【学术讲座】Centralization of voice within teams: Its effects on team outcomes

Topic: Centralization of voice within teams: Its effects on team outcomes
Date & Time: 14:00-15:30, June 26th, 2018
Venue: Room 2101, Tongji Building A
Language: English
Speaker Biography

Subra Tangirala is an Associate Professor of Management & Organization. He teaches the leadership course in the MBA program. His research focuses on interpersonal communication in organizations. Specifically, he explores reasons why employees often remain silent despite having information, concerns, or suggestions to share, and what organizations can do to facilitate candid exchange of ideas at the workplace. His research has been published in journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Personnel Psychology. Tangirala received his PhD in organizational behavior and human resources from Purdue University. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked for several years as a human resources manager.

ABSTRACT
Voice, or the expression of work-related suggestions or opinions, can help teams access and utilize members’ privately held knowledge and skills and improve collective outcomes. However, recent research has suggested that sometimes, rather than encourage positive outcomes for teams, voice from members can have detrimental consequences. Extending this research, we highlight why it is important to consider voice centralization within teams, or the extent to which voice is predominantly emanating from only a few members rather than equally spread across all members. We argue that, under certain circumstances, voice centralization is harmful to the utilization of members’ expertise in the team and, thereby, to team performance. Specifically, we propose that voice centralization is likely to have negative effects when it occurs around members who are more socially dominant or are less reflective. We find support for our arguments in a sample of 78 teams (319 team members) working on graduate student projects in a business school over a semester. Overall, through our theory and results, we showcase why it is important for future studies to examine the distribution of voice among team members.