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Do not like it when you need it the most: Examining the effect of manager ego depletion on managerial voice endorsement
Author(s) -
Li Junchao Jason,
Barnes Christopher M.,
Yam Kai Chi,
Guarana Cristiano L.,
Wang Lin
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of organizational behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.938
H-Index - 177
eISSN - 1099-1379
pISSN - 0894-3796
DOI - 10.1002/job.2370
Subject(s) - ego depletion , id, ego and super ego , psychology , voice , perspective (graphical) , cognitive resource theory , social psychology , cognition , employee voice , status quo , self control , economics , computer science , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , market economy , speech recognition
Summary This paper advances the understanding of managerial voice endorsement based on a self‐regulation perspective. We suggest that although managers might potentially benefit more from employees' upward voice when they are more depleted, they are paradoxically less likely to diligently process or endorse such voice under ego depletion. We draw from ego depletion theory and argue that when managers are more depleted of their self‐control resources, they will spend less cognitive effort in processing voice. In turn, they tend to reject employee voice due to status quo bias and confirmation bias. We further suggest that the detrimental effect of ego depletion on voice endorsement is stronger when the voicing employee is perceived as having low expertise. We conducted an experience sampling study surveying 62 managers about voice events they encounter at work over 10 days (Study 1) and an experiment with 198 managers (Study 2). These two studies support our hypotheses. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.