MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

---------------------------------

HOANG LE AN

TEAM COLLECTIVE VOICE AND ITS

ROLES IN PROMOTING TEAM
INNOVATIVE PERFORMANCE

PHD DISSERTATION
IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

HANOI – 2023
 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY
---------------------------------

HOANG LE AN

TEAM COLLECTIVE VOICE AND ITS

ROLES IN PROMOTING TEAM
INNOVATIVE PERFORMANCE

Specialization: Business administration

Specialization code: 9340101

PHD DISSERTATION

Supervisors:
1. Dr. Tran Huy Phuong
2. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Thi Thuc Anh

HANOI – 2023
 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this dissertation is my own work, which I have never submitted for
a degree at this or any other educational institution. I certify that all of the dissertation's
references have been properly credited.
I have read and comprehended the University's policy on plagiarism and academic
integrity violations. With my own honor, I certify that I carried out this research and did
not violate the regulations of good academic practice.

PhD Candidate

Hoang Le An

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank the following people, without whom I would not have been able
to complete this dissertation and without whom I would not have made it through my
Ph.D. degree!
The Professors at the Institute for Sustainable Development and the Institute for
Postgraduate Studies, National Economics University, especially my supervisors Assoc.
Prof. Dr. Phan Thi Thuc Anh and Dr. Tran Huy Phuong, whose insight and knowledge
into the subject matter steered me through this research. And special thanks to the late
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Thang, who has supported me from my very first and challenging
steps on this journey of acquiring knowledge.
The ICT employees in multiple firms in Hanoi and Hochiminh City took the time to
share their thoughts and return surveys, and without whom, I would have no content for
my research.
My dear National Economics University classmates have supported me and had to put
up with my stresses and moans for the past five years of study!
And my most enormous thanks to my family for all the support you have shown me
through this research!

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 Table of Contents

DECLARATION ............................................................................................................i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ........................................................................................... ii
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Rationale ............................................................................................................ 1
1.2. Research objectives and research questions..................................................... 2
1.3. Research subject and scope ............................................................................... 3
Research subject ...................................................................................................... 3
Research scope ........................................................................................................ 3
1.4. Originality of the research ................................................................................ 3
1.5. Structure of the dissertation .............................................................................. 5
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................. 7
1.1. Employee voice .................................................................................................. 7
1.1.1. Conceptualizations of employee voice ...................................................... 7
1.1.2. Types of employee voice ......................................................................... 12
1.1.3. Measurement scales of employee voice .................................................. 18
1.2. Factors influencing employee voice ............................................................... 19
1.2.1. Factors influencing individual voice ....................................................... 19
1.2.2. Factors influencing team voice ................................................................ 20
1.3. The impacts of employee voice on innovative performance .......................... 22
1.3.1. Overview of the roles of employee voice ................................................ 22
1.3.2. Innovative performance ........................................................................... 24
1.3.3. Individual voice and innovative performance ......................................... 26
1.3.4. Team voice and innovative performance................................................. 27
1.4. Research gaps in team voice literature ........................................................... 28
1.5. Research questions .......................................................................................... 29
CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL BASIS AND HYPOTHESES
DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................................................ 31

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 2.1. Institutional Theory and Vietnamese institutional context ........................... 31
2.1.1. Key ideas of Institutional Theory ............................................................ 31
2.1.2. Applications of Institutional Theory........................................................ 35
2.1.3. Vietnamese institutional context and employee voice ............................ 36
2.1.4. Limitations of Institutional Theory.......................................................... 39
2.2. The important role of routines ........................................................................ 40
2.3. The Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change ............................................ 40
2.3.1. Assumptions of Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change ................... 41
2.3.2. Key ideas of Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change ........................ 42
2.3.3. Applications in studying routine changes ................................................ 44
2.4. Research model and hypotheses development ................................................ 46
2.4.1. Employee voice as exogenous routine changes ....................................... 46
2.4.2. Team autonomy as endogenous routine changes .................................... 47
2.4.3. Individual voice, Team collective voice and the mediation effect .......... 48
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................. 50
3.1. Rationale for exploratory sequential mixed methods .................................... 50
3.2. Research design ............................................................................................... 54
3.2.1. Research context ...................................................................................... 50
3.2.2. Sequential mixed-methods research design ............................................. 54
3.3. Qualitative data collection and analysis ......................................................... 56
3.3.1. Qualitative data collection ....................................................................... 56
3.3.2. Qualitative data analysis .......................................................................... 60
3.4. Quantitative data collection and analysis ....................................................... 63
3.4.1. Level of analysis and the selection of team type ..................................... 63
3.4.2. Questionnaire development ..................................................................... 64
3.4.3. Quantitative sampling and data collection............................................... 70
3.4.4. Quantitative data analysis ........................................................................ 72
CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS ........................................................ 74
4.1. Qualitative findings and analysis.................................................................... 74

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 4.1.1. The nature of team collective voice ......................................................... 74
4.1.2. The utilization of team collective voice .................................................. 77
4.1.3. Types of team collective voice, their formation, and influence on
performance ........................................................................................................... 81
4.1.4. From qualitative to quantitative ............................................................... 86
4.2. Quantitative findings and analysis ................................................................. 86
4.2.1. Reliability assessment of the measurement scales .................................. 86
4.2.2. Exploratory factor analysis ...................................................................... 89
4.2.3. Confirmatory factor analysis ................................................................... 91
4.2.4. Common method bias .............................................................................. 91
4.2.5. Data aggregation ...................................................................................... 94
4.2.6. Descriptive analysis ................................................................................. 95
4.2.7. The difference between team leaders and team members ....................... 97
4.2.8. Correlation analysis ................................................................................. 98
4.2.9. Hypothesis testing.................................................................................... 98
CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .....................................104
5.1. Discussions ....................................................................................................104
5.1.1. Qualitative findings discussions ............................................................105
5.1.2. Quantitative findings discussions ..........................................................108
5.2. Theoretical contributions ..............................................................................112
5.3. Practical implications ....................................................................................114
5.3.1. Implications for team members .............................................................114
5.3.2. Implications for managements...............................................................115
5.4. Limitations and future research directions ..................................................116
CONCLUSION .........................................................................................................118
LIST OF PUBLISHED WORKS .............................................................................120
REFERENCES .........................................................................................................121
APPENDIX 1. LITERATURE REVIEW OF INDIVIDUAL VOICE
MEASUREMENTS ...................................................................................................141

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APPENDIX 2. LITERATURE REVIEW OF INNOVATIVE PERFORMANCE
MEASURMENTS......................................................................................................146
APPENDIX 3. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.........................................................149
APPENDIX 4. QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH VERSION) .............................151
APPENDIX 5. QUESTIONNAIRE (VIETNAMESE VERSION) .....................154
APPENDIX 6. REGRESSION ANALYSIS AT INDIVIDUAL LEVEL ..........158
APPENDIX 7. SPSS REGRESSION OUTPUTS ................................................159
Model 1 ....................................................................................................................159
Model 2 and 3..........................................................................................................159
Model 4 and 5..........................................................................................................160

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 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1.1. Voice conceptualizations ..............................................................................10

Table 1.2. Types of employee voice ..............................................................................17
Table 2.1. Three pillars of institutions...........................................................................33
Table 2.2. Institutional pillars and carriers ....................................................................35
Table 3.1. Scrum team ...................................................................................................53
Table 3.2. Qualitative research sample..........................................................................59
Table 3.3. Coding scheme .............................................................................................61
Table 3.4. Types of teams..............................................................................................64
Table 3.5. Measurement items of key variables ............................................................67
Table 3.6. Descriptive analysis of the research sample .................................................71
Table 4.1. Team collective voice examples...................................................................75
Table 4.2. Voice levels comparison ..............................................................................77
Table 4.3. Reliability of measurement scales ................................................................87
Table 4.4. KMO and Bartlett's tests ..............................................................................89
Table 4.5. Rotated Component Matrix ..........................................................................90
Table 4.6. Reliability and validity .................................................................................91
Table 4.7. Data aggregation comparison .......................................................................94
Table 4.8. Within group agreement and intraclass correlations indexes .......................95
Table 4.9. Descriptive statistics .....................................................................................96
Table 4.10. T-tests for equality of means ......................................................................97
Table 4.11. Means, SDs, and correlations .....................................................................99
Table 4.12. Regressions models ................................................................................. 101

Figure 1.1. EVLN model .................................................................................................8

Figure 1.2. Gorden's (1988) range of voice .....................................................................8
Figure 1.3. Typology of extra role behavior..................................................................10
Figure 1.4. Map of individual voice antecedents ..........................................................21
Figure 2.1. The research model .....................................................................................48
Figure 3.1. The Scrum framework ................................................................................55
Figure 3.2. Applying CGT process................................................................................56
Figure 4.1. Team collective voice typology ..................................................................84
Figure 4.2. Common latent factor..................................................................................93
Figure 4.3. Mediation model ...................................................................................... 102
Figure 5.1. Three building blocks of the study........................................................... 104

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 INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale
Organizations today increasingly seek proactive employee contributions as valuable
inputs (Wilkinson & Fay, 2011) for innovation/adaptation processes to deal with a fast-
changing external environment. One type of proactivity is employee voice, which refers
to employees’ expressions of ideas, suggestions, or attempts to change the unfavorable
status quo (Detert & Burris, 2007). It is widely recognized that employee voice would
improve employee job engagement (Cheng et al., 2013), job satisfaction (Alfayad &
Arif, 2017), team and organization performance (Frazier & Bowler, 2015; Li et al.,
2017), improve cultural change, a source of competitive advantage (Royer et al., 2008),
promote creativity and innovation (Chen & Hou, 2016; Guo, 2016; Miao et al., 2020;
Ng & Feldman, 2012; Rasheed et al., 2017), etc.
Multiple studies have asserted that voice is multilevel (Frazier & Bowler, 2015; Huang
& Paterson, 2017; Li et al., 2017), including individual and collective levels. Collective
forms of voice, such as team voice, offer employees a safer way to express their views
(Huang & Paterson, 2017), which is particularly important in some contexts, such as
China (Jing et al., 2022; Wu et al., 2020).
However, team voice has been significantly understudied, considering the
comparatively rich voice literature. Only a few studies have examined team voice, such
as Frazier (2009), Frazier & Bowler (2015), Huang & Paterson (2017), Kim et al.
(2010), Li et al. (2017), Torre (2019) and Walumbwa et al. (2012). However, the term
has been understood differently among those scholars. None have specified these
different views and dug into the nature of team voice itself (purpose, voicing
mechanism, unanimity mechanism, etc.), creating confusion for readers and succeeding
researchers. As a result, the measurement of the term has also been dubious.
In addition, voice literature seems to have a Western bias, with many studies written by
Western scholars with Western countries as the backdrop (Wilkinson et al., 2020).
Studies of voice in Eastern countries are rare. Since human and organizational
behaviors, such as voice, are highly influenced by institutional features (Scott, 1995),
this research argues that employee voice is highly context-specific. In Eastern contexts
such as China and Vietnam, the voice of individual employees is restricted by contextual
features such as authoritative leadership, considerable power distance, collectivism,
valuing harmony over conflict, face-saving and relationship-keeping, and respect for
elders (Garner, 2012; Jing et al., 2022; Kassing, 1997; Zhang et al., 2015). This means

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a more collective form of voice would practically hold greater significance in these
contexts as an alternative mechanism to hinder individual voice and contribute to
enhancing organizational outcomes.
However, few empirical studies have precisely measured and examined the concept of
team voice as shared or consensus voice of the team (Frazier & Bowler, 2015; Huang &
Paterson, 2017). As a result, empirical investigations regarding its important impacts on
performance-related variables such as team performance or innovation, which are highly
important and interesting variables among scholars, have also been underdeveloped.
This urges for further examination of team voice both conceptually and empirically.

1.2. Research objectives and research questions

This research aims to fill the above research gaps and contribute to the employee voice
literature with the clarification of team voice conceptualization, investigating the role of
team voice in Vietnam Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
organizations compared to that of individual voice, as well as testing its contributions to
innovation.
The concept of team collective voice was proposed to differentiate it from other team
voice concepts in previous literature. Thence, the following research objectives are
aimed to achieve:
- Exploring the true connotations and conceptualization of team collective voice,
its characteristics, and formation process.
- Developing the theoretical model
- Investigating the direct and indirect influence of team collective voice on team
innovative performance.
- Providing practical recommendations for teams and management to enhancing
organizational outcomes.
The objectives are refined into these five research questions:
RQ1. Does team collective voice exist in Vietnam organizations, and what is the nature
of team collective voice?
RQ2. In what situations is team collective voice used?
RQ3. What types of team collective voice are used, and how are they formed?
RQ4. How is the use of team collective voice compared to individual voice?
RQ5. How does team collective voice influence team innovative performance?

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1.3. Research subject and scope
Research subject
The key research subject of this dissertation is the team collective voice of work teams
in organizations, which is defined as the expression of shared views, ideas, suggestions,
or opinions of a work team to either higher management, other teams or individuals in
the organization in an attempt to challenge or change the current status quo. This
definition is proposed in this study to distinguish it from other team voice concepts used
in previous research.
In addition, this study also takes into account individual voices of team members to
compare the use of these two levels of voice and also compares their influence on team
innovative performance.

Research scope
In this study, employees from the ICT sector were targeted. This sector was chosen
owing to its growing importance in Vietnam's economic development (Bukht & Heeks,
2017; Dahlman et al., 2016; ITU, 2016; Nguyen, 2021; Vu, 2022) as well as the
profession nature of working in teams (Rubin, 2012), which contributes to its
appropriateness for conducting research about team collective voice.
To answer the research questions, this dissertation has adopted exploratory sequential
mixed methods, which include two phases of conducting research order (Creswell &
Clark, 2017). The first phase was an exploratory qualitative study to address the
development in the conceptualization of team collective voice. Data was collected
through semi-structured interviews with 30 employees to gain insights regarding team
collective voice. The second phase was a quantitative study with cross-sectional data
from surveying employees. 765 survey respondents working in 157 ICT teams have
participated in the study. Both phases’ data was collected from organizations in Hanoi
and Hochiminh City, the two biggest cities in Vietnam, where most ICT firms are based.

1.4. Originality of the research

Having identified the research gaps related to team collective voice, this study utilized
the theoretical perspectives of Institutional Theory (Scott, 1995) and Evolutionary
Theory of Economic Change (Nelson & Winter, 1982) to help form the arguments and
explain the research findings. Thence, theoretical contributions and contributions to the
employee voice and innovation literature were established.

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First, the first phase of the qualitative study clarified different connotations of employee
voice at the team level, which helps raise awareness among scholars on the collective
nature of team voice and guides successive researchers away from inconsistent
understandings of the term. Unique characteristics and the formation process of team
collective voice was discussed, highlighting its differences from other connotations. The
study also reveals certain institutional conditions that foster this type of voice and
suggests the employee voice concept should not be examined independently from the
concept’s institutional context. The proposed typology contributes comprehensively to
this conceptual work of team collective voice as the topology reveals the concept’s
multidimensionality and aids future research on measurement construction.
Second, in line with the argument about the confusing conceptualization of team voice,
this study attempted to measure team collective voice that captures its connotation of
shared or consensus team voice. Although the employee voice measurement scale of
Van Dyne & LePine (1998) was also adapted, similar to previous research (Frazier &
Bowler, 2015; Huang & Paterson, 2017; Walumbwa et al., 2012), it was adapted
differently and made sure that respondents understand the correct meaning of the
measurement. This allowed further examinations regarding team collective voice’s
associations with other interested variables. Specifically, in comparison with the use of
individual voice, team collective voice is preferred in Vietnam organizations. This has
verified the suggestion of the qualitative research that employee voice is highly
influenced by institutional elements, and Vietnam's institutional characteristics might
enhance the role of team collective voice.
In addition, drawing the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Nelson & Winter,
1982), the findings also contribute to innovation literature by suggesting another path
that employee voice can promote team innovative performance through exogenous
routine changes. Employee voice can act as a search routine – a higher-order routine
that is designed to produce changes to lower-order routines, such as having a market
analysis or research and development department in place. Hence, this also contributed
theoretically to the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change of Nelson & Winter
(1982) by proposing a different type of search – employee voice.
Among the two levels of voice, team collective voice is not only preferred but also fully
mediates the relationship between individual voice and team innovative performance.
From an institutional perspective, it implies that in order to create changes in routines
or also institutional changes in this context, individual voice is not strong enough. Team
collective voice is necessary to influence management decisions, thus leading to

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changes. Contributing to the Institutional Theory (Scott, 1995), this means institutional
changes’ drivers can be different in different institutional contexts.
Correspondingly, the findings also suggested the endogenous pathway of routine
changes that support the effect of team autonomy on team innovative performance,
creating a model of two ways that can promote team innovative performance through
exogenous and endogenous routine changes. Which method is utilized might again
depend on the institutional characteristics of the context. In a more controlled working
environment, which is caused by various cultural-cognitive, normative, and regulative
institutional factors, employees learn that changes need to arise from the higher level,
therefore, team collective voice is the more appropriate path to routine changes. In
contrast, a more open environment is more likely to companion with a high level of
autonomy.

1.5. Structure of the dissertation

The dissertation is structured in five chapters besides Introduction and Conclusion
including:
Chapter 1. Literature review
Chapter 1 presents the outcomes of a systematic literature review about employee voice
with a focus on team voice. Employee voice’s determinants as well as performance-
related outcomes are also discussed to provide a fuller picture about the development of
knowledge about voice behavior in the literature. Based on this systematic review, the
concept of team collective voice is proposed as one of the gaps in the literature,
establishing the direction and objectives of this research.
Chapter 2. Theoretical basis and hypothesis development
Chapter 2 constructs the theoretical foundation for the current study with a
comprehensive discussion of the Institutional Theory and the Evolutionary Theory of
Economic Change. Key terms and related conceptual frameworks are highlighted
targeting the proposed hypotheses.
Chapter 3. Research methodology
Chapter 3 describes the exploratory sequential mixed methods used in this study. It
begins with the description of research context and the clarification of the method
rationale explaining the reasons for choosing the mixed methods. Two sequential phases
are then described comprehensively, qualitative and quantitative research respectively.

5
Each part consists of detailed description about the sample, interview
questions/questionnaire development, data collection and data analysis process.
Chapter 4. Findings and analysis
Corresponding to the research method, research findings are presented in this chapter
following the above research sequence. Qualitative results are shown and analyzed first,
followed by quantitative findings and analysis. Interview data was used for explorative
analysis of the team collective voice concept including its natural characteristics, its
types and formation process. These findings guided the next phase - quantitative
research whose results are presented in the second section of this chapter.
Chapter 5. Discussions and implications
Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation with discussions of the key findings, theoretical
contributions and practical implications derived from the research findings. Limitations
are also acknowledged and discussed in this chapter, opening up the way forward for
future research.

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 CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides a comprehensive review regarding employee voice, its different
types, measurements, antecedents and its relationship with performance. The first
section thoroughly explores different employe voice conceptualizations among scholars,
followed by sections addressing types and measurements of the concept with a focus on
different levels of voice. A map of factors influencing employee voice is then developed.
The discussion is followed by another key section investigating theoretical and
empirical research on the roles of employee voice on different types of performance.
Based on the systematic review of literature, several research gaps are acknowledged
and discussed, contributing to the establishment of ressearch objectives.

1.1. Employee voice

This section focuses comprehensively on employee voice to provide a consistent
understanding of employee voice discussed in this dissertation. How the term has been
defined throughout its development will be systematically discussed and compared for
similarities and differences in the following section.

1.1.1. Conceptualizations of employee voice

The term voice was early appeared since 1970 in the model of Exit, Voice and Loyalty
(Hirschman, 1970). Since then, various authors have studied and theoretical and
empirical developed this term. They can be categorized in three perspectives toward
voice conceptualizations as summarized in Table 1.1 – Response to dissatisfaction,
Fairness indication and Extra role behavior.
The first perspective, developed from the model of Hirschman (1970), define voice as a
very broad construct of “any attempt at all to change, rather than to escape from, an
objectionable state of affairs” (Hirschman, 1970, 30). Voice is considered as an
alternative of exiting the organization by challenging the unfavorable status quo. This
broad definition makes room for the growth of many types of voice in literature. Later,
Farrell (1983) expanded Hirschman’s (1970) work by adding neglect to complete the
EVLN model (see Figure 1.1), which offers a four-way conceptualization of responses
to job dissatisfaction.

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Figure 1.1. EVLN model

Source: Gorden (1988)

Withey & Cooper (1989) supported this model and emphasized that the main objective
of voice is to remove personal dissatisfaction. Voice can take many forms such as
discussion with supervisor, complaining to co-workers, making suggestions, whistle
blowing, collective bargaining or protest. Also based on Hirschman (1970) and Farrell
(1983) theoretical models, Gorden (1988) used active/passive versus constructive/
destructive typology to classified four types of voice (see Figure 1.2).
Figure 1.2. Gorden's (1988) range of voice

Source: Gorden (1988)

According to Gorden (1988), both satisfaction and dissatisfaction can initiate voice and
voice can be either constructive or destructive, active or passive. This definition of

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Gorden (1988) has widen the conceptualization of voice to include items such as gossip,
murmuring of dissatisfaction compared to previous literature.
In the procedural justice literature, voice is considered as a mean or method used by
management to enhance employees’ perceived fairness. For example, Lind et al. (1990)
investigated the process of goal setting through experiments and found that both pre-
and post-decision voice lead to higher fairness judgement compared to no voice at all,
with pre-decision voice bring the highest perceived justice. In these situations, voice is
a passive behavior and employees can only have their voice when opportunities are
given. In addition, also in the light of fairness, union voice, which can be understood as
formal collective expression of opinions, is also viewed as a form of employee voice
(Addison, 2005). This topic dominated literature when unions were at their top of power
back in the 80s.
The third group of employee voice research has a different perspective. Instead of
originating from dissatisfied feeling, these authors argue that voice is a type of extra role
behavior (Van Dyne et al., 1995) or Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) (Van
Dyne & LePine, 1998). Van Dyne et al. (1995) hinged on the work of Katz (1964),
Organ (1988) OCB categorization, and Van Dyne et al. (1994) to establish a different
typology of extra role behavior that contrasting promotive/prohibitive and
affiliative/challenging (see Figure 1.3). In this typology, voice belongs to promotive and
challenging quadrant and is defined as proactive expression of ideas, innovations
intended to improve the situation rather than purely criticize. Many empirical studies
have had their focus on this positive aspect of employee voice when carrying out their
research (Chamberlin et al., 2017; Jada & Mukhopadhyay, 2018; Li et al., 2017; Li et
al., 2018; Liang et al., 2012; Liang et al., 2019; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). Even
prohibitive voice – the expression of concern about existing harmful practices, which is
normally negative in nature, is argued as consisting constructive attributes as showing
good intention to stop harmful factors (Liang et al., 2012). This positive focus is
narrower and does not include behavior such as whistle blowing, grievance filling,
collective bargaining, etc.

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Figure 1.3. Typology of extra role behavior
Table 1.1. Voice conceptualizations
Study Conceptualization
Response to dissatisfaction
Hirschman Voice has been defined as “any
(1970, 30) attempt at all to change, rather than
to escape from, an objectionable state
of affairs.”
Farrell “Voice usually involves appeals to
(1983, 597- higher authorities either inside or
598) outside of the managerial hierarchy,
but it also may involve other actions
and protests.”
Withey & Voice is understood as “people talked
Cooper to their supervisors and others about
(1989, 525) working to improve dissatisfying
conditions.”
10
Source: Van Dyne et al. (1994)
Key attributions
Broad definition of voice that
allows the variety of voice
types.
Voice challenges the status
quo as the alternative of exit.
Add Neglect to typology of
response to dissatisfaction
compared to Hirschman’s
(1970) model.
Voice is change-oriented.
Main objective of voice is
eliminating personal
dissatisfaction instead of
organization improvement,
similar to Farrell (1983).
 Study Conceptualization Key attributions
Fairness indication
Folger Voice means “having some form of Voice is passive.
(1977, 109) participation in decision making by A mean that is given by
expressing one's own opinion, and management to employees to
participation.” improve their perception of
distributive justice.
Lind et al. Voice is understood as expressing Voice enhances procedural
(1990, 952) views toward an issue/decision, which fairness even when the
employee believe “will help them individual making the fairness
control the outcomes – their judgment has no direct control
arguments might persuade the over the decision itself.
decision maker to provide a better
outcome – and that these expectations
lead to higher procedural fairness
judgments.”
Addison Employee voice is collective voice Collective voice through
(2005) through work councils or unions. union outperforms individual
voice.
Extra role behavior
Van Dyne et Voice is considered as a Challenging- Developed a typology of extra
al. (1995) Promotive extra-role behavior. role behavior:
Affiliative/Challenging –
Promotive/Prohibitive.
Van Dyne & Voice is defined “as promotive Constructively challenge the
LePine behavior that emphasizes expression status quo.
(1998, 109) of constructive challenge intended to
improve rather than merely criticize.
Voice is making innovative
suggestions for change and
recommending modifications to
standard procedures even when
others disagree.”

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 Study Conceptualization Key attributions

Van Dyne et The term voice is used to “describe Constructive suggestions as

al. (2003, speaking up behavior such as when well as concerns.
1369) employees proactively make Differentiate voice based on
suggestions for change.” three different employee
motives:
 Other-oriented behavior:
feeling cooperative and
altruistic.
 Self-protective behavior:
feeling afraid and
personally at risk.
 Disengaged behavior:
feeling unable to make a
difference.
Liang et al. “…voice behavior as an intentional, Constructive suggestions as
(2012, 73) “planned behavior” occurring in an well as concerns.
interpersonal context.”

1.1.2. Types of employee voice

Literature has explored the multi-dimensional characteristic of employee voice. They
have categorized employee voice by different aspects such as mechanism, purpose and
level. This section synthesizes these main aspects and presents the classification of
different types of employee voice.
1.1.2.1. Mechanisms
By mechanism, employee voice can be classified as formal and informal voice. Formal
voice includes employee voice through representative or union which is indirect, while
informal voice is normally direct discussion between employees and their supervisor on
the daily basis. Some authors also consider whistleblowing (Gundlach et al., 2003) and
grievance (Ichniowsky, 1986) as formal voice mechanisms to submit concerns. These
types of formal mechanisms are normally followed by investigation and handling
process (Klaas et al., 2012).
A less discussed way to categorize voice is its identifiability (Klaas et al., 2012).
Identifiable voice research is abundant and accounts for the majority of voice literature
(Van Dyne & LePine, 1998), while anonymous voice is significantly understudied, even
though this type is frequently used among organizations, such as employee surveys,

12
anonymous message or notes through suggestion box. While identifiable voice involves
risks for individual such as negative reactions or retaliation (Klaas et al., 2012; Siebert
et al., 2001) which results in reluctance to exercise, anonymous voice has lower
accountability regarding its content (i.e. people are unlikely to be confronted to justify
or defend ideas) and provides safety (Klaas et al., 2012).
1.1.2.2. Purposes
Differences in voice substance are harder to be detected and labelled. Liang et al. (2012)
based on the definition of Van Dyne & LePine (1998) to clarify the difference between
promotive and prohibitive voice. Although both are constructive, promotive voice,
which involves innovative solutions that benefit the organizations, is naturally
considered more positive and less risky compared to prohibitive voice, which
contributes to organizational performance through alarming existing problems and
preventing harmful work practices without necessarily providing solutions. As a result,
prohibitive voice might induce negative emotion among co-workers or team members
(Liang et al., 2012).
Maynes & Podsakoff (2014) developed an expanded framework of voice behavior
constructed by combining two dimensions: (1) preservation/challenging the status quo,
and (2) promotive/prohibitive voice. The first dimension can be found in Hirschman
(1970), Van Dyne & LePine (1998), and Gorden (1988). The second dimension was
from Liang et al. (2012), however, Maynes & Podsakoff (2014) challenged the view
that both promotive and prohibitive are constructive behavior. In fact, their view
matches Gorden’s (1988), which asserts the negative nature of prohibitive voice and
people do not always raise voice in a constructive manner. The two dimensions were
netted into a two-by-two matrix creating 4 types of voice.
1.1.2.3. Levels
Employee voice is also found to be a multilevel concept (Frazier & Bowler, 2015; Huang
& Paterson, 2017), individual voice and collective voice. Recent literature has been
focusing on individual voice owing to the decrease in union density at several advance
countries (Verma et al., 2002; Visser, 2006). For example, countries such as the UK and
US have dramatic deunionization rate according to OECD (2018). Besides, the
acknowledgement of voice important role in organization effectiveness together with
the development of HRM from HR administration utility to integrating HR strategy
(Ulrich et al., 2012) also contributes to the dominant of individual voice (Torre, 2018).
Collective voice refers to the articulation of employees’ input who normally have joint
experiences (i.e. desires, challenges, frustrations and joys) and speak in unity through

13
some form of collective employee representation (Jing et al., 2022; Lavelle et al., 2010).
The group speaks on behalf of individual members and vice versa. At organizational
level, collective voice is normally described in the form of trade union voice (Deery et
al., 2014; Kaufman, 2004). Freeman & Medoff (1984) and Tachibanaki & Noda (2000)
suggest that unions provide workers a collective voice mechanism through which
members’ grievances and other matters can be put cases to management, thus,
improving satisfaction and productivity (Brewster et al., 2007; Brewster et al., 2006;
Brown & Medoff, 1978). In addition, union voice substitutes for ineffective individual
voice with stronger collective power (Kaufman, 2004), allows deeper content by
eliminating fear of victimization (Harcourt et al., 2004).
Collective voice can also take the form of working teams, however, this type has been
understudied. A systematic review has been carried out of all relevant studies from
scholarly journals on two databases, Business Source Complete and PsycArticles. Three
keywords were used: “team voice”, “group voice” and “collective voice”. Additional
criteria were subject and research field classification, which generated 811 results in
total. Papers that did not study collective voice at the interested level (i.e., union voice
or collective voice of the community or interest group) were excluded, resulting in only
24 papers being found. They were empirical studies from the US, Europe, Japan and
China published between 2002 and 2022. Even with this limited amount of research,
team voice is still diverse in how it is defined and its connotation, which can be grouped
as follows.
Team voice as team influence
Kim et al. (2010) and Torre (2019) shared the same approach when examining the
impact of collective voice (representative and team voice) on organizational
productivity. While representative voice (i.e., union/non-union representatives) was
considered as an indirect mechanism, team voice was a proxy for direct voice and was
defined as the team influence toward decision making in ten day-to-day and work-
related areas such as the use of new technology, who should be brought into or dismissed
from the team, performance evaluations and who should do what job (Kim et al., 2010).
Torre (2019) also measured team voice as team influence using three items: the presence
and intensity of (1) decentralization of decision-making, (2) autonomous teamwork, and
(3) semi-autonomous teamwork. This approach in defining and measuring team voice
merely considered the outcome of team voice – team influence. This is rather misleading
and confusing with team autonomy. Some organizations would have a high level of
decentralization and give their units/teams the freedom to decide a variety of work-
related aspects. The teams can influence decisions simply because they are given the
right to do so as part of organizational operation instead of actively raising voice. In

14
addition, the decisions made might just be the team leaders’, which does not contain any
collective characteristics of the concept. Therefore, this does not indicate the existence
of team voice.
Team voice as the aggregation of members’ voice
Walumbwa et al. (2012) and Ye et al. (2019) described team voice as the extent to which
members of a team speaks up with new ideas, concerns, and problems implying team
voice represents the aggregation of team members’ voice, which does not seem to
correctly capture the meaning of group voice behavior. Other papers also claimed to
examine team voice, group voice or collective voice; however, they conceptualized
individual voice into team level by aggregating members’ voice (Brykman & Maerz,
2022; Chen et al., 2022; He et al., 2021; Li et al., 2017; Podsakoff et al., 2015; Sessions
et al., 2020; Um-e-Rubbab et al., 2022; Wang & Hu, 2018; Zhou et al., 2021) and
defined it as the extent to which members express their constructive opinions or initiate
communication toward teammates.
Correspondingly, they measured team voice by aggregating or averaging members’
voices using the additive or referent-shift consensus model proposed by Chan (1998) for
conducting multilevel research. The latter involves the change of referents in the
measurement scale to derive new constructs (Chan, 1998). For example, Van Dyne and
LePine (1998)’s individual voice scale was transformed into items such as “Employees
in my workgroup speak up and encourage others…” (Wang & Hu, 2018, 958) and “The
team member comes up with and puts forward opinions and suggestions on problems
that affect the work team” (Chen et al., 2022, 7). Using this method, researchers have
shifted the focus from participants’ perceptions of their own voice to their members’
voice and whether there is within-group consensus in such perceptions. Within-group
consensus is tested using indices such as within-group agreement rwg(j) and intraclass
correlations ICC(1) and ICC(2) as indicators of interrater reliability and group-mean
reliability, respectively (Bliese, 2000; James et al., 1984). These tests justify the
aggregation of individual responses to represent the value of higher-level construct –
team voice.
Team voice as shared voice
Frazier and Bowler (2015, 842) defined group voice as “a work group making
suggestions for improvement to its direct supervisor”. Huang & Paterson (2017)
supported this view and asserted that group voice protects individual employees and has
greater influence on management. This view is fundamentally different from the
previous one as it represents the consensus substance of voice, for example, members’
shared opinion about applying a particular technology, while the aggregation of

15
members’ voice indicates the consensus about the extent of members’ voice behavior.
It is not easy to distinguish between these approaches since these scholars have confused
definition and measurement.
The way they measured team voice or group voice is also different. Frazier & Bowler
(2015) studied voice climate’s influence on group performance through encouraging
group voice behavior. They asked employees to rate their voice climate, while
supervisors rated group voice behavior and group performance. Group voice behavior
was assessed from the viewpoint of group outsiders - the supervisors, and the referent
was shifted differently; instead of “employees in my workgroup” (Wang & Hu, 2018),
they used “the work group I supervise”. Similar method was used by Huang & Paterson
(2017) and Zheng et al. (2022), managers (outsiders to the groups) were asked to assess
group voice or team voice with the referent shifted to “this group” or “the team I
supervise”. Each team had one rating for their group voice only.
However, this measurement method still suffers from some drawbacks. It seems to
capture the overall voice of the team, but it does not necessarily reflect the collective
nature of team voice since the supervisors might perceive the scale as asking for
individual voice level of the teams rather than the collective opinion. Supervisors might
also not be able to know whether the voice is collective or rather expressed by one
individual and misinterpreted as team voice.
This connotation of team voice has also shown up in a more recent study about lateral
voice. Lateral voice is attracting researchers’ attention as an alternative to hampered
vertical voice due to factors such as authoritarian leaders, high power distance and the
collectivist culture in China (Jing et al., 2022), which shares many cultural
characteristics with Vietnam. Jing et al. (2022) suggested that lateral voice is the
transition mechanism to the collective vertical voice, which is considered more powerful
than the individual voice. Shared voice was created from shared experience, and with
the help of lateral voice, those people with shared experience or issues are brought
together to build support and then collectively voice to managers. However, this
qualitative work by Jing et al. (2022) merely touched on the formation mechanism of
collective voice as a by-product of lateral voice without further examination.
In short, team voice literature has been insufficient in addressing team voice as shared
voice. This gap will be discussed further later setting up the foundation for the research
objectives and research questions.

16
Table 1.2. Types of employee voice

Criteria Type Definition

Mechanism
Formality Formal Employee voice through formal mechanisms, which
normally involves recording, systematic evaluation,
and feedback procedures (Budd & Colvin, 2008; Klaas
et al., 2012).
E.g. elected employee plant councils, collective
bargaining (Kaufman, 2015); grievance (Klaas et al.,
2012).
Informal Ideas and concerns were communicated directly and
not in a structured mechanism (Klaas et al., 2012).
E.g. daily ad hoc conversations between line manager
and subordinates (Wilkinson et al., 2010); written note
or email (Brinsfield et al., 2009).
Channel Direct Employees speak directly to management (CIPD,
2019).
Indirect Employee voice through representatives, collective
bargaining (CIPD, 2019).
Identifiability Identifiable The sender of the message can be identified (Klaas et
al., 2012).
Anonymous The sender of the message is unidentifiable (Klaas et
al., 2012).
Purpose
Directions of Promotive Expressions of ways to improve existing work
changes practices and procedures to benefit organizations
(Liang et al., 2012).
Prohibitive Expressions of individuals’ concern about existing or
impending practices, incidents, or behavior that may
harm their organization (Liang et al., 2012).
Preservation/ Supportive Voluntary expression of support for worthwhile work-
Challenging related policies, programs, objectives, procedures,
versus etc., or speaking out in defense of these same things
Promotive/ when they are being unfairly criticized (Maynes &
Prohibitive Podsakoff, 2014).

17
 Criteria Type Definition
Constructive Voluntary expression of ideas, information, or opinion
focused on effecting organizational functional change
to the work context (Maynes & Podsakoff, 2014).
Defensive Voluntary expression of opposition to changing an
organization’s policies, procedures, programs,
practices, etc., when the proposed changes have merit
or making changes is necessary (Maynes & Podsakoff,
2014).
Destructive Voluntary expression of hurtful, critical, or debasing
opinions regarding work policies, practices,
procedures, etc. (Maynes & Podsakoff, 2014).
Level
Individual Individual behavior of expressing ideas, support or
concern with others (supervisors, colleagues).
Collective Collective voice refers to the articulation of
employees’ input who normally have joint experiences
(i.e. desires, challenges, frustrations and joys) and
speak in unity through some form of collective
employee representation (Jing et al., 2022; Lavelle et
al., 2010). The group speaks on behalf of individual
members and vice-versa.

1.1.3. Measurement scales of employee voice

Corresponding to the diversity of voice conceptualizations and types, there are different
methods scholars have used to measure employee voice. Following the EVLN model of
Hirschman (1970) and Farrell (1983), Rusbult et al. (1988) constructed a 17-item Likert
scale for all four elements of the model (i.e. exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect). Voice
measures focus on the employees’ problem resolve aspect such as “immediately go to
supervisor to discuss the problem”, and “ask co-worker for advice about what to do”
(Rusbult et al.,1988, 624). The measure of voice as extra role behavior is significantly
different. Van Dyne & LePine (1998)’s scale is the most popular owing to its well-
developed procedure and strong validity and reliability. Six items of voice in their
survey describe behavior such as making recommendations, encouraging others to get
involved, and the like. Studies that adopted this scale usually used supervisor- or
colleague-report, self-report voice is relatively rare. Other efforts have also been done
to develop voice measurement, for example, Van Dyne et al. (2003) scale of

18
acquiescent, defensive and prosocial voice, Liang et al. (2012) scale of promotive and
prohibitive voice, and Maynes & Podsakoff (2014) developed a scale for their own
typology (see Appendix 1).
Regarding team voice, as described in the previous section, its measurements vary with
the ways authors conceptualized it, either as team influence, aggregation of members’
voice or team shared voice. However, these measurement methods have not been able
to precisely capture the collective nature of the term.
1.2. Factors influencing employee voice
Having provided a systematic understanding of employee voice concept and initially
recognized the literature gap regarding team voice, this section presents the factors
influencing employee voice that has empirically found in the literature with a focus on
the classification of two levels of voice, individual voice and team voice.
1.2.1. Factors influencing individual voice
Studies addressing individual voice antecedents are abundant. Most of them were
conducted in isolation and focused on single or several determinants of voice in a variety
of contexts and methods. Only a few integrative research have been done to draw the
overview pictures of workplace voice determinants. For instance, Klaas et al. (2012)
reviewed and organized the literature into major categories of antecedents including (1)
trait-like characteristics, (2) satisfaction, commitment, and loyalty, (3) risk and safety of
voice, (4) voice legitimacy, (5) voice utility, (6) aversive conditions, and (7) culture. A
later effort of integration is that of Morrison (2014) whose model consists of motivators
and inhibitors which are both classified into 5 groups: (1) individual dispositions, (2)
job and organizational attitudes and perceptions, (3) emotions, beliefs, and schemas, (4)
supervisor and leader behavior, and (5) other contextual factors. These two ways of
categorizing share some similarities and differences. The first group of Morrison (2014)
comprises of motivators such as proactive personality, extraversion, conscientiousness,
etc., which are similar to the first group of Klaas et al. (2012). Job and organizational
attitudes and perceptions group shares components with satisfaction, commitment, and
loyalty and risk and safety of voice. On the other hand, Morrison (2014)’s model added
emotions, while omitted some factors such as organization culture and aversive
conditions compared to Klaas et al. (2012).
A map of individual voice antecedents has been constructed based on the reviewed
literature, which includes three main categories, individual, organization factors and
external environment as shown in Figure 1.4.

19
1.2.2. Factors influencing team voice
Studies about influencing factors of team voice share one key factor which is members’
perceived safety - the group shared perception of how voice is supported and welcomed.
Wang & Hu (2018) suggested that more positively composed teams – having more high
core self-evaluations (CSEs) individuals – will have stronger voice within team. This is
because having colleagues with similar high CSEs will make them feel more
comfortable in working with each other according to fit theory. It will lead to the
emergence of individual voice behavior initially and become prevalent gradually as
team members find it safe through observation (Morrison et al., 2011). In other words,
it is the voice climate that promote voice behavior of team members (Brykman & Maerz,
2022; Zhou et al., 2021).
In addition, several authors asserted some characteristics of the leader that can enhance
team voice such as leaders’ paradoxical thinking (Chen et al., 2022), ethical leadership
(Walumbwa et al., 2012), inclusive leadership (Ye et al., 2019), authentic leadership
(Zheng et al., 2022) and leader voice solicitation (Zhou et al., 2021). These leaders’
attributes can influence team voice directly as employees reciprocate leaders’ openness,
support and guidance by manifesting this proactive behavior (Chen et al., 2022; Zheng
et al., 2022). They also have an indirect impact though creating favorable voice climate
(Chen et al., 2022; Zhou et al., 2021). Supporting this view, Frazier and Bowler (2015)
and Zhou et al. (2021) implied that the opposing factors - group members share
perceptions of supervisor undermining and leader narcissism, respectively – increases
the level of perceived risk and unfavorable voice climate discouraging voice in the work
group.
As discussed in previous sections about different levels of voice, the majority of studies
have positioned team voice as the aggregation of members’ voice. As a result, these
influencing factors of team voice all share a common purpose which is the attempt to
reduce employees’ perceived risk when raising voice through either having high CSEs
individuals (Wang & Hu, 2018), suitable leadership styles (Chen et al., 2022; Frazier &
Bowler, 2015; Walumbwa et al., 2012; Ye et al., 2019; Zheng et al., 2022; Zhou et al.,
2021) or voice climate (Brykman & Maerz, 2022; Chen et al., 2022; Zheng et al., 2022;
Zhou et al., 2021). This further highlights the shortage of literature in exploring team
voice as shared voice behavior. No study has addressed those elements affecting the use
of team shared voice.

20
Figure 1.4. Map of individual voice antecedents

21
1.3. The impacts of employee voice on innovative performance
Additional to investigating about employee voice, this study is also interested in the
impacts of employee voice, especially on innovative performance. Thus, this section
explores the impacts of employee voice on organizational performance related outcomes
with the focus on innovative performance. The differences between individual voice and
team voice are also explored.

1.3.1. Overview of the roles of employee voice

Literature about the outcomes of employee voice is also abundant. They can be
classified into individual outcomes and organizational performance related outcomes.
Individual outcomes are benefits as well as harms that voice might bring to individual
employees, for example, job satisfaction (Budd et al., 2010; Cotton et al., 1988;
Morrison, 2014; Mowbray et al., 2015), employee development (Wilkinson et al., 2004),
being seen as a high performer (Chamberlin et al., 2017) which has been confirmed by
the positive relationship between voice and job performance (Van Dyne & LePine,
1998; Whiting et al., 2008), and reducing stress (Greenberger & Strasser, 1986; Parker,
1993). In addition, better performance appraisal also leads to higher possibility of
promotion (Dutton & Ashford, 1993). On the other hand, Seibert et al. (2001) suggested
that voice negatively influence not only promotions but also salary increases in two-year
time. It might also damage speakers’ public image – being seen as complainers or
troublemakers (Pinder & Harlos, 2001).
Organizational outcomes have been focused more by scholars. Some studies directly
investigated the impact of employee voice on job, team or organization performance
(Anyango et al., 2015; Dundon et al., 2004; Morrison et al., 2011; Wilkinson et al.,
2004), while the others addressed other related variables namely retention (Spencer,
1986), loyalty culture, internal work system, open and constructive employment relation
climate (Dundon et al., 2004), OCB (Chamberlin et al., 2017), leader-member exchange
(Cheng et al., 2013), organizational commitment (Lewin & Mitchell, 1992; Pfeffer &
Jeffrey, 1998), team innovation (Li et al., 2017), team learning (Edmondson, 1999),
productivity (Kim et al., 2010), crisis prevention (Schwartz & Wald, 2003), and
procedural justice (Lind et al., 1990), which ultimately will alter performance. This
argument is supported by studies of Patterson et al. (1997) and Guest (1997) which
indicate that productivity improvement and retention rates are indicators of
performance. OCB has also been proved to enhance organizational performance by
various research (Chamberlin et al., 2017).

22
Various levels of performance have been investigated as consequences of voice from
task or job to organizational performance. Job performance is defined as the perceived
value of individuals’ contributions, carried out over a course, to organization through
performing their tasks (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997; Motowidlo et al., 1997). This
concept is a popular outcome of employee voice in research both theoretical and
empirical. Most of them asserted the positive relationship and consider voice as an
additional resource that help stimulate job performance (Fuller et al., 2007; Seibert et
al., 2001). Other studies further examined the impact of voice and each component of
job performance such as creativity, and in-role performance.
The relationship between voice and group or organizational performance was normally
examined through the associations of voice and some dimensions of unit’s performance
such as group innovation (Morrison et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2017), productivity (Budd
et al., 2010; Wilkinson & Fay, 2011), effectiveness (Detert et al., 2013) and staff
retention rates (Guest, 1997). Korsgaard et al. (1995) and Boxall & Purcell (2011)
suggested that employees can use their voice to participate in the decision-making
process through which better decisions might be made. Voice can also help to improve
working environment (Dundon et al., 2004), employee engagement (Jha et al., 2019),
transparency (Andrew & Sofian, 2012; Jha et al., 2019), which indirectly contribute to
performance.
Notwithstanding, research on the effect of voice on team or organization performance
also witnessed negative results (Burris, 2012; Klaas & DeNisi, 1989). Not all managers
are persuaded by the above benefits of voice. Some of them prefer less voice and have
suppressing behavior. They might view employee voice as unhelpful and promoting
individual instead of collective interest (Ashford et al., 2009). Morrison (2014)
suggested a non-linear relationship between the two and asserted that the problem lies
at the amount of employee voice. “Too much” voice might lead to negative outcomes
owing to overwhelming and unable to reach consensus view as well as time consuming
in examining new ideas instead of actually performing the tasks. In other words, there
is a certain threshold over which the impacts of voice will be reversed (Ashford et al.,
2009; Morrison & Milliken, 2000).
These diverse findings also come from the consideration of different voice type, content
as well as some moderators and mediator variables of different researchers. For
example, Detert et al. (2013) implied that voice’s target has a considerable role toward
its effectiveness. Two different targets have been categorized – leaders and co-workers
corresponding to upward and lateral voice, respectively. These two types have reverse

23
relationships with unit’s effectiveness. The main difference is the target’s ability to take
action responding to voice’s content. Leaders are the one who have the authority to
devote resources and make changes as well as the ability to influence others to resolve
the issues (Whiting et al., 2008), while that of co-workers is limited. As a result, voice
to leaders can lead to constructive changes, whereas co-workers targeted voice
negatively relates to a unit’s effectiveness. Morrison (2011) agreed with this argument
when suggesting that whether voice is good or bad much depends on its content and how
it is responded. From the speakers’ point of view, they certainly acknowledge the above
difference, leading to the divergent voicing attitude and objectives towards the two
targets. Lateral voice is normally used to seek consensus, social support or simply to
vent, which results in potential harmful effects on performance (Detert et al., 2013).
However, Jing et al. (2022) suggest that although venting might not help resolving
problems, it can promote the development of social support which is the momentum for
a more effective voice – collective vertical voice.
Doucouliagos (1995) and Levine (1990) looked at a different dimensions - direct and
indirect voice. Their empirical tests found that direct voice has a high level and long-
lasting influence on productivity. When there are direct voice mechanisms in place, it
provides higher degree of influence sharing that contributes to better decisions’ quality
and effectiveness (Heller, 1998). Indirect voice often takes the form of unions or work
councils. Its impact on performance outcomes is rather mixed. US-based studies found
small positive effect of unions on productivity, but negative effect on profitability
(Addison & Belfield, 2004). In contrast, unions in the UK lowered productivity in
manufacturing plants in 1980s (Fernie & Metcalf, 1995).

1.3.2. Innovative performance

Before investigating further about the relationship between employee voice and
innovative performance, this section will provide an overview about innovative
performance, and set out a unified understanding of the term in this study.
Similar to employee voice, this term is approached at different levels of analysis. At
organizational level, innovative performance or innovation performance are normally
defined as the contribution of product and process innovations to firm performance
(Jiang & Li, 2009; Kaya et al., 2020; Meeus & Oerlemans, 2000). This means it captures
the economic results of the firm contributed by those product and process innovations.
Correspondingly, a significant number of studies used secondary objective data sources
namely Compustat, Eurostat or the companies’ archives (Anderson et al., 2014). Others

24
used primary objective measurements that were constructed based on the research
context specific feature (Anderson et al., 2014) such as the amount of new product sales
compared to total sales (Jantunen, 2005; Wang & Kafouros, 2009), the firm’s total sales
from innovations (Hitt et al., 1996), number of patents, research and development
expenditure (Caloghirou et al., 2004; Chang, 2003; Hagedoorn & Cloodt, 2003),
innovation indicators based on the company’s innovation output over the last 3 years
(Romijn & Albaladejo, 2002).
At individual and team levels, the conceptualization as well as measurement of
innovative performance are slightly different. Studies described innovative performance
as the degree to which employees can create changes or develop new products or
processes (Ali et al., 2020) or as multiphase behavioral process consisting of a set
generation and implementation of new ideas to improve products or procedures
(Anderson et al., 2014; Rodrigues & Rebelo, 2019). Compared to the above definitions
at organizational level, one similarity is that both product and process innovations are
included, while the fundamental difference is that instead of focusing on the results or
returns aspects of innovations, these definitions focus more on the behavioral aspects to
measure innovative performance. This means innovative performance indicates
employees’ behavior of making change and innovating and does not take into account
whether those changes can bring benefits to the team, department or organization.
Hence, at these levels, researchers normally rely upon self-report and supervisor ratings
to quantify innovative performance (i.e., 72% of studies at individual level and 68% at
team level) (Anderson et al., 2014), which is considered as more accurate and reliable
than publicly reported data (Beneito, 2006). For example, Welbourne et al. (1998)
developed a role-based performance scale by applying role theory and identity theory
that measure performance in multidimension of multiple behavior at work. Among
those, innovations in one’s job were measured by items such as “Coming up with new
ideas”, “Working to implement new ideas”, “Create better processes and routines”.
Other popular instruments are those of Janssen (2001) (5% of studies), Burpitt &
Bigoness (1997) (4% of studies), and Scott & Bruce (1994) (3% of studies) (Anderson
et al., 2014) (see Appendix 2 for their detail measurement items).
This way of conceptualization and measurement of innovative performance or
innovation are very similar to a related construct – innovative work behavior. Scholars
have been described this behavior as employees’ efforts to generate, introduce, or apply
novel ideas, processes and solutions (De Jong & Den Hartog, 2008; Janssen, 2000;
Prieto & Pérez-Santana, 2014; Scott & Bruce, 1994). Multiple studies have not

25
distinguished between innovative work behavior and innovative performance. They
even used innovative work behavior instruments to measure innovative performance
(Janssen, 2001; Rodrigues & Rebelo, 2019) since their definitions have been quite
similar.

1.3.3. Individual voice and innovative performance

Literature regarding the individual voice and innovation/innovative performance mostly
approached this relationship as employee voice provides new ideas, suggestions, or
opinions about work-related issues (Anand et al., 2007; Lopez‐Cabrales et al., 2009).
They argued that as voice is employee’s attempt to make recommendation for positive
changes or improvement (Van Dyne et al., 2003; Zhou et al., 2017), promoting voice
helps to encourage employees to actively think about organizational issues,
organizational learning or knowledge sharing would be increased (Bogosian, 2011;
Detert & Burris, 2007), different perspectives would be discussed and integrated (Van
Dyne & LePine, 1998; Walumbwa et al., 2012), which eventually result in innovations
(Rasheed et al., 2017). In addition, employee voice also contributes more directly to
innovation by pointing out errors or problems in both formulation and implementation
stages (Enz & Schwenk, 1991) and suggesting solutions (Bogosian, 2011).
There are only a few studies that have taken a theoretical view toward this relationship.
Rasheed et al. (2017) used resource-based view (RBV) to explain how voice may
influence organizational innovation. They argued that organizational performance
which includes innovation performance is the result of knowledge, skill, experience and
capabilities of employees, which should be unique, rare, imitable and non-substitutable
to sustain the competitive advantages (Barney & Wright, 1998). Employee voice
behavior is one of those unique resources of an organization that takes time to develop
with the creation of close personal relationships, psychological engagement and safety.
This socially complex and time-consuming process will make it hard for competitors to
imitate (Rasheed et al., 2017).
Looking from the view of organizational justice theory, Basheer et al. (2021) suggests
that voice as employee involvement in decision making would make them feel satisfied
(Anyango et al., 2015) and increase their motivation in sharing their ideas, which then
improves employee creativity and innovation following the componential theory of
creativity (Ganjali & Rezaee, 2016).

26
1.3.4. Team voice and innovative performance
There are a few studies have examined the roles of team voice toward performance and
performance-related variables namely productivity (Kim et al., 2010), supervisor
performance (Sessions et al., 2020), ethical performance (Huang & Paterson, 2017) and
group performance (Frazier & Bowler, 2015; He et al., 2021; Walumbwa et al., 2012).
Most of them conceptualized team voice as the aggregation of members’ voice. Thus,
team voice contributes to performance through the generation of ideas, opinions,
knowledge and information sharing, team learning, thoroughly discussion of different
perspectives between team members leading to better decision makings and problem
solving (Frazier & Bowler, 2015; He et al., 2021; Walumbwa et al., 2012).
Among those, there are only two research that focus on innovation. Ye et al. (2019)
share the same approach with the above studies in explaining the relationship between
team voice and team innovation. They suggest that team voice is the source of new ideas,
involves the discussions of opposite views, initiates the modifications of existed
practices and extending beyond routines which will enhance innovative output.
Li et al. (2017) argued from the view of regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) when
examining the multi-dimension of team voice construct. They asserted that the content
of voice messages, either promotive or prohibitive, has a very important role and results
in different pathways and team outcomes. Regulatory focus theory is about the
motivations of people regarding the desired outcomes in pursuing goals. This theory
classifies two types of people with different focuses, promotion and prevention.
Individuals dominated by promotion focus will tend to find their motives in potential
positive consequences of their behavior. They strive for improvement and
accomplishments of positive outcomes. On the other hand, prevention focus means
people concern with negative consequences and are highly responsive to goal
impediments (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Higgins, 1997), which makes their goals involve
avoiding negative results. In other words, promotion focus is avoiding non-positive
outcomes, while prevention is striving for nonnegative outcomes (Volz & Masicampo,
2021). Applying the theory principles to teams, studies have found that teams can be
motivated to focus on either promotion or prevention by members actions (Beersma et
al., 2013; Dimotakis et al., 2012), which Li et al. (2017) suggests including promotive
and prohibitive team voice. The promotive voice highlights a future ideal state and
specifies how to get there, which drives team members to strive for growth-related goals.
The prohibitive voice, on the other hand, is the expression of concerns which brings out
problems and hazards clearly to the team’s awareness, influencing the team behavior
toward preventing harm. Thus, in both cases, from the regulatory focus theory, team

27
voice is a mechanism that helps members to shape collective goal pursuit (Li et al.,
2017). Empirically, Li et al. (2017) found team promotive voice positively influences
team innovation, while that of team prohibitive voice is team monitoring.
In summary, although research does not explicitly apply and point out their theoretical
perspectives, it seems that literature has been quite united in taking the RBV when
considering employee voice as a resource of new ideas contributing to innovation and
success of organizations. Other views have not yet well developed. In addition, these
influence mechanisms of team voice are not much different from those of individual
voice since these authors mostly conceptualized team voice as the aggregation of
members’ voice – the extent to which individual members express their views within
the team context.

1.4. Research gaps in team voice literature

The review of literature has revealed several gaps in employee voice research that
require further investigations. First, there are divergent understandings of team voice
and how it is measured. Kim et al.’s (2010) and Torre’s (2019) team voice mainly
captured team autonomy, which is a working style rather than the expression of
opinions. Other authors assessed the team-level construct by aggregating team
members’ voice behavior (Brykman & Maerz, 2022; Chen et al., 2022; He et al., 2021;
Li et al., 2017; Podsakoff et al., 2015; Sessions et al., 2020; Um-e-Rubbab et al., 2022;
Wang & Hu, 2018; Zhou et al., 2021). This way of operationalizing the concept captures
only the shared perceptions of team members regarding the level of members’ voice.
This is distinctive with the team’s shared voice – members have a shared opinion about
a specific work-related issue – which I believe should be the precise interpretation of
the term, in line with Frazier & Bowler (2015), Huang & Paterson (2017) and Jing et al.
(2022). The current measurements have also been unable to accurately reflect this
collective attribute of shared voice.
Second, they also did not specify how employees could reach a consensus view before
raising their team voice. Whether the team proactively moves toward consensus and
strategically raises their team voice, or it takes a more natural approach. This might
reveal the multi-dimensional feature of the term.
Additionally, research addressing the roles of team voice as shared voice on team
performance is scant and none of them have targeted team innovative performance as
well as comparing it with the impact of individual voice.

28
One explanation for this shortage in literature might be the Western bias of the current
voice literature (Wilkinson et al., 2020). Eastern countries with some specific
institutional characteristics may have very different employee voice behavior. Some
studies were taken place in the US which has different cognitive, normative and
regulative institutional characteristics. For example, as Americans are individualistic
(Hofstede et al., 2010), they would have strong individual voice, which is not the
nurturing environment for collective shared voice. Therefore, it might not even exist in
practice resulting in a different way of understanding and operationalizing the concept.

1.5. Research questions

Based on the above review of employee voice literature, in this study, employee voice
is understood as the expression of employee’s views, ideas, suggestions, or opinions to
either higher management, other teams, or individuals in the organization in an attempt
to challenge or change the current status quo. As a result, individual voice can be defined
as employee voice of individuals, while team voice in this study should be understood
as shared voice, which is in line with the connotation of Frazier & Bowler (2015) and
Huang & Paterson (2017) discussed previously.
To bridge the above gaps in literature related to team voice, this study applies the
Institutional Theory to investigate further about the concept of team voice as shared
voice, which I name team collective voice, to distinguish the concept from team
voice/group voice used in previous literature, in Vietnam context, an Eastern country,
how team collective voice is generated, how team members reach a consensus and raise
their team collective voice, whether it is a multi-dimensional concept.
Additionally, further fulfilling the whole picture of team collective voice, its impact on
organization was also aimed to explore, particularly the impact on team innovative
performance since employee voice as the source of new ideas is normally found to have
direct influence on innovative performance (Basheer et al., 2021; Ganjali & Rezaee,
2016; Li et al., 2017; Rasheed et al., 2017; Ye et al., 2019). The impact will also be
compared with that of individual voice. The following research questions were proposed
to achieve the research objectives:
RQ1. Does team collective voice exist in Vietnam organizations and what is the nature
of team collective voice in this context?
RQ2. In what situations is team collective voice utilized?
RQ3. What types of team collective voice are used, how are they formed?

29
RQ4. How is the use of team collective voice compared to individual voice?
RQ5. How does team collective voice influence team innovative performance?

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 1
Chapter 1 has discussed extensively the current state of development of employee voice
research, specifically team voice research regarding conceptualization, types,
measurements, antecedents and outcomes. The discussion revealed several research
gaps relating to team collective voice – the proposed concept indicating the shared voice
of the team that is used to distinguish with other connotations of team voice/group voice
used in previous literature, supporting the establishment of five research questions that
center team collective voice.

30
 CHAPTER 2. THEORETICAL BASIS AND HYPOTHESES
DEVELOPMENT

This chapter aims to set out the theoretical basis for further discussion about the concept
of team collective voice. This study draws on two theories, the Institutional Theory and
the Evolutional Theory of Economic Change, to guide the journey of constructing the
research models and resolving the research questions. The reasons for being chosen as
well as overviews of the two theories will be discussed. The Institutional Theory will be
addressed first, followed by some relevant Vietnamese institutional characteristics that
contribute to shape the employee voice behavior in Vietnam. This set out the grounds to
verify the existence and the importance of team collective voice in Vietnam
organizations. The next section will examine the concept of routines – the key concept
in both Institutional Theory and Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. The
routines concept helps link the two theories and also recognize the shortcoming of the
Institutional Theory in fulfilling the objectives of this study which can be met by the
Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Finally, the research model and hypotheses
development will be described.

2.1. Institutional Theory and Vietnamese institutional context

Centering employee voice and aiming to explore more about team collective voice in
Vietnam – a context that is different from the contexts of majority of employee voice
studies (Wilkinson et al., 2020), Institutional Theory would be an appropriate theoretical
basis. It allows those contextual characteristics to indicate their influence on employee
voice, making employee voice in Vietnam organizations significantly different from
those in Western countries.

2.1.1. Key ideas of Institutional Theory

The Institutional Theory focuses on the roles of social and political systems in
influencing human behavior. Institutions are multifaceted, durable social structures
including symbolic system, legal system, moral standards, social norms and routines
(Guy, 2000; Scott, 2014) and are transported by various carriers including cultures,
structures and routines (Scott, 1995). The theory fundamental argument is that those
institutional factors act as the rules of the game and shape people’s behavior by
encouraging or constraining them (Scott, 1995). And by following the rules of the game,
people receive legitimacy which indicates the perception of oughtness based on “some
socially construct system of norms, beliefs and definitions” (Suchman, 1995, 574).
Legitimacy helps raise the possibility of surviving of individual or organization (Aldrich

31
& Fiol, 1994). Other assumptions of institutional arguments is that they are inertia and
therefore heavily influenced by past institutional structures (Ritzer, 2004).

Three pillars of institutions

Scott (1995) described three pillars of institutional theory: regulative, normative and
cognitive which are the central building blocks of institutional structures. These
elements cover a continuum moving “from the conscious to the unconscious, from the
legally enforced to the taken for granted” (Hoffman, 1997, 36).
The regulative pillar involves the formation of legal frameworks, regulations
monitoring and regulating behavior and sanctioning violations that aim to influence
future behavior. The sanctioning process may function through either informal or formal
mechanisms, for example, public pressure or shaming and formal specialized actors like
the police and courts, respectively (Scott, 2014). Thus, it is said that force, fear and
expedience are the main ingredients of this pillar. While people are motivated to make
choices based on a utilitarian and cost-benefit logic, they would conform to rules based
on rational calculation of their best interest (Scott, 1995).
The second element, normative systems, consists of values and norms which are
society’s non-codified rules. Values are beliefs and standards about the desirable
behaviors that are used to compare and assess (e.g., making a profit), while norms define
specific legitimate actions that should be pursued (e.g., the notion of fair business
practices). Values and norms are normally applied to members of the collectivity, guide
their behaviors and establish social responsibilities which are the conceptions of
appropriate action for specified social roles (Scott, 2014). Different from regulative
pillar, this pillar starts to move away from rational behavior and behavior is socially
mediated by values and norms. Members follow those rules not because they serve their
purposes, but they are expected or have responsibility to do so (Nguyen, 2015; Scott,
1995). March & Olsen (1989) distinguished this difference as logic of instrumentalism
versus logic of appropriateness. Different questions arise for each type of logic, what
are my interests in this situation versus what is expected of me, respectively.
The third pillar is more related to anthropology and sociology. Scholars emphasize the
cultural-cognitive dimension of institutions which are the collective beliefs that define
social reality and produce the frameworks within which meaning is constructed (Scott,
2014). People often adhere to this dimension subconsciously, which is different from
normative and regulative counterparts. Cognitive influences normally originate from
individuals’ background, ethnicity, upbringing, education, etc. Thus, people who share

32
upbringing environment, neighborhood, region or culture would have consistent
cognitive beliefs and conformity to those beliefs. For example, in one country, it might
feel natural to transport to and from working by personal motorized vehicles, however,
public transportation might dominate another context. Individuals would follow that
action because it is taken for granted as the way things are done. Conformity is coming
from orthodoxy – the perceived correctness of the behavior (Scott, 2014).
Table 2.1. Three pillars of institutions

Regulative Normative Cultural-Cognitive

Basic of Expedience Social obligation Taken-for-grantedness

compliance Shared understanding
Mechanisms Coercive Normative Mimetic

Logics Instrumentality Appropriateness Orthodoxy

Indicators Rules Certification Common beliefs
Laws Accreditation Shared logics of action
Sanctions Isomorphism
Affect Fear Shame/Honor Certainty/Confusion
Guilt/Innocence

Basis of legitimacy Legally Morally governed Comprehensible

sanctioned Recognizable
Culturally supported

Source: Scott (2014)

Besides, it is important to note that these three pillars have different underlying
assumptions about the nature of reality and how choice emerges. First, cognitive
theorists believe that the world is not objectives, but it is collectively invented by
individuals (Burrell & Morgan, 1979). In contrast, regulative view assumes that the
environment around us is a part of the natural world, people just respond to incentives
and constraints available in the environment. And finally, normative pillar’s assumption
falls between these two ends with a bit closer to cognitive position. In terms of how
actors make choices, regulative theorists simply presume that people are rational.
Choices in normative pillar is moral oriented, which means people take into account
relations and obligations to others when making decisions. Cognitive theorists, on the

33
other hand, suppose that choices strongly depend on the way knowledge is constructed
(Scott, 1995).

Legitimacy
As mentioned above, another key term in institutional theory is legitimacy – the right
and acceptance of an authority or general public. An implied argument of the
institutional theory is that individuals and organizations will acquire legitimacy when
they follow institutional constraints, which then helps improve their survival possibility
(Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Suchman, 1995). Each of the above pillars provides a foundation
for legitimacy. From the regulative view, legitimate entities are those align their
operations with relevant rules or law, while the normative view is about fulfilling moral
obligations which may be derived from “mere” legal requirements (Scott, 1995). Thus,
it is more likely to be internalized compared to the regulative pillar. However, the most
internal view of legitimacy is from the cognitive systems. Legitimacy is developed
through the adoption of a common frame of reference or definition of the situation and
achieved when things are taken for granted.

Carriers of institutional elements

Institutions regardless of which elements are entrenched in many different repositories
or carriers. Scott (1995) proposed a set of three carriers including cultures, social
structures and routines (see Table 2.2). He also emphasized the reciprocal relation
between these carriers and people behaviors as carriers guide and constraint ongoing
behavior and are altered by those behaviors as well.
Cultural carriers much depend on how people interpret the meanings of those
institutional elements – interpretive structures. The aspects of culture differ depending
on whatever elements of institutions are given emphasis. Regulative theorists will focus
on rules, laws and conventions; shared values and normative expectations will center
normative view; and cognitive theorists will emphasize the significance of categories,
distinctions, and typifications. These cultural beliefs can be those exist in wide
environment at the world level or only exist in specific jurisdictions or organizations.
This helps explaining the rise of corporate culture (Frost et al., 1991; Scott, 1995).
Social structural carriers are expectations about networks of social positions – roles
systems. In other words, institutional elements are coded into structural distinctions and
roles. Some can be applied widely creating structural isomorphism, while the others are
exclusive to certain groups, localized belief systems. For example, cognitive codified
knowledge systems help the categorization of different academic divisions within

34
universities. Governance systems are emphasized by normative and regulative elements.
Governance is said to establish enforcing codes, norms and rules that regulate individual
participants’ activities (Scott, 1995).
Institutions can also be carried by habitual or patterned behaviors – routines – that
capture the tacit knowledge and beliefs of actors. This is agreed by early institutionalists
that habitualized, patterned behaviors, routines, operating procedures and the like are
the main features of institutions. For instance, March & Simon (1958) suggested that
recurring performance procedures were the key components of organization reliability.
More recently, evolutionary theorists (Nelson & Winter, 1982) developed another
theory that centered routines in governing activities by tacit knowledge and bound by
rules, such as assembly procedures. These routines promote organizational behavior
stability and reliability. This theory will be discussed further in later sections of the
study. The above arguments indicate that organizations are deeply ingrained in
institutional contexts. Institutional forces promote and restrict organizations, and at the
same time, those institutional elements are also internalized into organization’s system
(Scott, 1995).
Table 2.2. Institutional pillars and carriers

Pillar
Carrier
Regulative Normative Cognitive

Cultures Rules, laws Values, Categories,

expectations typifications
Social structures Governance Regimes, authority Structural
systems, power systems isomorphism,
systems identities
Routines Protocols, standard Conformity, Performance
procedures performance of duty programs, scripts

Source: Scott (1995)

2.1.2. Applications of Institutional Theory

Research normally based on Institutional Theory to investigate organization behavior,
especially entrepreneurs in getting legitimacy or social acceptance. For example,
Aldrich & Fiol (1994) argue that important factors to the survival or success of
entrepreneurs, such as access to capital, markets, and governmental protection, are partly

35
dependent on the level of legitimacy achieved by the industry or the organization. Two
types of legitimacy were distinguished, cognitive and socio-political legitimacy.
Cognitive legitimation indicates the spread of knowledge about the new entity such as
new product, business, industry, system, or policy. The highest form, similar to the
cognitive pillar of Scott (1995), is when new entity is taken for granted. Likewise, socio-
political approval is about the acceptance of social stakeholders namely government
officials, customers, or the general public that the new entity or practice is appropriate
with the norms and regulations. Aldrich & Fiol (1994) also found that industry with
more organizations and takes collective action will gain socio-political legitimation
more quickly and the largest firms are more likely to be the industry champion to create
a third-party actor such as trade associations to maintain stability and gain cognitive
legitimacy. In Vietnam, Nguyen et al. (2016) also employed the institutional perspective
to examine the relationship between level of customer acceptance and competitor
concentration. A positive association was found supporting the authors’ hypothesis. In
the context of underdeveloped institutions in transition economies like Vietnam,
customer acceptance becomes vital to firms’ survival which influences firms’ strategies
including location selection.

2.1.3. Vietnamese institutional context and employee voice

Although the theory has been applied greatly in the field of organizational behavior as
mentioned above, none has utilized it in examining employee voice. Taking the new
viewpoint of the Institutional Theory, this study investigates employee voice with
consideration of the Vietnamese institutional context and suggests that employee voice
is also controlled greatly by institutional characteristics, thus, creating the divergence of
this behavior between different countries. In particular, an Eastern context such as
Vietnam, with distinctive institutional characteristics compared to those in Western
countries, will have very different employee voice. This section analyzes some of those
Vietnamese institutional characteristics that might together contribute to the
unpopularity of individual voice in Vietnam.
First, the Vietnamese are heavily influenced by Confucianism, introduced early on
during more than 1,000 years of Chinese rule since the first centuries AD. It is used as
a mean to enhance the invaders’ power (Ly, 2015). Although the Chinese occupiers later
left the country, Confucianism ideology stayed, expanded and became the standard
norms governing the society for centuries (Pham, 2005). Confucianism was highly
valued by feudal governments since the 11th century and used in the norms and content
of the government official training to extend the power of the King. It finally became

36
the national religion at the time of Nguyen Dynasties. Feudal class was highly
appreciated Confucianism and actively and persistently disseminated it because it
helped them to rule over people. Therefore, Confucianism has step-by-step invaded into
Vietnamese culture, established as an orthodox culture and remains deep-rooted in
people’s cognition and heavily influences the Vietnamese culture, social norms and
legislation to the present day (Ly, 2015). Some notable Confucianism features are
collectivism, harmony and consensus, face-saving and relationship-keeping and respect
for elders (Pham, 2005).
Vietnamese collectivism highlights the integration of individuals as parts or members of
the society. An individual is not only a member of his or her family, but a village and a
country in a broader sense. There are natural connections between members like parts
of one organic body. Therefore, in this system, collective interest is always prioritized
over individuals’. People will be criticized as selfish and egotistical if they do not follow
that belief (Marr, 2000).
Harmony and consensus are stressed to be maintained in all aspects of life from family
to village and state (Pham, 2005). Confucianism emphasizes group harmony and mutual
obligations, which are linked with collectivism, rather than individual identity. One
expression of this ideology is that similar to Chines, Vietnamese has their family name
first before the give name indicating a priority order of family identity over individual
identity (Xu et al., 2007).
Face-saving and relationship keeping are linked with collectivism. With high
appreciation for the community, the opinions of society members have significant value
in individuals’ lives. A person's success is determined by their trustworthiness and
ability to form and sustain relationships with others, while negative public opinion is
still highly avoided (Pham, 2005).
Respect of elders derives from the emphasis of hierarchy in family and society (Tsui,
1989) and the value of filial piety in Confucianism (Wang, 2009). Children or younger
people are taught to be respectful and obey the elders.
Second, from the early stages of development, Vietnam adopted the communist
economic system, which is based on public/collective ownership of production means.
In the early 1980s, the pace of collectivization accelerated. The development of the
family economy was encouraged, economic resources were used by cooperatives and
free enterprises were turned into state-regulated enterprises. Even though Vietnam has
replaced central planning with market orientation in 1986, the socialist ideology adopted

37
in early development that emphasizes shared ownership and collective roles lingers and
has become the norm influencing people’s behavior.
All of the above Confucianism and socialist ideology-influenced features are
contradictory to the emergence of self-expression and challenging behavior such as
individual voice (Gudykunst, 1991; Heider, 1958; Park & Kim, 2016). Collectivists
value collective opinions/interest and harmony, while employee voice is the total
opposite as it might expose people to the risk of losing face, create conflicts and be
disrespectful to superiors (Friedman et al., 2006).
Third, Levinson (2003, 26-27) suggests that the development of language is profoundly
shaped by culture, which “provides the bulk of the conceptual packages that are coded
in any particular language”. Studies about Vietnamese interactions (Luong, 1990; Vu,
1997) found supportive results to Levinson (2003). They highlighted that the cultural
value of hierarchical orientation is significantly reflected in Vietnamese interactions.
Hierarchy in Vietnam is determined by relative age and social standing (Tran, 2016; Vo,
2019). Thus, in social interactions, Vietnamese people are positioned in one of three
levels of interactional standing including older, younger or peer (Vo, 2016). This is in
turn manifested in the language with multiple honorifics to place speakers in various
positions of power such as “anh”, “chị”, “em”, “bác”, “cháu”, etc. As a result, employees
might find it difficult to raise their voice with superiors who normally are older and also
have higher social standings. On the other hand, English has only “I” and “you,” which
blurs the hierarchy and narrows the power gap significantly compared to Vietnamese
(Salama, 2022). This cognitive perception of interactional standings is the result of
Vietnamese cultural values and also contributes to the institutional hinderance of voice
behavior.
Fourth, a weak role of trade union in protecting employee rights in Vietnam might also
affect employee voice. Socialist political system and trade union policy are still applied
in Vietnam with the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL) as the main trade
union and is controlled by the Communist Party. Independent trade unions only start to
be recognized in 2021 with the issue of the new Labor Code No. 45/2019/QH14. Thus,
this new legislation has not really been brought into practice, the VGCL is still the main
trade union in Vietnam. In 2003, the VGCL established a goal of getting 1.5 million new
members by 2013. In other words, there should be 70% of firms that have work-place
trade unions operating under the VGCL Statute, which covers about 60% of the workers
(Nguyen, 2012). Paradoxically, the number of union members has increased sharply
together with the number of wildcat strikes (VGCL, 2011), which was caused by trade

38
union organizing (Trinh, 2014). Communist unions are known for not only serving their
members but also company management. It is not uncommon for senior managers to
hold union leadership positions, enabling employers to influence the union (Buckley,
2019; Trinh, 2014). Hence, it is said that several workplace unions are considered
“yellow unions” and does not seem to fulfill this role (Hutt, 2019). This regulative
characteristic is a weak institutional factor in Vietnam compared to unions in Western
countries in protecting employee rights, and unfavorable consequences of employee
voice.
In short, these unique institutional factors make employee voices in Vietnamese
organizations different from those in Western countries. Voice is more likely to be
avoided since it is self-expression and conflict-creating behavior. People might prefer a
more collective form of voice such as team collective voice as it is institutionally more
valued and limits individual voices’ disadvantages.

2.1.4. Limitations of Institutional Theory

There is no question that Institutional Theory has sparked a great deal of attention and
constructive works, particularly since the 1980s. However, the collection of ideas
remains distressingly varied and, as previously said, comprises inconsistent and
contradictory assumptions and reasoning between the three pillars, rational choice,
normative, and cultural-cognitive forms of Institutional Theory. In addition, critics also
pointed out that Institutional Theory has been too focused on controls, constraints and
stability, while neglecting the elements of change and innovation (Ritzer, 2004).
Although it is said to be a reciprocal relation between institutional repositories and
behaviors, there has been much emphasized on the first leg of the equation (i.e.,
institutions influence behaviors). Early institutionalists only examined the spread or
diffusion of given types of institutions when considering institutional changes.
However, more recent studies started to acknowledge the erosion and replacement of
beliefs and rules by new forms through either endogenously arisen pressure and conflicts
or the impacts of external drives.
Particularly in the case of routines, the mechanisms to which institutional elements such
as routine change have not been well explained by Institutional Theory. Attempting to
address this shortcoming, this study draws on an additional theory – the Evolutionary
Theory of Economic Change of Nelson & Winter (1982) which centers concept of
routines to further unravel the research questions and also establish the theoretical
contributions of the study.

39
The following sections clarify in greater detail about routines – the key concept that
links Institutional Theory and Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change and how they
all contribute to the study’s aim in examining the association of team collective voice
and team innovative performance.

2.2. The important role of routines

Researchers have emphasized the role of institutional changes - changes in taken-for-
granted rules and recombination of practices and resources to resolve existing problems
– will lead to innovation (Tuominen et al., 2020; Vargo et al., 2015). This can be seen
most clearly in the field of technology. Orlikowski (1992) suggested that innovation is
influenced by the institutions such as social rules, norms, values, beliefs and routines
which guide the “design” and “use” of emerging technologies. For example, the pressure
of nowadays busy lifestyle as well as the rising need for a more affordable education
have contributed to the emergence of online higher education. Technologies such as
webinars were designed to allow lecturers and students to connect virtually, offering
cheaper and more convenient educational solutions (Vargo et al., 2015).
As discussed previously, routines are one major carriers of institutional elements. They
are described as part of the cognitive institutional pillar that governs individuals and
organizations’ behavior. They are normally taken for granted and viewed as the way
things are (March & Olsen, 1989; Scott, 2014; Ugwuibe et al., 2021). In addition to
institutional change, researchers argued that the introduction of changes such as new
technology must go with modifications in routines to become viable and sustainable in
practice (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Scott, 2001), otherwise, things are just new
artifacts (Pentland & Feldman, 2008). Hence, this concept of routine is especially
important when studying the association of institutions, institutional changes and
innovation.

2.3. The Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

Since institutional changes are said to promote innovation (Tuominen et al., 2020; Vargo
et al., 2015), to continue exploring about the impacts of employee voice in organizations,
particularly on innovative performance through an institutional lens, it is necessary to
be able to explain how employee voice can lead to institutional changes in organizations,
which could be done by the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change.
This section will continue the discussion of how routine plays its role in this study by
going into detail about the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. The assumptions

40
of the theory will be reviewed first, followed by the theory’s key arguments and
applications.

2.3.1. Assumptions of Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

As an evolutionary theory – an alternative to orthodox economic theory, Nelson &
Winter (1982) criticized key assumptions of traditional theory regarding maximization
and equilibrium. Orthodox economic theory assumes that economic actors are rational,
therefore, their choices are optimal. People and firms act to achieve their goals with a
certain level of consistency, skill, and foresight. Maximization allows the deduction of
a set of decision rules that firms follow to maximize the achievement of their objective
which is usually profit maximization, given their capabilities and external (market) and
internal conditions. For example, firms respond to an exogenous shock such as
earthquake or sudden rise of input prices by finding the new maximum and instantly
shifting to the new optimal strategy. Equilibrium concept is another key structural pillar
of the orthodox theory that also constraints the economic behavior of firms in the way
that market aggregate supply and demand determine firms choices. Nelson & Winter
(1982) reject the above assumptions and highlight their weaknesses in explaining
economic change. With the maximization assumption, there would be no role for
corporate strategy since all firms’ strategies would be maximizing profits. There is also
no analysis of movements toward equilibrium, firms are expected to change
instantaneously. While in real life, they are usually confused and make mistakes. In
addition, in the absence of exogenous shocks, the above assumptions mean that firms
would not need to change anything, they simply optimize. However, firms would
probably search for new ways to optimize better. Therefore, Nelson & Winter (1982,
24) suggest these assumptions are too rigid making the traditional theory an “awkward
treatment of economic change.”
Instead, evolutionary theory assumes that firms should only be motivated by profit or
“profit seeking” (Nelson & Winter, 1982, 31). Following the profit maximization
approach will dismiss some critical elements of change such as the variety of
perspectives, the difficulty of the decision-making process, the importance of problem-
solving experience and mistakes, etc. Thus, maximization model would be unable to
explain effectively the change process which normally has distinctive issues (Nelson &
Winter, 1982).
Equilibrium is also rejected by Nelson & Winter (1982). There are never equilibrium as
external conditions change continuously which requires firms to adapt to survive, but

41
not instantaneously. Ineffective firms will gradually be driven out of the market similar
to the process of natural selection.

2.3.2. Key ideas of Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

2.3.2.1. The concept of routine
In organization literature, the concept of routine also was first introduced by Stene
(1940, 1129) as "that part of any organization's activities which has become habitual
because of repetition and which is followed regularly without specific directions or
detailed supervision by any member of the organization.” Centering the concept of
routine, Nelson & Winter (1982) agree with Stene (1940) that organizational routines
capture the regular and predictable behavior of firms including well-specified technical
routines, procedures in employee acquisition, inventory ordering, as well as research
and development, investment decisions, and business strategies. Routines act as
organizational dispositions that store and energize patterns of behavior within an
organized group of individuals (Hodgson, 2009). In other words, organizational routines
include sets of different routines of different units, departments, or individuals that help
shape the way firms operate and approach their nonroutine problems (Nelson & Winter,
1982).
Firms' routines are analogous to individuals' skills. They are "deep channels in which
behavior runs effectively and smoothly" (Nelson & Winter, 1982, 84). They are
maintained by day-to-day use, and atrophy with lack of practice. Firms can maintain
or lose the ability to apply routines. Routines depend much on tacit knowledge to
coordinate. This means that you can't just blueprint them and transfer them
elsewhere, routines are not always codified or codifiable. For example, when you get
a new person for a job, even if you tell them everything you know, coordination may
still be disrupted.
Routines are also heritable (routines today look like routines yesterday) and
selectable (firms with routines which are more profitable tend to win out). Different
firms have different sets of routines that might be better or worse compared to others,
which might act as their competitive advantage. This argument has been tested by Knott
and McKelvey’s (1999) empirical study of comparing franchises with company-owned
establishments. They found that the ability of managers in enforcing superior
organizational routines contributes more to organization efficiency than incentive
alignment. This finding empirically support the important roles of routines (Becker,
2003). In addition, it may be that successful firms have routines that are robust to

42
exogenous changes such as they work well under a wide range of conditions or that
successful firms have particularly good “search” routines so that they are able to adapt,
change to new routines quickly. The following section will discuss more about the
concept of “search” routines, routine changes and the role of routines in innovation.

2.3.2.2. Types of routines

Nelson & Winter (1982) distinguished three classes of routines. The first class is
“operating characteristics” (Nelson & Winter, 1982, 16) which govern short-run
behavior regarding prevailing factors of production, for example, the way in which a
new order is handled, or an inventory reduction is identified and addressed.
The second class is investment routines. They determine the period-by-period increase
or decrease in the firm's capital stock such as whether to build a new plant, office or to
continue using a particular technology. They are also referred to the investment rules
used by firms that contribute to their profitability.
Lastly, high level revision routines are possessed by firms to modify their operating
characteristics. They concepted them as search - a routine-guided process to change
other routines. Firms are said to engage in search activities to modify or create new
routines as the adaption to exogenous drivers such as market changes, new technology,
or ways to innovate and improve their profits. For example, firms can have market
analysis departments or research and development laboratories which are normally in
charge of proposing changes and innovation in their operating routines. Nelson &
Winter (1982) also suggest that there may not be those built-in organizational units or
methodologies but arising opinions of people regarding possible necessary revision and
change in lower-order routines.
In short, the first two classes are lower-order routines that govern operating behavior in
the short run as well as those investment decisions. Whereas search routines are higher-
order ones altering the lower-order routines. For instance, a sales manager who notices
a significant decrease in the sales of a particular product would routinely order a study
of the issue conducted by the assistant team (i.e., search). With research about sales in
different regions, the team identifies the drop in sales in the Southeast area is the cause
of the problem. This may lead to some replacement of salespeople in the Southeast or a
new advertising campaign (i.e., modification of lower-order routines).

43
2.3.2.3. Routines, change and innovation
In line with Institutional Theory studies that suggest the link between institutional
changes and innovation (Orlikowski, 1992; Tuominen et al., 2020; Vargo et al., 2015),
Nelson & Winter (1982) also suggested that innovation is trigger by the deviation from
routines. Innovation emerges when there are useful questions that arise regarding
puzzles or anomalies of routines. For instance, a foreman of a work team detects a
malfunctioning machine. He routinely reaches out to the maintenance department for a
repairman. The repairman diagnoses the problem based on what he has been trained. He
fixes the part and might also provide the foreman with the information that the
malfunction has become very common as the supplier has changed an element in
resembling it. Thus, he also suggests that the foreman should be operated differently to
avoid that error. The repairman’s effort in suggesting would lead to changes in operating
method. Or back to the above sales example, the drop in sales might be the signal of a
market change which will require a product redesign. Thus, the responses to those
difficulties such as the above examples with existing routines may result in radical
change or innovation (Nelson & Winter, 1982).
In addition, innovation might also arise from the process of recombining existing
routines such as new patterns of information flows among departments, like many other
sorts of novelty in different areas like art, science, or practical life (Nelson & Winter,
1982). The effort in developing a new efficient combination would also require a
considerable amount of trial-and-error search involving obstacle detection, diagnosis
and solving.
Thus, innovation is suggested to associate with search – the routine-guided, routine
changing process. Nelson & Winter (1982) and later theoretical (Feldman, 2000;
Feldman & Pentland, 2003), and empirical studies (Becker et al., 2005; Heimeriks et al.,
2012; Turner & Rindova, 2012) focus on addressing the ability and mechanisms of
which routine changes in examining organizational change and innovation.

2.3.3. Applications in studying routine changes

Although Nelson & Winter (1982) were not the first authors discussing about routines,
their work has drawn much attention to the concept and enlivened research on routines
since then. The theory was a significant step forward in the effort to build an
evolutionary economic framework capable of understanding organizational and
economic change. Many researchers have followed Nelson & Winter (1982) to put
routines center-stage in their works (Becker, 2004).

44
Regarding routine changes, the changing process is an ongoing variation, selection, and
retention of new patterns or routines and allows the creation of various different
outcomes (Lin et al., 2020). In addition, routines can take part in a more active role as
the source of changes in the case of search. They are said to be designed to create
changes and assist in detecting how the exogenous sources of change influence
organization’s behavior (Becker et al., 2005) such as the changes of market conditions
or technology advancement as pointed out by Nelson & Winter (1982). Within
organizations, exogenous changes can also come from managerial influence on routines
(Knott, 2001; Knott & McKelvey, 1999). Even though they do not have full control,
managements may have certain power over how things should be done in organizations
(Becker et al., 2005), thus, their intervention might create change in routines.
Nelson & Winter (1982) also suggested organizational routines can change
endogenously, however, they have not paid much attention into this mechanism of
routine change. More recent studies propose a model suggesting internal dynamic to
routines facilitating continuous change endogenously merely by their ongoing
performance and interaction with other practices (Feldman, 2000; Feldman &
Orlikowski, 2011; Feldman & Pentland, 2003; Feldman et al., 2016). To explain this
process, they argue that routines are not unitary entities but consist of two aspects: the
ostensive and the performative. The ostensive aspect is the ideal of routines. It is
normally abstract and generalized. While performative aspect consists of “specific
actions, by specific people, in specific places and times” (Feldman & Pentland, 2003,
101), which is routine in practice.
The ostensive aspect may exist in the forms of standard written procedures or norms.
This aspect does not involve specific performances since it is not possible to identify
sufficient detail about the routine for it to be carried out (Feldman & Pentland, 2003).
This is supported by Blau (1955) who suggested that rules should be abstract so they
can be applied in diverse situations. In other words, while rules act as resources for
action, they do not fully control action (Taylor, 1993). The performative aspect is routine
in practice. Practices are naturally improvisational (Bourdieu, 1990). Although it is
normally based on a set of rules, the actual behavior is still somehow novel, even in
highly controlled situations (Feldman & Pentland, 2003; Giddens, 1984; Orlikowski,
2000). These two aspects can be found in the music field in which musical score is
ostensive part and music performance is performative one.
People use ostensive aspect as a guide for actions, and a sense of appropriateness,
reasonable accounts when we need explanation. On the other hand, performative aspect

45
is necessary for the creation, maintenance, and modification of ostensive aspect, which
is similar to the role of speaking in creating, maintaining and modifying language
(Feldman & Pentland, 2003). Thus, routine participants who would try to do a better
job, creates variations in performances which are selectively retained in ostensive aspect
and alter the routines (Campbell, 1965; Feldman & Pentland, 2003). Change and
innovation are a result of participants’ reflections on and reactions to the outcomes of
routines (Feldman, 2000).

2.4. Research model and hypotheses development

Based on a comprehensive review of the literature regarding employee voice behavior
with a focus on team voice in Chapter 1 and a detail analysis the Institutional Theory
and the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change in this Chapter, this section will
elaborate further on the analyzed theoretical basis to develop the hypotheses and a
research model for the dissertation.

2.4.1. Employee voice as exogenous routine changes

As discussed above, innovation can be originated from institutional changes (Tuominen
et al., 2020; Vargo et al., 2015) and the changes must come with the modifications in
routines to become viable and sustainable in practice (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006;
Scott, 2001). In other words, innovations are only established or realized once they are
embraced in the new routines – an element of institutions. Looking closer into
organizations, Nelson & Winter (1982) studied the concept routines and offer a more
detail model that captures this association. Institutional changes are the exogenous
drivers that trigger search routines of the organizations which are designed to change
lower-order routines, resulting in radical change and innovation.
In their theoretical work, Nelson & Winter (1982) also suggest that besides those built-
in organizational units or methodologies such as a research and development
department, people’s effort in making necessary revision and radical change in lower-
order routines after engaging in scrutiny of the status quo can also be considered as
search. While voice is broadly defined as “any attempt at all to change, rather than to
escape from, an objectionable state of affairs” (Hirschman, 1970, 30), and later defined
as employee expression of ideas, suggestions about possible work-related
improvements, and changes (Detert & Burris, 2007; Morrison, 2011; Van Dyne et al.,
2003; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998; Zhou et al., 2017). This change-oriented behavior of
employees seems to be comparable with the phenomenon described by Nelson & Winter
(1982). They both indicate the employees’ attempt to change the current issues,

46
practices, procedures, etc. which are all concepted as routines by Nelson & Winter
(1982).
Besides, various empirical studies have found a strong link between employee voice
behavior and innovation through promoting employees’ active thinking about
organizational issues, organizational learning or knowledge sharing (Bogosian, 2011;
Detert & Burris, 2007), contribution of different perspectives (Van Dyne & LePine,
1998; Walumbwa et al., 2012), which eventually result in innovations (Rasheed et al.,
2017). Employee voice also contributes more directly to innovation by pointing out
problems in both formulation and implementation stages (Enz & Schwenk, 1991) and
suggesting solutions (Bogosian, 2011).
From an institutional umbrella view, voice can be a source of innovation through
contributing to the change and betterment of routines by detecting drawbacks and
creating new or combinations of routines. It can also be viewed as a search routine
exogenously alters lower-order routines following the theoretical ground of the
Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. This study focuses on examining both
individual and team collective voice, thus, the following hypotheses are proposed to be
tested:
H1. Individual voice positively influences Team innovative performance
H2. Team collective voice positively influences Team innovative performance

2.4.2. Team autonomy as endogenous routine changes

Besides being driven by exogenous factors, routines can change endogenously initiated
by the willingness of routine participants to do a better job (Campbell, 1965; Feldman
& Pentland, 2003). However, that is not the only factor influencing the changing process
of routines. The author suggests that for participants to be able to create and retain better
and beneficial variations in performances of routines, they do need to be given a certain
degree of autonomy. Otherwise, rules have to be strictly followed, giving no room for
alteration and innovation.
Empirically, autonomy is normally found to be a predictor of innovation (Beugelsdijk
& Jindra, 2018; De Spiegelaere et al., 2014; Feldman, 1989; Sönmez & Yıldırım, 2018)
as it offers employees the opportunities to explore (Sönmez & Yıldırım, 2018), break
from the routines and try new and better ways to work (Dhar, 2016). Thus, a different
mechanism of the positive influence of autonomy on innovation is proposed, which is
through the change in organizational routines.

47
H3. Team autonomy positively influences Team innovative performance

2.4.3. Individual voice, Team collective voice and the mediation effect
Individual voice is the foundation of team collective voice. Without an initiator, there
will be no start for the process of reaching the shared voice of a team. This is supported
by Jing et al. (2022) who suggest that employee lateral voice - individuals voicing to
their peers, promotes the transition to collective vertical voice. Team members having
shared problems and difficulties would garner support and then raise voice as a group -
team collective voice, to gain more legitimacy and influence toward management. This
is especially true in eastern contexts in which institutional factors such as Confucianism,
language, and culture hamper individual voice behavior (Botero & Van Dyne, 2009;
Gudykunst, 2004; Porter et al., 1981; Salama, 2022) as well as how management
perceives its value. As a result, to create variation in an institutional element namely
routines in these contexts, individual voice would not be strong enough for routine
changes and innovative performance. It is hypothesized that individual voice positively
influences team collective voice and team collective voice mediates the relationship
between individual voice and team innovative performance. The theoretical model is
shown in Figure 2.1.
H4. Individual voice positively influences Team collective voice
H5. Team collective voice mediates the relationship between Individual voice and Team
innovative performance
Figure 2.1. The research model

48
 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2
This chapter aims to construct the theoretical basis for the study by elaborating on the
Institutional Theory (Scott, 1995) and the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change
(Nelson & Winter, 1982). Not only have the assumptions, fundamental arguments and
applications of each theory been explained, but also how the two theories can
complementarily create the theoretical basis. The research model and five hypotheses
were then established.

49
 CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The exploratory sequential mixed approach employed in this dissertation is discussed in

this chapter. Separate method sections are described for each approach to provide the
information in the order in which the study was carried out. This chapter begins by
outlining the rationale for conducting a mixed-methods study. It then goes on to detail
the research setting and overall research design employed. The qualitative method is
then explained as the first stage of this mixed methods study. Theory construction,
participant selection, data collection, and interview guidance are described first along
with the qualitative study design. The qualitative analysis including techniques for data
preparation, theme analysis, and data quality are described in the second half of the
section. Based on the qualitative findings, the research model of 4 hypotheses is
developed that centers the roles of employee voice, especially team collective voice in
an Eastern context toward team innovative performance. A sample of Vietnamese
technology teams were used in the quantitative analysis to test the hypotheses. This
quantitative study is the second stage of mixed methods research. Sample, data
collection, measurements, and data analysis are all discussed.

3.1. Research context

3.1.1. Rationale for ICT context
The study was carried out with Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
teams working in different organizations in Vietnam. This industry has increasingly
become important in Vietnam recently. With the fast development of the industry, ICT
companies and teams have to deal with deadlines, fast-changing customer requirements
and technology, intense competition and innovation demand. Various team issues would
arise that need team resolutions and a team voice to be tackled, making it a rich and
interesting context for examining team collective voice.
These following sections present in more detail the role of ICT industry and potentials
in enhancing Vietnam economic development and overviews about ICT firms and
teams’ characteristics.

3.1.2. The importance of ICT industry

The global economy has been witnessing a strong digital transformation with estimates
of double-digit annual growth of digital economy (Marcus et al., 2015). This trend is
caused by economic and political factors and also by technical progress (itself shaped
by wider forces). For example, in the 1990s, economic changes were mainly driven by

50
the emergence of the Internet which is the foundation for development of the digital
economy. In the following decades (2000s and 2010s), new ICT such as the Internet of
things, new end-users devices like mobile phones, tables, etc., and cloud computing have
emerged and underpinned economic change (Bukht & Heeks, 2017; OECD, 2015).
Hence, the definitions of the term digital economy also follow and reflect the above
trends. Early definitions tend to center the Internet as the main technological
breakthrough (Lane, 1999; Tapscott, 1996). Then commercial transactions started to be
recognized and incorporated into the definitions. Kling & Lamb (2000) defined digital
economy “includes goods or services whose development, production, sale, or provision
is critically dependent upon digital technologies.” Later definitions add new
technologies and gradually become broader including production of ICT infrastructure
and the use of ICTs in other economic activities (G20DETF, 2016; Mesenbourg, 2001).
That is, these broad definitions consist of all digitally-enabled economic activity (Bukht
& Heeks, 2017). Despite the dynamic of the term definitions overtime, all of them give
some acknowledgement to digital technologies, also called the ICT sector, as the
foundation of digital economy (Bukht & Heeks, 2017).
The widening of definitions also manifests the growing importance of digital economy
as well as ICT toward economic development. Evidently, it was estimated that digital
economy accounted for about 4.5% to 5% of global GDP in 2015 (Bukht & Heeks, 2017;
Selvan & Kalyanasundaram, 2015) and has been growing faster than the overall
economy (10% a year in G20 and 15-25% annually in developing countries) (Marcus et
al., 2015). In the Asia-Pacific, digital economy was reported to account for 6% of GDP
in 2017 and 25% in 2019, and with the influence of the global pandemic, it is estimated
to represent more than 60% currently.
In Vietnam, ICT is estimated to accounted for about 5.5% of GDP (Nguyen, 2021).
According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the industry’s revenue
reached more than 136 billion USD, a dramatic rise from over 124 billion USD in 2020.
ICT outsourcing tendencies in Vietnam have consistently increased since the early
1990s. In 2016, Vietnam ranks 16th out of 34 Asia and Pacific countries on the ICT
Development Index and 40th out of 139 nations in the Network Readiness Index 2016,
which assesses countries' ability to harness ICT for greater competitiveness and well-
being (ITU, 2016). Thus, digital economy appears to bring significant benefits and
becomes vital for developing countries like Vietnam, namely faster economic growth,
higher productivity, lower transaction costs, better access to global markets (Dahlman
et al., 2016) and contributing significantly to employment (Bukht & Heeks, 2017). In

51
addition, ICT is one of the industries that has drawn the greatest foreign investment into
Vietnam due to its strengths in a cost-effective workforce, growing infrastructure, links
with major markets, ambitious national goals presented in the government’s Resolution
No. 13-NQ/TW (2012) and Directive No. 58-CT/TW (2000), and supportive policies
such as a preferential tax rate of 10% for 15 years (Law on Enterprise Income Tax,
2013).
There are about 64,000 digital technology firms in Vietnam in 2021 rising by 5,600
compared to the previous year with almost 1,000 ICT brands of products and services
as reported by the Ministry of Information and Communications (Vu, 2022). Vietnamese
software developers are well trained with various programming languages and have
inquisitive spirit for new technological knowledge and trends, including blockchain, AI,
ML, and data science (Techvify, 2022).

3.1.3. ICT teams’ working method and team structure

This section describes the working method and the team structure of ICT teams to give
an overview about how their works and communications are organized, which
contribute to create the favorable environment for the use of team collective voice of
these teams.
Following the global trend, many companies in Vietnam apply Agile methodologies
such as Scrum – the most popular framework in developing ICT products (Rubin, 2012).
Scrum framework is designed following the agile philosophy of continuous
improvement and update of customers’ requirements through small and frequent product
releases. Therefore, it allows the work to be done by a team in a short period of time
with loops of experimentation and feedback to reflect and improve continuously. The
name is inspired by a scrum in the sport of rugby. Rugby team normally comes together
to discuss how to move the ball forward (Scum.org, n.d.). The framework much depends
on empirical process control theory and lean thinking which believe that knowledge
comes from experience. Therefore, the framework is described as heuristic. It captures
that fact that the team cannot know everything at the start of the project but need
continuous adaptation to change, problem solving and re-prioritization through iterative
short release cycles (Drumond, n.d.; Lei et al., 2015).
The Scrum team is a small team consisting of a Product Owner, a Scrum Master and
Development Team Members with clear responsibilities in a scrum process (see Table
3.1).

52
Table 3.1. Scrum team

Scrum team Responsibilities

Product Owner Managing the Product Backlog with the list of product
requirements from the customers, delivering the Product
Backlog items and goals or customers’ requirements of the
project to the Development Team, deciding on sprint backlog,
making sure goals are understood and brought the most value
to customers.

Scrum Master Coaching and instructing the Development Team on the scrum
process, finding effective techniques and creating Product
Backlog items, scheduling the needed resources for sprint
planning, review and retrospective.

Development Team Implementing and delivering usable increments at the end of

Members each sprint. The team is normally self-organized and cross-
functional to promote collaboration.

The scrum framework breakdowns all requirements or the product backlog (see Figure
3.1) and prioritizes some of them into the sprint backlog for the team to start working.
A sprint normally lasts for 1 or 2 or 4 weeks depending on the number of requirements
in the sprint backlog and consists of all the stages in a development cycle (plan, build,
test, review, deploy). At the end of each sprint, there is a potentially shippable product
increment that can be given to customers to deploy (Beedle et al., 1999). The process is
then repeated until completion with each might take less time than the previous.

The fundamental difference of this method from the traditional development process –
“waterfall” model – is the continuous communication of requirements and changes. On
the daily basis, meetings are held (Daily Scrum) to discuss, align understanding, resolve
problems quickly and plan for the day. The team also conducts sprint retrospective at
the end of each sprint to discuss what worked, what did not work in that sprint and what
should do next. These communication mechanisms which are packed within the working
framework facilitate employee voice.

53
3.2. Research design
3.2.1. Rationale for exploratory sequential mixed methods
Exploratory sequential mixed methods is the approach in which qualitative and
quantitative data collection and analysis are combined in a sequence order (Creswell &
Clark, 2017). The first phase, qualitative data is gathered and analyzed. The findings are
then used to guide the next phase of quantitative data gathering, which could involve a
survey or another kind of quantitative data collecting. In other words, the quantitative
phase, which involves creating research questions for a questionnaire or survey, benefits
greatly from the qualitative analysis (Mihas, 2019). This is especially important since
the use of both methods in one study does not qualify the study as “mixed methods” but
the integration or connection of the two strands of data that defines its value and brings
a more comprehensively answers to the research questions (Creswell & Clark, 2017;
Fetters et al., 2013).
In addition, this approach also allows the exploration of a topic before deciding which
variables need to be investigated further. It very much resembles a template that can be
applied differently in different specific research situations (Mihas, 2019). In this
dissertation, the exploratory sequential mixed methods approach was selected to explore
further the concept of team collective voice. The literature review has revealed that very
little about team collective voice has been discussed (see Chapter 2). This makes the
qualitative phase terrifically rewarding in understanding how people structure their
knowledge about the term and opening new paths of research. This phase is regarded as
“exploratory” since it is guided by data instead of conceptual framework from the
literature (Creswell & Clark, 2017). The quantitative data collection is then followed
once additional conceptual understanding has been gained (Mihas, 2019), which helps
in forming appropriate and accurate measurements and testing questioned hypotheses.
Hence, the exploratory sequential mixed methods research design is a suitable method
for this study.

3.2.2. Sequential mixed-methods research design

Applying the exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, this study was carried out
in two stages, qualitative and quantitative, respectively from 2019 to 2022. The first
stage qualitatively explored the team collective voice behavior of different ICT teams
to confirm the existence of this type of voice and uncover its characteristics. The second
stage involves the construction of a quantitative research model based on the findings
from the first stage in a larger sample.

54
Figure 3.1. The Scrum framework

Source: Scum.org (n.d.)

To answer the research questions and unwrap the concept of team collective voice, an
exploratory research approach is necessary, especially in the uncommon context of
employee voice literature, namely Vietnam. The qualitative study was performed
following the constructivist grounded theory (CGT) methodology of Charmaz (2014).
CGT is normally used to inductively understand a social process or phenomenon yielded
from participant experiences (Singh & Estefan, 2018). It has a flexible and non-linear
process which might require back-and-forth between data collection and data analysis.
A flash of insight might emerge anytime, bringing researchers back to the field
(Charmaz, 2014). In other words, the analysis proceeds simultaneously and decides
future data collection. Based on Charmaz’s (2014) guiding process, the study was
conducted using the procedure in Figure 3.2.
In the latter stage of the study, a research model was formed and tested. The findings of
the qualitative study guide the next research questions and the establishment of five
hypotheses regarding the impact of employee voice, both individual voice and team
collective voice, on changing institutional elements and promoting innovation or
innovative performance in organizations. The hypotheses were tested with a sample of
Vietnamese ICT teams working in several telecommunications organizations. The
survey questionnaires were distributed to respondents with the support of their Human
Resource Departments through emails and papers from July 2022 to August 2022. The
following sections will describe in more detail the data collection and analysis of each
stage, qualitative and quantitative research, respectively.

55
Figure 3.2. Applying CGT process

Conceptualizing

Focused coding and

categorizing Constant
comparative
Incomplete
method
understanding
Initial coding
raises questions

Data collection

Recruitment and
sampling

Research questions

3.3. Qualitative data collection and analysis

3.3.1. Qualitative data collection
Qualitative data collection of this study was conducted with semi-structured interviews.
This section will present how the data collection process has been carried out with the
construction of interview questions, sampling technique and data collection.

3.3.1.1. Semi-structure interviews

Interviews is the suitable and salient instrument to collect primary data for an
exploratory research as they allow researchers to access the participants’ perspectives
and experiences about social processes or phenomena (Cassell & Symon, 2004;
Charmaz, 2014; Rubin & Rubin, 2011) with active questions to extract necessary
information and opinions from interviewees regarding past behaviors, attitudes, and
emotions. The interviewer seeks to know more about the topic and the interviewees have
the relevant materials to shed light on it (Charmaz, 2014; Seidman, 1998). Particularly,

56
semi-structured and in-depth interviews were used. This method embraces the
interviewees’ role in interview construction (Cassell & Symon, 2004) and the research
is given the flexibility to ask for clarifying or further investigation (Bryman, 2016).
Semi-structured interview questions were first prepared and then modified as data
started to emerge and guide successor interviews following CGT methodology (see
Appendix 3). The interviews were organized into four sections. The introductory section
includes the explanation of research objectives and confidentiality of information to
participants and consent for recording the interview. Interview questions then start with
some demographic information, personal roles in the company and some team’s
characteristics. This supports the tailor of appropriate questions for different roles in the
next section. Section three asks for the participants’ voice and their team voice behavior.
The definitions and examples of individual voice and team collective voice were
explained thoroughly to participants first. Then they were asked to give examples of
their team expression, which helped the researcher to review whether their
understanding of the connotation was correct, or amendments were needed. Sample
questions are: “Do you have the opportunity to raise your voice at work?”, “Who is
listening to your opinions?”, “What are the issues? At what occasion/Where can you
raise your voice?”, “Does your team collectively raise voices as a team?”, “How/Where
has your team voice been established? How long does the process take?”, “Do you think
team voice improves team performance?”
3.3.1.2. Sampling and data collection
Following grounded theory methodology, theoretical sampling was first applied, which
depends mainly on the general subject area, researcher’ perspectives and information
emerged from data to identify criteria for choosing informants (Charmaz, 2014). This
provided the flexibility that is needed for an exploratory study to inductively understand
a social process or phenomenon. Hence, the recruiting criteria stayed flexible.
Initially, the researcher first looked for nominated participants working in the ICT
industry from friends and colleagues. It was not difficult to find and invite them to
participate in the study as this is a growing industry in Vietnam. As the only criterion
was ICT employees, the first participants came from a variety of different firms, but
they are all small and local who are located in Hanoi and Hochiminh City, the two big
cities where most of ICT firms are based. The researcher then gained access to other
team members through these initial interviewees and took every opportunity to connect
with other participants.
As the number of participants built up, further criteria were added including different
roles in a team (i.e., product owner, project manager, business analysis, developer and
tester), demographics, company size and type, which had not been already included in

57
the sample. Thus, in the second and third waves of data collection, participant diversity
based on those criteria were strived to achieve. Larger software development teams in
foreign companies and large corporations (both public and private) were targeted,
respectively. The following waves of data collection were based on the analysis of the
previous one (Corbin & Strauss, 2008), from which questions and gaps about the
concept arose (Ligita et al., 2019).
The last wave was performed much later on to ensure data saturation was reached and
each team has at least two members interviewed for the precise and subjectivity of the
data.
From 4 waves of data collection, there are in total 30 interviewees working in 14 product
development teams in 9 organizations. Of these, 75% of participants were male,
reflecting the gender imbalance in this industry. They worked in five different roles:
project management (PM), Scrum master/lead developer, developer (Dev), business
analyzer (BA) and testers. These roles are structured following Scrum or Agile software
development processes. Team size ranges from five to 30 members; participants’
characteristics are summarized in Table 3.2. Big teams normally have several sub-teams
defined by their roles. The sub-team level was also investigated since they are more
likely to have a collective voice than the large project teams.
Interviews were either in person or online based on the preference of participants and
geographic accessibility. Some interviewers allowed the author to come to their offices
and carry out research. In these occasions, the author often had the chance to access to
other members of the team owing to the convenience of the situations. Besides that, in-
person interviews also took place in public places. On the other hand, some informants
preferred meeting online utilizing the convenience that technology has brought to us, or
because of their busy schedule. All interviews with participants working in Hochiminh
City were online as well.
Each interview lasted from 60 to 90 minutes. 21 interviews were conducted from March
2019 to June 2019 and the other 9 interviews were from June 2022 to July 2022. All
informants were informed about the confidentiality of the research process and asked
for their consent to record the interview. With the consent of 29/30 interviewees, the 29
interviews were recorded, and then transcribed into 140 pages of data. One interviewee
refused to be recorded, so note-taking was performed. Transcription of interview data
was carried out once the first data was obtained to support the data analysis and guide
successive data collection.

58
Table 3.2. Qualitative research sample

Participant Team Type of

Team(ii) Level(iii) Role(iv) Gender
identifier(i) size company
Private 1. BA 1 6 Private Non-mgmt. BA Male
Private 1. PM 1 6 Private Middle PM Male
Private 2. PM 2 10 Private Middle PM Male
Private 3. PM 3 5 Private Middle PM Male
Private 3. Dev1 3 5 Private Non-mgmt. Dev Female
Private 3. Dev2 3 5 Private Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Private 4. Dev1 4 15 Private Middle Dev Male
Private 4. Dev2 4 15 Private Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Private 5. Dev1 5 9 Private Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Private 5. Dev2 5 9 Private Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Private 6. Dev 6 5 Private Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Foreign 7. Dev 7 30 Foreign Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Public 8. Dev1 8 20 Public Middle Dev Male
Public 8. Dev2 8 20 Public Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Public 8. Dev3 8 20 Public Non-mgmt. Dev Female
Private 9. PM 9 5 Private Middle PM Male
Private 9. Dev 9 5 Private Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Public 10. PM 10 15 Public Middle PM Male
Public 10. PM 10 15 Public Middle PM Female
Public 10. Dev 10 15 Public Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Public 10. Tester 10 15 Public Non-mgmt. Tester Female
Public 11. PM 11 18 Public Middle PM Male
Public 11. BA 11 18 Public Non-mgmt. BA Female
Public 12. PM 12 9 Public Middle PM Male
Public 12. BA 12 9 Public Non-mgmt. BA Female
Private 13. Tester1 13 12 Private Non-mgmt. Tester Male
Private 13. Tester2 13 12 Private Non-mgmt. Tester Female
Public 14. PM 14 6 Public Middle PM Male
Public 14. Dev1 14 6 Public Non-mgmt. Dev Male
Public 14. Dev2 14 6 Public Non-mgmt. Dev Male

i Participant identifiers are coded as [type of company] [team]. [role]

ii Team identification number
iii Middle, Top=levels of managerial positions, Non-mgmt.=non-managerial position.
iv BA=Business Analyst, Dev=Developer, PM=Project Manager, Tester, Centre Head

59
3.3.2. Qualitative data analysis
Applying the CGT methodology of Charmaz (2014), besides transcription, the
qualitative data analysis started with qualitative coding, the process that helps the
researcher to understand what the data are about. It includes labeling data segments with
a label that categorizes, summarizes, and accounts for each piece of data. Coding is the
first step in getting beyond statements and towards analytic interpretations. In other
words, it is like a bone-generating process prepared for the assembly into a skeleton.
CGT coding consists of at least two key steps, an initial step of open or line-by-line
coding followed by a more focused and selective phase that sorts, synthesizes, integrates
and organizes those initial codes. During initial coding, the idea is to be open to any
theoretical directions suggested by the data. Later, focused coding was employed to
identify and build the most important categories in the enormous data set with the
gradual emergence of theoretical integration. The following sections describe further
about the performed data analysis process. The process between transcription and initial
coding did not follow a sequential order but occurred concurrently and unorderly as
prior data help guide successor steps.

Transcription and familiarization

The researcher attempted to address the interview data as soon as possible, normally
within 24 hours of each interview to take advantage of fresh memory which speeded up
the process and captured any possible hidden impressions from the interviews. The
records were first listened to before transcribing to get familiarized with the data. Each
interview was then manually transcribed and reread several times. All the transcripts
were also reviewed and compared with the original recordings for accuracy.

Initial coding
Initial coding was performed once the first data was obtained and transcribed. Fresh data
induces researchers to stay open to the data, notice nuances in it and allow new ideas to
emerge (Charmaz, 2014). Thus, decisions about core conceptual categories should be
saved for later, applying preexisting categories to the data would preclude emerging
ideas. However, since the objective of the study is investigating about team collective
voice – a different type and level of employee voice, the interview questions were
designed accordingly that consisted of the comparison between individual voice and
team collective voice. Therefore, only two main categories, individual voice and team
collective voice, were distinguished at this stage. All transcripts were imported into
NVivo12 for coding.

60
Line-by-line coding was performed. According to Glaser (1978), line-by-line coding
means each line of written data was named. This seems like an arduous but arbitrary
task because not every line or sentence has significant meaning. Notwithstanding, it can
be extremely useful in capturing ideas which might have escaped when data were
scanned for a general thematic analysis. Notes were taken during the process as
theorized ideas about the codes and their relationships emerged, which helped in finding
gaps in the current data to guide later interviews. This is an advantage of the initial
grounded theory coding as data gaps can be found from the earliest stages, easing the
path of exhaustive data collection.

Focused coding
Following Charmaz’s (2014) method, constant comparisons were applied throughout
the data analysis to detect similarities and differences while conducting the next step,
focused coding, in which more categories were created through synthesizing and
organizing data. Individual voice and team collective voice were specified into different
components, as detailed in Table 3.3. The data were coded and recoded after each round
of data collection as new data emerged and might change the coding categories.
Table 3.3. Coding scheme

Main
Sub-categories Meaning Frequency
category
Individual Substance Work-related Ideas/suggestions 175
voice Others of individual voice
Target Who is the target 7
Mechanism How individual 92
voice is raised
Antecedent Dissatisfaction Factors influence 223
Engagement the level of
Feedback individual voice
Leadership
Necessity
Organizational culture
Personality
Self-awareness
Seniority
Socialization
Victimization

61
 Main
Sub-categories Meaning Frequency
category
Consequence Benefits Impact of 79
Improve work individual voice
environment on organizations
Performance
Team Substance Promotive Ideas/suggestions 167
collective Prohibitive
voice Work-related
Others
Target Who is the target 14
Mechanism How TCV is 55
raised
Formation Intentional The process of 68
Unintentional how TCV is
formed
Strength The influence 44
level of TCV
Antecedent Influence degree Factors influence 110
Leadership the level of TCV
Necessity
Organizational Culture
Personality
Socialization
Work characteristics
Consequence Meet requirement Impact of TCV 39
Performance on organizations
Typology Improvised—Member- Types of TCV 66
focused
Improvised—Team-
focused
Planned—Member-
focused
Planned—Team-
focused

62
3.4. Quantitative data collection and analysis
3.4.1. Level of analysis and the selection of team type
The central variable of this study is team collective voice, which is defined as a team-
level construct. Therefore, this quantitative research was designed at team level of
analysis. All variables were aggregates of individual responses (all items have the team
as the referent instead of the individual, except for individual voice). Data aggregations
were conditionally performed with theoretical and empirical justification criteria
provided by Chan (1998), James et al. (1984), Bliese (2000), Fleiss (2011) and LeBreton
& Senter (2008), which will be discussed further in the quantitative findings section in
Chapter 4. All the hypotheses were also posited at the team level.
In this study, a team is understood as a cohesive coalition of people that work together
to achieve shared goals. In terms of team structure, there are several different types of
teams namely department team, cross-functional team and virtual team (University of
Minnesota, 2017) (see Table 3.4 for more information about different types of teams).
The qualitative study has found that companies with team members located in multiple
places (i.e., virtual teams) do not witness the development of team collective voice. This
is because these members do not have many chances to exchange ideas and share their
problems and issues; therefore, team collective voice is less likely to be formed (this
will be discussed in more detail in the Findings and Discussions chapters). This finding
helped the researcher to select the most suitable type of team for the purpose of the
study, which is department team. Since they are permanent teams, team members have
the chance to work together over a long period of time with quite stable team
composition in comparison with those cross-functional teams and virtual teas. This
allows team members to develop shared interests, experiences, beliefs, values, etc.
through agreement, disagreement, innovation, communication, and negotiation
(Jenkins, 2014; Taylor & Whittier, 1992). This help them to form a collective identity
which has been a central concept in collective action such as social movement and
protest literature (Reicher, 1996; Simon et al., 1998; Taylor & Whittier, 1992), which is
a closely related concept of team collective voice. On the other hand, temporary teams
such as project teams or product development teams do not have the above quality to
nurture team collective voice. Therefore, department team is the most appropriate type
for this study.

63
Table 3.4. Types of teams

Type of team Characteristics

Department team • Permanent team
• Formally formed following the organizational
structure
Cross-functional team/ • Temporary team that is formed to address a specific
Project team/ Product issue or problem until it is resolved (University of
development team Minnesota, 2017) such as developing a product
(product development team), performing a project
(project team), etc.
• Team members are from different parts/departments
of the organization
Virtual team • Members are located in different physical place (i.e.,
different cities, states, countries)
• Formed by necessity such as to take advantages of
distributed expertise or time (University of
Minnesota, 2017)

3.4.2. Questionnaire development

From the comprehensive review of the literature and the findings of the qualitative
research, a theoretical model has been developed with 5 hypotheses to examine the
relationships between employee voice, team autonomy and team innovative
performance. A questionnaire was constructed accordingly (see Appendix 4) to collect
quantitative data from the above sample.

3.4.2.1. Measures
The process started with the development of suitable measurements for those key
variables of the research model. The researcher chose to adapt the measurements for all
variables whose validity and reliability have been verified by many previous studies. A
thorough literature review regarding these variables’ measurement scales was also
conducted to pick out the most suitable items for the questionnaire.
For employee voice, the six-item scale of Van Dyne & LePine (1998) was used by the
majority of studies such as Frazier & Bowler (2015), Huang & Paterson (2017), Oeij et
al. (2018), Walumbwa et al. (2012), Ye et al. (2019) and Wang & Hu (2018). Other
scales are those of Li et al. (2017) including two types of promotive and prohibitive

64
voice, and of Kim et al. (2010) and Torre (2019) measuring team voice as team
influence, which are not suited with voice concept in this study. Thus, Van Dyne &
LePine’s (1998) was adapted for quantifying individual voice and team collective voice:
Individual voice was assessed using a five-item scale (α = .836) adapted from Van Dyne
& LePine (1998). Participants rated their own voice behavior.
Team collective voice. The five-item scale (α = .885) was changed to address shared
voice of the team. The wording was carefully made sure to described shared voice
behavior rather than asking for participants’ perceptions of how their team members’
expression of voice, which was normally used in previous studies of team voice
(Walumbwa et al., 2012; Wang & Hu, 2018). This small alteration is fundamentally
important to ensure that the scale was able to assess the correct behavior. In addition,
when translating to Vietnamese, the phrase “tiếng nói chung” was used to described
shared voice which uniquely means the voice behavior the researcher aimed to measure
in Vietnamese.
Team innovative performance. As mentioned previously in section 1.3.2 in the
literature review, at team level, innovative performance is normally measured by self-
report and supervisor ratings (Anderson et al., 2014) regarding team members’ behavior
of generating and implementing innovative ideas following the stage of innovation
suggested by Kanter (1988). The appropriateness of this measurement method for the
study of innovative performance has been acknowledged in the literature (Anderson et
al., 2014). Thus, this study uses the six-item scale (α = .906) adapted from Janssen
(2000) and González‐Romá et al. (2009). The items were chosen after careful
consideration of different measurements of team innovativeness/ innovation/ innovative
behavior from previous studies (see Appendix 2 for the literature review of innovative
performance measures). Items with the most suitable meaning, including two stages of
innovation – idea generalization and idea realization, and suitable wording were selected
from two scales above.
Team autonomy’s assessment highly depends on the research contexts. The
characteristics of the work team decide the specific items in the measurement scale.
However, they all share the same structure of asking respondents about having discretion
and being able to influence a number of work-related aspects. Based on the literature
review of different autonomy measurement, this study chose to adopt the scale from
Yamaguchi (2013). Team’s extent of autonomy in decision making was evaluated,
concerning nine areas: setting objective of the team, scheduling, job rotation or
allocation, budgeting, education and training, task procedures, resolution of service and

65
production problems, staff evaluation and appraisal, selection of leaders. Cronbach’s α
is .879 (see Table 3.5 for detailed measurement items).
All the measurements are Likert-scales. Individual voice, and team collective voice were
measured with a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Team innovative
performance was measured with a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree). For team autonomy, a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (to a very small
extent) to 5 (to a great extent) was used. Most of the interested variables are team
variables, while data were collected at individual level, therefore, an appropriate method
was used to construct the data to the targeted level of analysis, which is explained in
detail in later sections.

Control variables
Some characteristics of the team were controlled, namely team size, team age, gender,
member’s education and members’ experience that might affect the study’s findings as
suggested by previous research (Hülsheger et al., 2009; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998).
Team size is the number of team members in the working group/department. Team age
is the time in which the team has been in operation. Members’ Education is also an
ordinal variable of five categories, while Gender is categorical variable with three
categories (male, female and others) (see Table 3.6 for more coding details). Members’
Experience was measured in years of members’ working experience.

66
Table 3.5. Measurement items of key variables

Construct Sources Items Original items

I make recommendations concerning issues that I develop and make recommendations concerning
affect the organization issues that affect this work group
I communicate my opinions about work issues to I communicate my opinions about work issues to
others even if my opinion is different and others others in this group even if my opinion is different
disagree with me and others in the group disagree with me
Van Dyne
Individual I keep well informed about issues where my I keep well informed about issues where my
& LePine
voice opinions might be useful opinion might be useful to this work group
(1998)
I get involved in issues that affect the quality of I get involved in issues that affect the quality of
work life here work life here in this group

I speak up with ideas for new projects or changes in I speak up in this group with ideas for new projects
procedures or changes in procedures

My team collectively speaks up and get involved in I develop and make recommendations concerning
issues that affect the organization issues that affect this work group

Team Van Dyne My group collectively communicates our opinions I communicate my opinions about work issues to
collective & LePine about work issues to others even if our opinion is others in this group even if my opinion is different
voice (1998) different and others disagree with us and others in the group disagree with me

My group keeps well informed about issues where I keep well informed about issues where my
our collective opinion might be useful opinion might be useful to this work group

67
 Construct Sources Items Original items
My group collectively gets involved in issues that I get involved in issues that affect the quality of
affect the quality of work life work life here in this group

My group collectively speaks up with ideas for new I speak up in this group with ideas for new projects
projects or changes in procedures or changes in procedures

The extent of autonomy given to your team for its own decision-making concerning:

Setting objective of the team Setting objective of the team

Scheduling Scheduling

Job rotation or allocation Job rotation or allocation

Team Yamaguchi Budgeting Budgeting

autonomy (2013) Education and training Education and training
Task procedures Task procedures
Resolution of service and production problems Resolution of service and production problems

Staff evaluation and appraisal Staff evaluation and appraisal

Selection of leaders Selection of leaders

Team Janssen The degree to which in the last 6 months:

innovative (2000) and My team frequently initiated new procedures and In my work team new ideas and methods are often
performance González‐ methods tried out

68
Construct Sources Items Original items
Romá et al. My team frequently developed new ways of Searching out new working methods, techniques,
(2009) accomplishing work targets/objectives or instruments

In my work team the development of new

My team frequently initiated new ideas/products
methods, products or services is often proposed

In my team, new ideas are almost always put into In my work team, new ideas are put into practice
practice to improve the work and its results to improve the work and its results

In my team, innovative ideas are almost always Introducing innovative ideas into the work
introduced in a systematic way environment in a systematic way
In my team, the utility of innovative ideas is almost Evaluating the utility of innovative ideas
always evaluated

69
3.4.2.2. Questionnaire construction
With the above measurements for the key variables identified, the first version of the
questionnaire was developed in English with additional questions regarding
participants’ demographic characteristics and team characteristics. The version was then
reviewed by academic experts to ensure construct and content validities. Several items
were amended or removed as a result. Back and forth translation method was also
applied to enhance face validity and wording precision. A Vietnamese version of the
questionnaire was sent to a bilingual (Vietnamese and English) researcher for his
English version to see if the Vietnamese translation has been precise. For example, an
original team innovative performance item of “My team frequently initiated new
procedures and methods” was translated as “Nhóm của tôi thường xuyên đề xuất các
quy trình và phương pháp mới” which was then translated back by the bilingual
researcher as “My team usually makes proposals about new processes and methods”.
This example shows good translation into Vietnamese of the items. Items which did not
meet this quality of back-and-forth translation were made to go through this process
again until satisfaction was reached. The final version was in Vietnamese (see Appendix
4 and 5) to be administered to survey participants.

3.4.3. Quantitative sampling and data collection

For quantitative study, a larger sample is required. In Vietnam, a large number of ICT
personnels is normally found in large telecommunication companies. In addition, large
and stable organizations would normally have standardized organizational structure and
a more stable workforce. This is important for exploring team collective voice because
of the same reason for choosing departmental teams as the unit of analysis. Thus, the
researcher targeted large telecommunication companies in Vietnam which have large
ICT departments and employ substantial number of ICT personnels.
The researcher gained access to those employees through the company’s human
resource (HR) divisions or top managements. A letter of introduction from the university
and a nondisclosure agreement were requested before the data collection could take
place. Both offline and online versions of the questionnaire were produced to meet the
requirement of sample organizations’ policies regarding anonymity and confidentiality.
Questionnaires were administered over the period of two months from July 2022 to
August 2022. 135 responses were online and 695 were offline. Returned paper
questionnaires were then entered into the computer for further data processing and
analysis. There were 830 responses in total, however, after removing responses with

70
missing data and teams with only one response, the sample consisted of 765 employees
that belong to 157 department teams.
Detailed descriptive characteristics of the research sample are presented in Table 3.6.
- Gender: Among 765 respondents, 76.4% are male (583 employees) compared
to 23,3% of females (178 employees). This ratio reflects the gender imbalance in
the quantitative sample.
- Age: Most of the participants are under 45 (more than 93% of them) with 46.7%
are under 30. Only 6.9% of them are over 45 years old.
- Education: The majority of the survey participants (85.3%) have their highest
level of education as Bachelor of Science (or equivalence), followed by those
who attended graduated classes to have Master or MBA Degree (13.2%). And a
very few numbers of participants are at the other two ends of education levels,
either high school/intermediate graduates or PhD.
- Experience: Participants’ working experience was measured in years with the
average of 7.54 years (SD = 6.28). Table 4.4 shows the frequencies and
percentages of people grouped into three groups of different working experience.
- Job role: 84.8% of participants are working as team members (649 employees)
and 15.2% of them are holding managerial positions (116 employees).
- Team size ranged from 2 to 53 with an average of 13.18 (SD = 11.54) employees
per team 76.4%.
Table 3.6. Descriptive analysis of the research sample

Variables Code Frequency Percentage

Gender Male 0 583 76.2%

Female 1 178 23.3%

Others 2 4 0.5%

Age Under 30 1 357 46.7%

30-44 2 355 46.4%
45-59 3 53 6.9%

Education High school/

Intermediate/
0 7 0.9%
Degree of
Associate

71
 Variables Code Frequency Percentage
Bachelor (of
1 653 85.3%
Science)

Master/MBA 2 101 13.2%

PhD 3 3 0.4%

Experience Under 5 years - 312 40.8%

5-10 years - 275 35.9%
More than 10
- 178 23.3%
years
Job role Team member 1 649 84.8%
Manager 2 116 15.2%

Note: N = 765

3.4.4. Quantitative data analysis

After all the data were collected and digitalized, the data cleaning process was conducted
to remove errors, missing values, or duplicate cases before being entered into the SPSS
20 and SPSS Amos 25 for data analysis. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were carried out first to examine the measurements’
reliability and validity. Common method bias was then assessed before conducting data
aggregation to team level – the level of analysis of this quantitative study. Data
descriptive analysis and hypothesis testing using regression analysis in SPSS. SPSS
Amos was also used for bootstrapping to test for the mediation relationship in the
research model.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 3
Chapter 3 described the exploratory sequential mixed methods applied in this study. It
started with providing the rationale for selecting the mixed methods and describing the
general research design. The research context of the ICT industry was also discussed in
detail including its appropriateness as the research context, the ICT teams’ working
method and team structure. The first phase is the qualitative research was described first
with the research approach following the CGT methodology of Charmaz (2014). 30
participants from multiple ICT firms participated in semi-structured interviews. The
participant selection, the sample characteristics, data collection and analysis process

72
were explained comprehensively. Quantitative research was followed as the second
phase of the study. To test for the proposed model, a questionnaire was developed and
filled by 765 employees working in 157 teams in big telecommunication organizations
in Vietnam. The sample information, measurement scales development, data collection
and analysis were also presented.

73
 CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

Previous chapters have described in detail the need for exploratory research about the
behavior of team collective voice, the theoretical foundation and also the methodology
of conducting research. Since exploratory sequential mixed method includes two phases
of qualitative and quantitative studies, data collection and data analysis of the two phases
were separately and sequentially performed. The following sections follow that
sequence in presenting the research findings.
The first part of this chapter provides findings about the nature of team collective voice
including those features that make it radically different from other types of employee
voice, followed by its irreplaceable roles in Vietnam organization, its different types and
formation process. The analysis comprises appropriate quotations of interview
participants highlighting the related arguments.
The latter part of this chapter presents quantitative results and analysis. It begins with
different reliability and validity assessments of the measurement scales. Common
method bias is also discussed with methods to limit and detect the severity of this bias
in the study. Next part explains the data aggregation conditions and process to transform
the variables into team level. Correlation analysis and hypothesis testing are then
reported with the results of regression analysis of team level data.

4.1. Qualitative findings and analysis

4.1.1. The nature of team collective voice
In Vietnamese, team collective voice is called “tiếng nói chung.” The researcher
detected the existence of tiếng nói chung in eight of the 9 studied companies.
Interviewees reported various situations when they used team collective voice; for
example, a technical team can voice their team’s request for more working equipment,
new technical training, change in team composition, etc. (see Table 4.1). The other firm
in the sample is a foreign firm. The interviewee highlighted the different working
environment of his current jobs compared to the previous employments at local
companies. The foreign firm tends to have an easier and more relaxed working
environment in which people feel free to use their voices. A high level of respect for
others’ ideas and suggestions is also observed, which might overcome the need for
alternatives (i.e., team collective voice).
“Besides the open working environment, the culture is not like local companies. I
work with people from many different cultures and countries, so it's very easy to
give opinions, either complaints or job-related ideas. Anyone can speak up. An

74
 employee can totally suggest to the boss a new style of working, a new working flow
as long as it works. […] People respect others’ opinions.” [Foreign 7. Dev]

Table 4.1. Team collective voice examples

Mechanism
No What
How When Where
Demand for more One member
• Meetings
resources (i.e., human represented the In office or
1 • Private
resources, equipment, team to speak up outside office
conversations
time)
Report about
One member
customers who Private
2 represented the In office
intentionally cause conversations
team to speak up
difficulty for the team
One member
represented the Meetings In office
Suggest alternative team to speak up
3
technology Discussion
between the While working In office
team and PM
One member
Complain/Report represented the Meetings In office
about a complicated team to speak up
4
source code of Discussion
customers between the While working In office
team and PM
• Meetings
• Private In office
Change the working conversations
One member
flow (e.g. too much • Online
5 represented the
overtime, job Socialization
team to speak up Outside office
assigning process) events
- Group chat
Online
- Workplace

75
 Mechanism
No What
How When Where
Negotiate customer
One member
requirements between
6 represented the Meetings In office
two professional
team to speak up
teams (BA vs. Dev)
One member Meetings In office
Ask for soft skills and
7 represented the
hard skills training
team to speak up Online Workplace
One member
8 Ask for business fees represented the Meetings In office
team to speak up
Ask for a review of A complaint
9 the team performance letter to higher In office
appraisal management
• Meetings
In office
Comment on job One member • Private
10 rotation or new team represented the conversations
members team to speak up Socialization
Outside office
events
• Meetings
Demand for other In office
• Private
benefits (e.g.,
One member conversations
bathroom for
11 represented the Socialization
employees, open Outside office
team to speak up events
football club, propose
- Group chat
team rewards, etc.) Online
- Workplace

The nature of team collective voice can be described by three primary characteristics.
First, there is a final voice of the team. Although members certainly have different
opinions, they will have to agree on one consensus. Second, to have a consensus opinion,
the team must go through an agreement process that involves lateral voice, intensive
discussions, and debates. Lateral voice might have a significant role in the formation of
team collective voice, especially in the early stages when employees start to share their
thoughts with each other and set the foundation for team collective voice. After that,
methods such as voting can be used to reach the final voice, but normally that would
come after exhaustive discussions. By going through this process, team collective voice

76
does not miss out on the minority opinions that might be chosen. These make team
collective voice differ radically from averaging individuals’ voices or simple voting:
Many members have noticed the problem. We gathered and discussed in a group
chat to reach a consensus about the problem. Then we raised our “tiếng nói chung”
to higher management to ask for new recruitment of PMs. [Private 1. PM]

On the other hand, the participant from the company that does not have team collective
voice reported having his team members based in different countries; therefore, the main
ways to communicate are either through emails or conference calls. This working model
limits the contact between members and therefore hinders the development of lateral
voice and team collective voice.
Third, having recognized the advantage of team collective voice in influencing
managers’ decisions, the use of team collective voice entails deliberative measures to
make others, especially superiors, agree on the proposals. This influence process
includes elements such as who the representatives are, how to convey the proposals to
authorized persons, etc. As such, team collective voice as a process that involves
synthesis is more carefully designed and thoroughly planned than the simple aggregation
of individual voices:
Most of the staff will speak in the group first. Then the team leader will raise the
issues to the Director or PM, which is faster and more efficient because the issue
has already been supported by the team leader. [Private 9. PM]

4.1.2. The utilization of team collective voice

A comparative examination of three voice levels was made concerning aspects such as
the strength of voice, cultural preference, and substance of voice (see Table 4.2) to
understand in what situations team collective voice are utilized instead of other voice
levels. Team collective voice is utilized in two main situations in which either individual
voice or organizational voice is weak or insufficient to address the issues.
Table 4.2. Voice levels comparison
Team collective
Individual voice Organizational voice
voice
Voice raiser Individuals Working teams Union, work council,
or Joint consultative
committee

77
 Team collective
Individual voice Organizational voice
voice
Cultural Culturally hampered Culturally preferred since they decrease the
preference and avoided level of individual exposure to self-
expression
Strength No collective power Collective power Collective power
However, the VGCL
does not really
exhibit the collective
power of
organizational voice.

4.1.2.1. Team collective voice substitutes for weak individual voice

Interviewees reported avoiding individual voices and preferring to use team collective
voice for three reasons. First, it helps individuals overcome their lack of self-confidence.
Developers are normally seen as quiet and inactive as their occupational characteristics,
resulting in a low level of individual voice in software firms:
Some employees are very quiet; they usually don't say anything and accept all the
assigned jobs. I think it is because of their characteristics… Developers work with
codes every day, which is a bit dry, leading to less sharing. [Private 1. PM]

Regarding institutional context, employees’ educational conditions were compared and

blamed as one reason for the low level of individual voice. One manager asserted that
most of his employees graduated from domestic universities, which normally have a
teacher-centered learning style, limiting the development of self-confidence in
expressing his ideas and other interpersonal skills. Conversely, those who “studied in a
certain environment where they can practice the habits of presenting, exchanging and
giving ideas like studying abroad, would have a very different communication style”
[Private 3. PM].
Second, Vietnamese people are afraid of losing face, such as “being framed as
demanding” [Public 10. PM] when raising their voices to ask for more resources, value
harmony over conflict, and fear victimization. There is also a large power distance
between junior and senior people in life as well as at work, and employees tend to accept
hierarchy. Participants addressed these barriers:
I found that characteristics of most Vietnamese people create the barriers making
it difficult to share opinions. [Private 3. PM]

78
 Vietnamese employees are very afraid of the boss and do not dare to raise their
voice, which might account for 80% of the company. [Private 4. Dev2]

The Vietnamese language complicates how people are addressed based on their age. For
example, to address an older man/woman we use “anh”/“chị”, and “chú”/“cô” for much
older men/women, respectively. While in English, there is only one pronoun to address
the second person “you”. Another example is when we answer “yes” to a question. A
senior will say “ừ”, while a junior will have to answer “vâng” to show respect. Many
other honorifics widen the power distance in Vietnam society.
I think how we have to change our tone, add honorifics, and also use different
personal pronouns when talking to our boss who is older than us partly makes it
difficult to voice. [Private 3. Dev2]

Consequently, challenging behavior such as voice is not often exhibited, especially in

front of large groups. They prefer to discuss in private or use TCV. Indeed, in some
companies, team collective voice is the main voice mechanism and “individual voice is
rarely raised” [Private 2. PM].
On the other hand, in a foreign-invested company that does not have team collective
voice, the interviewee reported working in a lower power distance environment, and
different cultures were noted to have different views toward raising individual voices.
Employees can suggest to the boss to change their working style as long as it improves
performance:
Besides the open working environment, the culture is different from local
companies. It's very easy to give opinions, either complaining or job-related ideas.
Anyone can speak up. [Private 6. Dev]

Third, employees prefer team collective voice for its strength and to gain legitimacy for
their voice. An individual voice would not be taken seriously by authorities. All
participants whose companies have team collective voice reported that the strength of
team collective voice is much higher, and “more often the voice of a group will be
somewhat more prioritized” [Private 2. PM].
Strength means the influential degree of a particular voice toward a target, normally the
company’s management. Team collective voice has a higher influence due to its severity
and persuasion. Interviewees asserted that team collective voice mostly addresses the
shared issues of many employees, which tends to cause unpleasant consequences for the
team’s and the company’s performance if appropriate actions are not taken. As these
shared issues occur on the scale of a team and are raised collectively, they will be
considered more serious and severe.

79
Team collective voice is also more persuasive and “easier to be accepted” [Private 9.
PM] because it indicates a consensus stance of team members; that is, “there is no
disagreement left between members” [Private 9. PM], rather than controversial
individual ideas. It is a way to certify ideas’ quality as all members’ expertise has been
consulted. In addition, if the collective voice is raised by the team leaders, it will be even
more reliable, since “the leaders are the ones who take responsibility for the team’s
performance” [Private 9. PM] and also have better experience and expertise.

4.1.2.2. Team collective voice substitutes for union voice as a mechanism of

collective power
Participants described their union as a charitable arm giving financial aid to sick
employees, pregnant women, birthdays, and relatives’ death. The Vietnam trade union’s
role as an employee voice mechanism is traditionally weak. Therefore, team collective
voice substitutes for union voice to address individuals’ needs. For instance, one
interviewee reported using team collective voice to change the company policy. His
company normally converts overtime hours into days off; however, his team had worked
overtime too much due to the heavy workload, which made converting them into days
off unfavorable. They used team collective voice to request payments for their overtime
hours.
Besides, organizational voice mostly involves organizational-level issues. Union voice
cannot address work-related issues of the team, as they are department- or subject-
specific and require people with specialized expertise. Thus, it is essential to have a team
collective voice that is more suitable to deal with work issues and also has the
advantages of collective power and indirectness. For example, in product development
teams, developers usually face difficulties regarding customers’ requirements for using
a particular technology or source code: “Some of them were impossible to satisfy, so we
had to raise our voice to the directors since only he could negotiate with the customers”
[Private 1. PM].

4.1.2.3. Team collective voice and routine changes

As analyzed above, employees were found to employ team collective voice in situations
where individual voice or organizational voice are deficient to fulfill their targets. In
both cases, there are situations in which in order to change the unfavorable status quo
or to achieve the desired outcomes, team collective voice has altered organizational
routines.

80
One example is that of informant Private 1. PM. His firm, which is a small local
company, owing to the constraint of resource, had usually appointed one of the senior
BA in the team to concurrently execute the role of PM. This practice had been
problematic as these BAs did not have the required skills to manage a project that are
normally possessed by PMs. Thus, it had made the team fail to meet customers’
deadlines and created stress for team members. The interviewee also reported that his
team collective voice to the firm managements has made them to terminate that practice
and started to recruit new PMs (also refer as item no. 1 in Table 4.1).
Many members have noticed the problem. We gathered and discussed in a group
chat to reach a consensus about the problem. Then we raised our “tiếng nói chung”
to higher management to ask for new recruitment of PMs since it is not okay to let
us swim without full-time PMs, our jobs were late, and we were inhibited due to
lack of management skills. We are hired to design the solution and work with
customers instead of managing projects [Private 1. PM].

Another example of routine change can be the one about converting overtime hours into
days off mentioned above section (also refer as item no. 8 in Table 4.1). Similarly, the
routine of converting overtime hours into days off was revised by management. In other
words, team collective voice has initiated routine changes through management
interventions of routines.

4.1.3. Types of team collective voice, their formation, and influence on

performance
Four different types of team collective voice are proposed based on two dimensions: (1)
the impacts of raised issues on teams/individual members, and (2) planned/improvised
issues.
The first dimension depends on the substance of the voice. A team collective voice that
addresses resource allocation or team composition is more likely to affect teams’
operation and performance, while problems with training and working conditions only
influence each member. The second dimension considers whether the issues are
thoroughly planned before being raised. Planned team collective voice refers to issues
that are premeditated among members and normally take a longer time to tackle, while
improvised team collective voice addresses problems that arise during working and
mostly require quick responses to ensure the project progresses. Hence, the researcher
categorized four types of team collective voice that center around different issues with
different mechanisms to reach a consensus and raise, as summarized in Figure 4.1.

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Voice for team development
This type comprises issues that impact the whole team relating to resource allocation,
team composition, project assignments, and team KPIs. For example, a project team
requested more resources from the company, including working equipment, and human
resources, to pursue their assigned projects:
During the working session, everyone discussed the necessity of different
equipment, for example, new screens for easier and faster coding and building
reports. Then they gradually get serious about it and raise their voice. [Private 1.
BA]

Teams can also voice unfavorable team performance appraisals and workload or remove
an unfit team member. Such issues can have important impacts on teams’ development
and performance and actively contribute to organizational strategic development. It also
helps to minimize individual exposure to victimization, offending or displeasing others,
and keeping harmony in some situations:
They noticed two of their members were having a conflict and discussed it before
suggesting to PM to either move one of them to another project or in some cases
there would be laying off the one who could not work with the team. [Private 1. PM]

Team members normally discussed thoroughly to reach a consensus view, to design

strategic plans to persuade management, and how to raise their team collective voice
effectively through representatives. Any team member can represent their team;
however, the team leader or PM are normally chosen to enhance their voice’s
persuasion.
Voice for team development is raised formally in:
• Meetings: Daily/weekly meetings at the beginning of the day/week to report
results and decide the way forward.
• Private conversations: The team leader or PM can also talk to higher managers
in private.

Voice for members’ career development

This type includes issues such as members’ career paths, compensation and benefits,
and training and development. Since these issues influence many people, they take time
for teams to acknowledge the problems, seek solutions, and plan their team collective
voice. People need each other’s opinions to supplement more complete ideas. But unlike
the first type, the results will influence team members individually. For instance, if they
ask for more training or a bathroom at the office, providing these requests will help each

82
member to enhance their skills/career development or benefits. Team collective voice
acts as a substitute for individual voice and will positively affect the team and
organizational performance by maintaining employee satisfaction and enhancing
individual competence.
Teams achieve consensus through persuasion. Normally, an initiator raises the issue first
and tries to get others’ support through lateral voice. The discussion process can either
arise spontaneously while working or in a more intentional way to get members’
attention and agreement:
In a technical team meeting, one gave his opinion that the team needs to improve
their skills. We discussed and agreed, then the team leader represented us to talk
to the Board of Director. Our team voice was formed during that meeting. [Private
3. Dev1]

This type is also raised by representatives. Anyone can represent the team, but it is more
likely to be the initiator. Voice for members’ career development is raised as petitions
in meetings or online through workplace posts, where they can get more attention and
enhance their collective power:
• Meetings
• Workplace posts: Workplace is an enterprise connectivity platform similar to
Facebook but for internal business only. On this platform, other people outside
the group can also see the post and might express their agreement or disagreement
through Likes or comments. Management will then have to respond to those
posts.

Voice for team remedy

Improvised issues normally need to be addressed quickly to maintain operations and
team performance. A voice for team remedy acts as an element of internal control used
to resolve team concerns quickly, such as dealing with customers’ requirements,
emergent needs for resources, deciding on implemented technology, or resolving a
conflict of teams’ interests. For example, the BA team “is very close to customers and
always wants to satisfy most of their needs, so they exploit other support teams to realize
customers’ wishes” [Private 1. PM]. Conversely, the Dev team “needs to limit the work
following their capacity, time, and benefits, thus, they want BA to minimize the customer
needs” [Public 11. BA]. This conflict is resolved by using their team collective voice to
persuade the PM, who will decide the right level of requirements the team needs to
fulfill.

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Figure 4.1. Team collective voice typology

Issues: Issues:
TEAM DEVELOPMENT MEMBERS' CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND
• Resource allocation BENEFITS
• Team compositions • Career path
• Project assignment • Benefits
• Team KPIs and performance appraisal • Training and development

Mechanism to reach team collective voice: Mechanism to reach team collective voice:
STRATEGIC DISCUSSIONS PERSUASION
Teams discuss and make strategy Someone would raise the issues and get others’
agreement

Mechanism to raise voice: Planned Mechanism to raise voice:

FORMAL REPRESENTATION PETITION
• PM/team lead represent the team • In meetings
• Raise in formal meetings or private • In other place (e.g., Workplace) to get
more attention from others

VOICE FOR
VOICE FOR MEMBERS’
TEAM CAREER
DEVELOPMENT DEVELOPMENT

Team-focused Members-focused

VOICE FOR
VOICE FOR MEMBERS’
TEAM REMEDY OPERATIONAL
ISSUES

Issues: Issues:
EMERGING ISSUES OF TEAM EMERGING ISSUES OF TEAM
PERFORMANCE PERFORMANCE
• Dealing with harsh customers Improvised • Working conditions
• Negotiation on customer’s needs, etc. • Job rotations and support
• Emergent needs of resources

Mechanism to reach team collective voice: Mechanism to reach team collective voice:
EMERGENT PROBLEM SOLVING SOCIALIZATION
Teams gather to solve emerging problems and Issues were raised and discussed during team
agree on issues to voice gathering, group chat

Mechanism to raise voice: Mechanism to raise voice:

ISSUE REPRESENTATION INDIVIDUAL CHANNEL
Persons who know the issues best would PM raises the team concerns to superior in
represent to raise voice more informal settings

84
Hence, some voices for team remedy are prohibitive in nature, which means it is more
likely to be utilized as employees avoiding conflicts and being framed badly, such as
uncooperative or incompetent, emphasizing the substitute role of team collective voice
for the weak individual voice. The voicing mechanism is issue representation—the
representative is the member who knows the issues best during meetings or private
discussions.
Voice for team remedy acts as a procedure of internal control to ensure effective and
efficient fulfillment of the teams’ and organizations’ objectives. Therefore, its impact
on team performance is reported as direct and spontaneous:
TCV has improved group effectiveness immediately. When the team raised a
problem about customer A, who has been trying to create difficulty. The whole
group noticed and raised the problem to a senior manager who can influence the
higher management of the client company. [Private 2. PM]

Voice for members’ operational issues

This type focuses on daily functional issues that emerge naturally and spontaneously,
such as inconvenient working time, location, work allocation, or working conditions.
The formation process is more informal than the other types. It is formed during
socialization activities, such as team gatherings, when employees have the chance to get
together and share their thoughts, establishing the foundation for team collective voice.
This type indicates the substitute role of team collective voice for union voice to demand
employees’ benefits.
Representatives also raise their team concerns in more informal settings, such as private
conversations, socialization events, or even instant group chats:
• Private conversations
• Socialization events: Vietnamese like to gather and drink alcohol for multiple
events (e.g., birthdays, new team members, promotions, etc.). They especially
describe this activity as “nhậu”. Participants reported that employees would feel
more relaxed and find it easier to raise voices (both individual and team collective
voice) on these occasions, which might be because the power distance is reduced.
• Instant group chat: This channel’s popularity has been growing with the
development of the Internet. This allows instant group discussion without having
to call meetings. Employees can also raise team collective voice through chat.
This format limits the power distance and pressure that face-to-face vertical voice
sometimes has.

85
These issues are not as serious and important; therefore, they can be raised on these
casual occasions where the power distance has been narrowed down considerably and
“got accepted more easily within a more relaxed atmosphere” [Public 14. Dev1]
together with the collective power.
When it comes to its effect on performance, supporting the resolution of those
employees’ concerns means voice for members’ operational issues will help strengthen
the team and organizational performance through employee satisfaction:
The important thing is that when I can contribute and be listened to, I feel
comfortable and work more productively. If the individual is more efficient at work,
the group will be more effective. [Private 3. Dev2]

4.1.4. From qualitative to quantitative

The qualitative findings have revealed the existence and also the significance of team
collective voice in Vietnam organizations. This set out the foundation for the
quantitative investigations relating to team collective voice in the second phase.
In addition, the results also provided several propositions that can be tested such as the
preference in the use of team collective voice compared to individual voice among
employees, and the positive influence of team collective voice on performance. In some
cases, informants also suggested that team collective voice has influenced and modified
routines – the institutional element that governs organization practices. These findings
contributed substantively to unveil the direction for the next stage of research.

4.2. Quantitative findings and analysis

4.2.1. Reliability assessment of the measurement scales
Following the guidance of Hair et al. (2018), the author has conducted several statistical
analyses to evaluate the reliability of the measurement scales. First, for multi-item
scales, Cronbach’s Alpha is used primarily as a reliability assessment by comparing the
amount of covariance among items with the overall variance of the scale. If there are
many covariance in relation to the variance, the scale is reliable (Collins, 2007).
Accordingly, the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient should be larger than 0.7 indicating
reliable measurement scales. The corrected item-total correlation coefficients were also
considered for evaluating the strength of the relationship between each item and the total
score of the scale. An item should have the corrected item-total correlation coefficient
larger than 0.3 to be validly belong to the scale (Hair et al., 2018). Table 4.3 shows the
coefficients of Cronbach’s Alpha and the corrected item-total correlation of the studied
scales. All of them have good Cronbach’s Alphas and that of team innovative

86
performance is excellent according to Cohen et al. (2007). All the corrected item-total
correlation coefficients are larger than 0.3 illustrating reliable measurement scales.
Table 4.3. Reliability of measurement scales

Cronbach’s
Corrected
Alpha if
Code Items item-total
item
correlation
deleted
IV Individual voice (α = 0.835)
I make recommendations concerning issues that
IV1 0.558 0.827
affect the organization
I communicate my opinions about work issues to
IV2 others even if my opinion is different and others 0.625 0.804
disagree with me
I keep well informed about issues where my
IV3 0.671 0.793
opinions might be useful
I get involved in issues that affect the quality of
IV4 0.667 0.792
work life here
I speak up with ideas for new projects or changes
IV5 0.673 0.791
in procedures

TCV Team collective voice (α = 0.884)

My team collectively speaks up and get involved
TCV1 0.691 0.866
in issues that affect the organization
My group collectively communicates our
TCV2 opinions about work issues to others even if our 0.726 0.858
opinion is different and others disagree with us
My group keeps well informed about issues
TCV3 0.757 0.851
where our collective opinion might be useful
My group collectively gets involved in issues
TCV4 0.735 0.855
that affect the quality of work life
My group collectively speaks up with ideas for
TCV5 0.698 0.864
new projects or changes in procedures

87
 Cronbach’s
Corrected
Alpha if
Code Items item-total
item
correlation
deleted
TA Team autonomy (α = 0.887)
TA1 Setting objective of the team 0.692 0.871
TA2 Scheduling 0.644 0.874
TA3 Job rotation or allocation 0.679 0.871
TA4 Budgeting 0.574 0.883
TA5 Education and training 0.665 0.872
TA6 Task procedures 0.710 0.869
TA7 Resolution of service and production problems 0.613 0.876
TA8 Staff evaluation and appraisal 0.673 0.872
TA9 Selection of leaders 0.570 0.881

TIP Team innovative performance (α = 0.906)

My team frequently initiated new procedures

TIP1 0.692 0.897
and methods
My team frequently developed new ways of
TIP2 0.783 0.883
accomplishing work targets/objectives
TIP3 My team frequently initiated new ideas/products 0.753 0.887
In my team, new ideas are almost always put into
TIP4 0.740 0.889
practice to improve the work and its results
In my team, innovative ideas are almost always
TIP5 0.746 0.888
introduced in a systematic way
In my team, the utility of innovative ideas is
TIP6 0.730 0.891
almost always evaluated

Note: N = 765

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4.2.2. Exploratory factor analysis
The EFA was performed next to identify underlying factors or variables and to group
the observed variables into meaningful factors. This analysis helps to reveal the latent
structure and appropriate observed variables of each factor according to the data. Items
for individual voice, team collective voice, team autonomy and team innovative
performance were subjected for EFA with principal component analysis and varimax
rotation. Factor loadings were computed as the standardized regression weights of each
variable to the underlying factor. The factor loadings should be higher than 0.5 (Jabnoun
& Al‐Tamimi, 2003) and total variance extracted should be higher than 50% (Gerbing
& Anderson, 1988).
The KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) and Bartlett's test of sphericity were also run to test
the plausibility to conduct factor analysis. The results (see Table 4.4) show the adequacy
of factor analysis with KMO coefficients of 0.915 and statistically significant Bartlett’s
test (rejecting the null hypothesis of unrelated variables).
Table 4.4. KMO and Bartlett's tests

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .915

Approx. Chi-Square 11036.986
Bartlett's Test of
df 300
Sphericity
Sig. .000

The factor loadings are shown in Table 4.5. Five factors were extracted from 25
observed variables with total variance extracted of 66.874% (> 50%). Items which are
aimed to measure team autonomy were loaded into two different factors (3 and 4), which
means TA4 (budgeting), TA5 (education and training) and TA9 (selection of leaders)
do not belong to the component with the other 6 items. In fact, teams seem to be not
placed significant authority for these three areas in the surveyed organizations. Leaders
are often chosen by higher management. Teams work with assigned budgets, and
training provided by the organization. While the other 6 items are closely related to work
issues and more likely to be decided by teams such as setting the objectives, scheduling,
and task procedures. In addition, the regression analysis with all nine items of team
autonomy were performed to see if there are any significant findings lost with the
omission of TA4, TA5 and TA9. This analysis (see Appendix 8) indicates similar results
with those in Table 4.12 and Appendix 7 (with TA4, TA5 and TA9 removed). Thus,
TA4, TA5 and TA9 were excluded at this stage. The other 22 items show satisfied factor
loading coefficients and were loaded onto their corresponding theoretical factors.

89
Table 4.5. Rotated Component Matrix

Component
Items
1 2 3 4 5

IV1 0.695
IV2 0.737
IV3 0.735
IV4 0.736
IV5 0.746
TCV1 0.749
TCV2 0.759
TCV3 0.782
TCV4 0.702
TCV5 0.684
TA1 0.765
TA2 0.814
TA3 0.658
TA4 0.762
TA5 0.513 0.543
TA6 0.724
TA7 0.714
TA8 0.739
TA9 0.702
TIP1 0.737
TIP2 0.804
TIP3 0.788
TIP4 0.788
TIP5 0.794
TIP6 0.773

90
4.2.3. Confirmatory factor analysis
The CFA was conducted to examine the reliability and convergent validity of the
measurement scales. The measurement model shows good fit (χ2 (212) = 617.509; χ2/df
= 2.913; TLI = 0.954; CFI = 0.961; RMSEA = 0.05; SRMR = 0.0349) (Hu & Bentler,
1999). All the indicators had statistically significant (p < 0.01) loadings on their intended
constructs, demonstrating convergent validity. The composite reliability of all
constructs are higher than 0.80 and the average variance extracted (AVE) of all
constructs are higher than 0.50 (Hair et al., 2018). Discriminant validity is also satisfied
as all AVE values are higher than the squared correlations between each pair of
constructs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981) (see Table 4.6).
Table 4.6. Reliability and validity
Composite
IV TCV AU TIP
Reliability

IV 0.50 0.83
TCV 0.46 0.58 0.87
AU 0.16 0.24 0.54 0.88
TIP 0.20 0.38 0.22 0.61 0.92
Note: Numbers bolded and italicized in the diagonal are the AVE. Other numbers are
correlations squared between variables.

4.2.4. Common method bias

The issue of common method bias has been widely discussed and accepted among
behavioral literature (Bagozzi & Yi, 1990; Campbell & Fiske, 1959; Podsakoff et al.,
2003; Williams & Brown, 1994). This bias is caused by the variance that is produced by
the measurement method or instrument rather than the constructs themselves (Fiske,
1982) that might lead to measurement error and threaten the validity of research
conclusions (Bagozzi & Yi, 1990; Campbell & Fiske, 1959), either inflates or deflates
the observed relationships between interested constructs (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Much
evidence regarding the extent of this bias has been presented over the past few decades
with various results in different research fields. Among those, the most comprehensive
estimate might be that of Cote & Buckley (1987) who emphasized that approximately
26.3% of the variance in a research measure is caused by measurement error such as
common method bias, which is quite significant and requires appropriate remedies to
minimize the bias.

91
In this study, the main feature creating the problem of common method bias comes from
the use of common rater for the predictor and criterion variables in a cross-sectional
study. First, common rater is normally criticized since this method suffers from
consistency motif. Consistency motif highlights the tendency of respondents’ attempt to
maintain the consistency of their responses to similar questions, thereby creating
artifactual relationships between constructs (Johns, 1994; Podsakoff & Organ, 1986;
Salancik & Pfeffer, 1977; Schmitt, 1994). Similarly, raters also possess their own
assumptions concerning the associations between rated items – illusory correlations
(Berman & Kenny, 1976). This means the correlations driven from the ratings not only
contain the true relations but also the raters’ implicit theories about those relationships
(Podsakoff et al., 2003).
Third, individual behavior is also influenced by institutional factors and strives to gain
legitimacy (Scott, 1995). Crowne & Marlowe (1964, 109) defined this as social
desirability indicating “the need for social approval and acceptance”, thus, responses are
skewed in a favorable light which deviate from their true ratings (Podsakoff et al., 2003).
Finally, there are problems relating to people’s mood such as negative or positive
affectivity. People with high negative affectivity view themselves and other things
around them negatively in general (Watson & Clark, 1984) and vice versa (Burke et al.,
1993), which could account for the systematic bias. In addition, mood can be affected
by external events happening before answering the questionnaire such as interacting
with annoyed customer, receiving compliments from colleagues or supervisors, dispute
with family members, etc., producing artifactual covariance in the self-report
measurements (Podsakoff et al., 2003). These psychology-related issues are very
troublesome to measure and tackle. Without a valid way to obtain data from different
sources, these issues would never be totally addressed, but minimized.
Following recommendations of Podsakoff et al. (2003) in reducing common method
bias, this study has applied both procedural remedies and statistical controls. Attempting
to separate the measurements of the dependent and independent variables, the researcher
used the technique of proximal separation of measures in designing the questionnaire
with different Likert scale anchors for the predictor and criterion variables (i.e.,
“always” vs. “never” and “strongly agree” vs “strongly disagree”, see Appendix 3). The
coding numbers from 1 to 5 were also left out to eliminate the similarity of the two scale
anchors, trying to unstandardize the format and to require more cognitive processing of
the raters which limits the influence of scale consistency (Podsakoff et al., 2003;
Tourangeau et al., 2000). The questionnaire also made clear the anonymity of the survey,

92
contributing to reducing the likelihood of them editing their responses in a more socially
desirable, acquiescent way.
Regarding the statistical remedy, considering the characteristics of this study, Podsakoff
et al. (2003) recommends to use the single-common-method-factor or common latent
factor approach to control for common method bias. All items were loaded into one
common factor beside their theoretical factors (see Figure 4.2). Standardized regression
weights of this model than compared with the original model without the common latent
factor. The result shows that common method bias was not a problem in this study.
Figure 4.2. Common latent factor

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4.2.5. Data aggregation
This section aims to shed light on how individual level data were treated and converted
to team level data for further analysis. Regarding key variables, there are two types of
variables that should be differentiated regarding the level of hierarchy for the purpose
of this section. They are global variables and structural variables. Global variables are
those refer only to the level at which they are defined, without reference to other levels
(Hox, 2010). For example, an employee’s gender is a global variable at employee level
and team size is a global variable at team level. Structural variables, on the other hand,
refer to their sub-units and are formed from lower-level variables (Hox, 2010) such as
team average age is measured by the mean of a lower-level variable – member age.
According to the classification of Hox (2010), individual voice is a global variable at
employee level, while the other three key variables are global variables at team level,
however, they were recorded at employee level. Therefore, it is necessary to bring these
variables to their ‘own’ natural level for further investigation and hypothesis testing.
These two types of variables had different treatments when being moved to the higher
level. Since individual voice was accessed by asking employees to rate the extent of
their own voice behavior, the aggregation of individual voice variable to team level
would indicate aggregated extent of individual voice of each team. This is simple and
straightforward, while the aggregation of structural variables means differently. For
instance, the measurement scale for team collective voice measures team members’
perception regarding their shared voice. When aggregating or averaging this variable to
team level, whether the team members have consensus view toward this behavior needs
to be considered. If team members have contradicted views, the aggregation or the mean
would generate a result of something in the middle, which does not precisely reflect a
team view about their team collective voice. That is the aggregation or the mean does
not present a substantive meaning for the team and later influences the derivation of test
implications for hypothesis testing (Chan, 1998). The same principle is applied for team
autonomy and team innovative performance.
Table 4.7. Data aggregation comparison

Individual voice Team collective voice

Type of variable Global variable at employee Global variable at team
level level
Level of collected data Employee level Employee level
Transformation Aggregation Aggregation
method

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 Individual voice Team collective voice
Requirement of No Yes
aggregation Including rwg(j) (James et al.,
justification 1984) and the intraclass
correlations ICC(1) and
ICC(2) (Bliese, 2000)
Meaning The aggregated level of The shared perception of
members’ individual voice members about their team
of each team collective voice

Table 4.8. Within group agreement and intraclass correlations indexes

Number
Variable rwg(j) ICC(1) ICC(2)
of items
Individual voice 5 - - -
Team collective voice 5 0.92 0.19 0.53
Team autonomy 6 0.95 0.10 0.36
Team innovative performance 7 0.95 0.06 0.24

As a result, previous studies have developed indexes to justify the appropriateness of

aggregating measures to team level, the within-group agreement rwg(j) (James et al.,
1984) and the intraclass correlations ICC(1) and ICC(2) as indicators of interrater
reliability and group-mean reliability, respectively (Bliese, 2000). The average rwg(j)
values were .92 for team collective voice, .95 for team autonomy as well as team
innovative performance, all satisfying the cut-off value of .70 (James, 2014). The ICC
values were as follows: team collective voice (ICC1=.19, ICC2=.53), team autonomy
(ICC1=.10, ICC2=.36), team innovative performance (ICC1=.06, ICC2=.24) (see Table
4.8 for the summary of all variables). ICC(1) and ICC(2) should be higher than .05 and
.50 respectively, indicating the appropriateness of data aggregation (Bliese, 2000; Fleiss,
2011; LeBreton & Senter, 2008). The ICC(2) values for team autonomy and team
innovative performance were below the recommended cut-off, however, this can be
explained by the small group size. ICC(2) is a function of ICC(1) adjusted for group
size, the larger the group the higher ICC(2), ceteris paribus (Klein & Kozlowski, 2000).
As described above, our sample has a small group size, with 60% of the groups having
less than 10 members and 70% less than 15 members resulting in low ICC(2) values.
Overall, these results support the aggregation of all variables to team level.

4.2.6. Descriptive analysis

All variables were measured on 5-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 (Never/ Totally
disagree/ Very little) to 5 (Always/ Totally agree/ A great deal). The means and standard

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deviations of all variables and their items are presented in Table 4.9. Specifically, the
mean scores for all five variables are: Individual voice is between 2.28 and 3.58, Team
collective voice is between 3.28 and 3.68, Team autonomy is between 3.32 and 3.62 and
Team innovative performance is between 3.57 and 3.79.
Table 4.9. Descriptive statistics

Manager/Team
Total Team member
leader
Variables
Standard Standard Standard
Mean Mean Mean
Deviation Deviation Deviation
Individual voice 3.30 0.679 3.22 0.661 3.72 0.630
IV1 2.82 0.915 2.73 0.873 3.34 0.970
IV2 3.25 0.815 3.19 0.810 3.54 0.785
IV3 3.58 0.750 3.52 0.747 3.93 0.674
IV4 3.48 0.829 3.39 0.811 4.00 0.734
IV5 3.30 0.800 3.22 0.788 3.73 0.727
Team collective
3.50 0.688 3.48 0.692 3.60 0.658
voice
TCV1 3.28 0.801 3.28 0.788 3.28 0.873
TCV2 3.36 0.791 3.35 0.785 3.43 0.826
TCV3 3.68 0.723 3.65 0.738 3.85 0.608
TCV4 3.59 0.772 3.56 0.784 3.79 0.666
TCV5 3.50 0.728 3.50 0.733 3.53 0.704
Team autonomy 3.49 0.596 3.46 0.592 3.66 0.594
TA1 3.53 0.715 3.49 0.718 3.75 0.658
TA2 3.62 0.739 3.57 0.746 3.87 0.640
TA3 3.32 0.813 3.31 0.797 3.37 0.900
TA6 3.45 0.730 3.42 0.716 3.57 0.794
TA7 3.52 0.763 3.49 0.746 3.70 0.836
TA8 3.53 0.775 3.49 0.772 3.72 0.764
Team
innovative 3.68 0.580 3.67 0.591 3.87 0.505
performance
TIP1 3.72 0.729 3.69 0.732 3.87 0.692
TIP2 3.79 0.702 3.77 0.710 3.90 0.651
TIP3 3.71 0.696 3.71 0.714 3.74 0.592
TIP4 3.67 0.705 3.65 0.713 3.77 0.651
TIP5 3.57 0.714 3.57 0.724 3.59 0.660
TIP6 3.65 0.671 3.64 0.671 3.70 0.675

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4.2.7. The difference between team leaders and team members
Table 4.9 also presents the descriptive statistics distinguished between two groups, team
members and managers/team leaders. Managers/team leaders reported higher levels of
both individual voice and team collective voice. However, the t-tests for the significant
difference between the two means only support the difference of individual voice
between two groups (see Table 4.10). It implies that managers/team leaders use
significantly more individual voice in comparison to team members. For team collective
voice, the difference is insignificant.
In addition, looking at the differences between individual voice and team collective
voice, team members indicated the preference of team collective voice over individual
voice, while the opposite is found for managers/team leaders (see Table 4.10).
These findings together support the arguments of the qualitative findings that employees
prefer team collective voice and wide power distance in organizations contributes to the
unpopularity of individual voice. Apparently, managers/team leaders who are in the
positions that have narrower power distance would be more likely to utilize their
individual voice (individual voice mean score of managers/team leaders is significantly
higher than that of team members as well as higher than their team collective voice mean
score).
Likewise, managers/team leaders also viewed their team as having higher team
autonomy. One possible reason is that team leaders might have the authority to decide a
number of issues that team members might not have. As a result, their team autonomy
mean score is significantly higher.
Table 4.10. T-tests for equality of means

Mean t-test for equality of means

Variable Managers/
Team Mean
Team t
members Difference
leaders
Individual voice 3.22 3.72 -7.41 -0.49**
Team collective voice 3.48 3.60 -1.80 -0.12
Team autonomy 3.46 3.66 -3.35 0.20**
Team innovative
3.67 3.76 -1.55 -0.09
performance
Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01

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Owing to the significance of the above t-tests, the researcher performed the regression
analysis for the proposed model as shown in Figure 2.1 at individual level to test for the
effect of team role (i.e., team members or managers/team leaders) since this variable can
only be tested at individual level. The regression results (see Appendix 6) indicate that
team role does not have significant influence on either team collective voice or team
innovative performance.

4.2.8. Correlation analysis

There are 157 observations at the team level with means, standard deviations, and
correlations of the variables presented in Table 4.11. All the independent variables are
found to have statistically significant correlations with team innovative performance at
0.01 significance level. Although individual voice, team collective voice and team
autonomy are also significantly correlated with each other, multicollinearity does not
seem to be an issue because variables were mean-centered, and the variance inflation
factor (VIF) values are all under 2.2.

4.2.9. Hypothesis testing

After the reliability and validity of the measures were assessed, multiple linear
regression analyses were performed to test the research hypotheses.

4.2.9.1. Regression models

Five regression models were performed as shown in Table 4.12 to reveal the outcomes
of the research hypotheses. Model 2 to Model 5 have team innovative performance as
the criterion variable while that of Model 1 is team collective voice. In Model 2, five
control variables (team size, team age, gender, education and experience) were included.
The R2 of Model 2 is 0.092, which means these control variables only account for about
9.2% of change in team innovative performance. In Model 3, the independent variable
– individual voice was added with considerable change in R2 from 0.092 to 0.216. F
change was significant at 99% confidence interval indicating the statistically significant
change in R2. Team collective voice and team autonomy were respectively added into
the regression in Model 4 and Model 5. They both improved the model’s R2 with
significant F change. Team collective voice explained an additional 16.7% of the
variance in team innovative performance, while that of team autonomy was 4%.
Model 1 examined the relationship between individual voice and team collective voice.
The model explained 38.9% of the variance in team collective voice. Among those,
individual voice accounted for 36% of that variance. F test was significant at 99%
confidence interval, indicating the overall significance of the model.

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Table 4.11. Means, SDs, and correlations
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 Team Size 13.18 11.54

2 Team Age 3.45 1.91 .169*
3 Gender 0.23 0.31 -.026 -.108
4 Education 1.55 0.52 -.005 .047 .086
5 Experience 7.74 4.87 .046 .129 .076 .116
6 Individual voice 3.30 0.42 .061 .118 .148 -.059 .073
7 Team collective voice 3.49 0.43 .100 .037 .072 -.099 -.025 .613**
8 Team autonomy 3.49 0.35 .087 .010 .064 -.030 -.155 .332** .572**
9 Team innovative performance 3.68 0.35 .166* -.078 -.038 -.130 -.209* .334** .560** .508**

Note: N=157 for all variables.

* p < .05; ** p < .01

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4.2.9.2. Regression results
The results of regression analysis presented in Table 4.12 show support for the
hypothesis 4, individual voice was positively related to team collective voice (Model 1:
β = 0.616, p < 0.01). Individual voice was also found to significantly influence team
innovative performance (Model 3: β = 0.361, p < 0.01). The same results were found for
team collective voice in both Model 4 (β = 0.522, p < 0.01) and Model 5 (β = 0.380, p
< 0.01), thus, the hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2 were supported. Model 5 also examined
the relationship of team autonomy and team innovative performance. The interaction
term was significant (Model 5: β = 0.248, p < 0.01) supporting hypothesis 3. In addition,
teams with more experienced members are found to have higher level of team innovative
performance (Model 5: β = 0.143, p < 0.05).
In addition, the effect sizes (Cohen’s f2) (Cohen, 1988) of individual voice, team
collective voice and team autonomy were calculated. This measure is the most common
and appropriate for capturing the effect sizes of each variable within a multiple
regression model (Selya et al., 2012). The Cohen’s f2 is calculated as:
2
𝑅𝑅𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 − 𝑅𝑅𝐴𝐴2
𝑓𝑓 2 = 2
1 − 𝑅𝑅𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴
where B is the variable of interest, in this case are team collective voice and team
autonomy, A is the set of the other variables (such as control variables and depending
on what B is at the moment, either individual voice, team collective voice or team
2
autonomy), thereby 𝑅𝑅𝐴𝐴𝐴𝐴 is the variance caused by A and B together and 𝑅𝑅𝐴𝐴2 is the
proportion of variance caused by A only. Applying for the above formula will result in
proportion of variance uniquely led by B (Cohen, 1988).
The Cohen’s f2 of team collective voice and team autonomy are also reported in Table
4.11, indicating the largest effect size of team collective voice in comparison to team
autonomy and individual voice.
To test the mediating effect specified in hypothesis 4, the method of Preacher & Hayes
(2008) was applied. First, the researcher performed a series of regression analyses to
investigate the relationships between each pair of variables (i.e., independent variable
with dependent variable, independent variable with mediating variable and mediating
variable with dependent variable). These steps helped to test the existence of zero-order
relationships between these variables. They have to be significant in order to have the
mediation effect in place. The results were satisfied with individual voice was found to
have significant relationships with team collective voice (B = 0.644, p < 0.01) and team
innovative performance (B = 0.303, p < 0.01). Team collective voice was also positively
related to team innovative performance (B = 0.439, p <0.01).

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 Table 4.12. Regressions models
Team collective voice Team innovative performance

Variables M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 f2

B SE β B SE β B SE β B SE β B SE β

Team size -.003 .002 -.071 -.006* .002 -.188* -.005* .002 -.173* -.004* .002 -.136* -.004* .002 -.127*

Team age .009 .015 .039 .015 .015 .082 .023 .014 .128 .020 .012 .107 .020 .012 .109

Gender .017 .092 .012 .020 .088 .018 .088 .083 .078 .081 .074 .072 .090 .072 .080

Education .044 .054 .053 .06 .053 .101 .047 .049 .070 .029 .044 .043 .036 .043 .053

Experience .005 .006 .061 .014* .006 .194* .015** .005 .212** .013** .005 .180** .010* .005 .143*

Individual voice .644** .068 .616** .303** .062 .361** .033 .070 .040 .036 .068 .043 .003

Team collective voice .420** .066 .522** .305** .074 .380** .118

Team autonomy .250** .078 .248** .069

R2 .389 .092 .216 .383 .423

ΔR2 .360 .092 .124 .167 .040

F 15.929** 3.059* 6.887** 13.193** 13.539**

F change 88.511** 3.059* 23.724** 40.229** 10.236**

Note: N=157 groups.

* p < .05; ** p < .01
B: Unstandardized coefficients
β: Standardized coefficients

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The next step was estimating both individual voice and team collective voice as
predictors of team innovative performance. While team collective voice stayed
significant (Model 4: B = .420, p < 0.01), the positive relationship between individual
voice and team innovative performance became insignificant (Model 4: B = 0.033, ns),
indicating a full mediation effect of team collective voice.
A bootstrapping was then conducted to test the statistically significant of the indirect
effect between individual voice and team innovative performance (Preacher & Hayes,
2008), which found significant indirect relationship (0.288) with 95% confidence
interval [.207; .388]. The estimate results are shown in Figure 4.3. Thus, hypothesis 4 is
supported.
Figure 4.3. Mediation model

Note: N=157 groups.

* p < .05; ** p < .01
B: Unstandardized coefficients

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 4
This chapter has presented the major findings of both qualitative and quantitative
studies. Following the sequential mixed methods research, the author first discussed the
qualitative findings of the study. Team collective voice was found in Vietnam
organizations, opening the door for further investigation about this type of employee
voice. Next, several natural characteristics of team collective voice were highlighted,
starting to sketch the full picture of the term, followed by the situations in which team
collective voice is preferably used owing to its advantages over other levels of employee
voice. Its role in changing an institutional element – routines – was also unveiled by the
qualitative data, guiding the direction for the quantitative research. Then, a typology of
team collective voice was suggested with detail descriptions of its substance, formation
process, voicing mechanisms and influence on performance.
In the second part of the chapter, findings regarding the research model and hypotheses
were reported. In general, team collective voice was used more by employees in
comparison with individual voice, however, there are some differences between two
groups of participants, team members and managers/team leaders, which were also
presented. Both individual voice and team collective voice had significant impacts on

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team innovative performance with team collective voice fully mediated the association
of individual voice and team innovative performance. Besides, team autonomy also
significantly enhanced team innovative performance. The next chapter, chapter 5, will
provide comprehensive discussion of these findings, their theoretical explanations and
contributions, key recommendations for related stakeholders as well as figure out main
research limitations.

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 CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

Based on the research findings described in the previous chapter, this chapter will
discuss and interpret the unrevealed meanings of those findings, how they link with
previous literature and how they address the research questions. Theoretical
contributions, practical implications and limitations will be presented with
recommendations for future research direction will be discussed along the way.

5.1. Discussions
The literature review presented in Chapter 1 has uncovered several research gaps
concerning the concept of team voice. These gaps encompass the insufficient
understanding about the characteristics and measurement of team voice as shared voice
– team collective voice, as well as what would happen preceding and following the
emergence of team collective voice, in other words, the formation process and the
impacts of team collective voice. Thus, these research gaps have laid the foundation for
three fundamental building blocks upon which this study is built, with a central focus
on team collective voice, as depicted in Figure 5.1. These blocks provide a visualized
way to better understand the research findings and contributions.
Figure 5.1. Three building blocks of the study

The study has adopted Institutional Theory (Scott, 1995) and Evolutionary Theory of
Economic Change (Nelson & Winter, 1982) as the theoretical guides. The exploratory
sequential mixed method was used since it was found to be the most suitable
methodology for the purpose of this study in exploring further about team collective
voice – a topic that has rarely been touched in the literature. Since there is no clear and
consistent understanding of the concept, an exploratory qualitative study was necessary.
This was the first phase of the study with the participation of 30 interviewees working
in 14 product development teams in 9 organizations. Based on the qualitative findings,
a research model and five hypotheses were developed and tested with data collected
from surveying 765 employees and managers working in ICT departments of large
telecommunication companies in Vietnam. As a result, the study has harnessed
significant findings and contributions as discussed below.

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5.1.1. Qualitative findings discussions
First, addressing the shortage in literature regarding the conceptualization of team
collective, the researcher has suggested to define team collective voice, which is called
“tiếng nói chung” in Vietnamese, as the expression of shared views, ideas, suggestions
or opinions of a work team to either higher management, other teams or individuals in
the organization in an attempt to challenge or change the current status quo. This
suggestion of terminology and definition attempts to distinguish team collective voice
from other team voice conceptualizations in the literature of Kim et al. (2010), Torre
(2019), Brykman & Maerz (2022), Chen et al. (2022), He et al. (2021), Li et al. (2017),
Podsakoff et al. (2015), Sessions et al. (2020), Um-e-Rubbab et al. (2022), Walumbwa
et al. (2012), Wang & Hu (2018), Ye et al. (2019) and Zhou et al. (2021). As discussed
previously, Kim et al. (2010) and Torre (2019) defined team voice as team influence.
The other studies mostly took the view of team voice as team members aggregation.
Only Frazier & Bowler (2015) and Huang & Paterson (2017) share the same view with
this study to defined group voice as “a work group making suggestions for improvement
to its direct supervisor” (Frazier & Bowler, 2015, 842). This view is fundamentally
different from the previous ones as it represents the consensus substance of voice, for
example, members’ shared opinion about applying a particular technology, while the
aggregation of members’ voice indicates the consensus about the extent of members’
voice behavior.
In addition, the definition of Frazier & Bowler (2015) is in line with team collective
voice definition but narrower in two aspects. In terms of voice target, it only includes
voice with direct supervisor, while team collective voice can also be voice to other teams
or individuals in the organizations. The second aspect regards the substance of voice.
Group voice of Frazier & Bowler (2015) is suggestions for improvement, while in this
study the researcher suggest that team collective voice can be the expression of any
views, ideas, or opinions of the team. This does not limit team collective voice to the
positive realm but also expression of any discomforts, issues and problems.
Second, having clearly established the definition of the concept, the process of analyzing
qualitative data revealed the existence of team collective voice in Vietnam organizations
with detailed analyzed characteristics (i.e., final voice, agreement process, influence
process), which again support the radical distinction with other connotations of team
voice mentioned above. Since there is a final voice and also involving an agreement
process and an influence process (i.e., discussion regarding who the representatives are,
how to convey the proposals to authorized persons, etc.), team collective voice has a

105
more carefully designed and thoroughly planned formation compared to other types of
team voice.
This addressed the literature gaps regarding the vague understanding about this type of
voice. No research has ever touched this area in exploring those features of team voice.
They merely defined it and tested the relationship between team voice and other
variables. For example, Frazier & Bowler (2015) investigated the association of voice
climate and group performance through group voice, Huang & Paterson (2017) tested
the relationship between manager’s ethical leadership and ethical performance through
group ethical voice, Wang & Hu (2018) explored the impacts of core self-evaluations
an team process on collective voice, etc.
Third, a typology of team collective voice was developed as the result of data
generalization that incorporates four types of team collective voice with different
substances, formation processes and voice raising mechanisms. This is similar to the
attempts of categorizing types of individual voice such as promotive voice and
prohibitive voice of Liang et al. (2019) or supportive voice, constructive voice,
defensive voice and destructive voice of Maynes & Podsakoff (2014). However, none
of them has explored the multidimensional characteristic of voice at team level. The
study also proposed original dimensions to classify types of team collective voice, which
are (1) the impacts of raised issues on teams/individual members, and (2)
planned/improvised issues (see Figure 4.1). These dimensions helped form four types
of team collective voice including voice for team development, voice for members’
career development, voice for team remedy and voice for members’ operational issues.
The distinctive features of each type were also described with supportive quotations.
They have enriched the findings and verified further the collective nature of team
collective voice.
Fourth, not only does it exist and is it widely used in organizations, but team collective
voice is also found to have significant role as one of the major employee voice
mechanisms. This study has developed a comparison between different levels of
employee voice (i.e., individual voice, team collective voice and organizational voice)
highlighting team collective voice’s important role. As the middle level of voice (see
Table 4.2), it has the strengths of both the other two levels, being able to address specific
and technical work-related issues of individual voice and the cultural preference and
collective power of union voice. Institutional elements were found to have a say in
shaping this behavior. None of the previous studies, even multilevel studies about

106
employee voice such as Wang & Hu (2018) has been able to point out these advantages
and disadvantages differences between different employee voice level.
Applying the Institutional Theory, this study offers a unique way to explain these
differences. According to Institutional Theory, people sometimes are led by subjective
perceptions of conformity to the broader institutional environment. At the cognitive and
normative level, institutional factors such as collectivist culture, the influence of
Confucianism, and socialist ideology are barriers to individual voice. The high-power
distance between employees and managers becomes a source of employees’ hesitation,
worry, or fear when raising voices, although there are no pre-identified unfavored
consequences. Individual voice is avoided in sensitive or confrontational situations (Wu
et al., 2020) where there is a risk of losing face. Besides, participants prefer using team
collective voice as they think it is more valued. They explained this imbalance in the
strength between individual voice and team collective voice is because of the level of
issue severity and persuasion. However, the researcher believes that this imbalance is
caused by deeper level reasons that relate to institutional elements. Team collective
voice is more persuasive because it is more cognitively and normatively valued.
Likewise, the trade union’s role in protecting employees does not perform adequately in
Vietnam organizations as in Western countries (Jamieson, 2022). Employees normally
fear consequences such as embarrassment, isolation, low-performance ratings, lost
promotions, and firing (Detert & Burris, 2016). This regulative institutional factor also
hampers individual voice, while team collective voice helps to reduce one’s exposure
and eliminates prejudice and victimization, providing a safer way for employees to
express their views (Huang & Paterson, 2017).
Also because of the above reasons, not all organizations have team collective voice. The
qualitative study found that one company who reported a more relaxed working
environment in which employees feel they can voice freely, or lower power distance
such as in foreign firms do not have team collective voice. Companies with team
members located in multiple places also do not witness the development of team
collective voice (i.e., virtual team). This is because these members do not have many
chances to exchange ideas and share their problems and issues; therefore, team
collective voice is less likely to be formed. This finding is in line with Jing et al.’s (2022)
suggestion about the role of lateral voice in forming vertical collective voice.
Another aspect of teams, as signaled by interviewees, that can significantly impact the
development of team collective voice is team culture – the shared values, meanings, and
beliefs driving members’ behavior (Ortega‐Parra & Ángel Sastre‐Castillo, 2013; Yue et

107
al., 2022). It was described that the emergence of team collective voice often begins
with an initiator followed by team discussion to establish a unified perspective. This
underscores the importance of fostering a cooperative team culture to facilitate team
collective voice formation process. When team members do not collectively value
collaboration, meaningful discussions regarding raised issues may not occur. Other
aspects of team culture including positive emotional culture (i.e., joy, companionate
love, pride, and gratitude) have been found to positively influence employee voice (Yue
et al., 2022). Nevertheless, the literature has yet to explore the relationship between team
culture and team collective voice. This study thus opens up a compelling avenue for
future research, shedding light on the multifaceted ways in which team culture can shape
and influence team collective voice. In addition to collaboration, several other
dimensions of team culture likely play a pivotal role in shaping the collective voice of a
team.

5.1.2. Quantitative findings discussions

The second phase of the study involved a quantitative study to verify and consolidate
the findings of the qualitative research as well as to investigate the impact of team
collective in fostering innovative performance. Thus, this phase fulfilled the third
building block as shown in Figure 5.1 with the following findings.
First, the fulfillment of those objectives required the puzzle relating to measure team
collective voice to be resolved. Literature has offered several ways to quantify team
voice that corresponded to their connotations (i.e., team voice as team influence, team
voice as the aggregation of members’ voice and team voice as shared voice). These
methods neither reflect the targeted connotation (Kim et al., 2010; Torre, 2019;
Walumbwa et al., 2012; Wang & Hu, 2018; Ye et al., 2019) nor establish a clear
understanding for participants about what they meant to measure such as in the cases of
Frazier & Bowler (2015) and Huang & Paterson (2017). As discussed previously,
supervisors who reporting team voice in these studies might perceive the scale as asking
for individual voice of the teams rather than the collective opinion. Supervisors might
also not be able to know whether the voice is collective or rather expressed by one
individual and misinterpreted as team voice. Thence, the measurement method in this
study was designed to overcome those limitations of prior methods. Although the scale
was also adopted from Van Dyne & LePine (1998) like previous team voice studies
(Frazier & Bowler, 2015; Huang & Paterson, 2017; Wang & Hu, 2018), there are three
alterations that made the differences. First, the items were modified to make sure survey
participants understanding precisely what was being measured. The term team collective

108
voice has a Vietnamese equivalence that is exclusively able to demonstrate its collective
meaning and understood by Vietnamese people – “tiếng nói chung” – without too much
effort in defining and explaining. Second, the questionnaire includes the explanation of
term prior to the questions with highlighted difference compared individual voice of
members (see Appendix 4 and 5). Third, team members (including team leaders) were
asked to assess their team collective voice because they would have better positions to
provide more precise answers about their team collective voice in comparison with the
supervisors or managers who are the outsiders to the team in Frazier & Bowler (2015)
and Huang & Paterson (2017).
Second, being able to measured team collective voice enabled the researcher to compare
it with individual voice. In line with suggestions of Jing et al. (2022), this study found
that team collective voice is preferred than individual voice in the context of Vietnam
organizations as participants reported higher mean value of team collective voice (see
Table 4.9).
The results were also compared between team members and managers/team leaders and
revealed interesting findings. Team members exhibited less individual voice than
managers/team leaders (see Table 4.10) indicating wide power distance in organizations
contributes to the unpopularity of individual voice. Managers/team leaders who are in
the positions that have narrower power distance would be more likely to utilize their
individual voice. These conclusions support the author’s arguments that institutional
factors do influence employee voice and the choice of voice level, which verify the
qualitative findings.
Third, regarding the comparison and association between two levels of voice, individual
voice was found to be an explanatory variable of team collective voice. This supports
the findings about the role of individuals in initiating opinions or ideas in the formation
process of team collective voice. It was most clear for those types that belong to
member-focus dimension (i.e., voice for members’ career development and voice for
members’ operational issues). The other types might also require individual voice as the
formation trigger. Not only does this result contribute to the verification of this study’s
qualitative findings but also that of Jing et al. (2022). Examining employees’ lateral
voice behavior in Chinese hospitals, Jing et al. (2022) suggested that besides being used
for venting and problem solving, lateral voice helped gather supports of those employees
with shared experience and problems, thereby developing collective vertical voice that
is strong enough to influence and make changes. The study’s context was Chinese
hospitals, which would share some similar institutional characteristics to Vietnam

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discussed in this study, therefore, the importance of collective vertical voice (i.e., team
collective voice) was also highlighted.
Both individual voice and team collective voice promote the development of team
innovative performance with different effect sizes. Team collective voice was found to
have stronger influence on team innovative performance, which means not only it is
used more but also is a more effective voice mechanism leading to team outcomes such
as innovative performance. It also fully mediates the relationship between individual
voice and team innovative performance. Thus, in this context, individual voice often
acts as the mechanism to institute team collective voice as mentioned above. These
outcomes are again consistent with the study’s theoretical arguments which suggested
the weak role of individual voice (Garner, 2012; Jing et al., 2022; Kassing, 1997; Zhang
et al., 2015) and strengthen the qualitative findings. Individual voice would not have
sufficient strength like team collective voice to influence decisions, make changes that
are routinized and institutionalized in the new modified routines to become viable and
sustainable innovations in practice (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Pentland & Feldman,
2008; Scott, 2001).
Fourth, these institutionalists have emphasized the role of institutions and institutional
changes in triggering and routinizing innovation into practice (Lawrence & Suddaby,
2006; Orlikowski, 1992; Pentland & Feldman, 2008; Scott, 2001; Tuominen et al., 2020;
Vargo et al., 2015). To further examine the process of routinization and
institutionalization and explain the impact of employee voice on team innovative
performance, this study derived the arguments from the Evolutionary Theory of
Economic Changes (Nelson & Winter, 1982) and suggested that employee voice can be
a search routine that determines the changes of lower-order or operating routines.
Having employee voice is similar to having a research and development department in
place which is in charge of proposing changes or introducing innovation. Likewise,
employee voice is the behavior of employees suggesting changes or new ideas (Van
Dyne & LePine, 1998) that can influence and persuade management to apply those
changes in practice, in other words, creating management interventions to routines,
routine changes and sustainable innovation.
Previous studies mostly explained the relationship between employee voice and
innovation or innovative performance simply as employee voice is a source of new
ideas, suggestions, or opinions about work-related issues (Anand et al., 2007; Lopez‐
Cabrales et al., 2009). Some studies have taken a theoretical view of RBV toward this
relationship (Rasheed et al., 2017) and implied that employee voice is one of those

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unique resources of an organization that takes time to develop with the creation of close
personal relationships, psychological engagement and safety, thus, a socially complex
and time-consuming process that sustains the competitive advantages (Barney &
Wright, 1998) and is hard for competitors to imitate (Rasheed et al., 2017). This study
took a different view. Through the lens of the Evolutionary Theory of Economic
Changes (Nelson & Winter, 1982) together with the Institutional Theory (Scott, 1995),
it suggests another mechanism – through routine changes – that is entirely different from
previous studies to which employee voice can contribute to innovation or innovative
performance.
Fifth, besides voice, team autonomy is also found to have significant positive effect on
team innovative performance. The author suggested that team autonomy enhances team
innovative performance also through routine changes, but a different mechanism of
routine changes - endogenous routine changes, while that of employee voice is
exogenous routine changes. Voice is used to influence managers’ decisions as
mentioned above, which may result in routine changes and improved team innovative
performance (Nelson & Winter, 1982). These changes originated exogenously through
the intervention of management as the result of voice, similar to the mechanism of other
exogenous drivers such as changes in the market conditions, or technologies. On the
other hand, team autonomy facilitates the change of routine endogenously by allowing
performance modification of routine participants (Feldman & Pentland, 2003; Nelson &
Winter, 1982). The result is in line with previous studies that asserted autonomy is a
predictor of innovation (Beugelsdijk & Jindra, 2018; De Spiegelaere et al., 2014;
Feldman, 1989; Sönmez & Yıldırım, 2018), however, through a different theoretically
driven explanation.
Furthermore, the two mechanisms do not have the same impact on team innovative
performance. Cohen’s f2 test for the effect size suggested that team collective voice
influence is stronger than that of team autonomy (see Table 4.12). Which method is
utilized might again depend on the institutional characteristics of the context. In a more
controlled working environment, which is caused by various cultural-cognitive,
normative and regulative institutional factors, employees learn that changes need to arise
from the higher level, therefore, team collective voice is the more appropriate path to
routine changes. While a more open environment is more likely to companion with high
level of autonomy. Hence, in an Eastern context with high level of hierarchy and large
power distance such as Vietnam (Hoftede et al., 2010; Jing et al., 2022; Zhang et al.,

111
2015) in this study, team collective voice has a more critical role to team innovative
performance.

5.2. Theoretical contributions

The research findings have verified the appropriateness of the two applied theories as
the theoretical basis. This is also one of the study’s original contributions – using the
uncommon theoretical explanation for a study in the organizational behavior field. This
section aims to highlight those theoretical contributions to the employee voice literature
as well as the Institutional Theory (Scott, 1995) and the Evolutionary Theory of
Economic Change (Nelson & Winter, 1982).
First, regarding employee voice literature, this study has clarified different connotations
of employee voice at the team level, including (1) team influence, (2) the aggregation of
individual members’ voices, and (3) shared voice. Scholars have been discussing this
term without acknowledging this subtle nuance, creating inconsistency and confusion in
understanding the concept. The researcher suggested that the term “team voice” should
point to the shared voice of team members, which is aligned with the connotations of
Frazier and Bowler (2015) and Huang and Paterson (2017). Team collective voice was
defined to distinguish it from other conceptualizations as the expression of shared views,
ideas, suggestions, or opinions of a work team to either higher management, other teams,
or individuals in the organization in an attempt to challenge or change the current status
quo. This can help raise awareness among scholars on the collective nature of team voice
and guide successive researchers away from the inconsistency in understanding the
term. In addition, having acknowledged the difference, this study developed the precise
way to measure team collective voice that is able to assess the shared voice behavior,
expanding the employee voice literature.
Second, the Institutional Theory has allowed Vietnam contextual characteristics to be
highlighted as important influencing factors on employee voice, emphasizing the
importance of team collective voice in Vietnam organizations. Hence, this study
suggests that employee voice cannot be examined independently from its institutional
context. Team collective voice will be more likely to be found, fostered and preferably
used in Eastern environments that are similar to Vietnam. This might also be one reason
team collective voice has been understudied in Western literature. Thus, voice literature
can be broadened by investigating different characteristics and types of employee voice
in different societies or comparing the use of individual voice and team collective voice

112
in diverse national cultures and institutional attributes, especially through a cross-
country perspective.
In addition, the study also contributes to HR relations and human rights literature by
emphasizing the emergence of team collective voice as a necessary channel to protect
individual benefits and rights. Future research may need to examine whether team
collective voice would help reduce human rights violations at work, especially in a
collectivist culture and/or weak trade union role.
Third, concerning the formation of team collective voice, team voice literature has been
neglecting this area and is more focused on the impacts of team voice on other
organizational variables. Only one recent study regarding lateral voice merely touched
on this issue (Jing et al., 2022). Lateral voice has recently attracted the attention of
literature as an alternative to hampered vertical voice due to institutional factors such as
authoritarian leaders, high power distance, and a collectivist culture in China (Jing et al.,
2022), which shares many institutional characteristics with Vietnam. Jing et al. (2022)
suggested that lateral voice is the transition mechanism to collective vertical voice,
which leads to improved overall outcomes. Shared voice was created from the shared
experience of employees, and these people are brought together by their lateral voice to
build up support and then collectively voice to managers. Nevertheless, they have only
started to recognize the phenomenon of employees’ shared voice in organizations as a
by-product of lateral voice. This study offers a fuller picture that unfolds the reasons
why and under what conditions team collective is important and nurtured and the
detailed process of developing team collective voice.
In addition, a categorization of four types of team collective voice was proposed based
on two dimensions. Like individual voices, team collective voice has multiple types that
satisfy different purposes, have different development processes, and bring forth
different outcomes. The construction of the typology contributes comprehensively to
this conceptual work of team collective voice by revealing its multidimensionality and
supporting future research to enrich the employee voice literature by serving as
independent, intervening, and dependent variables in explanation studies (Collier et al.,
2011).
Fourth, one limitation of the Institutional Theory is that it emphasizes the impacts of
environment on human and organization behavior, while internal factors and their
associations with institutions, such as resource or leadership, have not been prioritized.
The role of leadership and management was quite blurred. Organizations have been
positioned as passive entities following the external “rules of the game” (Nguyen, 2015).

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Assisting to address this limitation, the current research illustrated that employee voice
has an active role in changing routines and institutions in a way that also highlights the
role of the leader or management of the organizations in creating exogenous routine
changes. It also interacted and embraced the institutional environment characteristics
and pointed out the difference between individual voice and team collective voice. In
order to create changes in routines or also institutional changes in this context, individual
voice is not strong enough. Team collective voice is necessary to influence management
decisions, thus leading to changes.
Finally, contributing to the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Changes (Nelson &
Winter, 1982), the researcher suggested that employee voice can be a search routine that
are used to change other lower-order routines. This is distinctive from Nelson and
Winter’s (1982) idea of search. Not only can search take the form of tangible
organizational units (i.e., research and development) or research projects (Nelson &
Winter, 1982), but also a less tangible form that exists in day-to-day practice such as
employee voice. Employee voice also triggers routine changes exogenously through the
process of management influence and positively contributes to the organizational
outcomes. This also offers another path that employee voice can lead to innovation
through change in routines since it is suggested that innovation should be routinized to
become viable and sustainable in practice (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006; Scott, 2001),
otherwise, things are just new artifacts (Pentland & Feldman, 2008).

5.3. Practical implications

Besides theoretical contributions, this study also yields critical practical implications
from both team members and management perspectives. These stakeholders would find
useful implications that should be considered in their day-to-day job for performance
improvement based on the research findings.

5.3.1. Implications for team members

This study helps raise awareness about the existence and crucial roles of team collective
voice as an alternative to individual voice. Although this collective behavior has been
found to be used by many team members, not all of them have conscious awareness and
knowledge about it. Besides managements’ effort in promoting employee voice, from
employees’ perspective, being able to recognize the institutional limitations of
individual voice, thereby, having appropriate strategy to raise their voice differently is
considerably important.

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Lateral voice – voice with peers or colleagues such as sharing problems or venting can
be the start of a radical change in organizational routines or innovation. The study has
brought the whole process of team collective voice to light, promoting the understand
and application of the possible paths to initiate ideas, gather supports and make changes.
In addition, the typology of team collective voice provides a clearer guidance for
employees to utilize team collective voice and select the right type that matches their
purpose. This means with different focuses such as voice for team development or
members’ career development or just for operational issues, employees can have their
voice establishment strategically designed to achieve the most effective outcomes.

5.3.2. Implications for management

Similarly, company management should pay more attention to the benefits that team
collective voice can bring to the company. It might be a vital resource containing
numerous innovations or constructive changes to organizations that could be lost if this
voice mechanism is not fostered. Thus, managers should consider proper enablements
fostering team collective voice. One thing to consider first is to support its formation
with suitable team structuring, supportive HRM policies, and socializing
opportunities—for employees to share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions, which are the
input for team collective voice. For example, regarding team structure, if team members
are about the same age as each other, they would find it easier to share problems or ideas
as they have many similarities in terms of goals, interests, ways of thinking, etc. and low
power distance. Further research is needed to identify those enablements that are suited
for the firm’s culture, characteristics, structure, policies, etc. Mechanisms for team
collective voice itself also need to be supported by creating and acknowledging channels
or opportunities for representatives to escalate their teams’ voices.
However, managers also need to find a balance, as the use of team collective voice might
mitigate individual voice, which in some cases is more valuable than the team’s shared
view. Team collective voice might be used as an instrument to silence individual
members’ voices to prioritize group benefits. This concern is highly possible in this
study context since individuals are likely to avoid voice behavior. In a worse case in
which team collective voice is too potent and valued, it might turn into situations that
are similar to groupthink, whereby members are deeply driven by the desire for group
unanimity, ignore logical alternatives then make irrational and poor decisions (Janis,
1991). Therefore, it is a challenge for organizations to balance the use of team collective
voice to achieve optimal results. This is another interesting avenue for further studies to
find that optimal point.

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Digital forms of communication should be considered as another major channel of
employee voice under the changing working model that involves remote working or
busy schedules restricting employees’ opportunities to gather and socialize.
Organizations should have appropriate policies to enable this mechanism, such as
installing an internal online communication platform.
The study also offers two pathways that managers can utilize to nurture team innovative
performance. Based on the organization characteristics, appropriate policies and
practices should be in place to harness the benefits of these two mechanisms. Team
collective voice would be a more effective way leading to innovative contributions in a
more controlled environment in which changes in routine can almost only take place
when there are interventions from the managers. On the other hand, in a less controlled
environment, teams are given a significant degree of autonomy, which allows innovative
changes to take place supporting the fine-tune and improvement of routines.

5.4. Limitations and future research directions

There are a number of limitations of this study that need to be acknowledged. First,
qualitative data was collected solely through interviews. This would limit the
opportunities to collect useful data about the interested topic since the formation and the
use of team collective voice sometimes do not present themselves frequently during day-
to-day work, months may be needed to form and raise team collective voice. Thus, for
full observation, future research could seek to enrich the data-gathering process through
observation data or longitudinal data collection.
Quantitative data also has some drawbacks. All constructs were measured by common
raters, which brought about some degree of common method bias, even though
mitigation measures had been taken placed. This means the measurement of team
innovative performance is subjective. It was assessed by the perception of team
members regarding their team performance. A more objective measurement can limit
biases and improve the reliability of the findings, such as the number of innovative ideas
or products that are developed and designed by the team, periodically innovative
performance appraisal. However, this is challenging because not all companies and
industries have producing new products or ideas as their main responsibility or have
clear and measurable innovative performance criteria to be assessed.
Another limitation is the study has not been able to separate different influencing factors
on each type of team collective voice and the different mechanisms that influence
performance. Interview data was not strong enough for the author to generalize those

116
findings regarding each type’s determinations and influences on performance. Future
research can perhaps delve deeper into the different types of team collective voice and
investigate how different conditions will influence each type and the various
performance implications for each team collective voice so teams can use the right
strategies to enhance the desired types.
The sample was selected among ICT industry, which limits the generalization of this
research findings to other industries that have distinctive characteristics. The
generalization issue can also be found in terms of context. Even though Vietnam exhibits
certain typical Eastern cultural and institutional characteristics, it cannot be generalized
for other Eastern cultures since other institutional factors would vary widely among
countries that also complicatedly participates in shaping human behavior. Thus, future
research can improve this shortage by expanding the research to examine team collective
voice and its influence on performance in other industries and cultures.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 5
Chapter 5 has summarized and discussed key findings of the research. This research
provides new insight into an understudied type of employee voice – team collective
voice which is especially fostered with the institutional characteristics of Vietnam
organizations. The results contribute theoretically to the employee voice literature, the
Institutional Theory and also the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Several
recommendations have also been made to organization managements as well as team
members regarding the application of team collective voice. The author also
acknowledges some limitations and points out some suggested directions for further
research in the future.

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 CONCLUSION

This dissertation aims to investigate team collective voice behavior which is proposed
by the researcher to distinguish it with previous team voice concept used in the literature.
It can be defined as the expression of shared views, ideas, suggestions or opinions of a
work team to either higher management, other teams or individuals in the organization
in an attempt to challenge or change the current status quo. The study has built its
theoretical basis based on two theories of Institutional Theory (Scott, 1995) and the
Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Nelson & Winter, 1982), which do not seem
to be related, but have a shared concept of routine and together supported the
explanation of the importance of team collective voice in the context of Vietnam
organizations as well as toward team innovative performance.
The exploratory sequential mixed methods design was found to be the most appropriate
method for the current study’s objectives with a qualitative study followed by a
quantitative one. Both types of data were collected from employees of ICT organizations
in Vietnam with 30 interviewees and 765 survey participants. Data analysis and finding
discussions have brought satisfying results and met the research objectives and research
questions, specifically:
RQ1. Does team collective voice exist in Vietnam organizations and what is the nature
of team collective voice in this context?
The qualitative study has revealed the existence of team collective voice in Vietnam
organizations, and it has been used in many situations. Examples were pointed out by
informants that cover several situations witnessed at their organizations. There must be
a wide range of other cases in which team collective voice is used in practice. Qualitative
data analysis also revealed those distinctive characteristics of team collective voice that
make it differ radically from those that had been explored in the literature.
RQ2. In what situations is team collective voice used?
Based on the Institutional Theory, the study found that employee voice is a context-
specific behavior. It is greatly affected by institutional factors in all three pillars of
institutions suggested by Scott (1995). Thereby, in Vietnam organizations, team
collective voice is utilized because of institutionally weak individual voice and union
voice.

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RQ3. What types of team collective voice are used, how are they formed?
Qualitative data analysis also allowed the researcher to generalize a typology of different
types of team collective voice based on two dimensions: (1) the impacts of raised issues
on teams/individual members, and (2) planned/improvised issues. Detailed voice
substances, establishment processes and mechanisms to raise the collective voice of
each type were also described.
RQ4. How is the use of team collective voice compared to individual voice?
RQ5. How does team collective voice influence team innovative performance?
The quantitative study was able to measure the behavior of team collective voice, which
allowed further comparisons and examinations to validate the propositions obtained
from the qualitative phase. In comparison with individual voice, team collective voice
is preferred and also has stronger impact on team innovative performance. This result is
in agreement with the Institutional Theory as well as the Evolutionary Theory of
Economic Change suggesting in Eastern context such as Vietnam, changes and
innovations need to have the support from management who normally requires the
strength of team collective voice to be influenced.
Additionally, from the analysis of change in routines and the Evolutionary Theory of
Economic Change, team autonomy is found to be another pathway leading to changes
and innovations, through endogenous routine changes, corresponding to the exogenous
routine changes caused by employee voice, especially team collective voice. The
appropriate implications for different contextual environments have been discussed.
In summary, the overarching goal of this study was to fill in the gaps in existing literature
on employee voice behavior at collective level by extending the Institutional Theory as
well as the Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change. Empirical results provide
concrete evidence for the role of team collective voice, especially in the current context.
This supports the propose of practical implications for both team members and
managements in exploiting the benefits of this behavior to achieve better outcomes.

119
 LIST OF PUBLISHED WORKS

1. Hoang, A.L., Phan, A.T.T., Dong, D.X., Tran, T.T.H. and Nguyen, C.T.
(2023), "Exploring team collective voice: the case of software development
teams in Vietnam", International Journal of Organization Theory &
Behavior, Vol. 26 No. 1/2, pp. 78-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOTB-02-
2022-0036

2. Hoang, A.L. (2023), “The role of employee voice and team member
satisfaction on different types of team performance”, Journal of Finance &
Accounting Research, No. 02 (21) – 2023, pp. 128-133.

120
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APPENDIX 1. LITERATURE REVIEW OF INDIVIDUAL VOICE
MEASUREMENTS

Study Items
Rusbult et al. Study 1. A simulation experiment
(1988) 1 I would go to my immediate supervisor to discuss the problem
2 I would ask my co-workers for advice about what to do
3 I would talk to the office manager about how I felt about the
situation
4 I would try to solve the problem by suggesting changes in the way
work was supervised in the office
Study 2. A large-scale cross-sectional field survey
1 When I think of an idea that benefit my company I make a
determined effort to implement it
2 I have at least once contacted an outside agency (e.g., union) to
get help in changing working conditions here
3 I sometimes discuss problem at work with my employer
4 When things are seriously wrong and the company won't act, I
am willing to "blow the whistle."
5 I have made several attempts to change working conditions here
Study 3. A laboratory experiment
1 I have an idea that I think will improve the feedback system, and
I will make a serious effort to implement it
2 I want to discuss the evaluation/feedback system with my
supervisor
3 I want to talk things over with my co-workers to get their help in
changing working conditions
4 I want to suggest changes in the procedures by which work is
assigned or evaluated
5 I want to change the way in which things are done in the
newsroom

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 6 I want to talk to my supervisor about the difficulty of the job
and/or the nature of the feedback
7 I will work harder—this job is difficult, but "do-able"
Van Dyne & 1 I develop and make recommendations concerning issues that
LePine affect this work group
(1998) 2 I speak up and encourage others in this group to get involved in
issues that affect the group
3 I communicate my opinions about my work group issues to others
in my organization this group even if different from theirs and
others in the group disagree with me
4 I keep well informed about issues where my opinion might be
useful to this work group
5 I get involved in issues that affect the quality of work life here in
this group
6 I speak up in this group with ideas for new projects or changes in
procedures
Van Dyne et Acquiescent Voice
al. (2003) 1 This employee passively supports the ideas of others because
he/she is disengaged
2 This employee passively expresses agreement and rarely offers a
new idea
3 This employee agrees and goes along with the group, based on
resignation
4 This employee only expresses agreement with the group based on
low self-efficacy to make suggestions
5 This employee passively agrees with others about solutions to
problems
Defensive Voice
1 This employee doesn’t express much except agreement with the
group, based on fear
2 This employee expresses ideas that shift attention to others
because he/she is afraid

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 3 This employee provides explanations that focus the discussion on
others in order to protect him/herself
4 This employee goes along and communicates support for the
group, based on self-protection
5 This employee usually expresses agreement with the group
because he/she is motivated by fear
ProSocial Voice
1 This employee expresses solutions to problems with the
cooperative motive of benefiting the organization
2 This employee develops and makes recommendations
concerning issues that affect the organization
3 This employee communicates his/her opinions about work issues
even if others disagree
4 This employee speaks up with ideas for new projects that might
benefit the organization
5 This employee suggests ideas for change, based on constructive
concern for the organization
Liang et al. Promotive voice
(2012) 1 Proactively develop and make suggestions for issues that may
influence the unit
2 Proactively suggest new projects which are beneficial to the work
unit
3 Raise suggestions to improve the unit’s working procedure
4 Proactively voice out constructive suggestions that help the unit
reach its goals
5 Make constructive suggestions to improve the unit’s operation
Prohibitive voice
1 Advise other colleagues against undesirable behaviors that would
hamper job performance
2 Speak up honestly with problems that might cause serious loss to
the work unit, even when/though dissenting opinions exist

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 3 Dare to voice out opinions on things that might affect efficiency
in the work unit, even if that would embarrass others
4 Dare to point out problems when they appear in the unit, even if
that would hamper relationships with other colleagues
5 Proactively report coordination problems in the workplace to the
management
Maynes & Supportive voice
Podsakoff This employee:
(2014)
1 Defends organizational programs that are worthwhile when
others unfairly criticize the programs
2 Expresses support for productive work procedures when others
express uncalled for criticisms of the procedures
3 Speaks up in support of organizational policies that have merit
when others raise unjustified concerns about the policies
4 Defends useful organizational policies when other employees
unfairly criticize the policies
5 Defends effective work methods when others express invalid
criticisms of the methods
Constructive voice
This employee:
1 Frequently makes suggestions about how to do things in new or
more effective ways at work
2 Often suggests changes to work projects in order to make them
better
3 Often speaks up with recommendations about how to fix work-
related problems
4 Frequently makes suggestions about how to improve work
methods or practices
5 Regularly proposes ideas for new or more effective work
methods
Defensive voice
This employee:

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1 Stubbornly argues against changing work methods, even when
the proposed changes have merit
2 Speaks out against changing work policies, even when making
changes would be for the best
3 Vocally opposes changing how things are done, even when
changing is inevitable
4 Rigidly argues against changing work procedures, even when
implementing the changes makes sense
5 Vocally argues against changing work practices, even when
making the changes is necessary
Destructive voice
This employee:
1 Often bad-mouths the organization’s policies or objectives
2 Often makes insulting comments about work-related programs or
initiatives
3 Frequently makes overly critical comments regarding how things
are done in the organization
4 Often makes overly critical comments about the organization’s
work practices or methods
5 Harshly criticizes the organization’s policies, even though the
criticism is unfounded

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 APPENDIX 2. LITERATURE REVIEW OF INNOVATIVE
PERFORMANCE MEASURMENTS

Study Items
Scott & Bruce Please rate each of your subordinates on the extent to which
(1994) – Innovative he or she:
behavior 1 Searches out new technologies, processes, techniques,
and/or product idea
2 Generates creative ideas
3 Promotes and champions ideas to others
4 Investigates and secures funds needed to implement new
ideas
5 Develops adequate plans and schedules for the
implementation of new ideas
6 Is innovative
Burpitt & Bigoness Market orientation dimension
(1997) – Team 1 Using skills they already possess, this team learns new
innovation ways to apply those skills to develop new products that
can help attract and serve new markets
2 This team seeks out information about new markets,
products, and technologies from sources outside the
organization
3 This team identifies and develops skills that can improve
their ability to serve existing business needs
4 This team identifies and develops skills that can help
attract and serve new business needs
Problem-solving orientation dimension
5 This team learns new ways to apply their knowledge of
familiar products and techniques to develop new and
unusual solutions to familiar, routine problems
6 This team seeks out information on products and
techniques that are new to the operation and learns how

146
 to apply them to develop new solutions to routine
problems
7 This team identifies and learns skills and technologies
that may be useful in solving unfamiliar problems
8 This team seeks out and acquires information that may be
useful in developing multiple solutions to problems
9 This team seeks out and acquires knowledge that may be
useful in satisfying needs unforeseen by client
Welbourne et al. 1 Coming up with new ideas
(1998) – Creativity 2 Working to implement new ideas
and innovation in
3 Finding improved ways to do things
one’s job and the
4 Creating better processes and routines
organization as a
whole
Janssen (2001); Idea generation
Rusbult et al. (1988) 1 Creating new ideas for improvements
– Innovative job
2 Searching out new working methods, techniques, or
performance
instruments
3 Generating original solutions to problems
Idea promotion
4 Mobilizing support for innovative ideas
5 Acquiring approval for innovative ideas
6 Making important organizational members enthusiastic
for innovative ideas
Idea realization
7 Transforming innovative ideas into useful applications
8 Introducing innovative ideas into the work environment
in a systematic way
9 Evaluating the utility of innovative ideas
1 In my work team new ideas and methods are often tried
out

147
González‐Romá et 2 In my work team new ideas are put into practice to
al. (2009) - improve the work and its results
Innovation 3 In my work team the development of new methods,
products or services is often proposed
4 In my work team, team members take advantage of their
knowledge and skills to develop new ways of working,
new services or new products
Açıkgöz & Günsel 1 The team initiated new procedures and methods
(2011) – Team 2 The team developed new ways of accomplishing work
innovativeness targets/objectives
3 The team developed new skills in order to foster
innovations
4 The team initiated improved teaching strategies and
methods

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 APPENDIX 3. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Personal roles
What are your company’s name and services? How is your company structured?
Briefly describe your role/job’s responsibilities.
2. Team compositions
Is your team a project-based team?
What is your team responsible for? Is your team responsible for creating new product or
working processes?
How many members are on your team? What are their backgrounds?
How is your team structured? Is there a team leader? If yes, what are the team leader’s
roles?
What are the roles of each member?
How are decisions made in your team?
How has your team’s performance been evaluated? How has your team’s performance
been compared to the average?
3. Individual voice
Do you have the opportunity to raise your voice at work?
Who is listening to your opinions?
What are the issues? At what occasion/Where can you raise your voice?
Does your manager encourage/facilitate employee voice and how?
Is there any other voice mechanism?
How do you evaluate the employee voice at your organization? What can be improved?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of raising your voice?
Is there any difference between people performing more and less voice?
Do you think their voice affects their performance appraisal/team performance?
What are the predictors of employee voice at your company?
4. Team voice (TV)
Does your team collectively raise voices as a team?

149
Who are the objects of TV?
What is the substance of TV? At what occasion/Where that TV is raised?
How/Where has your TV been established? How long does the process take?
What are the influence factors of your TV? What is the difference between TV and
individual voices?
How strong is your TV?
Do you think TV will mitigate individual voices?
What are the benefits and drawbacks of raising TV?
Do you think TV improves team performance?

150
 APPENDIX 4. QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH VERSION)

SURVEY ON EMPLOYEE VOICE AND TEAM COLLECTIV VOICE

Hello Sir/Madam!
This survey is conducted by a PhD student Intake 39 of the National Economics
University to study the individual employee voice behavior and the collective voice of
ICT teams.
Your opinion is especially important in finding ways to bring about team efficiency and
creativity at ICT companies through the voice of employees.
I hope that you will take about 10 minutes to answer this survey. I promise that the
information you supply will be kept confidential and used only for research purposes.
Looking forward to your participation!
No.………..
PART I.
1. Gender:
☐ Male ☐ Female ☐ Other
2. Age:
☐ Under 30 ☐ From 30 to 44 ☐ From 45 to 59
3. Education level:
☐ Bachelor ☐ Master ☐ Other: …………
4. Have you ever studied abroad?
☐ No ☐ Yes
If Yes, how long did you study abroad? _______________ (year)
5. Year(s) of experience: _____________
6. Year(s) of working at the current job: _______________
7. What is the name of your team/department? _____________________________
8. How many members are in your team/department? _______________________
9. How long has your team/department been set up? __________________ (year)
10. What is your role in the team/department?
☐ Manager/Team leader
☐ Team member
☐ Other: __________________________

151
PART II.

11. Please rate your individual voice at the company by choosing the frequency of
the following behavior:
Never Rarely Often Usually Always
I make recommendations
concerning issues that affect the
organization
I communicate my opinions
about work issues to others even
if my opinion is different and
others disagree with me
I keep well informed about issues
where my opinions might be
useful
I get involved in issues that affect
the quality of work life here
I speak up with ideas for new
projects or changes in procedures

12. Please rate your team collective voice at the company by choosing the frequency
of the following behavior:
(Team collective voice is the shared and collective opinions of your
team/department about issues at the companies. This is different from individual
voice within team)
Never Rarely Often Usually Always
My team collectively speaks up and get
involved in issues that affect the
organization
My team collectively communicates
our opinions about work issues to
others even if our opinion is different
and others disagree with us
My team keeps well informed about
issues where our collective opinion
might be useful
My team collectively gets involved in
issues that affect the quality of work
life
My team collectively speaks up with
ideas for new projects or changes in
procedures

152
 13. Please rate your team innovative performance by choosing the extent to what
you agree with the following statements.
Totally Totally
Disagree Neutral Agree
disagree agree
My team frequently initiated new
procedures and methods
My team frequently developed
new ways of accomplishing work
targets/objectives
My team frequently developed
new skills in order to foster
innovations
My team frequently proposed
new work/products ideas
In my team, new ideas are almost
always put into practice to
improve the work and its results
In my team, innovative ideas are
almost always introduced in a
systematic way
In my team, the utility of
innovative ideas is almost always
evaluated

14. Please rate your team’s level of autonomy about the following areas:
Very A great
Little Somewhat Much
little deal
1 2 3 4 5
Setting objective of the team
Scheduling
Job rotation or allocation
Budgeting
Education and training
Task procedures
Resolution of service and
production problems
Staff evaluation and appraisal
Selection of leaders

Thank you for your participation!

153
 APPENDIX 5. QUESTIONNAIRE (VIETNAMESE VERSION)

KHẢO SÁT VỀ TIẾNG NÓI CỦA NHÂN VIÊN

VÀ TIẾNG NÓI CHUNG CỦA NHÓM

Xin chào Anh/Chị!

Khảo sát này được thực hiện bởi Nghiên cứu sinh Khóa 39 Đại học Kinh tế quốc dân
nhằm mục đích nghiên cứu hành vi tiếng nói cá nhân của nhân viên và tiếng nói chung
của nhóm công nghệ thông tin – truyền thông (ICT).
Ý kiến của anh/chị rất quan trọng trong việc tìm ra phương thức thúc đẩy hiệu quả làm
việc và tính sáng tạo của nhóm tại các công ty làm việc trong lĩnh vực ICT thông qua
tiếng nói của nhân viên.
Rất mong anh/chị dành khoảng 10 phút để trả lời bảng khảo sát này. Tôi cam kết những
thông tin mà anh/chị cung cấp sẽ được bảo mật và chỉ được sử dụng duy nhất vào mục
đích nghiên cứu.
Rất mong nhận được sự tham gia của anh/chị!

Phiếu khảo sát số:……………..

PHẦN I.
1. Giới tính:
☐ Nam ☐ Nữ ☐ Khác
2. Độ tuổi:
☐ Dưới 30 tuổi ☐ Từ 30 đến 44 tuổi ☐ Từ 45 đến 59 tuổi
3. Trình độ học vấn:
☐ Cử nhân ☐ Thạc sĩ ☐ Khác:
4. Anh/Chị đã từng đi du học chưa?
☐ Chưa từng du học ☐ Đã từng du học
Nếu anh/chị đã từng đi du học, anh/chị đã du học trong thời gian bao lâu?
________________(năm)
5. Số năm công tác: ______________ (năm)
6. Số năm công tác tại công việc hiện tại: ______________ (năm)
7. Nhóm/Phòng của anh/chị được gọi là gì? _______________________________
8. Nhóm/Phòng của anh/chị có bao nhiêu thành viên? _____________ (thành viên)
9. Nhóm/Phòng của anh/chị đã thành lập được bao lâu? _______________ (năm)
10. Ví trí của anh/chị trong nhóm/Phòng là gì?
☐ Quản lý/Trưởng nhóm
☐ Thành viên nhóm
☐ Khác: ___________________________

154
PHẦN II.

11. Hãy đánh giá về tiếng nói cá nhân của anh/chị tại công ty bằng cách lựa chọn
tính thường xuyên của các hành động sau của anh/chị:
Không Hiếm Thỉnh Thường Luôn
bao giờ khi thoảng xuyên luôn
Tôi đưa ra các khuyến nghị liên
quan đến các vấn đề ảnh hưởng
đến công ty
Tôi nêu lên các quan điểm của
mình về các vấn đề công việc với
người khác ngay cả khi ý kiến của
tôi khác họ và họ không đồng ý
với tôi
Tôi luôn cập nhật các thông tin về
các vấn đề mà ý kiến của tôi có
thể hữu ích
Tôi tham gia vào các vấn đề liên
quan đến chất lượng cuộc sống,
công việc ở đây
Tôi nêu lên ý tưởng cho các dự án
mới hoặc các thay đổi trong quy
trình làm việc

12. Hãy đánh giá về tiếng nói chung của nhóm anh/chị tại công ty bằng cách lựa
chọn mức độ đồng ý của anh/chị đối với các nhận định sau đây:
(TIẾNG NÓI CHUNG CỦA NHÓM được hiểu là tiếng nói, ý kiến của tập thể
nhóm/phòng đối với các vấn đề tại công ty, khác với tiếng nói riêng của các cá
nhân trong nhóm)
Không Hiếm Thỉnh Thường Luôn
bao giờ khi thoảng xuyên luôn
Nhóm của tôi đưa ra các khuyến
nghị chung của nhóm liên quan
đến các vấn đề ảnh hưởng đến
công ty
Nhóm của tôi nêu lên quan điểm
chung của nhóm về các vấn đề
công việc ngay cả khi ý kiến của
chúng tôi khác biệt và không được
người ngoài nhóm đồng thuận
Nhóm của tôi luôn cập nhật các
thông tin về các vấn đề mà ý kiến
chung của nhóm có thể hữu ích

155
Nhóm của tôi tham gia ý kiến
chung về những hoạt động liên
quan đến chất lượng cuộc sống,
công việc ở đây
Nhóm của tôi đưa ra tiếng nói
chung về ý tưởng cho các dự án
mới hoặc các thay đổi trong quy
trình làm việc

13. Hãy đánh giá về tính sáng tạo trong công việc của nhóm anh/chị bằng cách lựa
chọn mức độ đồng ý của anh/chị đối với các nhận định sau đây:
Hoàn
Hoàn
toàn Không Trung Đồng
toàn
không đồng ý lập ý
đồng ý
đồng ý
Nhóm của tôi thường xuyên phát
triển các quy trình và phương
pháp mới
Nhóm của tôi thường xuyên phát
triển những cách thức mới để
hoàn thành mục tiêu công việc
Nhóm của tôi thường xuyên phát
triển các kỹ năng mới để thúc
đẩy các ý tưởng sáng tạo
Nhóm của tôi thường xuyên đề
xuất ý tưởng công việc/sản
phẩm mới
Trong nhóm của tôi, những ý
tưởng mới gần như luôn được
đưa vào thực tế để cải thiện công
việc và kết quả làm việc
Trong nhóm của tôi, các ý tưởng
đổi mới gần như luôn được giới
thiệu một cách có hệ thống
Trong nhóm của tôi, tính khả
dụng của các ý tưởng đổi mới
gần như luôn được đánh giá

156
 14. Nhóm làm việc của anh/chị được tự chủ đến mức nào trong các quyết định liên
quan đến:
Bình Rất
Rất ít Ít Nhiều
thường nhiều
Đặt mục tiêu của nhóm
Lên lịch làm việc
Luân chuyển hoặc phân bổ công việc
Lập ngân sách
Đào tạo
Quy trình thực hiện công việc
Giải quyết các vấn đề về dịch vụ và
sản phẩm
Đánh giá hiệu quả làm việc của thành
viên
Lựa chọn người lãnh đạo

Trân trọng cảm ơn anh/chị đã tham gia khảo sát!

157
 APPENDIX 6. REGRESSION ANALYSIS AT INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

Team innovative
Team collective voice
Variables performance
B SE β B SE β
Gender .107* .050 .069* -.021 .040 -.016
Education -.018 .027 -.022 .005 .021 .008
Experience .000 .004 -.004 -.003 .003 -.036

Role -.100 .069 -.052 -.025 .056 -.015

Individual voice .488** .034 .482** .098** .031 .115**

Team collective voice .271** .030 .322**
Team autonomy .263** .032 .210**

R2 .227 .308
F 44.523** 48.002**
Note: N=765 groups.
* p < .05; ** p < .01
B: Unstandardized coefficients
β: Standardized coefficients

158
 APPENDIX 7. SPSS REGRESSION OUTPUTS

Model 1

Model 2 and 3

159
Model 4 and 5

160
APPENDIX 8. REGRESSION ANALYSIS WITH 9-ITEM TEAM
AUTONOMY

161