The influence of voice quality, voice content, and managers’ mood on their evaluations of voice: An experimental investigation

Whether organizations can benefit from employee voice depends on the receiving managers’ evaluations, as proposals can be implemented, dismissed, or forwarded to superiors for consideration. Despite its important role in identifying valuable suggestions, research on managers’ evaluations of employees’ proposals is scarce. Grounded in the literature on employee voice, innovation management, social hierarchy, the Elaboration Likelihood Model, and the Hedonic Contingency Model, the current study addresses this research gap by investigating the influence of voice quality, voice content, and managers’ mood on managers’ evaluations of voice. The findings from using a factorial, between-subjects experimental design with 384 German managers as participants demonstrate that managers’ evaluations tend to be higher when voice is of high quality and that managers evaluate promotive voice higher than they do prohibitive voice. No direct or indirect influence of managers’ mood was identified. The study concludes with implications for employees and organizations, limitations, and directions for future research.