In this section, the research framework, hypotheses, sample, data collection, measurement and questionnaire design will be introduced.
Research Framework
The present study proposed Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) as the independent variable, while Employee Voice Behavior acted as the dependent variable. Psychological Safety acted as the mediator on the relationship between LMX and employee behavior, and Gender served as moderator on the relationship between LMX and Employee Voice Behavior. The research framework is shown in Figure 3.1.
Figure 3.1 Research framework
Leader-Member Exchange Employee Voice Behavior
Gender H1
H3
Control Variables
Age
Level of Education
Job Tenure Psychological Safety
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Research Hypotheses
Based on the objective of this study, the following hypotheses were proposed:
Hypothesis 1. Leader-Member Exchange is related to Employee Voice Behavior.
Hypothesis 2. Psychological Safety mediates the relationship between Leader-Member Exchange and Employee Voice Behavior.
Hypothesis 3. Gender moderates the relationship between Leader-Member Exchange and Employee Voice Behavior such that this relationship is stronger when employees are male than when they are female.
Research Sample
The target sample for this study were private organization employees in the areas of Finance, Customer Service, and Sales in different organizations in El Salvador, with the only requirements of holding a position in any of those areas previously mentioned and being employees in a private organization in which they have to report to another employee in a higher position. One of the key factors that influence an organization’s success depends on how much employees are willing to perform Employee Voice Behavior. Many studies have shown that Employee Voice Behavior is positively related to innovation (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998; Scott & Bruce, 1994), employee commitment (Hirschman, 1970), collective learning (Detert & Burris, 2007; Morrison & Milliken, 2000), higher employee retention (Spencer, 1986), among many others that will benefit for the organization’s overall success.
This study focused on the private sector only, taking as a sample at least 6 private organizations in the service area, this organizations were selected to provide a representation of the private sector in El Salvador. This population was chosen because of the interest in examining how this sample engaged in Employee Voice Behavior depending on the quality of relationships with leaders in a developing country.
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Data Collection
For this study data was collected by supplying an online self-administered questionnaire.
Such questionnaire consisted of selected items from scales that measure the four selected variables:
Leader-Member Exchange, Employee Voice Behavior, and Psychological Safety. The sample was comprised from at least 6 private enterprises in El Salvador, Salvadorans working in the private sector in the areas of finance, customer service, and/or sales were surveyed. The sampling approaches for this study were snowball and convenience sampling.
After the final revision of the questionnaire, the researcher developed an online-based questionnaire using Google Forms. Later, the researcher contacted through email a list of managers from different organizations and asked them to distribute the link of the questionnaire through the intranet in each of their organizations. Participants received an email with the link of the questionnaire asking for their collaboration with the study. Also, included in the email there was a note that asked participants to share the questionnaire’s link with their own contacts.
In addition, social media was used to reach more participants. The researcher used Facebook private messages to send the link to more employees who met the required criteria to participate in the study. As well, participants were asked to pass down the link to more people that they had in their list of contacts. The responses from the questionnaire were received by the researcher through the Google Form document and then directly transferred to SPSS 23.0 to be analyzed.
This study obtained a total of 200 valid responses, divided as follows: 100 female employees’
responses and 100 male employees’ responses. The responses were collected between March 11th and April 27th, 2019.
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Research Procedure
Figure 3.2. Research Framework provides a general description of the process that this study went through.
Figure 3.2. Research procedure
After a series of brainstorming sessions, review of several past studies, and discussions with assigned advisor, a research topic was developed. After reviewing the most important literature on the chosen topic, the research background, purpose, and questions were developed. Researcher kept continuously reading articles related to the chosen variables to gain more background knowledge and drawn the respective hypotheses to be studied. Later, it was ensured that the generalizability and validation of the measurement scales chosen were a perfect fit for the current study. To guarantee the internal reliability of the data, it was essential to conduct a pilot test prior to the main study.
Applicable for both pilot test and main study. Researcher conducted a quantitative study. An online self-administered questionnaire was developed. After finalizing the data collection process, in both cases: pilot and main study, the statistical software SPSS 23.0 was used to analyze the collected data; descriptive data, correlation and hierarchical regression analysis were carried out.
Research Topic Development
Research Background, Purpose, and Question Development
Literature Review
Measurement Selection
Conduct Pilot Test
Main Study Collection and Data Analysis Present Findings, Conclusion, and Future Suggestions
Collect and Analyze Data
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Lastly, the results and the literature review were discussed with the main goal of reporting the findings, finally conclude the study and provide future suggestions.
Questionnaire Design
This questionnaire used scales originally developed in English with stablished validity and reliability; it comprised five parts measuring three variables of research interest: Leader-Member Exchange, Employee Voice Behavior, and Psychological Safety. Part one consisted of two screening questions that read as follow: Do you work in a private organization? and, Do you work in the Finance/ Customer Service/ Sales department? Part two asks questions regarding demographic information (age, gender, level of education, and job tenure). Part three consisted of 7 questions measuring the independent variable, Leader-Member Exchange. Part four consisted of 7 questions measuring the dependent variable, Employee Voice Behavior. Lastly part five, consisted of 21 item questions measuring Psychological Safety. In total, the questionnaire consisted of 35 items to measure the three variables.
Since the targeted population came from employees in El Salvador, all the questions were translated into Spanish. Spanish is the official language spoken in El Salvador. For this process, two professionals were asked to review the questionnaire. First, a native Spanish speaker professional with an English degree translated all the questions from English to Spanish. Later, a Finance professional with advanced English knowledge reviewed the questions to guarantee all items were adequate to measure what it was intended and were coordinated with the initial meaning of the questions in English. Lastly, the researcher reviewed all the questions before sending out the questionnaire to be filled.
Measurement
The following measurement scales were selected for each variable.
Leader-Member Exchange
The instrument that was used to measure subordinates’ perception of Leader-Member Exchange is the 5-point Likert scale LMX-7 developed by Graen and Uhl-Bien in 1995. This scale consists of 7 items that measure 3 different dimensions: respect, trust, and obligation. Internal
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consistency reliability alpha for this measurement is 0.92. Participants responded according to each question. For instance, when the participant was asked “How well does your leader understand your job problems and needs?” the participant’s answer ranged from “Not a bit (1)” to “A great deal (5)”. Other sample questions were, “How well does your leader recognize your potential?”, and “How would you characterize your working relationship with your leader?”
Employee Voice Behavior
Employee Voice Behavior was measured by Vakola and Bouradas (2005) 7-item scale. It is a 5-point Likert Scale in which participants responded from 1 = never to 5 = always. Participants were ask how often and how easily they express their disagreements concerning “company issues, department’s issues, their job, issues related to job satisfaction such as salary, working conditions, etc”. Cronbach Alpha value of this measurement is 0.87. Although this instrument is originally meant to measure silence behavior, Nikolaou, Vakola and Bouradas (2008) used it to measure Employee Voice Behavior.
Psychological Safety
The instrument that was used to measure Psychological Safety is based on Brown and Leigh (1996) scale. This scale has a total of 21 items and it consist of 6 subscales: supportive management, role-clarity, contribution, recognition, and self-expression, and challenge. Some sample items were: “management makes it perfectly clear how my job is to be done”, and “doing my job well really makes a difference”. This scale has a 0.84 reliability.
Gender
Individuals have different motives to communicate with others. Regarding Gender, demographic questions distinguished employees into group 1 = male and group 2 = female, for better analysis.
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Control Variables
Taking into consideration previous studies on Employee Voice Behavior, this study included three demographic variables as control variables: level of education, age, and job tenure. Level of education may influence employees’ willingness to engage in Employee Voice Behavior (Janssen
& Gao, 2015). Ng and Feldman (2009) indicated that age should also be taken into consideration;
older individuals may behave differently than younger individuals. Lastly, Stamper and Van Dyne (2011) argued that employees that have been working for a longer time in an organization may feel more comfortable engaging in Employee Voice Behavior. Therefore, this study considered the period each employee has been working in the current organization, job tenure.
Pilot Test
The main objectives of conducting a pilot test are to have a better understanding of the sample population’s characteristics, to make sure the measurement being used is reliable, and to analyze the relationship among variables. For this pilot test, the data collected came from Salvadoran employees working in the private sector, with job positions in the areas of either finance, customer service, or sales. The sample size consisted of 40 employees and the data collection period lasted for one week using convenience and snowball sampling approach by distributing an online questionnaire consisting of 35 questions, demographic questions, plus screening questions.
Table 3.1 presents the demographic information of the sample population. For this study, 20 participants were male (50%) and the other 20 were female employees (50%). 19 respondents fell into the category of 25-34 years of age (47.5%) and 7 fell on the category of 18-24 years of age (17.5%), being the two highest percentages of the total population. In regards to level of education, 29 participants (72.5%) reported to have a bachelor’s degree as their highest level of education, and 9 participants (22.5%) reported to have a master’s degree as their highest level of education.
Lastly, 15 of the 20 participants (37.5%) reported to have been working at the same organization for 5 or more than 5 years, and 10 participants (25%) reported to have between 1-2 years of job tenure in the same organization.
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Table 3.2 indicates the means, standard deviations, the correlations among variables, and the Cronbach’s Alpha values of each variable. Pearson’s Correlation Analysis and Reliability Analysis were carried out to have a better understanding of the correlations among variables and to confirm the reliability of the instrument being used to measure the mentioned variables. After conducting the reliability analysis, the Cronbach’s Alpha value for each variable were as follows: Leader-Member Exchange with .90, Employee Voice Behavior with .93, and Psychological Safety with .92. A Cronbach’s Alpha above .70 is considered acceptable.
Lastly, after conducting Pearson’s Correlation Analysis, it was found that all the variables had a positive significant correlation to each other. Leader-Member Exchange was positively correlated to Employee Voice Behavior (r= .64, p< .01), and Psychological Safety (r= .62, p< .01).
Employee Voice Behavior was positively correlated to Psychological Safety (r= .76, p< .01).
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Descriptive Statistics for Pilot Test (N=40)
Item Frequency Percentage
1. Gender
Mean, Standard Deviation, Correlation and Reliability for Pilot Test (N=40)
Variable Mean S.D. 1 2 3
Note. N= 40; **p <.01.; Number in parentheses represents Cronbach’s alpha value.
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Data Analysis
IBM SPSS 23.0 was utilized to perform data analysis. Other statistical techniques such as Descriptive Analysis, Pearson’s Correlation Analysis, and Hierarchical Regression Analysis were utilized to test hypotheses.
Descriptive Analysis
This technique provided an overview regarding the percentage and frequency of the participant's demographic data. The descriptive statistics in this study included demographic information such as gender, age, education level, and job tenure of the employee in a private organization. The mean and standard deviation were used to investigate all the variables in this study including: Leader-Member Exchange, Employee Voice Behavior, Psychological Safety, and Gender.
Pearson’s Correlation Analysis
To have a better understanding of the linear relationship between two continuous variables (correlation) a Pearson’s Correlation Analysis was carried out. To display the degree of the correlation researchers adopted coefficient of correlation, Pearson’s r. In this study, correlation analysis was used to study the relationship between Leader-Member Exchange, Employee Voice Behavior, Psychological Safety, and Gender.
Hierarchical Regression Analysis
Hierarchical Regression Analysis was carried out following three steps to determine the relationship between Leader-Member Exchange, Employee Voice Behavior, Psychological Safety, and Gender. Baron and Kenny’s (1986) three-step approach was adopted to test the mediating effect of Psychological Safety. Regarding the moderating effect of Gender, the following procedure of hierarchical regression analysis was carried out. For the first model control variables were included, and then Leader-Member Exchange and Gender individually were entered in the second model. Lastly, the interaction term of Leader-Member Exchange and Gender was added in the third model.
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