Abstract
The Handbook of Research on Employee Voice is an exemplary case of the handbook publication style and would be a valuable text in any labor studies course covering “employee voice,” or the various ways in which workers influence and express themselves in their workplace. In most cases, handbooks are encyclopedic dives into a narrow literature. Although traditional handbook has important advantages as a research reference, the Handbook of Research on Employee Voice is instead a compilation of thorough treatments of voice across a wide variety of literatures, including labor studies, labor process theory (LPT), human resources management (HRM), economics, and psychology. Each of these perspectives is represented in a chapter in Part 1. This wide variance of perspectives is maintained in Parts 2, 3, and 4 of the handbook, which address relevant actors, forms of voice, and evaluations of voice, respectively.
One immediate benefit of this diversity of perspectives is that the reader quickly realizes that “employee voice” itself is understood differently across different fields. From a labor studies perspective, voice is the articulation of individual dissatisfactions, usually facilitated by some sort of collective expression. Voice is worker expression in an environment of tension with management, but it is distinct from industrial action or other “exit” activities. However, a rich HRM and psychological literature sees voice as a more cooperative form of worker communication with managers who share an interest in productivity and fairness. The economics literature occupies a middle ground. Economists’ emphasis on equilibrium behavior leads to a conceptualization of voice as a way of balancing the demands of workers and managers. However, Freeman and Medoff’s (1984) classic economic treatment of employee voice hews closer to the labor studies perspective of voice as an essential function of unions advocating for workers in opposition to management.
The discussions of actors in Part 2 (line managers, unions, employees, etc.) and forms in Part 3 (collective bargaining, work councils, etc.) cover the most familiar territory. More groundbreaking work is presented in Part 4, which evaluates voice as it pertains to a variety of applied settings. For example, Syed (Chapter 26) notes that the standard voice mechanisms assume a homogeneous workforce, or at least do not explore how divisions within diverse workforces can hamper the voices of minority workers. After reviewing the problems raised by diversity for voice research, Syed presents several case studies of workplaces that have tailored their voice mechanisms to the diversity of their workforces. In Chapter 27, Balnave et al. explore questions that would have been inconceivable to Hirschman (1970) around how the Internet and social media have changed employee voice by furnishing new ways of expressing dissatisfaction and even facilitating organizing efforts.
The handbook’s discussion of extensions to Hirschman’s (1970) original “exit, voice, and loyalty” triad is particularly engaging, most notably Brinsfield (Chapter 8) and Culliname and Donaghey’s (Chapter 24) contributions on employee silence. Another better-known extension is the inclusion of “neglect” as an alternative to exit, voice, and loyalty (Chapter 3). Both silence and neglect are more conceptually distinct from exit, voice, or loyalty than they first appear. As Brinsfield (Chapter 8) emphasizes, silence is not simply the absence or restriction of voice, and it is often an intentional worker strategy.
The handbook’s shortcomings are limited but worth noting. Several of the chapters surveying alternative analytic perspectives in Part 1 include little actual discussion of employee voice or none at all. The chapter on industrial democracy by Foley (Chapter 5) has almost no discussion of voice and is instead an overview of forms of industrial democracy. The assumption may have been that the two are one and the same, but the effect is that the chapter contributes little added value to the handbook. The chapter on LPT by Marks and Chillas (Chapter 7) has a somewhat deeper discussion of voice than Chapter 5, but again, it is principally an overview of LPT itself.
The Handbook of Research on Employee Voice is a thoughtfully organized and well-written compendium of the most important research on employee voice. It would be a valuable contribution to any labor studies or industrial relations course covering this material.