Persuading managers to enact ideas in organizations: The role of voice message quality, peer endorsement, and peer opposition

Summary We extend research on employee voice by examining what persuades managers to enact voice messages communicated on organizations' idea management platforms (i.e., software systems designed to gather, vet, and enact employee voice). Applying the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, we propose that voice message quality affects managerial voice enactment via peer endorsement and that peer opposition qualifies the latter effect. Specifically, we argue that peers are more likely to endorse higher‐ versus lower‐quality voice messages because they are attentive recipients who are motivated to support higher‐quality voice. In turn, we argue that managers are influenced by image concerns and legitimacy inferred by social proof, and thus, they will enact voice messages with higher levels of peer endorsement, especially when combined with lower opposition. Results of our archival analysis of over 5000 voice messages communicated on five organizations' idea management platforms support our predictions, such that peer endorsement mediates the relationship between voice message quality and managerial voice enactment, and that this relationship is stronger under conditions of lower versus higher peer opposition. Altogether, our research illuminates how voice messages on idea management platforms are endorsed and ultimately enacted by organizational leaders.