How supervisors respond to employee voice: an experimental study in China and Japan

To examine how supervisors respond to employee voice in the Asian context, we conducted a scenario-based experiment in China and Japan and investigated the effects of the target of voice (immediate supervisors or skip-level leaders), voicing employees’ expertise, and supervisors’ sense of power on supervisors’ responses. Data from both samples showed that voicing employees’ target of voice and expertise have significant effects on the overall evaluations rated by supervisors, partially mediated by liking or perceived threat. Moreover, data from the Chinese sample showed that supervisors’ sense of power moderates the effect of voicing employees’ expertise on supervisors’ responses.