King, Danielle D2022-10-052022-10-052022-052022-04-21May 2022Phetmisy, Cassandra N. "Who Can Afford to Voice? Examining the Role of Resources in the Employee Voice Process." (2022) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/113491">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/113491</a>.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/113491Work, money, and the economy are the most common stressors for adults in the United States (APA, 2020a, 2020b), and economic declines can exacerbate the stress of maintaining employment and adequate finances. Financial stressors may highlight the importance and precarity of work—motivating employees to avoid risky behaviors, even those that may be necessary or beneficial. I specifically examined how financial stress impacts a critical, desired form of risk-taking at work: employee voice, through differential perceived riskiness of voice behavior. Grounded in Conservation of Resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989), the current study investigated how financial stress and leadership affects the extent that employees speak up (voice) or withhold their ideas (silence) at work. A sample of 268 employees and 40 supervisors responded to two online surveys. The data indicated that employees’ financial stress positively predicted their perceptions of risk for voice. Further, perceived riskiness of voice significantly predicted lower promotive voice and greater silence behaviors. I did not find robust support that LMX buffers these relationships. Exploratory analyses indicate the unique ability of financial stress and other objective income indicators to predict voice and silence. This work offers both theoretical integration and expansion to the voice and financial stress domains, as well as actionable practical implications for organizational leaders and decision-makers.application/pdfengCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.financial stressresourcesriskinessvoicesilenceleader-member exchangeThesis2022-10-05