Purpose The well-being of employees in distributed work has never been of more importance. This study aims to investigate the factors that empower or undermine the connectivity agency of teleworkers. Connectivity agency is an important form of autonomy for managing work–home boundaries, recuperation from work and psychological detachment. With this in mind it becomes vital to understand how connectivity agency is shaped by various contextual factors. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study draws upon data collected from 27 teleworkers representing a variety of industries and roles. We employed a semi-structured interview protocol and analysed the data using Tracy’s (2013) iterative coding technique. Findings Factors that influence one’s likelihood or capacity to exercise connectivity agency exist at the individual, group or organisational level. Our data elucidate factors such as the provision of home and technological resources, the state of team norms and shared expectations and the level of organisational (dis)trust as having significant influence on whether a teleworker exercises connectivity agency, or whether attempts to do so fail altogether. Originality/value Whilst we have a comprehensive understanding of types of connectivity agency behaviours, it is unclear how one’s agency may be influenced by contextual factors. The originality and key contribution of our study is in enriching our understanding of connectivity agency to appreciate it as a dynamic phenomenon that is shaped by various contextual factors. This presents a variety of important insights for professionals leading, implementing or partaking in distributed work.

ABSTRACTExternal crises, such as the COVID‐19 pandemic, have increased job insecurity and overall uncertainty in the labour market. Crises like these can suppress employee voice; that is, employees may feel unable to express their ideas and opinions about their work, including dissatisfaction or criticism, because they may be worried about disagreeing with management and being seen as ‘rocking the boat’ in times of uncertainty. Nonetheless, this study finds that employees' desire to voice during the global pandemic led to them finding ways to speak up through social media (SM), with anonymity being a critical facilitator. Findings reveal that employees realised that SM affordances allowed them more agency over the agenda for voice regardless of prevailing voice norms. Despite open criticism not being well received by management, employees refashioned SM, which was primarily used for top‐down communication before the pandemic, into more of a bottom‐up voice mechanism. In doing so, we answer the call of researchers to explore the state of voice during a crisis and the potential of SM as a possible voice mechanism during such times.

In today's digitised workplace, it is important to understand how employee voice is affected by new technologies. Adopting a novel interdisciplinary approach, this paper uses the Escalator of Participation framework and the Technology Affordance lens to explore how modern communication technology, such as social media (SM), compares to traditional voice mechanisms. Findings from 52 in-depth interviews of managers and employees from two multinational subsidiaries show that SM provides new ways of voicing in synchronous and asynchronous settings that traditional voice mechanisms do not offer. Despite this, employees do not always choose SM for all voice types due to employees' perception that SM was suited better for some types of voice more than others and also being mindful of managerial preferences for non-SM mechanisms. We also provide implications for future research and practitioners through highlighting that the effectiveness of voice on SM is shaped by SM affordances, issue type, employee awareness of likely responses, and managerial willingness to engage constructively with voice on SM.

The dramatic increase in teleworking, or remote work facilitated by technology, has spurred debate regarding potential effects upon individual well-being. Whilst teleworking has been shown to provide many benefits for individuals, our review focuses upon its challenges. Research suggests that technological risk factors shape the well-being of teleworkers. This review synthesises knowledge regarding this problem and charts a course for future research. We systematically gather 105 studies and link technological challenges to five dimensions of well-being: cognitive, social, professional, affective and psychosomatic. We identify three key areas through which technology reduces well-being: (1) connectivity ; (2) communication and (3) capabilities . We examine contemporary risk factors such as digital surveillance, problematic availability expectations, mediated communication difficulties and access or dependability of technological resources. Our discussion elucidates pressing human resources concerns and offers practical insights. Furthermore, we consider future avenues for scholarly inquiry, for instance, the gap between quantitative and qualitative efforts.

PURPOSE:We aim to advance our understanding by examining voices related to employees' own interests and associated outcomes for employees and healthcare organizations. Patient safety reviews do not explore contextual factors such as organizational or professional cultures and regulatory environments in depth, and arguments for overcoming barriers to voice in health are underdeveloped. The research has largely developed in separate literature (various subdisciplines of management and the health field), and we outline the divergent emphases and opportunities for integration with the aim of investigating all relevant contextual factors and providing guidance on best practice informed by multiple disciplines. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH:A systematic approach was taken to gathering and reviewing articles, and coding and reporting are in line with the most recent Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement (Rethlefsen et al., 2021). FINDINGS:We identified a range of facilitators, barriers and outcomes of employee interest voice at different levels (organizational, leadership, team or individual) in a healthcare context. We identify various theoretical, methodological and knowledge gaps, and we suggest several ways in which these can be addressed in future research efforts. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS:We make multiple contributions to both theory and practice, including highlighting the importance and implications of integrating disciplinary approaches, broadening context, improving research design and exploring under-researched samples and topics. This information is essential in providing a more comprehensive model of healthcare voice and to shifting management focus to include all forms of employee voice in healthcare for the benefit of staff and patients. ORIGINALITY/VALUE:We make multiple contributions to both theory and practice including highlighting the importance of integrating disciplinary approaches, broadening context to include employee interest issues, improving research design and exploring under-researched samples and topics. This information is essential in providing a more comprehensive model of health care voice and to shifting management focus to take a more inclusive view of employee voice in healthcare for the benefit of staff as well as patients.

Finding ways to motivate employees to speak up with suggestions and concerns is an important organizational concern. Drawing on the proactive motivation model, this research examines how organizational reward practices can encourage employee voice. We investigate whether tangible rewards (e.g. bonuses, pay increases, promotion) and intangible rewards (e.g. recognition, praise, positive feedback) can facilitate employee voice through the respective effects on employee psychological safety and organizational identification. Using three experiments across three different organizational and cultural contexts, we find consistent results supporting our hypotheses. Our three studies included working adults from the following regions: China (278 participants), United Kingdom (282 participants) and United States (272 participants). We conclude that employees make attributions about organizational reward practices whereby rewards signal to employees it is safe to voice and employees are valued. Our research demonstrates that both tangible and intangible rewards have indirect effects on employee voice by enhancing psychological safety, activating the 'can do' motivation process to voice, and by increasing their organizational identification that triggers the 'reason to' motivation process. We provide practical recommendations for organizations concerning how to use reward practices to best optimise psychological safety and organizational identification to encourage voice and suggest future research directions.

This chapter provides an overview of the literature on employee voice in health care contexts and the implications for human resource management (HRM) theory and practice. The research surveyed is referred to herein as voice in health (VIH) literature and encompasses research on the topic of employee voice which has been conducted within health care organisations or where health worker samples have been studied. VIH includes studies approached from HRM, employment relations (ER), organisational behaviour (OB), and health perspectives. The chapter covers the development of employee voice and VIH concepts in these disciplines, the main themes addressed by this body of research at various levels, the theoretical and practical value of the VIH literature to HRM, limitations and how they could be overcome, as well as promising areas for future research.

Voice mechanisms in organizations provide an opportunity for employees to have a say about their work. As new digital mechanisms, such as social media (SM), are being increasingly adopted by organizations for knowledge sharing, employee engagement and general communication, it is important to consider the extent to which SM may facilitate employee voice. The limited attempts to examine SM and employee voice have mostly focused on identifying the contextual factors that could promote constructive voice on SM. The extant literature does not explore how SM features may (or may not) facilitate all types of voice, such as those which promote employee interests. Adopting an affordance lens, this paper answers the call of voice scholars to explore the potential of SM as a voice mechanism by discussing the perceived value of different SM features for different types of employee voice content. The paper brings together SM and voice literature and explores how different SM affordances may potentially facilitate certain voice content more so over others. In doing so, future directions for research of voice on SM are also discussed.

PurposeThe aim of this study is to explore and unpack the notion of lateral voice within the context of a Chinese hospital.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative design was used, involving interviews of 24 medical personnel from a public hospital in mainland China. This included two focus groups (eight participants each) of physicians and nurses, and eight individual interviews with managers, including a chief nurse and directors of the medical centre.FindingsThe findings reveal that in top-down contexts with a respect for hierarchy, direct and vertical voice is discouraged but lateral voice fills this gap and can lead in some circumstances to a pathway to collective vertical voice. Interestingly, the study finds that fear of damaging relationships with peers may also discourage lateral voice in some cases, leading to silence altogether. Contradictory lateral voice outcomes arising from employees working within this context are discussed.Originality/valueThe study makes an original contribution to voice literature through exploring an understudied voice target, that is, voicing to peers. In doing so, the study demonstrates the importance of lateral voice as an important component of voice behaviour.

The study of employee voice has primarily focused on mainstream settings (the public sector, manufacturing and larger organisations) within Western countries, where the design of employee voice mechanisms occurs within the context of standard employees (e.g. white, Anglo‐Saxon and heterosexual persons) (Greene 2015, Finding a Voice at Work? New Perspectives on Employee Relations , 67–91). This article explores the challenges of managing voice within a residential aged care setting in Australia and seeks to understand how a multiculturally diverse workforce, characterised by culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) individuals, interprets a range of voice mechanisms provided by management and the factors that influence their use. We present qualitative data from 21 semi‐structured interviews conducted with employees, management and key support staff. We show that managers tend to emphasise downward communication more than voice and that all workers, regardless of their cultural background, perceived barriers to speaking up. Despite general support for voice within the organisation from all stakeholders, our research shows that organisational factors such as budgetary constraints shrunk the voice agenda and created a culture in which employees feared raising issues and concerns. Furthermore, we found that cultural, language and literacy issues associated with such a workforce added a degree of complexity to employee voice and that voice could be muted due to these factors. Our research provides an opportunity to rethink the voice literature by drawing on the diversity literature in the context of multiculturally diverse workforce settings, highlighting missed opportunities for inclusive voice practices.

In this paper, we explore how the pressure to deliver high performance influences line managers in their shaping and repurposing of employee voice mechanisms to encourage improvement-oriented voice in organizations. Using qualitative data (50 semi-structured interviews) from two case studies, including a manufacturing organization and a university, we find line managers were proactive in the (re)shaping and repurposing of employee voice mechanisms in response to the high-performance strategy. Where there was less HR support given to line managers, we found line managers were more inclined to create their own voice mechanisms. However, we observed that a focus on improvement-oriented voice associated with employer interests diverted employee-interest voice away from collective and formal channels, into more informal channels. We indicate the dangers of prioritizing an employer-interest, improvement-oriented voice approach.

Different disciplines have studied employee voice as a key component of workplaces. However, they have not tended to look at voice as a journey en route to enhanced (or diminished) employee voice with a start, diversion, delay and combining twists and turns during processes leading to outcomes. In this article, we build on existing theory and phenomena to develop the concept of ‘employee voice pathways’. We use this concept to provide a framework for analysing the processes underpinning employee voice as a potential desirable form of employee voice as well as outlining areas for a future research agenda.

This chapter highlights the variation in gig work and the different types of digital labour platforms, to show there are significant societal issues that need to be grappled with to ensure that this growing group of workers are not disadvantaged. Freedom of association, voice and representation are often contextualised as 'human rights', set against transitional labour standards and UN sustainability goals. Yet how those who work through digital labour platforms can articulate their voice and express their rights is uncertain and remains contentious. A lack of voice opportunity may adversely affect workers' dignity and wellbeing, whilst the objective of enhancing organisational effectiveness may be missed. Alongside, or separate to the human rights argument, is also the idea that effective voice benefits both the organisation and the employee, such as better performance, reduced turnover, enhanced individual well-being, and potentially longer term sustainable people management outcomes with wider societal relevance. However, such claims are typically drawn from studies of standard employment systems and analysis specifically in relation to gig-economy and platform work have rarely, if ever, been developed. Hence greater consideration by platform organizations and regulatory bodies is needed, in order to ensure that the voice of platform workers is not neglected or missing from organisational level decisions, or from wider policy level choices about rights and regulations. We advocate the benefits of drawing on analyses done at the macro, meso and micro levels to highlight ways in which the extant literature can be strengthened, while recognising these forces can overlap across space and influence the forms of representative agency at other levels.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual model drawing together and integrating research from employment relations (ER), human resource management (HRM) and organizational behaviour (OB) to identify how high-performance work systems (HPWS) encourage voice behaviour. Design/methodology/approach The authors identify shortcomings in research on the relationship between HPWS practices and employee voice behaviour, attributable to the disparate conceptualization of voice across management disciplines. The authors then present a conceptual model using the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework to theorize how the ER climate influences the design of the HPWS and subsequently how the HPWS encourages voice behaviour. Practical implications and recommendations for future studies are provided. Findings The mutual gains ER climate will influence the design of the HPWS; in turn the HPWS' practices will influence line manager AMO to manage voice and the employees' AMO to engage in voice behaviour, resulting in the encouragement of both employer and employee interest forms of voice. Practical implications The HPWS-voice behaviour interaction model sheds light on the types of HR practices organisations can implement to optimize employee voice behaviour. Originality/value The conceptual model demonstrates how ER, HRM and OB factors influence voice behaviour within a HPWS, which has not previously been considered by voice scholars. The integrated conceptual model encourages a multidisciplinary approach to studying employee voice in future research.

This paper aims to encourage a debate on the proposed transactive relationship between voice and contemporary social, economic and technological (SET) developments. Specifically, we propose that SET developments change how work is approached, organized and designed, and that these changes challenge employee rights, roles and responsibilities. How employees deal with these challenges affects their well-being and health, and whether organizations and societies can develop sustainably. While voice is a way for employees to have a say in these developments, we argue that SET changes can be times at which voice is threatened. Moreover, we propose that SET changes urge us to question and reshape our understanding of voice. We propose that a functional conceptualization of voice provides opportunities to integrate existing approaches which are often scattered across disciplines, and is inclusive of new opportunities and constraints that come with SET developments. Using examples of two meta-trends, we illustrate how SET changes challenge traditional conceptualizations of voice and identify 'new trajectories' to expand more inclusive forms of voice and more useful research paradigms. These meta-trends are digitalization (including new business models and employment forms, alternative/flexible work arrangements, technology-mediated communication) and diversification (including internationalization and marginalized/minority groups).

Encouraging and facilitating employee voice among frontline employees is important in organisations to draw out problems and issues that can potentially be addressed and mitigated by organisational policies and practices. Using Conservation of Resources theory, this study focuses on paramedics and the formal and informal voice mechanisms used to safeguard their well-being. We observe that paramedics are often unwilling to use formal support mechanisms, at least in the first instance immediately following exposure to a traumatic event, but they see informal peer-to-peer voice as critical in preventing resource loss and regaining resources for subsequent call-outs. We also found that without an awareness of the importance of this support mechanism, changes in work organisation can unintentionally and unknowingly limit their capacity to engage in this form of support. Losing peer-to-peer voice can lead to the build-up of stress that could otherwise be mitigated, resulting in diminished well-being.

This introduction introduces the special issue on employee voice in the Asia Pacific. Whilst there is an extensive literature on employee voice in western countries in regions such as Europe and the United States, we know less about the state of employee voice in the Asia Pacific regions. One of these gaps relates to how the institutional factors as well as national cultural factors influence the employee voice arrangements and mechanisms. While we have some understanding of how national contextual factors can influence employee voice behaviour, such as through leadership behaviour and supervisor-subordinate relationships, there is still much to be understood with regard to how the different Asia Pacific cultural characteristics will influence voice. With governance and representative structures of voice embedded in particular institutional contexts there are significant differences not only between Asia Pacific economies and the rest of the world, but also between and within the Asia Pacific economies themselves.