When Employees Stop Talking and Start Fighting: The Detrimental Effects of Pseudo Voice in Organizations

Abstract

Many organizations offer their employees the opportunity to voice their opinions about work-related issues because of the positive consequences associated with offering such an opportunity. However, little attention has been given to the possibility that offering voice may have negative effects as well. We propose that negative consequences are particularly likely to occur when employees perceive the opportunity to voice opinions to be "pseudo voice"-voice opportunity given by managers who do not have the intention to actually consider employee input (i. e., managerial disregard). The effects of this kind of deception were examined by means of a survey among employees (N=137) and managers (N..