Prosocial, Pro-Self, or Combined? Three Types of Employee Voice and Supervisor Responses

Previous research has demonstrated inconsistent findings regarding supervisors' reactions to employees' voice behavior. To address this issue, the current research adopts a broader view of voice and differentiates specific voice foci. This approach complements the understanding of voice types that are theoretically ignored yet prevalent in practice (pro-self voice and combined voice). Based on the social dimensions model, the current research investigates the underlying mechanism of perceived warmth, competence, and authenticity in the “subordinate voice—supervisor response” linkage. We conducted an interview-based qualitative study (Study 1, N = 23), a vignette-based experiment (Study 2A, N = 213), a recall-based experiment (Study 2B, N = 214), and a time-lagged field study (Study 3, N = 304). The results indicated that supervisors perceive more warmth and competence for subordinates engaging in prosocial voice and combined voice than pro-self voice, and more authenticity for combined voice than prosocial voice and pro-self voice, thus increasing voice endorsement and performance evaluation. The implications for theory and practice are discussed.