European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480

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European Management Journal

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emj

Inclusive leadership and team innovation: The role of team voice and
performance pressure
Qingyan Ye a, *, Duanxu Wang b, Weixiao Guo c
a
Lecturer of Zhejiang Gongshang University, School of Management, Zhejiang Gongshang University, 18 Xuezheng Street, Jianggan Distract, Hangzhou,
310018, PR China
b
School of Management, Zhejiang University, PR China
c
Ning Bo University, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In today's complex and rapidly changing business environment, team innovation is increasingly critical
Received 27 February 2017 to the survival and success of organizations. Although the relevant literature highlights the importance of
Received in revised form leadership in team innovation, previous studies have mainly focused on transformational leadership and
8 January 2019
have yielded inconsistent results. To address this void, this study integrates the goal-setting theory into
Accepted 24 January 2019
Available online 25 January 2019
the input-process-output framework and proposes a moderated mediation model to examine the rela-
tionship between inclusive leadership and team innovation. The results of hierarchical regression
analysis from two survey-based field studies in China demonstrated that team voice mediated the
Keywords:
Inclusive leadership
relationship between inclusive leadership and team innovation and performance pressure moderated
Team innovation the direct relationship between inclusive leadership and team voice as well as the indirect relationship
Team voice between inclusive leadership and team innovation via team voice such that the relationships were
Performance pressure stronger when performance pressure was high.
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Innovation has long been recognized as crucial for organiza-
tional survival and success (Amabile, 1988; Jiang & Chen, 2018;
Zacher & Rosing, 2015). Although innovation at the individual
and firm level has received a great deal of attention in the extant
literature (Chen, Zheng, Yang, & Bai, 2016; Damanpour & Schneider,
2006; Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009), the number of studies exam-
ining team-level innovation is rather small (Eisenbeiss, van
Knippenberg, & Boerner, 2008; Tang & Naumann, 2016). This is
unfortunate because “teams can be hotbeds of creativity and
innovation” (Pirola-Merlo & Mann, 2004, p. 255), and in the face of
today's complex, dynamic, and competitive business environments,
organizations are increasingly relying on teams as their primary
building blocks for achieving innovation and delivering superior
outcomes (Eisenbeiss et al., 2008; Lyubovnikova, Legood, Turner, &
Mamakouka, 2017). It is, therefore, not surprising that fostering and
enhancing innovation in teams has recently emerged as an espe-
cially important topic in theory and practice (Jiang & Chen, 2018;
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: tina3521@hotmail.com (Q. Ye).
Rosing, Frese, & Bausch, 2011; Tang & Naumann, 2016).
Given its emphasis on inspiration, change, and creativity,
transformational leadership attracts the most attention in the
innovation literature and has been discussed and conceptualized as
a driver for team innovation (Jiang & Chen, 2018; Keller, 2006).
However, despite the strong theoretical argument, empirical
studies on the relationship between transformational leadership
and team innovation yielded mixed results (e.g., Jaussi & Dionne,
2003; Li, Mitchell, & Boyle, 2016). A meta-analysis also confirmed
a high degree of variation in the relationship between trans-
formational leadership and team innovation (Rosing et al., 2011).
One explanation for these contradictory results may be that
transformational leadership is a multifaceted construct that en-
compasses a multitude of behaviors that might both foster and
hinder team innovation (Bass & Riggio, 2006; Kark, Shamir, & Chen,
2003). Specifically, whereas transformational leaders set up an
expectation of being creative, they also increase employees' de-
pendency on the leader, thereby making employees more passive
and less proactive and reducing their willingness to engage in
proactive behaviors such as innovation (Kark et al., 2003; Li et al.,
2016). In this regard, transformational leadership is likely to be a
kind of ‘‘double-edged sword’’ with respect to team innovation.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2019.01.006
0263-2373/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480
Consequently, some scholars concluded that transformational
leadership is too broad in nature to specifically promote team
innovation and advocated for a more precise model of leadership
for team innovation (Han, Luo, & Zhong, 2016; Rosing et al., 2011;
Zacher & Rosing, 2015). Therefore, the first aim of this study is to
address this important yet relatively understudied issue by moving
beyond the study of transformational leadership and examining the
effect of a more specific form of leadership style, namely inclusive
leadership, on team innovation. Inclusive leadership is described as
leaders who exhibit openness, accessibility, and availability in their
interactions with employees (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006) and
is a leadership that emphasizes participative and open leader be-
haviors (Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon, & Ziv, 2010). This participative and
openness behaviors send clear signal that innovation is welcome
and appreciated (Hollander, 2009). Therefore, compared to trans-
formational leadership, inclusive leadership may be a more sub-
stantive and promising leadership that is directly and consistently
conducive to team innovation.
In addition, recent theories of team innovation highlighted the
importance of team processes in team innovation and suggested
that the study of team innovation would be incomplete without
understanding related team processes (Hülsheger, Anderson, &
Salgado, 2009; Jiang & Chen, 2018; Lyubovnikova et al., 2017).
However, to the best of our knowledge, such team processes un-
derlying the effects of leadership on team innovation have not been
clearly articulated (Kearney & Gebert, 2009; Tang & Naumann,
2016). Therefore, based on input-process-output framework, the
second aim of this study is to explicate how inclusive leadership
impacts team innovation. Specifically, we predict that team voice,
which is defined as the extent to which members of a team make
constructive suggestions for improvement, share new ideas, and
discuss problems or potential problems (Walumbwa, Morrison, &
Christensen, 2012), serves as a vital team process that transmits
inclusive leadership to team innovation.
Moreover, theories such as contingency theory (Fiedler, 1971)
and situational leadership theory (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969) share
the premise that leadership is a social construct that cannot be fully
understood in isolation from the context in which it resides.
Therefore, to derive reliable conclusions, this study further exam-
ines whether performance pressure modifies the impact of inclu-
sive relationship on team voice and team innovation based on the
goal-setting theory. Performance pressure, which is defined as an
externally imposed set of factors that increases the importance and
demands for a team to deliver superior collective outcomes
(Gardner, 2012), is pervasive and almost inevitable in today's
competitive and fast-paced organizational environments and has
been shown to significantly affect organizational behaviors
(Eisenberger & Aselage, 2009; Zhang, Jex, Peng, & Wang, 2016).
Identifying such a contextual factor in the research on inclusive
leadership is particularly critical for the comprehensive under-
standing of its effectiveness.
To summarize, the central purpose of the present study is to
conceptually clarify and empirically examine the core questions on
whether, how, and when inclusive leadership is related to team
innovation. By proposing and testing a moderated mediation model
of the relationship between inclusive leadership and team inno-
vation which incorporates team voice as a mediator and perfor-
mance pressure as a moderator (see Fig. 1), this study is intended to
extend the existing literature in several ways. First, by departing
from the previous common scholarly practice of treating trans-
formational leadership as a dominant antecedent of team innova-
tion and focusing instead on exploring the predictive power of
inclusive leadership for team innovation, this study contributes to
the development and refinement of extant literature on the rela-
tionship between leadership and team innovation and answers the
469
calls for deeper examination of leader inclusiveness in organiza-
tions (Carmeli et al., 2010; Uhl-Bien, 2006). Second, by drawing on
input-process-output framework, this study is unique in opening
the black box underlying the relationship between inclusive lead-
ership and team innovation from team voice perspective. This focus
on the role of inclusive leadership in developing distinct team
processes that facilitate innovation responds to recent calls for
more research to facilitate a better understanding of the integrative
processes that emanate from leadership and lead to effective
innovative performance (Jiang & Chen, 2018; Rosing et al., 2011). In
addition, by specifying team voice as an important team-level
mediating mechanism through which inclusive leadership pro-
motes team innovation, this study enriches the emerging research
stream on the importance of voice behavior at the team level and
advances our knowledge about the antecedents and consequences
of team voice. Third, by integrating the goal-setting theory into the
input-process-output framework and conceptualizing performance
pressure as a significant situational factor in the model, this study
addresses the important question of when inclusive leadership
matters more and enriches the prior inclusive leadership research
that has largely neglected the analysis of moderators.
2. Theoretical background and hypotheses development
2.1. Inclusive leadership and team innovation
Team innovation is defined as the generation and imple-
mentation of novel ideas, procedures, or processes within a team,
which are useful to the team (West, 1990). It is a complex process
that does not simply occur but that requires the commitment of key
and strategic resources (Martins & Terblanche, 2003), as well as the
autonomy for idea generation and creative problem solving (Zhou,
1998). Therefore, the degree of support and encouragement a
leader provides to team members to take initiative and explore
innovative solutions is likely to influence the degree of actual team
innovation (Jiang & Chen, 2018; Martins & Terblanche, 2003;
Zacher & Rosing, 2015). Inclusive leaders perceive their role in
terms of support and assistance as opposed command and control,
and offer team members the necessary resources, freedom, inde-
pendence, and discretion to perform their work (Carmeli et al.,
2010; Hollander, 2009); therefore, inclusive leaders can signifi-
cantly improve team innovation. In addition, inclusive leaders are
crucial for creating an innovative team because they can increase
the inherent motivation of team members by showing concern
about the interests, expectations, and feelings of team members
and by being available and accessible to team members' needs for
achievement, development, and growth (Carmeli et al., 2010;
Hollander, 2009). At the same time, as a kind of relational leader-
ship, inclusive leadership is effective for the development of strong
emotional links and interpersonal relationships with team mem-
bers by practicing socio-emotional support behaviors (Hollander,
2009). This emotional attachment and high-quality exchange re-
lationships may be another innovative-enhancing force in teams
(Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002; Zhou & George, 2003).
Moreover, as was previously discussed, one defining character-
istic of inclusive leadership is openness. Inclusive leaders recognize
and respect individual differences between team members, invite
team members to express their opinions and concerns, listen
sincerely to team members' ideas and suggestions, and encourage
team members to try different approaches without worrying that
they might be criticized and punished (Carmeli et al., 2010;
Hollander, 2009). By doing so, inclusive leadership ensures that
all team members feel recognized and appreciated in their
uniqueness and differences (Hollander, 2009); this will reduce the
pressure of maintaining consensus and, thus, increase the degree to
470 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480
Performance Pressure
Inclusive Leadership
Fig. 1. The research model.
which team members generate, promote, and realize new ideas.
Some studies have demonstrated that in comparison to other
leadership styles, this very specific leader behavior of openness
sends the strongest signal that different and alternate ideas are
welcome (Detert & Burris, 2007); thus, team members are more
likely to develop creative ideas and engage in innovative activities.
Furthermore, because team innovation is not an individual act but a
collective achievement, it not only relies on the motivation and
skills of the team members but also depends on whether the team
has a climate that supports innovation (Mumford et al., 2002). By
modeling the norm of openness, inclusive leadership shape and
maintain a favorable work environment and culture norm in teams
that are characterized by an openness for different perspectives and
challenges and a tolerance for diversities and uncertainties; this is
important for provoking team members to generate creative solu-
tions and can, thus, lead teams to perform innovatively (Carmeli
et al., 2010). Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1. Inclusive leadership is positively associated with team
innovation.
2.2. The mediating role of team voice
There are two inherent characteristics of voice behavior:
discretionary (Van Dyne, Cummings, & Parks, 1995) and potentially
risky (Detert & Burris, 2007). Therefore, there are two core beliefs
underlying the decision of whether to engage in voice behavior
(Detert & Trevino, 2010; Edmondson, 2003). One is safe, whether
one believes that one's voice behavior will not be punished; the
other is efficacy, whether one believes that one's voice will be
valued (Detert & Burris, 2007; Morrison, 2011). In this regard, by
emphasizing openness, accessibility, and availability in their in-
teractions with followers, inclusive leadership is likely to affect
both of these core beliefs in a manner that would facilitate a high
level of team voice.
First, inclusive leaders who are open to their subordinates' ideas
and suggestions and encouraging them to express their opinions
are likely to develop a safe environment that can ensure team
members that negative consequences such as punishment or blame
will not result from their challenging behavior (Detert & Burris,
2007; Edmondson, 2003); thus, it can alleviate team members'
concerns of the potential costs and risks of voice behavior and make
them feel free to offer their opinions and ideas (Detert & Burris,
2007; Edmondson, 2003). Similarly, when inclusive leaders are
available and accessible to team members, the uncertainty and
anxiety of team members are minimized (Hollander, 2009), thus
allowing them to shed their disguises, share information openly,
and express their true thoughts and opinions more comfortably
(Walumbwa et al., 2012). More importantly, by modeling the norm
of openness, inclusive leaders may spread this norm throughout
the whole team due to a leader's modeling effects; thus, team
Team Voice Team Innovation
members are not only more likely to voice themselves but are also
more likely to allow other team members to express their ideas and
opinions (Cropanzano & Walumbwa, 2010). As a result, inclusive
leadership is likely to form a strong voice-supportive context that
will facilitate team voice. Second, because another barrier to team
voice is team members' lack of conviction that their input is valued
and desired by others (Van Dyne et al., 1995), the affective forces,
such as feelings of being worthwhile and obligation, may encourage
voice (Liu, Zhu, & Yang, 2010; Morrison, 2011). From team mem-
bers' perspective, the open-minded fashion of inclusive leadership
is particularly important to promote such affective forces. Specif-
ically, by directly inviting and appreciating inputs and suggestions
from team members and focusing on voice authentically (Carmeli
et al., 2010; Hollander, 2009; Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006), in-
clusive leadership conveys a strong message that the teams' voice is
desired and valued (Detert & Burris, 2007; Holland, 2009). When
employees perceive that their opinions and inputs are genuinely
valued and taken seriously by inclusive leaders, they are more likely
to bolster feelings of self-worth and obligation to voice their con-
cerns and ideas and thus increase their motivation and willingness
to exhibit voice behavior (Detert & Burris, 2007). Therefore, based
on the above discussion, we expect a positive relationship between
inclusive leadership and team voice.
Furthermore, we argue that team voice can trigger innovation in
teams. As mentioned above, team innovation is a complicated
process that comprises at least two different stages, namely the
conceptualization of ideas that involves the generation of creative
ideas and the implementation of the ideas that describes the
realization of creative ideas into practice (Hülsheger et al., 2009;
West, 2002). Team voice would have beneficial impact on team
innovation with regard to these two stages.
First, team voice may lead to the increased generation of new
ideas through the promotion of knowledge and information
sharing and integration. Specifically, as an important team process
that allows the distinct knowledge and insights of team members
to be shared and different perspectives and ideas to be thoroughly
discussed in teams (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998; Walumbwa et al.,
2012), team voice can play a pivotal role in stimulating innova-
tion in teams. Moreover, some scholars have argued that innovation
usually begins with the response to perceived problems, in-
sufficiencies, or suboptimal processes (Zhou & George, 2003). In
other words, team innovation is an unconventional act that re-
quires rejecting or modifying previously accepted ideas, thinking
“outside the box” and extending beyond routines and common
assumptions (Eisenbeiss et al., 2008; Zhou & George, 2003). With
regard to this, by proactively challenging the status quo, ques-
tioning the long-held assumptions, and calling for modifications in
“the way things are” (Detert & Burris, 2007; LePine & Van Dyne,
1998), team voice may constitute an important force for team
innovation. Second, with regard to the implementation and reali-
zation of new ideas, critical discussion, elaboration, and
 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480
experimentation is necessary (Eisenbeiss et al., 2008; Janssen,
2001). In this respect, by focusing attention on important opera-
tional concerns (Detert & Burris, 2007), preventing a premature
movement toward consensus (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001), and
stimulating the re-evaluation of the status quo (Detert & Trevino,
2010), team voice will force team members to rethink and reflect
on their perspectives and consider factors they have not previously
considered (Drach-Zahavy & Somech, 2001). Consequently, these
actions would enhance the innovative output of the team.
Furthermore, voice may encourage team members to think diver-
gently, introduce a greater range of strategic alternatives, and
engender more careful consideration of the feasibility of such al-
ternatives (LePine & Van Dyne, 1998; Morrison, 2011), thereby is
conducive to the successful implementation of team innovation.
In accordance with the above discussion and given the signifi-
cance of inclusive leadership on team voice and the importance of
team voice for the effective functioning of team innovation, the
following hypothesis is proposed:
H2. The positive relationship between inclusive leadership and
team innovation is mediated by team voice.
2.3. The moderating role of performance pressure
According to the goal-setting theory, team goals will regulate
team members' behaviors by affecting what they focus on and what
they appreciate (Locke & Latham, 1990). Performance pressure re-
flects a mindset or belief that the current performance is insuffi-
cient for achieving a desired goal (Eisenberger & Aselage, 2009;
Gardner, 2012) and is likely to affect how team members evaluate
and respond to inclusive leadership, thereby will influence the
effectiveness of inclusive leadership to promote team voice.
In particular, performance pressure as an uncertainty-related
factor frequently induces anxiety and brings uncertainty
(Eisenberger & Aselage, 2009). Inclusive leadership that endorses
safety and security by emphasizing openness, accessibility, and
availability to followers is likely to be a particularly important
means of enabling team members to effectively counter and cope
with these negative effects and psychological stress resulting from
high performance pressure (Carmeli et al., 2010; Hollander, 2009).
Therefore, the psychological stresses associated with the need to
meet high performance goals are likely to render team members
more sensitive to leaders' behaviors (Pierro, Cicero, Bonaiuto, van
Knippenberg, & Kruglanski, 2005) and will make the treatment
that team members receive from their inclusive leaders more
salient. In other words, to alleviate the negative experience of
performance pressure and to enhance performance, team members
would likely rely more on inclusive leadership and more favorably
appraise inclusive leadership. Consequently, team members will be
more appreciative and responsive to inclusive leadership and thus
will more likely follow inclusive leadership's natural invitation for
input and be more involved in voice behavior. Hence, it appears
likely that high performance pressure may function as an impor-
tant context that will amplify the positive effects of inclusive
leadership on team voice. Consistent with this view, some re-
searchers have highlighted the importance of leadership in times of
pressure and concluded that ‘‘followers look up to their leaders as a
source of certainty and may thus be more attentive to their guid-
ance and actions’’ (Oreg & Berson, 2011, p. 632). Empirically, some
studies have provided evidence that a desire to reduce uncertainty
may lead team members to be more susceptible to the influence of
their leader and thus improve the effectiveness of leadership
(Pierro et al., 2005). In addition, according to the goal-setting the-
ory, meeting high performance criteria may activate a state of
alertness and peppiness (Eisenberger & Aselage, 2009; Gardner,
471
2012; Locke & Latham, 1990) and enhance the team's re-
sponsibility and accountability for delivering high-quality out-
comes (Gardner, 2012; Zhang et al., 2016). These incentives could
further motivate team members to take full advantage of inclusive
leadership and more effectively leverage inclusive leadership to
foster team voice which is crucial for the achievement of the team's
performance standards (Gardner, 2012).
In contrast, if performance pressure is low, inclusive leadership
is less likely to lead with the development of team voice. Because
low performance pressure is characterized by certainty, predict-
able, and routine situations, and is associated with low levels of
anxiety (Gardner, 2012), team members may not have to rely on
their leader's support to achieve their performance goals. In other
words, because team members are less likely to perceive situations
as threatening or demanding when performance pressure is low,
they might be less sensitive to the positive effect of inclusive
leadership. In such situations, although inclusive leadership en-
courages team members to voice, team members will be less
responsive to this expectation. Inclusive leadership is less likely to
be favorably evaluated by team members under low performance
pressure than under high pressure. Consequently, the beneficial
treatment of inclusive leadership is less prominent under low
performance pressure and will have a “discount” effect on team
voice behaviors.
In summary, these arguments suggest that performance pres-
sure operates as a boundary condition for the hypothesized rela-
tionship between inclusive leadership and team voice. Accordingly,
we formulate the following hypothesis:
H3. Performance pressure moderates the relationship between
inclusive leadership and team voice, such that the positive rela-
tionship is stronger under high pressure conditions than under low
pressure conditions.
In combination, based on the relationships predicted in Hy-
potheses 2 and 3, we propose that the mediated relationship be-
tween inclusive leadership and team innovation through team
voice will be contingent on performance pressure (Edwards &
Lambert, 2007). Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H4. The indirect relationship between inclusive leadership and
team innovation through team voice is moderated by performance
pressure, such that the relationship is stronger under high pressure
conditions than under low pressure conditions.
3. Overview of methods
We test our hypotheses on two field studies with multi-source
data from team members and their leaders in China. The investi-
gation of the relationship between inclusive leadership and team
innovation is especially important in a developing country context,
such as China, because the dynamic and competitive business
conditions and macroeconomic volatility usually pose a challenge
to leaders seeking to boost team innovations that are crucial for
organizations' survival and long-term development (Perry-Smith,
2006). At the same time, although inclusive leadership was
developed as an indigenous western leadership style, it is
compatible with traditional Chinese values. The traditional Chinese
culture emphasizes virtues of inclusiveness and tolerance for in-
dividual differences, which provides the main cultural foundation
underlying inclusive leadership in China (Fang & Wang, 2016; Peng,
Zhu, & Chen, 2017; Zhang & Gu, 2017; Zhu & Qian, 2014). In this
regard, inclusive leadership deserves more systematic research in
China and may generate significant findings. Therefore, China
provides an ideal and fertile ground to address the relationship
between inclusive leadership and team innovation in
472 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480
organizations.
To provide a robust and meaningful test of the proposed hy-
potheses and increase the theoretical validity and precision of our
model, the two field studies adopted different, yet complementary,
design and sampling strategies. Specifically, Study 1 used work
teams in various functional areas in two different industries, while
Study 2 investigated the proposed relationships by using research
and development teams (R&D teams) in the same high-technology
industry.
3.1. Study 1
3.1.1. Sample and procedures
Data were collected from two companies operating in two in-
dustries (medical devices and banking) located in a southern
province in China in January 2017. We first contacted the CEOs of
these two companies and asked for their permission. We then
asked the HR manager of each company to prepare a list of teams in
the company covering a variety of functional areas including R&D,
administration, finance, marketing, and sales. Next, we asked the
leaders of these teams to identify core members in their teams. This
procedure resulted in 230 members from 55 teams. To reduce the
risk of common method variance (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, &
Podsakoff, 2003), we differentiated the sources of data. Em-
ployees' questionnaire included measures of inclusive leadership,
perception of performance pressure, and their personal data.
Leader's questionnaire included measures of team voice, team
innovation, team size, team type, and leader's personal data. The
questionnaires included company and employee identification
codes so that data collected from the leaders and employees could
be matched and grouped for analysis. Because of the sensitive na-
ture of certain questions, anonymous and strictly confidential data
treatment was assured. Separate questionnaires were then hand-
delivered to team members and their leaders during their work-
ing hours and the authors were present to answer questions and
collected the surveys immediately after completion.
In total, we sent questionnaires to 230 employees from 55 teams
and to 55 leaders who supervised these teams. Among them, 192
employees (83.5% response rate) and 47 managers (85.5% response
rate) provided responses. To ensure reliable responses for aggre-
gation to the team level, the average response rate within the teams
is 70%. After eliminating the uncompleted questionnaires, 41 teams
with 163 team members remained for data analyses and hypoth-
eses testing. Among these 41 teams, 21 came from company 1 and
20 came from company 2, 28.6% are R&D teams, 26.2% are sales
teams, 19% are marketing teams, 16.7% are finance teams, and 9.5%
are administrative teams. The average team size was 3.97 team
members. In the subordinate data, 47.9% were male; the average
age was 35.8 years; average firm tenure was 13 years; average team
tenure was 4.8 years, 10.4% have high-school degree, 41.1% have
college's degree, 46.6% have bachelor's degrees, and 1.9% have
master's degrees or above. In the supervisor data, 70.7% were male,
the average age was 39.9 years, average firm tenure was 19.2 years,
average team tenure was 5.2 years, 7.3% have high-school diplomas,
34.2% have college's degrees, and 58.5% have bachelor's degrees or
above.
3.1.2. Measures
A five-point Likert scale was used for all study measures, with 1
representing strongly disagree and 5 representing strongly agree.
All measures used were adapted from the existing literature and
had already been found with good levels of reliability and validity.
Given that all of the measures were originally developed in English,
the back-translation method (Brislin, 1986) was applied to verify
the questionnaires in Chinese. Each questionnaire was pre-tested
by 10 individuals for clarity and construct validity. Some minor
refinements to the questionnaires were made based on the com-
ments received.
3.1.2.1. Inclusive leadership. Inclusive leadership was measured
using the nine-item developed by Carmeli et al. (2010). A sample
item is “The manager is open to hearing new ideas.”
3.1.2.2. Team voice. Team voice was measured using the six-item
developed by Walumbwa et al. (2012). A sample item is “Em-
ployees in my team speak up and encourage others to get involved
in issues that affect this team.”
3.1.2.3. Team innovation. Team innovation was measured using the
nine-item developed by Janssen (2001). A sample item is “My team
searches out new working methods, techniques, or instruments.”
3.1.2.4. Performance pressure. Performance pressure was measured
using the three-item developed by Gardner (2012). A sample item
is “Client's satisfaction with our current work performance de-
termines the possibilities of our future cooperation.”
3.1.2.5. Control variables. We controlled on team size and team
type in this study because previous studies have found that these
variables have an impact on leader behaviors (Cha, Kim, Lee, &
Bachrach, 2015; LePine & Van Dyne, 1998) and team innovation
(Hülsheger et al., 2009).
3.1.3. Data analysis
We first applied SPSS Statistics v. 22.0 to conduct exploratory
factor analysis and generate descriptive statistics. In addition, we
used LISREL 8.5 to perform confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Then,
we used hierarchical regression analysis to test our hypotheses. In
order to test the moderated-mediation effect and confirm the
findings from the regression analyses, we conducted bootstrap test
with 1000 subsamples using PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013).
3.1.4. Data aggregation
Because team inclusive leadership and performance pressure
refer to the shared perception among team members, we aggre-
gated individuals' perceptions of these variables to form the mea-
sure at the team level. To determine whether the aggregation was
appropriate, we calculated the within-group agreement (Rwg;
James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1993), the intra class correlations (ICC1),
and the reliability of the means (ICC2; Bliese, 2000). The median
Rwg value was 0.98 for inclusive leadership and 0.94 for perfor-
mance pressure. We further calculated the ICC values to determine
if there was sufficient between-level variance for these above
measures. For inclusive leadership, the ICC1 value was 0.29 and the
ICC2 value was 0.61; for performance pressure, the ICC1 value was
0.25 and the ICC2 value was 0.57. Overall, these results support the
aggregation of inclusive leadership and performance pressure to
the team level, so we elected to continue with the aggregation of
these variables.
3.1.5. Results
To evaluate the reliability and validity of the scales in this study,
we performed a series of analyses before testing hypotheses. The
Cronbach's coefficient alpha indicated good reliability for the main
constructs in this study (Table 1), with all values above the 0.70
threshold required for advanced research. The factor loadings
ranged from 0.88 to 0.94 for the inclusive leadership items, from
0.76 to 0.92 for the performance pressure items, from 0.54 to 0.84
for the team voice items, and from 0.73 to 0.84 for the team
innovation items. The results of the CFA revealed that the
 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480 473

hypothesized model fit the data well (c2/df ¼ 1.76, RMSEA ¼ 0.07, Table 2
RMR ¼ 0.03, CFI ¼ 0.90, and IFI ¼ 0.91). Moreover, the multi- Results of regression analysis for mediation (Study 1).

collinearity does not seem to be an issue because the variance Variables Team Voice Team Innovation
inflation factor (VIF) values are all below 2.5. Based on these ana- M1 M2 M3 M4 M5
lyses, we proceed to test the main hypotheses.
Control variables
As shown in Table 1, inclusive leadership was significantly and
Team size 0.17 0.13 0.06 0.05 0.06
positively related to team voice (r ¼ 0.48, p < 0.01) and team Team type 0.01 0.08 0.02 0.03 0.02
innovation (r ¼ 0.45, p < 0.01). Furthermore, team voice was posi- Main variables
tively related to team innovation (r ¼ 0.74, p < 0.01). Inclusive leadership 0.46** 0.44** 0.13
Team voice 0.75** 0.69**
The results of the regression analysis presented in Table 2 pro-
R2 0.26 0.02 0.21 0.54 0.56
vided support for H1 by showing that inclusive leadership was F 4.299* 0.36 3.25* 14.71** 11.31**
significantly related to team innovation (Model 3: b ¼ 0.44,
N ¼ 41, 2-tailed test. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
p < 0.01).
To test the mediating effect of team voice (H2), in accordance
with Preacher and Hayes's (2008) suggestion, we adopted two H4 by estimating the conditional indirect effect of inclusive lead-
analytical approaches. First, we performed a series of regression ership on team innovation via team voice with 95% bootstrapped
analyses. As reported in Table 2, inclusive leadership had a positive confidence intervals and 1000 bootstrap resamples. The 95% bias-
relationship with team innovation (M3: b ¼ 0.44, p < 0.01) and corrected confidence interval (0.26e2.2) suggested that the con-
team voice (M1: b ¼ 0.46, p < 0.01), and team voice was positively ditional indirect effect of inclusive leadership on team innovation
related to team innovation (M4: b ¼ 0.75, p < 0.01). When we via team voice was significant under high performance pressure
included inclusive leadership and team voice in the same regres- (indirect effect ¼ 1.23) but not significant under low performance
sion equation, the positive effect of inclusive leadership on team pressure (indirect effect ¼ 0.32; 95% confidence interval is 0.08 to
innovation decreased and became not significant (b ¼ 0.13, ns), thus 0.85). Therefore, we had evidence to support H4.
indicating a full mediation effect of team voice (Baron & Kenny,
1986; Judd & Kenny, 1981). Then, based on these regression esti-
3.1.6. Discussion of study 1
mates, we used bootstrapping to evaluate the statistical signifi-
This study found preliminary support for the proposed model.
cance of the indirect effect of inclusive leadership on team
Specifically, the results showed that there is a positive relationship
innovation through team voice (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). Accord-
between inclusive leadership and team innovation and this rela-
ing to the bootstrapping result, the indirect effect of inclusive
tionship was mediated by team voice. Furthermore, performance
leadership on team innovation via team voice was estimated as 0.46
pressure moderated the relationship between inclusive leadership
with the 95% bias-corrected confidence interval as 0.15 and 0.99.
and team voice as well as the indirect relationship between inclu-
Because the confidence interval did not contain zero, the indirect
sive leadership and team innovation through team voice, such that
effect was considered to be statistically significant, providing
the positive relationships were stronger when performance pres-
additional evidence to support H2.
sure was higher.
Then, we employed regression analysis to examine the moder-
By collecting data from teams in a variety of functions in orga-
ating role of performance pressure on the relationship between
nizations from different industries, this study increased the po-
inclusive leadership and team voice (H3). As recommended by
tential generalizability of our findings to a broad range of settings
Aiken and West (1991), inclusive leadership and performance
and allowed us to rule out the possibility that the findings might be
pressure were centered before running the analyses. As Table 3
unique to a particular type of teams. However, the innovative
shows, the interaction term was significant (b ¼ 0.39, p < 0.05)
performance of these teams varied by the nature of their tasks, and
and explained an additional 9% of the variance in team voice. We
the performance pressure of these teams is also quite different.
then employed Aiken and West's (1991) procedures to plot the
Moreover, the results also showed very high inter-construct cor-
pattern of the significant interaction effects. Consistent with our
relations between team voice and team innovation as well as be-
expectation, as depicted in Fig. 2, the simple slope test further
tween inclusive leadership and performance pressure. In addition,
showed that at high level of performance pressure, inclusive
we did not control for other forms of related leadership styles that
leadership was positively and significantly related to team voice;
have been found to positively relate to team innovation, such as
however, at low level of performance pressure, the relationship
transformational leadership. These shortcomings may raise the
between inclusive leadership and team voice was not significant.
Thus, H3 was supported.
Having supported the moderating effect proposed in H3, we Table 3
proceeded to test for the moderated mediation effect predicted in Results of hierarchical regression analysis for moderation by performance pressure
(Study 1).

Variables Team Voice

Table 1 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Means, standard deviations, and correlations (Study 1). Control variables
Team size 0.25 0.19 0.12
Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5
Team type 0.07 0.02 0.02
Main variables Main variables
1.Inclusive leadership 4.27 0.39 (0.97) Inclusive leadership 0.67** 0.72**
2.Team voice 4.12 0.53 0.48** (0.85) Performance pressure 0.37* 0.61**
3.Team innovation 4.08 0.57 0.45** 0.74** (0.92) Interaction term
4.Performance pressure 4.15 0.40 0.59** 0.06 0.16 (0.81) Inclusive leadership x performance pressure 0.39*
Control variables R2 0.06 0.35 0.43
5.Team size 4.90 2.13 0.13 0.23 0.11 0.15 F 1.15 4.76** 5.37**
6.Team type 1.73 1.29 0.09 0.00 0.04 0.03 0.27 DR2 0.06 0.29** 0.09*

N ¼ 41, Reliabilities are in parentheses, 2-tailed test. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01. N ¼ 41, 2-tailed test. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
474 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480
4.5
4
Team Voice
3.5
3 Performance
2.5
2 prressurre
1.5
1
Low Inclusive leadership
Fig. 2. The moderating effect of performance pressure on the relationship between inclusive leadership and team voice (Study 1).
question for the precision of the proposed model. Therefore, to
limit extraneous influences because of different industry types and
functions and become more confident regarding the robustness
and theoretical validity of our model, we conducted Study 2 to
confirm the findings of Study 1 by using a sample of R&D teams
from a single industry and taking transformational leadership as a
control variable.
3.2. Study 2
3.2.1. Sample and procedure
Data for Study 2 were collected from 66 R & D teams in 5 large
organizations engaged in the software development industry
located in a major city in southeast China in November 2018. This
industry was selected because new product development and
creative R&D efforts are critical for company survival because of the
industry's rapid technological advances and highly competitive
markets (Balkin, Markman, & Gomez-Mejia, 2000). Moreover, as a
result of novel and complex situations typically faced by R&D teams
as well as the job responsibilities for finding innovative solutions in
their daily work, R&D teams in the software development industry
provide an ideal setting for exploring our hypotheses.
We collected the data through the following procedures. We
first met the HR managers of these firms and received their
permission to conduct the study. The HR managers then helped us
to contact the leaders of each R&D team. After securing the team
leaders' agreement to participate, the researchers met with each
team leader, explained the study objectives and procedures, and
asked them to provide their teams' member lists. At time 1, team
members provided information on their demographics, perceived
inclusive leadership of team leaders, and performance pressure. At
time 2 (2 weeks after time 1), team leaders rated team voice
behavior and team innovation and provided information about
their own demographics and team size. The questionnaires were
coded before distribution with the help of HR staff of each firm to
make sure that leaders' and members' responses that belong to the
same team could be matched. The questionnaires were distributed
to participants during working hours by a research assistant
without the presence of any management member. A cover letter
Low
prressurre
High
Performance
High Inclusive leadership
that explained the survey objective and assured anonymity and
confidentiality was attached to each questionnaire.
In total, we sent questionnaires to 521 employees from 99 teams
in 5 companies and to 99 managers who supervised these teams.
Among them, 411 employees (78.9% response rate) and 68 man-
agers (68.7% response rate) provided responses. To ensure reliable
responses for aggregation to the team level, the minimum number
of responding team members necessary for the inclusion was three
members per team, with the average response rate within the
teams being 60%. These screening procedures resulted in 66 teams
with 406 team members that were used for final statistical analyses
(Company A: 13 teams; Company B: 10 teams; Company C: 15
teams; Company D: 12 teams; and Company E: 16 teams).
The average team size for these 66 teams was 6.15, with a range
from 3 to 15 members. Among team leaders, 65.2% were male; the
average age was 37.0 years; average firm tenure was 6.5 years;
average team tenure was 4.4 years, 13.6% have college's degree,
39.4% have bachelor's degrees, 47.0% have master's degrees or
above. Among team members, 51.3% were male; the average age
was 35.0 years; 7.4% have college degrees, 45.8% have bachelor's
degrees, and 46.8% have master's degrees or above.
3.2.2. Measures
To obtain a more general and reliable measure of the variables
studied in this model, the scales used in Study 2 to measure in-
clusive leadership, team voice, team innovation, and performance
pressure are the ones used in Study 1.
3.2.2.1. Control variable. As in Study 1, team size was controlled.
Moreover, in order to capture the unique effect of inclusive lead-
ership on team innovation, we also include transformational
leadership as a control variable into our analysis to examine
whether inclusive leadership explains the additional unique vari-
ance. Transformational leadership was measured using Kirkman
et al.‘s (2009) 14-item scale and rated by team members and then
aggregated to the team level. Sample items include: “My leader
articulates a vision.” In addition, because the gender of leaders has
been found to affect the influence of leadership (Owens & Hekman,
2012), we also take leader's gender as a control variable.
 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480 475

3.2.3. Data aggregation the bootstrapping analysis. The results indicated that the indirect
Similar to the procedures described in Study 1, we evaluated the effect ¼ 0.22; the 95% confidence interval for the mediation effect
appropriateness of data aggregation for inclusive leadership, per- did not include zero [0.01, 0.49]. Therefore, H2 was supported.
formance pressure, and transformational leadership. In this study, To test the moderating effects of performance pressure (H3), we
the mean Rwg was 0.97 for inclusive leadership, 0.84 for perfor- mean-centered both inclusive leadership and performance pres-
mance pressure, and 0.98 for transformational leadership, all of sure to avoid potential multicollinearity (Aiken & West, 1991). As
which were above the conventionally acceptable Rwg value of 0.70, shown in Table 6, the interaction term of inclusive leadership and
thus indicating strong agreement among members within teams performance pressure was significant in predicting team voice
(James et al., 1993). In addition, for inclusive leadership, the ICC1 (b ¼ 0.22, p < 0.05). The additional proportion of variance in team
value was 0.29 and the ICC2 value was 0.71; for performance innovation explained by the interaction term was also significant
pressure, the ICC1 value was 0.30 and the ICC2 value was 0.73; for (DR2 ¼ 0.04, p < 0.05). We then employed Aiken and West's (1991)
transformational leadership, the ICC1 value was 0.35 and the ICC2 procedures to plot the pattern of the significant interaction effects.
value was 0.77. Combined, these results indicated that it was sta- As Fig. 3 displays, inclusive leadership had a stronger effect on team
tistically appropriate to conceptualize and analyze inclusive lead- voice under high performance pressure than under low perfor-
ership, performance pressure, and transformational leadership at mance pressure. Taken together, H3 was supported.
the team level. Having supported the moderating effect of performance pres-
sure on the relationship between inclusive leadership and team
3.2.4. Results voice, we proceed to examine the moderated mediation as pre-
dicted in H4. The bootstrapping results revealed that inclusive
In this study, the Cronbach's coefficient alpha also indicated leadership was indirectly related to team innovation through team
good reliability for the main constructs (Table 4), with all values voice when performance pressure is high (indirect effect ¼ 0.39;
above the 0.70 threshold required for advanced research. The factor 95% CI ¼ 0.48 to 0.88). When performance pressure is low, the in-
loadings ranged from 0.94 to 0.98 for the inclusive leadership items, direct effect was not significant (indirect effect ¼ 0.11; 95%
from 0.95 to 0.98 for the performance pressure items, from 0.86 to CI ¼ 0.11 to 0.36). Therefore, H4 was supported.
0.91 for the team voice items, and from 0.79 to 0.92 for the team
innovation items. The results of the CFA revealed that the hypoth- 3.2.5. Discussion of study 2
esized model fit the data well (c2/df ¼ 2.09, RMSEA ¼ 0.09, The results of Study 2 confirmed the previous findings from
RMR ¼ 0.03, CFI ¼ 0.94, IFI ¼ 0.94). The VIF values are all below 1.5; Study 1. Specifically, in Study 2, we found that inclusive leadership
hence, multicollinearity is not a concern for the regression analysis. increases team voice, which subsequently leads to team innovation.
Based on these analyses, we proceed to test the main hypotheses. In addition, Study 2 supported the moderation and the moderated
The mean, standard deviation, and correlations among the study mediation hypotheses by showing that the direct effect of inclusive
variables are shown in Table 4. As expected, inclusive leadership leadership on team voice and its indirect effect on team innovation
was significantly and positively related to team voice (r ¼ 0.36, through team voice were stronger when performance pressure was
p < 0.01) and team innovation (r ¼ 0.35, p < 0.01). Furthermore, high rather than low. These effects remain significant and stable
team voice was positively related to team innovation (r ¼ 0.52, even after controlling for transformational leadership. Therefore,
p < 0.01). Thus, all the correlations were in the expected direction these findings imply that inclusive leadership has unique values in
and provided the necessary conditions to further test the
hypotheses.
Table 5
To test H1, which predicted that inclusive leadership was posi- Results of regression analysis for mediation (Study 2).
tively related to team innovation, we used regression analysis. As
Variables Team Voice Team Innovation
shown in Table 5, inclusive leadership was significantly related to
team innovation (Model 3: b ¼ 0.29, p < 0.05); thus, H1 was M1 M2 M3 M4 M5
supported. Control variables
For H2, as reported in Table 5, inclusive leadership was posi- Team size 0.21 0.12 0.11 0.01 0.01
tively associated with team innovation (M3: b ¼ 0.29, p < 0.05) and Leader gender 0.25 0.01 0.00 0.13 0.12
team voice (M1: b ¼ 0.27, p < 0.05), and team voice was positively Transformational leadership 0.23 0.24 0.16 0.09 0.06
Main variables
associated with team innovation (M4: b ¼ 0.52, p < 0.01). When Inclusive leadership 0.27* 0.29* 0.17
inclusive leadership and team voice were included in the same Team voice 0.52** 0.46**
regression equation, the positive impact of inclusive leadership on R2 0.30 0.09 0.17 0.30 0.32
team innovation decreased and became not significant (b ¼ 0.17, F 6.51** 2.03 3.08* 6.42** 5.63**

ns), suggesting a full mediation of team voice. We then performed N ¼ 66, 2-tailed test. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.

Table 4
Means, standard deviations, and correlations (Study 2).

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

Main variables
1.Inclusive leadership 4.02 0.53 (0.99)
2.Team voice 3.30 0.83 0.36** (0.95)
3.Team innovation 3.88 0.73 0.35** 0.52** (0.96)
4.Performance pressure 3.86 0.63 0.00 0.24 0.07 (0.97)
Control variables
5.Team size 6.15 2.39 0.12 0.31* 0.18 0.07
6.Leader gender 0.65 0.48 0.03 0.24 0.01 0.01 0.06
7.Transformational leadership 3.94 0.54 0.29* 0.35** 0.28* 0.15 0.26* 0.05

N ¼ 66, Reliabilities are in parentheses, 2-tailed test. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
476 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480

Table 6 value of understanding the relationship between leadership and

Results of hierarchical regression analysis for moderation by performance pressure team innovation (Eisenbeiss et al., 2008; Han et al., 2016; Zacher &
(Study 2).
Rosing, 2015; Zhang, Tsui, & Wang, 2011), this line of research is
Variables Team Voice limited by its exclusive reliance on transformational leadership
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 (Jiang & Chen, 2018; Keller, 2006). By focusing instead on inclusive
leadership, this study represents a significant departure from
Control variables
Team size 0.22 0.18 0.19 extant literature and provides a deeper understanding of the spe-
Leader gender 0.24* 0.25* 0.22* cific leadership style that is effective to stimulate team innovation.
Transformational leadership 0.30* 0.28* 0.25* Second, by revealing the mediating role of team voice, this study
Main variables
clearly highlighted the importance of team processes for explaining
Inclusive leadership 0.26* 0.30**
Performance pressure 0.26* 0.22* how inclusive leadership affects team innovation. Although the
Interaction term existing literature has recognized a number of team processes that
Inclusive leadership x performance pressure 0.22* can provide valuable frameworks for understanding team innova-
R2 0.23 0.37 0.41 tion (e.g., Hülsheger et al., 2009; Tang & Naumann, 2016), the
F 6.20** 6.89** 6.81**
specific processes that can be used by leaders to foster team
D R2 0.23** 0.13** 0.04*
innovation are largely ignored (Jiang & Chen, 2018; Kearney &
N ¼ 66, 2-tailed test. *p < 0.05,**p < 0.01.
Gebert, 2009). Therefore, by incorporating and theorizing team
voice as an underlying team-level mechanism that links inclusive
leadership and team innovation, this study provides support for
promoting team innovation.
Hülsheger and colleagues' argument that “team process variables
display substantial and generalizable relationships with innova-
4. Discussion and conclusions tion” (2009: 1137) and complements Kearney and Gebert's work on
the contributions of integrative processes to team performance.
The purpose of the present study is to provide a more The present study also makes several important theoretical
comprehensive and thorough understanding of how and when contributions to the inclusive leadership literature. First, this study
inclusive leadership facilitates team innovation. Overall, the results extends the current understanding of the outcomes of inclusive
of two field studies in China clearly supported our model and leadership to team-level outcomes by demonstrating the positive
revealed that inclusive leadership elicited and contributed to team effects of inclusive leadership on team voice and team innovation.
innovation indirectly through team voice and that such effects were This is an especially needed contribution to the inclusive leadership
statistically significant even after controlling for transformational literature because although interest in the important role that in-
leadership. Furthermore, the results provide consistent support for clusive leadership plays in organizations has expanded in recent
the argument that performance pressure shapes the effectiveness years due to the increasingly diverse workforce resulting from the
of inclusive leadership and that the influence of inclusive leader- globalization of economic activities, nearly all prior studies on in-
ship on team voice and subsequently team innovation is more clusive leadership have been focused on individual level outcomes
pronounced in the presence of high performance pressure. The (e.g., Carmeli et al., 2010); prior to this research, the impact of in-
theoretical and practical implications of these findings are dis- clusive leadership on team-level outcomes had not been empiri-
cussed below. cally examined. With direct evidence that inclusive leadership is
indeed effective in motivating team voice and team innovation, this
4.1. Theoretical implication study provides additional support for the value of inclusive lead-
ership and expands our understanding of the essential benefits of
This study contributes to the team innovation literature in two inclusive leadership in organizational settings. Second, in contrast
ways. First, this study advances our knowledge about the ante- to prior studies that have been confined to individual-level mech-
cedents of team innovation by demonstrating the uniqueness of anisms, such as psychological safety to explain the influence of
inclusive leadership in promoting team innovation. Although both inclusive leadership (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006), this study is
the innovation and leadership literature have clearly identified the the first to illustrate team-level mechanisms by drawing on an

4.5

4
Team Voice

3.5
Low Performance
3 pressure
High Performance
2.5 pressure
2

1.5

1
Low Inclusive Leadership High Inclusive Leadership

Fig. 3. The moderating effect of performance pressure on the relationship between inclusive leadership and team voice (Study 2).
 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480
input-process-output framework. In arguing that team voice is a
key mechanism responsible for explicating the effect of inclusive
leadership on team innovation and by providing empirical evidence
for this argument, this study broadens and deepens our under-
standing of how inclusive leadership exerts its influences in orga-
nizations. Third, although the contingency approach is well
established in leadership studies (Fiedler, 1971; Pierro et al., 2005),
a majority of inclusive leadership research has predominantly
focused on examining its main effects (Carmeli et al., 2010;
Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006); little attention has been given
to the clarification of the potential moderators of the inclusive
leadershipeoutcome relationship, and consequently, our knowl-
edge of the conditions under which the effect of inclusive leader-
ship will be either amplified or attenuated remains limited. In this
study, we fill this gap by providing empirical evidence that per-
formance pressure moderates the impact of inclusive leadership on
team voice and subsequent team innovation. As a result, this study
offers a more holistic view on when inclusive leadership is more
likely to influence team outcomes.
In addition, this study advances the research of voice in the
following ways. First, the results of this study contribute to the
voice literature by providing additional evidence of the robustness
of this team-level construct that has meaningful outcomes.
Although voice behavior has been recognized as a critical factor
affecting organizational functioning and success (Morrison, 2011)
and has received increased attention over the last few decades
(Detert & Burris, 2007; Morrison, 2011, 2014), most of the previous
research has primarily conceptualized and addressed it at the in-
dividual level. Recent evidence, however, suggests that voice
behavior can be conceptualized and measured at the team level
(e.g., Frazier & Bowler, 2015) and indeed some studies have sug-
gested that team voice has unique value in the context of teams and
may be more effective than individual voice (Frazier & Bowler,
2015; Walumbwa et al., 2012). Unfortunately, until now, only a
few studies examined team voice (i.e., Frazier & Bowler, 2015;
Walumbwa et al., 2012). Therefore, by focusing on voice behavior
at the team level, this study broadens the scope of the voice
construct and contributes to the emerging research on team voice.
Second, this study made important strides in identifying team
innovation as an outcome of team voice. Although a key assump-
tion in the voice literature is that voice behavior has positive effects
on teams and organizations, this assumption has received little
empirical attention (Morrison, 2011; Walumbwa et al., 2012). Over
the past several decades, the majority of research on voice focused
mainly on the antecedents of voice but left a large knowledge gap
regarding the consequences of voice. This study fills this empirical
lacuna by demonstrating for the first time that team voice repre-
sents a critical mechanism that ensures the effectiveness of inclu-
sive leadership on team innovation. Moreover, by demonstrating
inclusive leadership as an antecedent of team voice, this study
further bolsters the importance of the social context of voice at
work (e.g., Detert & Burris, 2007; Morrison, 2011) and provides
empirical support for the theoretical argument that leaders affect
voice in organizations (Morrison & Milliken, 2000).
Moreover, this study also provides a broader picture of the
function of performance pressure in organizations. Given the
increasing prevalence of performance pressure in today's
achievement-oriented society, extensive theoretical work has
corroborated the notion that performance pressure does matter in
individual and team performance (Gardner, 2012). Performance
pressure has, thus, become an important context in organizations
that merits research attention. However, although there are many
studies focused on the detrimental effect of performance pressure
on employee well-being and productivity (e.g., Cooper, Dewe, &
O'Driscoll, 2001; Gilboa, Shirom, Fried, & Cooper, 2008), there is a
477
paucity of studies devoted to examining the positive effect of per-
formance pressure in organizations. Our study shows the inter-
esting result that performance pressure, a discomforting subjective
state, is an important context that strengthens the positive effect of
inclusive leadership on team voice. This empirical finding, thus,
supplements contemporary views of the effect of performance
pressure in organizations.
Finally, this study is among the first to explore the influence of
inclusive leadership on team innovation in China, a nonwestern
developing country, thus responding to calls to look beyond the
national boundaries of western societies and investigate in other
cultures the predictive efficacies of various leadership styles that
have been deeply rooted in western countries (Eisenbeiss, 2012).
Although inclusive leadership is espoused as a universal construct,
it was largely developed within western context, and the majority
of studies in this domain of research have been conducted in
developed countries in North America and Europe. As a result, we
know relatively little on the nature and influence of such leadership
in nonwestern countries; how this leadership style influences
organizational behavior in nonwestern contexts is, therefore, an
interesting question that remains to be addressed. By showing that
the relationship between inclusive leadership and team voice as
well as team innovation was fairly strong for Chinese employees in
both samples, this study fills this gap and enhances the robustness
and validity of the concept of inclusive leadership in a Chinese
context, thereby underscoring the applicability and generalizability
of inclusive leadership in nonwestern environments.
4.2. Practical implication
In addition to the theoretical contributions, the findings of this
study provide some important insights for practice.
First, the results of this study clearly suggest that inclusive
leadership is effective in promoting team voice and, therefore, fa-
cilitates team innovation. This finding is encouraging and has
important practical implications for managers seeking to design
more effective management interventions to foster team voice and
team innovation in China. Given the potential costs and risks of
voice behavior, employees are more likely to remain silent and are
usually reluctant to voice their opinions and ideas (Morrison, 2014;
Morrison & Milliken, 2000). This phenomenon might be more
salient in the Chinese context because China is a relation-oriented
society (Farh, Earley, & Lin, 1997), and the relationalism resulted
from its tradition culture tends to emphasize harmonious social
relationships with others and discourage discord and disagreement
(Leung, Koch, & Lu, 2002), which will make voice behavior partic-
ularly risky. Moreover, some other traditional cultural values in the
Chinese society, such as high power distance (e.g., Hofstede, 2001),
strong uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede & Bond, 1988), and face-
saving were also detrimental to voice behavior (Friedman, Chi, &
Liu, 2006). This is reflected in the Chinese proverbs: “Speech is
silver, and silence is gold” (Zhang, Huai, & Xie, 2015). Therefore,
encouraging Chinese employees to voice is a big challenge for or-
ganizations operating in China. Our findings about the value of
inclusive leadership in boosting team voice among Chinese teams,
which finally promote team innovation, is thus especially valuable
for practice. In particular, given the increasing presence of foreign
firms in China and the growing influence of China's political and
economic significance in today's world, this study provides prac-
tical insights for multinational corporations operating in China or
managing Chinese employees. Specifically, organizations should
emphasize and encourage inclusive leadership style among team
leaders through insightful selection and promotion processes or
leadership development programs in order to facilitate high voice
and innovations in Chinese teams.
478 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480
Second, the moderating role of performance pressure in the
effects of inclusive leadership found in this study suggests that
managers should not assume that inclusive leadership would have
equal impact in all work conditions and that it provides a mean-
ingful way which enable practitioners to overcome performance
pressure's detrimental consequences and harness its beneficial ef-
fects in organizations. Performance pressure is becoming one of the
most common problems and a nearly ubiquitous condition for real-
world work groups (Gardner, 2012). High performance pressure
usually suggests an increase in work intensification and stress; if
this pressure is not managed and handled appropriately and
effectively, detrimental and counterproductive outcomes and
consequences may ensue, such as job dissatisfaction, absenteeism,
poor work performance, and negative health effects (Gilboa et al.,
2008; Hayes & Weathington, 2007). It is often difficult, however,
for organizations to reduce the level of performance pressure in
todays' competitive business environment. Consequently, effec-
tively managing work-related pressure in the workplace is partic-
ularly important for practitioners. By revealing that teams under
high performance pressure are more receptive to their inclusive
leadership and are, thus, more likely to voice their opinions, which
ultimately leads to high team innovation, this study reminds
leaders that the pressure to perform may not always be necessarily
bad and underscores the potential positive effects of performance
pressure in organizations. More specifically, this study suggests
that a combination of inclusive leadership and performance pres-
sure is a key to promoting team voice and team innovation. It is,
therefore, advisable that organizations should choose inclusive
leaders to manage teams with high performance pressure to reduce
the negative consequences and stimulate the positive potential of
performance pressure on organizational outcomes.
4.3. Limitations and future research directions
Despite the theoretical and practical implications, this study is
subjected to a number of limitations that need to be addressed in
future studies.
First, the sample size was relatively small with only 41 teams in
Study 1 and 66 teams in Study 2. A small sample size increases
sampling error and reduces the power to detect statistically sig-
nificant effects. Moreover, the results of Study 1 showed very high
interconstruct correlations between variables, and we did not
control for transformational leadership and leader gender because
of the relatively small sample size. These shortcomings may raise a
question about the precision of the proposed model (Babyak, 2004).
Therefore, future research that replicates and extends the current
findings using larger and more representative samples would be
clearly desirable. We also encourage future research to test the
research model of this study by using different methodologies, such
as experiment and qualitative research, to delve into the interaction
process in teams.
Second, the survey data based on self-reports may be subject to
social desirability bias and raise the potential for common method
variance. A positive sign is that we collect data from different
sources, which is recommended by scholars to minimize the effects
of response bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Moreover, to compare
innovation performance across teams engaging in different tasks,
we adopted subjective supervisory ratings of innovative perfor-
mance. Although such ratings facilitate cross-team comparison,
they are susceptible to human assessment bias. This perceptual
measure of team innovation may not accurately capture the accu-
rate state of team innovation given that managers' assessments
may be biased. Therefore, a longitudinal study that includes
objective measures and collect data from different sources and
different time waves would be desirable in the future. In addition,
the concept of inclusive leadership was developed in western cul-
tures and, therefore, may not be totally appropriate for addressing
existing forms of leadership in the Chinese culture. It is, thus,
necessary to systematically explore the unique nature of inclusive
leadership in the Chinese context.
Third, given the obvious multidimensionality of team process
(Horwitz & Horwitz, 2007; Lyubovnikova et al., 2017), the selection
of a specific team process variable (team voice) does not fully
capture the potential complexity of the relationship between
leadership, team processes, and team outcomes. In order to portray
a more complete picture of how inclusive leadership influences
team innovation, other team processes such as knowledge sharing
could be worth exploring. Furthermore, another interesting avenue
for future study is to investigate how different team processes
complement or contradict one another in transferring the effec-
tiveness of inclusive leadership.
Fourth, although we proposed and confirmed the moderating
role of performance pressure in the relationship between inclusive
leadership and team voice, it is possible that other contextual var-
iables might also affect the influence of inclusive leadership on
team voice. For instance, other working contexts, such as organi-
zational climate for voice, and other workplace pressures, such as
interpersonal pressure, may also regulate the link between inclu-
sive leadership and team voice.
Finally, we focused on teams in China, which may raise concerns
about the generalizability of the findings. Because China has a high
power distance (Hofstede, 2001), it is possible that Chinese em-
ployees are more likely than their counterparts in other cultures to
be affected by inclusive leadership. Therefore, bearing in mind the
cultural differences between China and western countries, a
promising research avenue would be to compare the effects of in-
clusive leadership on team innovation in different cultural contexts.
Moreover, if possible, it would be interesting to examine how na-
tional culture interacts with inclusive leadership to influence team
voice and team innovation by incorporating the national culture as
a moderator. Such studies would enable better understanding of
the influence of national culture in the effectiveness of inclusive
leadership.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (grant no. 71672175).
Appendix
Inclusive leadership (Carmeli et al., 2010)
1. The manager is open to hearing new ideas.
2. The manager is attentive to new opportunities to improve work
processes.
3. The manager is open to discuss the desired goals and new ways
to achieve them.
4. The manager is available for consultation on problems.
5. The manager is an ongoing ‘presence’ in this teamdsomeone
who is readily available.
6. The manager is available for professional questions I would like
to consult with him/her.
7. The manager is ready to listen to my requests.
8. The manager encourages me to access him/her on emerging
issues.
9. The manager is accessible for discussing emerging problems.
Team voice (Walumbwa et al., 2012)
 Q. Ye et al. / European Management Journal 37 (2019) 468e480
1. Employees in my team develops and makes recommendations
concerning issues that affect the team.
2. Employees in my team speaks up and encourages others in this
team to get involved in issues that affect the team.
3. Employees in my team communicates his/her opinions about
work issues to others in the team even if his/her opinion is
different and others in the team disagree with him/her.
4. Employees in my team keeps well informed about issues where
his/her opinion might be useful to the team.
5. Employees in my team gets involved in issues that affect the
quality of work life here in the team.
6. Employees in my team speaks up in the team with ideas for new
projects or changes in procedures.
Team innovation (Janssen, 2001)
1. My team creates new ideas for improvements.
2. My team searches out new working methods, techniques, or
instruments.
3. My team generates original solutions to problems.
4. My team mobilizes support for innovative ideas.
5. My team acquires approval for innovative ideas.
6. My team makes important organizational members enthusiastic
for innovative ideas.
7. My team transforms innovative ideas into useful applications.
8. My team introduces innovative ideas into the work environ-
ment in a systemic way.
9. My team evaluates the utility of innovate ideas.
Performance pressure (Gardner, 2012)
1. Client's satisfaction with our current work performance de-
termines the possibilities of our future cooperation.
2. The progress of our current work is closely monitored by the top
management of the company.
3. Success on the current work will significantly affect our pros-
pects for advancement within the company.
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