voice threat to subordinates' voice behavior.High sense of subordinate support will lead a positive reaction while high voice threat will produce a negative reaction.Besides,the leader's work regulatory focus will interfere the influence of subordinate's voice behavior on leader's response——the leaders with high promotion work regulatory focus will feel more support and high prevention work regulatory focus will feel more voice threat.In order to test the hypotheses,this study conducted a questionnaire survey of 207 subordinates and their direct leaders.The fourth chapter describes in detail the research methods of this research and the quantitative analysis process of the research data.The results support the hypotheses proposed in the third chapter.Subordinate support and voice threat mediate the relationship of subordinate's voice behavior on leader's response;compared to the low promotion work regulatory focus,high promotion work regulatory focus leader will have more support;compared to the low prevention work regulatory focus,high prevention work regulatory focus leaders will have more sense of voice threat;the indirect effects of subordinate support and voice threat will also be moderated by work regulatory focus.The fifth chapter summarizes and discusses the results of the study,and gives some research directions for future research based on the conclusions and shortcomings of the study.