Some findings from Dr Kevin Ruck's PhD thesis related to the association between employee voice and organisational engagement, presented at Bledcom 2016 by Kevin and his PhD supervisor Dr Mary Welch.

1. Employee voice: An antecedent
to organisational engagement?
Dr Kevin Ruck
Dr Mary Welch
University of Central Lancashire, UK

2. Introduction
• Practical inspiration for the study:
– How can internal communication managers contribute to
organisational effectiveness?
• Theoretical underpinnings:
– By influencing employee engagement?
– By enabling employee voice?
• Scholarly contributions needed?
– Gruman and Saks (2014) note that little attention has been
given to the relationship between voice and engagement
– Reissner& Pagan (2013) highlight the need for research
into relationships between communication and
engagement

3. Literature review
• Employee voice and silence
• Voice concept history stretches back centuries
• However, often depicted as starting with:
– Hirschman's 1970s consumer behaviour work on exit,
voice and loyalty
– Through Farrel's (1983) application of the concept to
employees and addition of neglect
– To Van Dyne, Ang and Botero's (2003) work on employee
silence and voice:
• Employee voice: intentionally expressing work related ideas,
information and opinions
• Employee silence: intentionally withholding work related ideas,
information and opinions

4. Conceptual framework
• Internal
communication,
dimensions include:
– Team peer, project
group, line-manager
and senior manager
communication
• Internal corporate
communication
• Employee engagement
Kahn (1990), Schaufeli and
Bakker (2004)
Saks (2006) engagement
focus
- Job engagement
• Organisation
engagement

5. Welch, 2011.

6. Methodology
• Confidential, anonymous survey strategy
• Self-administrated, cross-sectional questionnaire designed for the study
• The Internal Communication and Organisational Engagement Questionnaire
(ICOEQ)
– Employee information needs gauged
– Internal corporate communication method preferences assessed
– Internal corporate communication satisfaction measured
• Including three questions exploring employee voice, satisfaction with opportunities for
upward communication
• Views of internal communication at three levels drawn from Welch and Jackson's (2007)
internal communication matrix: senior management; line management; and, peer
communication
– Engagement indicated via adaptation of Saks (2006) organisation engagement
approach and synthesis with Kahn's (1990) view of engagement
– One item captured employee views of the organisation as a good place to work
– A qualitative section explored views on communication strengths and weaknesses
– Demographic information

7. Data collection: five organisations
Organisation Population
(approximate)
Number of
respondents
Response rate
(approximate)
Government department in
Wales
1200 276 23 percent
Local authority in England (1) 420 167 39 percent
Local authority in England (2) 900 159 16 percent
Housing Association in
England
800 205 26 percent
Financial services department
in Scotland
2400 1259 52 percent

8. Research objectives
1. How satisfied are employees with opportunities to
exercise their voice?
2. How good are line managers and senior managers
at responding to suggestions from employees?
3. To what extent might employee voice be positively
associated with organisational engagement?

9. Satisfaction with employee voice
The study found a lower level of satisfaction with ‘seeking
views’ by senior managers compared to line managers.
Organisation n Mean* SD Satisfaction**
GovOff 276 3.15 0.78 35%
CouncilA 167 3.28 0.55 39%
FinSvces 1259 3.63 0.72 59%
HousAssoc 205 3.50 0.69 59%
CouncilB 159 2.81 0.80 28%
*Opportunities to feed my views upwards: 1, very dissatisfied, 5 very satisfied.
**Percentages are 4 and 5 scores combined.

10. Responding to suggestions and allowing
influence
GovOff
SM LM
CouncA
SM LM
FinSvcs
SM LM
HousAssoc
SM LM
CouncB
SM LM
Responding to suggestions
from employees and
representatives
37 50 15 67 63 74 38 66 10 52
Allowing employees and
representatives to
influence decisions
28 45 7 58 56 68 29 56 6 39
n 276 167 1259 205 159
Notes: 1, very dissatisfied, 5 very satisfied; % is combined 4 and 5 results.
SM, Senior Manager.
LM, Line Manager.
The study found very low levels of satisfaction with senior
managers responding and allowing employees to influence
decisions in two organisations.

11. Correlation comparison of employee voice
and organisational engagement
GovOff CouncA FinSvcs HousAssoc CouncB Average
r r r r r r
Cognitive .24** .21** .39** .24** .21** .35**
Emotional .56** .44** .52** .48** .50** .53**
Behavioural .30** .27** .40** .37** .26** .37**
n 276 167 1259 205 159 2066
**Correlation is significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The average is the combined data set for all five organisations
The study consistently found stronger correlations with ‘emotional organisational
engagement’ than with cognitive and behavioural engagement.

12. Employee voice: a
possible antecedent
to organisational
engagement?
ORGANISATIONAL
ENGAGEMENT
Allowing
influence
Opportunities
for voice
Responding
to
suggestions
Conclusion

13. Or is it the
other way
round?
ORGANISATIONAL
ENGAGEMENT
Allowing
influence
Opportunities
for voice
Responding
to
suggestions

14. References
Farrell, D., 1983. Exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect as responses to job dissatisfaction: A multidimensional scaling study. Academy of
management journal, 26(4), pp.596-607.
Gruman, J.A., Saks, A. 2014. Being psychologically present when speaking up: employee voice engagement. In Wilkinson et al. (Eds)
Handbook of Research on Employee Voice, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Hirschman, A.O., 1974. " Exit, voice, and loyalty": Further reflections and a survey of recent contributions. Social Science Information,
13(1), pp.7-26.
Kahn, W.A. 1990. Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work. Academy of Management Journal.
33(4), pp.692-724.
Reissner, S. and Pagan, V., 2013. Generating employee engagement in a public–private partnership: management communication
activities and employee experiences. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(14), pp.2741-2759.
Saks, A. M. 2006 Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology. 21(7), pp.600-619.
Schaufeli, W.B. and Bakker, A.B., 2004. Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: A
multi‐sample study. Journal of organizational Behavior, 25(3), pp.293-315.
Van Dyne, L., Ang, S., Botero, I.C. 2003. Conceptualizing Employee Silence and Employee Voice as Multidimensional Constructs. Journal
of Management Studies. 40(6), pp.1359-1392.
Welch, M. 2011 The evolution of the employee engagement concept: Communication implications, Corporate Communications: An
International Journal. 16(4), pp.328-346.