A psychological contract perspective on how and when employees' promotive voice enhances promotability

TY - JOUR

T1 - A psychological contract perspective on how and when employees' promotive voice enhances promotability

AU - Li, Chenwei

AU - Wu, Chia Huei

AU - Dong, Yuntao

AU - Weisman, Hannah

AU - Sun, Li Yun

N1 - Funding Information: The first two authors contributed to the article equally. The work in this paper was partially supported by the Responsible Innovation & Entrepreneurship Research Initiative under the Lam‐Larsen Initiatives at San Francisco State University. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. We thank our editor Dr. Xiangmin (Helen) Liu and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful and developmental feedback. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

PY - 2023/11

Y1 - 2023/11

N2 - While promotive voice is conventionally considered a favourable work behaviour to the organisation, whether engaging in promotive voice will help employees move up the career ladder is inconclusive across a handful of studies. Drawing on a psychological contract perspective, this study aims to understand why and when employees' promotive voice can contribute to supervisor-rated employees' promotability. We propose that employees' engagement in promotive voice will strengthen supervisor-sponsored balanced psychological contract with the employees and thus employees' promotability, and these effects will be stronger when the employees and supervisors have higher versus lower quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship. Results of a three-wave field study with 281 employees and their 59 supervisors supported our hypotheses. We conclude by discussing the important implications of these findings for theory and practice.

AB - While promotive voice is conventionally considered a favourable work behaviour to the organisation, whether engaging in promotive voice will help employees move up the career ladder is inconclusive across a handful of studies. Drawing on a psychological contract perspective, this study aims to understand why and when employees' promotive voice can contribute to supervisor-rated employees' promotability. We propose that employees' engagement in promotive voice will strengthen supervisor-sponsored balanced psychological contract with the employees and thus employees' promotability, and these effects will be stronger when the employees and supervisors have higher versus lower quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship. Results of a three-wave field study with 281 employees and their 59 supervisors supported our hypotheses. We conclude by discussing the important implications of these findings for theory and practice.

KW - employee promotability

KW - LMX

KW - promotive voice

KW - supervisors' balanced psychological contract

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85148303940&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/1748-8583.12496

DO - 10.1111/1748-8583.12496

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85148303940

SN - 0954-5395

VL - 33

SP - 1018

EP - 1034

JO - HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL

JF - HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT JOURNAL

IS - 4

ER -