Keywords

Introduction

Giving employees a voice at work is one of the most significant ways for individuals to influence their employment ensure a good quality of working life—CIPD (2019, p. 4)

Organizations have shown increasing interest in understanding the important contribution of employees in terms of raising their voice on important organizational issues. This is because employee voice has brought many changes in the workplace, such as anticipating innovation, gaining a competitive advantage over others, and so on. (Bain et al., 2021). Employee voice not only benefits organizations in many ways, but more importantly, it can have a positive impact on employee well-being (Mowbray et al., 2019). As such, it has led scholars to think about voice in all new and different ways. Given its importance, a large body of research on the voice has typically focused on the Western context. However, the research on employee voice is largely at the minimum level in less developed nations, especially Pakistan, which is altogether a unique context to be considered for the organizations as well as the employees (e.g., Rani et al., 2021).

To elaborate it further, for example, Soltani et al. (2018) have pointed out that employees in the non-Western countries are mainly concerned with fulfillment of their phycological needs compared to psychological aspirations. On the other side, de Azevedo et al. (2020) hold that even organizations that are not very technologically sound are eager to embrace employee voice contributions that can modify their work processes to make them more innovative. Considering all that, the present research is aimed at integrating the past evidence on how employee voice behavior has been understood taking different theoretical perspectives and identifying gray areas that will unveil new avenues for future research specifically in the interesting but unique employment context of Pakistan. Right from the beginning, many scholars have used interchangeable terms with employee voice in changing work conditions such as empowerment, participation, and work engagement (Wilkinson & Fay, 2011), while some have coupled the concept with innovation and creativity found at multiple levels in the organization (Bashshur & Oc, 2015).

Similarly, several authors have continuously built a stockpile of research indicating the usefulness of this concept. For example, according to Rasheed et al. (2021), employee voice emerged as the primary mechanism between the transformational style of leadership identified in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Pakistan and different forms of innovation in these organizations. In the same way, Prouska et al. (2022) have assessed if employee voice can be enacted as HR core practice especially in the state of economic downturns. They bring interesting insights into the proposed relationship between communication and “horizontal solidarity” through employee voice behavior. Focusing on SMEs, they add that HR practices such as voice depend on the quality of the relationship between manager and employee and how well various informal transactions between these two stakeholders occur. Likewise, McKearney et al. (2022) have also emphasized the need for further research in SMEs sector.

By accumulating evidence through interviews from multiple countries including the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and Thailand, the authors have found impact of national culture (as one of the key determinants in the domain of macro-level factors) and its various dimensions on voice norms developed in organizational settings. The same holds for the recent contribution by Shin et al. (2022) toward an ongoing debate on voice research. The authors talk about introducing effective “voice practices” as integral part of work systems. These practices enable organizations to embrace innovation, creativity, and sometimes even taking change initiatives. Authors further added that employees feel motivated in presenting the emerging ideas if they think organizations welcome their timely inputs. However, taking diversion from current stream of research on voice, Burris et al. (2022) argued that not all the employee’s ideas attract attention of the managers.

Managers recognize and value the contribution of voice only when the intent of voice is primarily focused on a future vision for improving organizational affairs. Otherwise, managers will hardly support voice that causes conflict in the organization. Burris et al. (2022) have further added that managers appreciate and endorse a kind of voice that is aligned with their own “regulatory foci.” Similarly, to receive acknowledgment, voice should also be based on logic rather than emotional inducement. However, Zhang et al. (2019) have shifted the focus of research on voice and linked up high commitment work system (HCWS) with employee voice behavior in the Chinese work context. They assert that a coherent and inclusive approach may encourage and create tendency of employees thinking out of the box. Further according to Zhang et al. (2019), adequate organizational support and psychological safety should be considered as the enabling factors to reach this end. That may increase the likelihood that organization takes quality decision while taking insights from the employees.

For this to happen, organizational formal and informal voice mechanisms can effectively streamline the way for voice to emerge as a behavior. Taking all this together, it can be summarized that contemporary work organizations recognize the viability of employee voice behavior, and a well-designed voice strategy draws a clear line of sight, which not only benefits the organization but also the employees. Analyzing voice research in such detail, we specifically designed this chapter based on an overall overview of existing research on voice behavior. The structure we follow in this chapter will first include a brief account of historical developments representing evolution of the concept, followed by taking in-depth insights from the past research on voice behavior, integrating analysis of empirical evidence from different theoretical perspectives from the West and Pakistan. We will finally propose areas that will benefit researchers in their future endeavors.

Conceptual Evolution of Employee Voice

The term “voice” was first brought to light by Hirschman (1970). At that time, Hirschman attributed the concept as an alternative to the exit behavior (Kaufman, 2020, p. 27). In other words, Hirschman considered the concept of voice to be related to a kind of transformation rather than reflecting an escape from an inevitable situation (Wilkinson & Fay, 2011). Since then, phenomenon of voice kept evolving in terms of conceptual clarification and reaches the point where it stands today. Barry and Wilkinson (2022) have further clarified on this. The authors argue that though there can be found much research on employee voice behavior in the three different domains, that is, Human Resource Management (HRM), Organizational Behavior (OB), and Industry Relation (IR), the research on employee voice still exists in silos.

Every single domain has examined employee voice from own perspective and consequently, with some commonalities, there lies many differences with respect to the meaning assigned to the phenomenon of voice behavior. From this, it can be said that there is a need to integrate the three streams together so a bigger picture of voice can be emerged. For a better understanding with the phenomenon of employee voice, Akhtar et al. (2016) emphasized that voice is one of the important dimensions related to EVLN typology offered by Hirschman (widely known as exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect framework). These behaviors are defined as responses to dissatisfaction that employees experience in a normal or unusual manner. Explaining this further, Townsend et al. (2022) highlighted that either the employee finds it more appropriate to end their employment journey (referred as an exit strategy) or they are more interested in changing the situation through their voice inputs. While on occasion, employees believe in their loyalty to the employer and look forward to a prosperous time in near future or else as a last option, they disengage themselves from the situation. In other words, employees may begin to ignore the situation altogether. Taking the literature to the next level, eminent authors have described several meanings of the concept of employee voice behavior. For example, Morrison et al. (2011) have viewed the voice as a key employee behavior that contains various kinds of concerns, suggestions as well as relevant opinions, which contributes in a way to organization performance. In particular, Van Dyne and LePine (1998) reckon voice behavior as an integral part of employee self-initiated behavior, that is, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Likewise, de Azevedo et al. (2020) say that voice leads employees to go an extra mile and channelize them to take on “extra-role behavior.” However, all these authors have viewed voice as risk-taking behavior as employee often face many challenges in disrupting status quo prevailing in the organization, such as raising voice might be unfavorable for overall performance evaluation of the employee (Burris, 2012).

Contrarily, other authors have laid relatively more emphasis on the conceptual overlapping of the construct with other concepts. Take, for instance, Ng and Feldman (2012) where authors have marked voice as different concept to “civic virtue” as well as “taking charge” in certain conditions and Chaudhry et al. (2021) in which authors have linked voice mainly to the organizational unions enabling employees providing inputs and benefiting the process of decision-making. Another meaningful effort can also be witnessed by Elbaz et al. (2022). The authors have taken interesting insights from the hospitality industry to examine if employee voice can predict important proximal and distant outcomes. In doing so, they have explored that employee voice comes out as the antecedent for grievance handling styles and whether these styles enact the intervening role between job satisfaction and outcomes like intention to leave. They further elaborate on that if employees’ grievances are well handled, they would be less thinking about leaving their positions. More recently, taking a different line, Kao et al. (2021) have uncovered the role of psychological needs creating an indirect impact on employee voice behavior. The authors highlighted the significance of psychological needs in terms of job autonomy and whether this leads employees to higher motivational level at work. Since employees get fully engaged with their work, they will finally contribute back to the organization through their voice inputs.

Employee Voice from Different Perspectives

Authors have conveyed continuously new insights to familiarize us with the phenomenon of voice behavior taking various perspectives. Morrison (2014), for instance, views voice as a behavior that enables employees to make suggestions (called promotive voice) and thus identify workplace issues (called prohibitive voice). Along with this, in a recent meta-analysis of past findings, Chamberlin et al. (2017) further elaborate on these two types of voice behaviors. Chamberline and coauthors have emphasized that although the prohibitive voice is equally important, and even a strong predictor of organizational innovation (Shin et al. 2022), the promotive voice as compared to the prohibitive voice is recognized more favorably by others. Advancing the literature further, Song et al. (2021) have considered this behavior as the approach that reflects the level of employee engagement within the organization. Rather more recently, Ng et al. (2021) have theorized voice behavior based on social-relational context. Given that raising a constructive voice can bring undesirable conditions for the voicer, it will surely attract more respect from others such as the voice recipients. However, to achieve this level, leaders are the ones who can provide sufficient support to their employees through the process of voice endorsement (Liao et al., 2021). However, it has been noted by Sax and Torp (2015) in their study findings that a safe voice culture is the precondition for the leadership such as participative leadership.

Just like constructive voice behavior, scholars have also identified the other types of employee voice behavior. Take, for instance, Joseph and Shetty (2022), where the authors outline three types of voice behavior, that is, acquiescent, defensive, and prosocial employee voice. Firstly, acquiescent voice though not very active in nature relies on how employee perceives the situation. In the second place, defensive voice as the name implies is more relevant to save oneself when confronting the odd situations. Whereas prosocial voice unlike the defensive voice originates to benefit others. In employee’s opinion, they should share their thoughts or ideas and collaborate with others to induce improvements to the work processes. In other words, it becomes clear that employee voice behavior evolves depending on the situation and environmental cues that employee often receives. If the employees identify situations in their favor, they will think it is novel to transmit their suggestions, ideas, or opinions. In short, employee voice should be perceived as a well-conceived strategy that can make meaningful contributions and add value addition to the work processes. Similarly, extending the literature further, Soltani et al. (2018) capture the two most integral characteristics of voice behavior. The first pertains to the participative management, whereas the second is pertinent to managing employees’ grievances.

Zhu et al. (2022) citing past research emphasized that employees are sometimes unwilling to express their views in front of others. This might be due to the reason that voicing might be felt as a risk-taking activity (Liu et al., 2022). Undoubtedly, it is much evident that although the concept of voice has been viewed as a risk-taking behavior, yet it can produce desirable and enticing outcomes. This might be possible only if leaders as well as the managers play their decisive role in creating voice mechanisms at different levels in the organization. Otherwise, employees will feel less privileged and never think over to push their boundaries. However, it must be well understood that employee voice is a multifaceted phenomenon, and the past research also reveals that every scholar has conceptualized this behavior in certain conditions. Thus, it is viable at this point to also discuss the level of organization at which the voice can emerge more often. Recently, Townsend et al. (2022) made this effort. The authors have aligned their focus on employee voice pathways. In doing so, they have revealed that voice exists at multiple level inside and outside the organization. Citing the past research, Townsend et al. (2022) have highlighted that voice operates at different levels such as societal, departmental, and individual level in the organization. When broadly speaking, these levels can also be termed as macro, meso, and individual level. Referring to the voice mechanism, authors also discuss about the informal and formal nature of voice behavior making it more a complex phenomenon. They say that employees who really care about the organization might use informal voice mechanism rather than getting more formal in their approach. Getting this altogether and keeping in view the significance of various types of voice behaviors, the voice mechanisms, and external influences, the authors put emphasis on future research explaining the impact of IT and how it might predict “employee voice pathways” (p. 299). In the same way, taking a departure from past research, Duan et al. (2022) convey that constructive voice behavior characterized by its proactive nature can benefit the organization in the presence of the leaders’ consultation and engagement shown at work.

Carnevale et al. (2017) also touched upon the usefulness of voice behavior in their meta-analysis. They have provided enough support to draw a relationship between leader-member exchange and voice behavior together with other meaningful outcomes such as creativity and innovation. There is also found paucity of research on voice from social media perspective. For example, according to Holland et al. (2016), employee voice should be catered using social media. The authors argue that social media presents a better platform for the employees in the absence of unions. In their view, this will not only assist employees to express themselves but also help them in getting them more engaged with their job tasks. In line of this argument, authors have emphasized on the use of social media as a medium to foster employee voice. By taking help from the voice channel, employees are not only able to cope with different situations but also find many opportunities in the environment. Thus, we may infer from the discussion that the use of various modern channels like social media platforms benefits employees and the organization alike in many ways. Apart from that, it is also worth considering highlighting the absence of voice behavior, which is viewed more as a silent behavior. According to Morrison (2011), silence can be understood as the suppression of essential communication or useful suggestions from others, deemed feasible to resolve many work-related issues. However, it is noted that research on silence seems compromised (Nechanska et al., 2020). Therefore, to bridge that gap in extant literature, Sherf et al. (2021) have differentiated voice and silence behavior. In their perspective, the unsettled discussion makes it understandable that voice and silence are distinct from each other and may bring different contributions to the organizational outcomes. However, linking voice and silence to plausible antecedents and intended effects should be examined through the behavioral activation system (BAS) and behavioral inhibition system (BIS). BAS configures voice while BIS is related to silence (Sherf et al., 2021).

Continuing the discussion up to this point, it is also important to address the effectiveness of voice behavior. Various scholars have been constantly arguing in the relevance of the effectiveness of voice behavior but could hardly identify what it means by effectiveness. This can be figured out on the basis that a large stream of research has consolidated its finding on the quantity not the quality basis of the voice behavior. Only a few attempts can be seen in this regard. For example, Whiting et al. (2012) have explained this situation in the organizational setting. They argue that the voice if fails to provide feasible solutions will be considered ineffective and least desired by the managers. Taking this to a further extent, Brykman and Raver (2021) have made a remarkable attempt to increase our knowledge of the phenomenon of voice quality. Their arguments are based on the premise that not the voice, rather quality voice can make a difference that organizations can benefit from. According to the authors, quality can ideally be assessed if it has rationality, feasibility, novelty, and mainly the organizational focus with it. After reviewing voice research from the multiple contexts, the following section will provide more insights specifically on how voice research has emerged in Pakistan.

Insights from Pakistan

With all debates on voice where many decades have now gone, there still exist many voids in terms of theoretical and empirical explanations to understand what we should exactly mean by employee voice and what are the various mechanisms related to it (Park & Nawakitphaitoon, 2018). This will allow us to figure out the current state of knowledge on employee voice with acute emphasis on employment context of Pakistan and directing key areas for future research. It will be interesting to observe that phenomenon in underdeveloped countries like Pakistan where empowered employees use different channels depending upon the intended purpose that urge them in choosing this change-oriented behavior. However, it can be difficult to assume that every employee finds equal opportunity to raising the voice, which might, otherwise, benefit the organization. To account for all that, organizations strive to implement various policies, such as whistleblowing, complaint management, grievances redressal, and so on, to protect the rights of employees (e.g., Barry & Wilkinson, 2016). Even in the presence of these mechanisms, employees are unable to solve organizational problems for several reasons that should be explored further. Scholars have conceptualized voice through an entirely different perspective specifically in the context of Pakistan. In this view, we will holistically review novel theoretical contributions to voice research specifically from the employment context of Pakistan.

Sensemaking Perspective

Akhtar et al. (2016), making a key contribution to the mainstream research on voice, have viewed voice behavior from a sensemaking perspective. Akhtar and coauthors tested the stated hypotheses through questionnaires administered to nonmanagerial employees of major banking corporations in Pakistan. The study findings support and confirm that frequent changes happening to the organization and impact of changes have indirect relationship with employee voice. Interestingly, the evidence suggests that impact of change unlike frequency of change has caused direct variance in employee voice behavior in the presence of successful change in the past. Adding further to this, the authors have talked about prohibitive and promotive voices, which can be duly influenced by the fulfillment of psychological contract viewed from the social exchange viewpoint. They also invite keen attention of scholars to make a fine-tuned analysis of employee perception when major organizational changes are to be implemented. Researchers in future might ideally align their interest to identify other potential antecedents of change such as “organizational change determinants” that can possibly provide alternative explanation with respect to employees-related outcomes (Akhtar et al., 2016, p. 555).

Multiple Theoretical Lens to Capture Voice in Pakistan

Taking insights about employee voice behavior from Pakistani work context, another contribution we found is made by Rubbab et al. (2022). The authors have highlighted usefulness of voice behavior in the teaching profession. Based on the explanation provided by proactive behavior theory, they argue that leadership-level factors make it convenient for employees to speak. Importantly, the study identified interactional effects of voice climate that encourages teachers to provide their valuable contribution. Simply, authors have explained how teachers’ voice behavior get changed due to various reasons such as supervisory delegation, which appeared as a major antecedent to the employee extra-role behavior (i.e., voice). On the other side, Hasan and Kashif (2021) have chosen the frontline employees in various banks of Pakistan. While embedding the arguments within two theories simultaneously, that is, theory of planned behavior (TBP) and theory of reasoned actions (TRA), the evidence supports that psychological mechanisms such as psychological empowerment and psychological safety can make employees converge to psychological well-being. The relationships should be viewed in the presence of intervening role of promotive voice behavior. However, results have not been found favorable in case of psychological empowerment. Moving ahead, another novel contribution in Pakistan context can be attributed to Ilyas et al. (2021). In the time-lagged study, the authors present their argument on the theory of transformational leadership and support that the transformational style of leadership encourages employees to take themselves to a level where they can speak freely and more comfortably. However, this can never happen if employees are not satisfied with their jobs and feel less empowered.

Although the authors found a partially mediating role in job satisfaction and psychological empowerment, this study advances the literature on employee voice in the South Asian employment context. Whereas Shah et al. (2022) assert that if the employee’s voice is not heard, especially in the example of the healthcare sector in Pakistan, the employees may less participate in tasks that require commitment and high involvement. The situation may even force employees to think of quitting the job under stiff conditions. Therefore, to avoid these circumstances, an inclusive leadership style is more desirable, which creates a sense of psychological safety in the environment, and employees consider themselves as an integral part of the organization. On the other hand, Zhu et al. (2022) provide a fresh insight into the emerging role of ethical leadership in motivating employees to voice their concerns. However, this cannot be done without high-quality leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships and a strong sense of psychological safety in the work environment.

A large part of research in Pakistan has the focus centered on voice behavior. Given its importance, scholars have continued exploring several antecedents of voice behavior with emphasis on the kind of leadership style in the organization and quality of relationship between leader and member exchange based on LMX theory. There is a complete absence of studies that have purely focused on employee silence behavior. However, recently, Zaman et al. (2021) have captured the phenomenon of team members’ silence in the construction industry of Pakistan. It has been discussed how silence should be seen from the perspective of project management. Employees that make voice contributions provide value addition to the work process; however, those remaining silent find their interest to pursue certain tasks that only match their abilities. Citing the past research, authors provide a detailed account on employee silence behavior. They outline number of factors that appear to be the cause of employees’ silence behavior such as employees perceive less opportunities available to them sharing their ideas or any thoughts; employees find it more suitable to maintain their status of respect—otherwise, they would face embarrassment in that way; or some employees are rather not fully equipped to handle political situations. Under these circumstances, employees feel more comfortable with keeping constant silence.

The empirical evidence has provided novel findings on the relationship between employees in project teams keeping silence and complex nature of success in the projects. Specifically, authors have found negative association between silence and project success. Alongside, the study has estimated a meaningful meditating role of team member silence behavior between the leadership role in the complex projects and the mega-project success in the construction industry of Pakistan. In the same way, Bari et al. (2020) have drawn insight on employee silence from the software development industry of Pakistan. The evidence has supported the hypotheses that knowledge-hiding behavior might predict employee silence behavior. Authors have further elaborated on key dimensions of employee voice behavior such as “defensive, relational, and ineffectual silence.” Based on possible explanation from social exchange theory (SET) and conservation of resource theory (COR), the findings revealed that psychological contract breach with few exceptions explains the indirect relationship of knowledge-hiding behavior toward the employee silence behavior. Notably, the authors anticipate reverse causation between the two constructs in future research. They find it suitable to include contextual variables to explain the given relationship such as one of these variables might be “task interdependence.”

In another study, Nazir et al. (2020) have found empirical support that voice goes to an increased level if leaders extend their favorable support. Using time-lagged study design, the authors have gathered the data from multiple industries of Pakistan including healthcare, pharmaceutical, information technology, manufacturing, and companies from the financial services. Interestingly, based on the explanation offered by social exchange theory (SET) and LMX theory, the findings indicate that benevolence and moral leadership turn out as essentially important leadership styles (both referred as paternalistic leadership styles) that promote employees to provide with significant inputs, which in turn streamline ways for innovation at work. However, under certain circumstances, employee voice focused on benefiting the organization may provide a positive signal to the leadership role that organizational change is more desirable as a way forward. Unveiling opportunities for future research, authors urge to explore kinds of leadership roles and exploring ways it may impact voice as well as innovative work behavior. The other study by Rani et al. (2021) has explored two important voice behaviors such as promotive voice and prohibitive voice behavior by taking fresh insights from affective event theory. Specifically, collecting the information from micro-finance banking corporations of Pakistan, authors have reached the conclusion that paranoid arousal (e.g., discrete emotions) has been found as the underlying mechanism between leadership style and employee voice behavior. Employees with minimum opportunities to speak might converge to destructive voice behavior as well. According to the authors, this becomes more evident in situations where leadership role does not consider the enormous benefits attached to the employee voice behavior. Indicating future research areas, authors invite the attention of scholars to explore whether voice could also emerge in other SMEs-based organizations. Another line of inquiry could also be the exploration of voice behavior using a different theoretical lens such as “emotional regulation theory” as proposed by Gross (1998).

Another research by Memon and Ghani (2020) digs out explanation on how psychological contract might influence employee voice behavior with the lens of social exchange theory unlike social identity theory used in the past. Importantly, the study findings confirm that the two dimensions of psychological contract, that is, fulfillment and violation have predicted both the positive and negative sides of employee voice behavior. In order to explain the given relationships, the study has also found support for job satisfaction mediating the relationships between psychological contract and voice behavior. Speaking about the future research implications, authors seek attention from scholars to concentrate on coworkers’ perception about different personality traits of employees assisting them in many situations. Making voices heard through new channels has also attracted immense attention of the scholars in Pakistan. While integrating past literature review on voice channels, Ghani and Malik (2022) have found social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, etc.) as an effective medium for employees to roll out voice initiatives within the organization. With that, the authors have also highlighted the fallouts of using digital channels in the process of employee voice. Intriguingly, Ellmer and Reichel (2021), though not taking instances from Pakistan, have taken a different approach to looking at voice channels. The unique attributes of the digital channel, visibility of the employee, how the employee voice is perceived in the eyes of the beholder (the manager), and even more importantly, the voice climate embedded in the organizational context might affect the propensity of one to raise voice for good.

Thus, it can be inferred that research on voice is still at the infancy stage when it comes to the Asian work context, and Pakistan is not an exception. Considered as change-oriented behavior, there is less available evidence that might have identified different dimensions of voice behavior. Take, for instance, constructive voice (Kim et al., 2022). With an integrated review of the past research, we have observed that significant portion of evidence has largely come from quantitative studies embedded in various theoretical perspectives. Recognizing that employee voice is a dynamic phenomenon and when the present research also holds that in-depth and fine-grained analysis may capture voice in organizational setting, we could not find any cutting-edge qualitative research to serve this purpose. Authors have not responded yet to these emerging calls for future research when there exists ample opportunity to explore voice behavior, voice mechanisms, and its endorsement within South Asian context, especially Pakistan.

Discussion and Managerial Implications of Voice in Pakistan

Taking the holistic understanding and analysis of the previous research evidence, we are all set to provide a detailed account of voice behavior, especially in the presence of contextual meaning attributed to Pakistan’s working climate. Past research has confirmed that voice is a risky behavior to get involved in (Ng & Feldman, 2012). Employees often show courage and make conscious choice of voicing out in the form of open discussions and opinions using various conventional and emerging mediums/channels. Otherwise, those envisaging voice only as “taken-for-granted” might feel more comfortable keeping continuous silence (e.g., Knoll et al., 2021). Even so, employees in Pakistan find fewer opportunities to make valuable contribution through voice proposals. This happens because Pakistan is a complex work context. However, the work climate varies from one organization to the other. Leading organizations in Pakistan have now started to bring about change in the work process by acknowledging employees’ voices. Rather paying attention to how frequently someone is voicing out which seldom gets attraction from others, it will be more important if employees raise quality voice that can fully benefit the organization (see Brykman & Raver, 2021).

Since there are limited studies available on voice behavior in developing countries like Pakistan, the scholars should respond to various emerging calls for future research that can ease the conditions for employees to speak up. Take, for instance, Wilkinson et al. (2020) in which the authors have classified the notion of voice from different lenses used in the domains of organizational behavior (OB)/industrial relation (IR) considering the assumptions these domains hold. Keeping in view the difference in ways to see voice as a behavior, the authors stress upon the need to bring the fields together that will surely enable employees that they can give their valuable inputs. However, it will be worth considering to know that this cannot be made out in silos. We have also noted that employees often come across difficulties on their way to transmit their voice. Therefore, apart from the trickle-down effects on voice behavior (e.g., Zhang et al., 2019), it will be high time to assess how employees thrive in their work by identifying trickle-up and trickle-around (see, Wo et al., 2019).

In line of this argument, challenging the widely held assumptions related to voice and inertia can make it almost difficult for employees to embrace this behavior. The reason might be so that it might get their public image at stake (Lee et al., 2021). To avoid this situation, the decisive role of leaders and managers can enable connecting various dots together. As the past research has also indicated, sometimes a safe voice culture can bring the difference. This will happen if employees perceive psychological safety in the work climate, which will then induce participative style of leadership at the workplace. A manager should acknowledge the concerns of the employee (either through the indirect mechanism of labor unions, e.g., Della Torre et al., 2021) in order to develop the organization in the current disruptive era. Similarly, there exists also another potential opportunity to reach this end. That, the supervisors should make every possible effort to guide the employees and provide enough and fair support to resolve their family issues, which will eventually help organizational functioning streamlined (Yin et al., 2021). Keeping all that in consideration, employers should make actionable plans to safeguard major interests of the employees. That will certainly give a boost to the employees in dealing with the odd situations in their work setting. As a result, employees will feel at ease to bring new insights to their line managers with the intentions to improve work processes.

Apart from this, practitioners should continuously seek opportunities to provide ongoing and timely feedback for every single initiative proposed by the employees. In the same way, Deng (2022) also calls for research to examine whether the link between communication visibility and employee voice can be developed considering various work contexts. As a matter of fact, it is the sole responsibility of the employer to protect the self-interest of the employees that may be sound more applicable and considered as a way forward. Following this, emphasis should be placed on the collective efforts of the stakeholders enabling a conducive work environment. This will allow employees to bring novel approaches through their voice contribution helping organization to achieve innovative and competitive goals. Certainly, in other words, it will benefit organizations incurring no extra costs, which are usually spent while introducing new work systems. With this, a well-integrated focus on welcoming employee suggestions helps organization grow much faster. Knowing numerous benefits of employee voice within the organizations, it might be a point of concern for practitioners that voice should serve the intended benefits. This can only happen if employees stay relevant and present their ideas, suggestions, and thoughts in most effective and unified way. This is also visible through empirical evidence that managers are favorable to promotive voice in comparison to prohibitive voice behavior because of its futuristic approach. Even in the case of voice endorsement, it has been assessed that only those voices are recognized that are not only aligned with manager foci but also avoid any kind of emotional inducement. We may also go back to the idea presented by Brykman and Raver (2021) in their seminal work on voice quality.

In conducting multiple studies simultaneously, authors assert that employee voice should reflect concrete evidence having emphasis on unique organizational focus and novelty to make an idea workable for everyone in the organization. Although it can be illustrated from the research that voice behavior seems crucial for the organization, we should also stay ready to acknowledge the absence of voice behavior. Scholars realize that employee silence can be detrimental if efforts are not channelized to curb it. Like voice behavior, employee silence can take many forms depending on the intentions. Empirical evidence suggests that silence can be eliminated if organization offers safe environment to the employees. Apart from the managerial support in this regard, the role of leadership becomes critically important creating an enabling climate for all to freely share their thoughts, attractive ideas, and valuable suggestions.

Conclusion

Employee voice is a multidimensional construct, and a large body of research goes a long way to provide a fine-grained analysis of employee behavior based on this change-oriented behavior. However, less research has been available in the context of developing countries, and particularly in Pakistan, which presents a unique employment context for organizations. We have noticed not many studies that have changed people’s perception about employee voice. This can be envisioned as an emerging line of inquiry in the Pakistani work context as well. By integrating the previous research from different theoretical perspectives, we hope that this research will help future researchers to examine key dimensions of employee voice behavior and investigate what could be the various antecedents and consequences of employee voice. It will be interesting to see under what conditions voice as a strategy can benefit organizational efforts to achieve success.