When Political Skill Matters in a Global Organization: The Effects of Networking Ability and the Value of Voice in an Organization

Abstract

Given the equivocal findings pertaining to the outcomes of voice, recent attention has shifted towards the nuances of voice behavior. Recently, research suggested that supervisors evaluate both whether an employee speaks up in addition to what they speak up about. Building on this notion, we argue that reason-to motives (i.e., climate for initiative) interact with opportunity recognition capabilities or “can-do” motives (i.e., networking ability) to shape whether and what individuals speak up about. Furthermore, we extend this conversation to acknowledge that evaluations of voice should also hinge on how individuals speak up. Specifically, we suggest that individuals with heightened networking abilities will be more likely to engage in constructive and supportive voice when climate for initiative is high; in turn, more (apparently) sincere individuals engaging in such voice behaviors will be evaluated more favorably by their supervisors. Data from a diverse sample of 290 quadruples (i.e., a target employee, two coworkers, and their supervisor) for the most part provided support for these hypotheses. Implications of our findings for the voice and political skill literatures are detailed alongside the corresponding strengths and limitations of this research.