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Article

Inclusive Leadership and Employee Voice Behaviour: Serial Mediating Effects of Psychological Safety and Affective Commitment

by
Olawale Fatoki
Department of Business Management, University of Limpopo, Mankweng 0727, South Africa
Adm. Sci. 2024, 14(9), 199; https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14090199
Submission received: 18 July 2024 / Revised: 22 August 2024 / Accepted: 25 August 2024 / Published: 30 August 2024
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Abstract

:
Leaders have an important role to play in the creation of an organisational climate that fosters learning, engagement and voice behaviour. This study investigated the effect of inclusive leadership on the voice behaviour of the employees of small hospitality firms in South Africa. In addition, this study examined the serial mediating effects of psychological safety and affective commitment. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is one of the primary studies to explore the sequential mechanism through which inclusive leadership impacts employee voice behaviour. This study used a quantitative research design, and data were collected from employees in a cross-sectional survey. This study adopted the convenience sampling method, and SPSS AMOS27 was used for structural equation modelling. The findings indicated the positive effect of inclusive leadership on employee voice behaviour. In addition, this study confirmed the serial mediating roles of psychological safety and affective commitment. The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the factors that can promote employee voice in hospitality firms through the testing of a new theoretical model. The findings of this study have important implications for policy and practice in the hospitality industry.

1. Introduction

Small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) are the lifeblood of developing and developed economies through their contributions to employment, economic growth and innovation (Gherghina et al. 2020). In South Africa, SMMEs make up the majority of official businesses (up to 90% in some estimates) and contribute approximately 34% of the gross domestic product and 60% of all jobs (Banking Association of South Africa 2021; Enaifoghe and Ramsuraj 2023). The hospitality industry is a major part of the small business sector in many countries. Tourism and hospitality include many small operators ranging from motels to hotels, lodges and restaurants (Peters et al. 2019). The hospitality industry provides opportunities for SMMEs to thrive by offering products and services to meet the needs of tourists (Baloch et al. 2022). SMMEs in general and small hospitality firms in particular suffer from a high failure rate because of internal and external challenges (Bushe 2019; Korol and Spyridou 2020).
Employees are internal assets of a firm, and their voices are an incentive for high-quality decisions that can create a dynamic and responsive workplace and significantly boost performance (Chen et al. 2020; Hosseini et al. 2022). Employee voice can be described as “speaking out and challenging the status quo with the intent of improving the situation” (LePine and Van Dyne 1998, p. 853). Voice behaviour is about the intentional expression of relevant ideas, opinions, information and thoughts and concerns with a focus on work-related improvements (Qi et al. 2023). In the context of hospitality firms, voice can be particularly important in terms of operation, service and organisational management. From the perspective of operation and service, the interaction between employees and customers is a key characteristic of the hospitality industry (Özkan et al. 2023). High-level interaction with customers contributes to the important role of employee voice in innovation because the voices of frontline employees provide significant insights into improving service quality and managing market changes (King et al. 2020). Employee voice in the hospitality industry is important to job satisfaction and organisational commitment (Raub 2018). Given the benefits of employee voice in the hospitality industry, it is important to understand its antecedents (Alang et al. 2022; Younas et al. 2023).
Leaders have an important role to play in the creation of an organisational climate that fosters learning, engagement and interaction (Nejati and Shafaei 2023). Leader behaviour is a key determinant of subordinate voice. Leaders can influence norms in the workplace in the context of voice by encouraging or hindering employee voice (Chamberlin et al. 2017; Qi et al. 2023). Research on employee voice has primarily focused on the effects of transformational, servant, authentic and ethical leadership styles (Xu et al. 2021; Dua et al. 2023; Adhyke et al. 2023). However, inclusive leadership as a form of relational leadership puts emphasis on accessibility, openness and availability in the way leaders interact with subordinates and has emerged as a new leadership paradigm (Randel et al. 2018). An inclusive leader provides employees with the opportunity to express their ideas and abilities. Therefore, inclusive leadership is becoming very important in the rapidly changing and complex work environment (Guo et al. 2022; Qi et al. 2023).
The literature is sparse on the effect of inclusive leadership on employee voice behaviour. Inclusive leadership has been linked to change-oriented organisational citizenship behaviour and diversity climate and taking charge behaviour (Javed et al. 2019; Zeng et al. 2020). In addition, Guo et al. (2022) and Jiang et al. (2023) claim that the effect of inclusive leadership on employee voice behaviour is more likely to be indirect. There is a need to comprehend the mechanism through which inclusive leadership can affect voice behaviour. The boundary conditions through which inclusive leadership affect employee voice behaviour are unclear (Guo et al. 2022). It is important for future studies to better understand the factors that can intervene in the relationship between inclusive leadership and voice behaviour (Younas et al. 2023). Some studies have investigated the indirect effects of some constructs in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour. Qi and Liu (2017) investigated the mediating effect of a caring organisational climate. Guo et al. (2022) examined the indirect roles of power distance and leader identification. Jiang et al. (2022) explored the mediating role of leader–member exchange, while Liu et al. (2023) examined the effects of psychological empowerment and organisational identification. The study by Zeng et al. (2020) examined the mediating effects of psychological safety and thriving at work in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee taking-charge behaviour. Taking charge is different from voice. Voice involves the communication of constructive ideas to improve a situation. Taking charge involves taking concrete action (Van Dyne et al. 2008). This study draws on psychological safety nd affective commitment as the mechanisms through which inclusive leadership can affect employee voice. Voice behaviour in organisations can be a challenging and risky extra-role behaviour (Liu et al. 2023). This requires individuals to feel safe in voicing their opinions. Psychological safety is defined as the “sense of being able to show and employ oneself without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status or career” (Kahn 1990, p. 708). Affective commitment describes the emotional attachment of an employee to the organisation and may be of crucial importance to the employee’s feeling of empowerment and speaking up (Caliskan et al. 2023). This suggests that psychological safety and affective commitment can be the mechanisms through which inclusive leadership can affect employee voice behaviour. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no study has examined the mediating effects of psychological climate and affective commitment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour.
In addition, studies that have focused on serial mediation in inclusive leadership and voice behaviour research are sparse (Liu et al. 2023). Serial mediation enables the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable to be transmitted through a series of mediators (Lemardelet and Caron 2022). A serial mediation model hypothesises a causal chain that links mediators with a specified direction flow (Yang et al. 2022). While existing evidence has established the link between inclusive leadership and voice behaviour, it is unclear how psychological safety and affective commitment mediate the pathway through which inclusive leadership impacts employee voice behaviour. Thus, this study uses a serial mediation model to examine the serial mediation effects of psychological safety and affective commitment. The serial mediation model proposes a causal chain linking the mediators in a specified direction flow (inclusive leadership → psychological safety → affective commitment → voice behaviour). Serial mediation shows that the mediators themselves are in a hierarchical causal relationship, which is particularly useful in examining fine-grained causal chains of mediation (Demming et al. 2017). Furthermore, the use of serial mediation is becoming important in research on leadership styles and employee and organisational performance as it allows for a better understanding of the flow of the interactions among independent, mediator and dependent variables (Ali et al. 2021; Pu et al. 2022; Zafar et al. 2022; Karatepe et al. 2023). To the best of the author’s knowledge, no study has investigated the serial mediating effects of psychological safety and affective commitment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour. This creates a significant gap in leadership styles and employee voice research.
The aim of this study is to investigate the serial mediating effects of psychological safety and affective commitment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour in small hospitality firms. This study addresses the following research questions: (1) What is the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice? (2) What is the mediating effect of psychological safety in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice? (3) What is the mediating effect of affective commitment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice? and (4) What are the serial mediating effects of psychological safety and affective commitment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice?
The results of this study make the following contributions. This study fills existing research gaps in the following ways. First whilst there is ample research evidence on the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour, studies that examined the mediating effects of psychological safety and affective commitment are lacking. This study contributes to the literature by testing a new theoretical model that shows how inclusive leadership affects employee voice behaviour directly and indirectly through the serial mediation effects of psychological safety and affective commitment. Research on employee voice has mainly focused on large firms. This study contributes to the literature by conceptualising how employee voice can be enabled in small hospitality firms. In addition, research on voice behaviour in hospitality firms that normally have a hierarchical organisational structure with power imbalance between leaders and employees has received scant theoretical attention (Dai et al. 2021; Huang et al. 2023). Furthermore, there is a need to expand knowledge on the mechanism through which inclusive leadership can impact voice behaviour (Younas et al. 2023; Qi et al. 2023). The pathways between inclusive leadership, psychological safety, affective commitment and voice have not been tested. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice through a new theoretical model. The findings of this study can help the management of small hospitality firms to understand the leadership style to adopt to improve employee voice and the factors that can improve this relationship to increase organisational performance. This paper is structured as follows. Sections Two and Three focus on the literature review and research methodology. The results, discussion and conclusion are presented in Sections Four, Five and Six, respectively.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Hospitality and SMMEs

SMMEs in South Africa can be defined both qualitatively and quantitatively. For the qualitative definition, the firm should be a distinct and separate body that is operated by one or more owners (Government Gazette 2003). The quantitative definition follows a schedule and uses the number of employees and annual turnover to classify SMMEs into sectors. SMMEs in the accommodation sector include micro (0–10 employees, total annual turnover, equal to or less than South African Rand (ZAR) 7.5 million, small (11–50 employees, turnover equal to or less than ZAR 15 million), and medium (51–250 employees, turnover equal to or less than ZAR 40 million) (Government Gazette 2019). This study used the number of employees to classify SMMEs. Hospitality is described as a commercial business that provides accommodation. Hotels, lodges, motels, guesthouses, pubs, taverns, restaurants and cafes are included in the hospitality sector (Department of Labour of South Africa 2016). This study focuses on hotels, lodges, motels and guesthouses with fewer than 250 employees.

2.2. Social Exchange Theory

The Social Exchange theory (SET) provides the theoretical justification for this study. The SET posits that the exchange process drives the social behaviour of individuals. When leaders treat followers favourably, followers feel the obligation to respond by working hard (Blau 1964). The SET suggests that the interaction between a leader and a subordinate is symbiotic and reciprocal, with positive actions triggering positive reactions (Wang et al. 2020b). As suggested by the SET, an inclusive leader is perceived as providing support and assistance to employees in an organisation. Employees feel obliged to repay the organisation and leader (Li and Tang 2022).

2.3. Inclusive Leadership

The concept of inclusive leadership was first proposed by Nembhard and Edmondson in 2006 as a leadership style in the field of organisational behaviour. Inclusive leadership uses three attributes, specifically, openness, availability and accessibility, to motivate employees and achieve organisational support (Carmeli et al. 2010). Nembhard and Edmondson (2006, p. 947) define inclusive leadership as “positive behavioural actions of leaders to motivate employees to contribute to the organisation”. Nembhard and Edmondson (2006, p. 948) remark that “inclusive leaders create an environment where one can consider others’ point of view, for instance, “voices are genuinely valued”. Inclusive leaders are easily accessible and approachable for interaction with employees. Inclusive leaders listen to the suggestions of team members and encourage them to contribute to decision-making in organisations. Inclusive leaders treat employees with recognition, respect and tolerance by recognising their contributions and appreciating their opinions (Zhou and Mou 2021; Li and Tang 2022; Çetinkaya and Yeşilada 2022). There is a difference between inclusive leadership and other leadership styles such as servant, transformational and authentic. Inclusive leadership tends to focus on meeting basic human needs for uniqueness and belongingness. An inclusive leader is fair interactive, supportive and fault-tolerant with positive effects on the behaviour of subordinates (Carmeli et al. 2013; Randel et al. 2018; Chang et al. 2022).

2.4. Psychological Safety

Kahn (1990, p. 708) defines psychological safety as “feeling able to show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career”. Edmondson (1999, p. 354) defines psychological safety as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking”. Edmondson et al. (2004) remark that employees tend to devote their attention to constructive and productive discussions that ensure the shared accomplishment of goals. Psychological safety plays an important role in an organisation’s strategic management processes and outcomes by encouraging open and honest communication between employees and leaders. Phycological safety improves problem-solving, enables effective decision-making and encourages the generation of innovative ideas (Negara et al. 2023).

2.5. Affective Commitment

Commitment can be defined as a “force that binds an individual to a course of action of relevance to one or more targets” (Meyer and Herscovitch 2001, p. 301). Organisational commitment can be linked to commitment and can be described as the willingness of an employee to exert effort and work hard to achieve organisational goals (Khan and Iqbal 2020). Organisational commitment is a multi-dimensional construct that includes three distinct components, namely, affective commitment, normative commitment and continuance commitment. Affective commitment describes the emotional attachment of an employee to an organisation. Normative commitment refers to a sense of obligation of an employee to remain in the organisation. Continuance commitment depicts the acknowledgement of the costs associated with leaving the organisation (Meyer et al. 2002). Out of the three types of commitment, empirical studies have shown affective commitment to be more associated with employee- and organisational-relevant outcomes. Affective commitment is a crucial antecedent of employee effective in-role and extra-role behaviour (Odoardi et al. 2019). This study focuses on affective commitment as it has been most widely applied to employee in-role and extra-role work behaviour (Sinaga et al. 2019). Affective commitment allows employees to work with dedication, less anxiety and increased involvement with work and contribute to an organisation’s success (Khan et al. 2021).

2.6. Voice Behaviour

Voice as a pro-organisational behaviour can be defined as constructive change-oriented communication with the intention of improving the current state of affairs (LePine and Van Dyne 2001; Khan et al. 2023). LePine and Van Dyne (1998) describe voice behaviour as a behaviour that may not be formal or voluntary but can convey constructive viewpoints that can help to improve an organisation. Employee voice is the behaviour that employees exhibit to suggest improvement ideas that will help to solve existing organisational problems with the goal of improving organisational performance (Morrison 2023). According to Morrison (2011, p. 375), employee voice is defined as “discretionary communication of ideas, suggestions, concerns, or opinions about work-related issues with the intent to improve organizational or unit functioning”. LePine and Van Dyne (1998) developed a unidimensional scale to measure voice behaviour. Liang et al. (2012), in contrast to the unidimensional approach, distinguished between promotive and prohibitive voice behaviour. While promotive voice depicts suggestions that help to improve organisational processes, to make the organisation better, prohibitive voice depicts the expression of concern by employees about incidents, work practices and behaviours that are harmful to their organisations (Liang et al. 2012). The study by Maynes and Podsakoff (2014) distinguishes between four types of voice, namely, supportive constructive, defensive and destructive. The first two depict promotive voice and the other two represent prohibitive voice. Botha and Steyn (2023) remark that the literature provides empirical evidence of the use of the LePine and Van Dyne (1998) unitary (1998), the Liang et al. (2012) bi-dimensional approach and the Maynes and Podsakoff (2014) multi-dimensional operationalisation of voice. This study adopts the LePine and Van Dyne (1998) unitary operationalisation of voice.

2.7. Hypotheses

2.7.1. Inclusive Leadership and Employee Voice

In a study on inclusive leadership and employee voice, Qi et al. (2023) remark that the behaviour of leaders can influence subordinate voice because inclusive leadership puts emphasis on two-way interaction between leaders and employees. Inclusive leaders are approachable, open and tolerant in their relationship with subordinates. Their study finds that inclusive leadership positively affects promotive and prohibitive voices. Qi and Liu (2017) note that leadership inclusivenss includes listening to new voices, accepting new information and accepting a new challenge. This can positively influence employee work attitude, increase trust in leadership and improve psychological security. The findings of the study by Qi and Liu (2017) indicate a significant positive relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice. Guo et al. (2022) remark that through interactions and openness, an inclusive leader can motivate the voice behaviour of employees. Inclusive leadership encourages employee organisational participation, embraces the new ideas of employees and encourages employees to speak out. Inclusive leadership enhances employee uniqueness and belonging and improves employee self-esteem and voice behaviour. Their study finds that inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour are significantly positively related. Liu et al. (2023) point out that an inclusive leader, through accessibility, openness and availability, fosters an organisational environment that is supportive of employees. Their study finds that inclusive leadership promotes employees’ promotive and prohibitive voices. Jolly and Lee (2021) remark that the perception of risk that may result from voice is reduced when leaders show openness and accessibility. When managers adopt an inclusive leadership style, employees tend to think that their suggestions will be accepted, and this can positively affect their voices. The voice behaviour of employees is effectively motivated through the interaction between an inclusive leader and employees. The characteristics of an inclusive leader such as openness, accessibility and availability encourage organisational participation and the willingness of employees to voice their views. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1. 
Inclusive leadership and employee voice are significantly positively related.

2.7.2. Mediating Role of Psychological Safety

Psychological safety has been used as a mediator in the relationship between some leadership styles and employee behaviour and outcomes. Jin et al. (2022) explore the mediating role of psychological safety in the relationship between ethical leadership and employee innovative behaviour. Sobaih et al. (2022) examine the indirect role of psychological safety in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee turnover intention. Ge (2020) examines the effect of psychological safety on employee work behaviour and argues that the perception of psychological safety by employees is likely to influence their voice behaviour. The findings of the study suggest that psychological safety encourages employees to speak up and voice their concerns and opinions in the workplace. O’Donovan and McAuliffe (2020) remark that when teams feel psychologically safe at work, members are willing to take interpersonal risks and feel safe to speak up and engage in voice behaviour. Manganyi (2023) describes a significant positive relationship between psychological safety and employee voice behaviour. Soyalin and Karabey (2020) explain that the relationship between perceived organisational ethical climate and employee voice is mediated by psychological safety. Lee and Dahinten (2021) suggest that psychological safety mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and the voice behaviour of hospital nurses. The findings of the study by Zeng et al. (2020) indicate that psychological safety mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee taking-charge behaviour. While the direct relationships among inclusive leadership, psychological safety and employee voice behaviour have stimulated some studies, research on the indirect effect of psychological safety in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour in hospitality firms is scarce. Inclusive leadership can positively influence employee psychological safety by creating an environment where individuals feel respected and valued, allowing them to contribute to their fullest potential.
This in turn may positively encourage employee voice behaviour. Consequently, it is hypothesised that
H2. 
Psychological safety mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice.

2.7.3. Mediating Role of Affective Commitment

Caliskan et al. (2023) explain that affective commitment in combination with low continuance behaviour is a significant determinant of voice behaviour. Cheng et al. (2022b) indicate that affective commitment has a significant positive relationship with employee voice behaviour. Employees with high levels of affective commitment are more willing to improve an organisation by asking questions about existing problems and offering suggestions that lead to organisational improvement. The findings of the study by Cheng et al. (2022a) indicate that the relationship between ethical leadership and employee voice behaviour is mediated by affective commitment. The mediating effect of affective commitment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee performance has elicited some studies. Joshy and Varghese (2024) indicate that affective commitment mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee organisational citizenship behaviour. Ly (2024) explains that affective commitment mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee work engagement. The findings of the study by Wang et al. (2020a) indicate that inclusive leadership positively affects affective commitment. In addition, affective commitment is positively related to followers taking charge. Furthermore, the relationship between inclusive leadership and followers taking charge is mediated by affective commitment. Abbasi et al. (2022) indicate that affective commitment indirectly influences the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee knowledge-hiding behaviour. A thorough review of the literature shows that research on the indirect role of affective commitment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour is sparse. Choi et al. (2015) remark that inclusive leadership can impact affective commitment in some ways. An inclusive leader listens and responds to the opinions and contributions of subordinates. This can positively affect subordinates’ feelings of empowerment and encourage their voice behaviour. Consequently, it is hypothesised that
H3. 
Affective commitment mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice.

2.7.4. Serial Mediating Effects of Psychological Safety and Affective Commitment

Li et al. (2022) point out that employees with a high level of psychological safety feel supported by their organisations with a positive impact on their commitment. Their study finds that psychological safety positively affects the affective commitment of employees. Uğurlu and Ayas (2016) indicate that affective commitment mediates the relationship between psychological safety and employee voice behaviour. The findings of the study by Joshy and Varghese (2024) reveal that psychological safety and affective commitment serially mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee organisational citizenship behaviour. Nisar et al. (2020) remark that affective commitment mediates the relationship between compassion and employee voice behaviour. The findings of the study by Zeng et al. (2020) indicate that psychological safety and thriving at work serially mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee-taking charge behaviour.
The extant research evidence has established the link between inclusive leadership and voice behaviour. However, it is unclear how psychological safety and affective commitment serially mediate the pathway through which inclusive leadership impacts employee voice behaviour. A psychologically safe atmosphere can promote a work environment that is characterised by mutual respect and trust. This can positively affect emotional experiences and encourage affective bonds within an organisation. Thus, it is hypothesised that
H4. 
Psychological safety and affective commitment serially mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour.
Figure 1 depicts the conceptual model of this study.

3. Materials and Methods

This study followed the positivist philosophy and a deductive research approach. The quantitative research method was adopted for this study with descriptive and causal research approaches. Data were collected from respondents through the cross-sectional survey method, which was self-administered. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from survey respondents. This study focused on small hospitality firms in Polokwane and Bela Bela in the Capricorn and Waterberg District Municipalities of Limpopo Province, South Africa. This study focused on employees in various departments of hospitality firms. There is no population list or sampling frame of employees of hospitality firms in the study area, so this study adopted the non-probability convenience sampling method. The 10-times rule was used to determine the appropriate sample size based on the formative indicators that were used to quantity the constructs of the investigation (Hair et al. 2019). Data collection followed the following process. First, a list of hotels, motels and lodges was created from the Trivago website. The website focuses on hotel searches. The managers and owners of the identified firms were contacted through a combination of personal meetings, telephone calls and emails to inform them about the aim of this study and to request their participation in the survey. The number of employees of the firms was obtained at this stage. Eighty-two firms agreed to participate in the survey made up of seventy-nine small firms (11–50 employees) and three medium-sized firms (51–250 employees). An initial pilot study was conducted with three small firms and twenty employees. The participants in the pilot study did not take part in the main survey. The results of the pilot study led to some amendments to the questionnaire. In addition, two experts in the fields of leadership and small firms also examined the questionnaire. Their valuable comments assisted in the development of the final questionnaire. Data collection was performed through a pilot study and an actual survey between June 2023 and February 2024. A permission letter was given to each conveniently selected participant during actual data collection and the questionnaire administration. Each participant was given two weeks to complete the questionnaire, and their emails and phone numbers were obtained at that stage. Survey participants were regularly reminded through telephone calls to complete the questionnaires. IBM SPSS AMOS 27 was used for data analysis. SPSS AMOS was especially used for confirmatory factor analysis and to confirm relationships between observed and latent variables.

Measures

Voice behaviour was measured by the six-item scale from LePine and Van Dyne (1998) using the five-point Likert scale, where “1—strongly disagree and 5—strongly agree”. The items included “My manager is open to hearing new ideas”. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was 0.866.
Inclusive leadership was measured using the nine-item scale by Carmeli et al. (2010) and the five-point Likert scale, where “1—strongly disagree and 5—strongly agree”. The items included “my manager is an ongoing ‘presence’ in this team”. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was 0.873.
Affective commitment was measured by the four-item scale by Allen and Meyer (1990) using the five-point Likert scale, where “1—strongly disagree and 5—strongly agree”. The items included “I feel a strong sense of belonging at this organisation”. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was 0.803.
Psychology safety was measured using the three-item scale by Carmeli et al. (2010) and the five-point Likert scale, where “1—strongly disagree and 5—strongly agree”. The items included “in my work unit, I can freely express my thoughts”. The Cronbach’s alpha of the scale was 0.794.

4. Results

4.1. Response Rate and Demographic Details

Overall, 700 questionnaires were distributed to the participants of the survey. A total of 420 questionnaires were returned, which were duly completed and found usable. Fifteen questionnaires were not included in the data analysis because the respondents did not complete many important parts of the questionnaire.
Table 1 depicts the biographical details of the respondents. The gender composition of the respondents was 198 males and 222 females. A total of 105 respondents were in the 21–30 age group, 129 respondents were in the 31–40 age group, 108 respondents were in the 41–50 age group and 78 respondents were in the 51–60 age group. Most of the respondents had post-Matric (high school) qualifications and had been with their firms for between six and ten years.

4.2. Confirmatory Factor Analysis

The skewness and kurtosis values were used to check the normality of the data, as described by Kline (2011). The values of skewness for the items to measure the constructs of this study were all below 3, and those for kurtosis were less than 8, thus ensuring the normality of the data. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using IBM Amos 27 was used to assess the quality of the measurement model. Before testing the hypotheses of this study, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the measures’ psychometric properties by utilising AMOS 27. CFA was used to examine convergent and discriminant validity, as shown by the measurement model and the Fornell and Larcker. CFA was also used to test the fit of the model. SPSS was used to perform descriptive statistics and correlational analysis and to verify the main effects. The SPSS plug-in process macro programme was used to analyse the intermediary and serial intermediary effects.
The results of the CFA, as depicted by Table 2, indicated that there were some poorly loaded items and some items cross-loaded with other items in the model. This led to the removal of two items with factor loadings lower than 0.5, one from inclusive leadership and one from psychological safety. The four-factor model demonstrated an acceptable fit with χ2 = 405.028, df = 229, χ2/df = 1.768, CFI = 0.958, TLI = 0.953, RMSEA = 0.044, and SRMR = 0.041. Table 2 also depicts the values of the AVE, the composite reliability and Cronbach’s alpha. The AVE values for the four constructs of this study were all greater than 0.5. The AVE values for inclusive leadership, psychological safety, affective commitment and voice were 0.540, 0.580, 0.563 and 0.550, respectively. The composite reliability values were all greater than 0.7. The composite reliability values for inclusive leadership, psychological safety, affective commitment and voice were 0.862, 0.779, 0.816 and 0.831, respectively. This confirms convergent validity (Hair et al. 2019). In addition, Cronbach’s coefficients for all the constructs were greater than 0.70. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the four constructs were 0.873, 0.794, 0.803 and 0.866. This provides evidence of internal consistency (Hair et al. 2019). Discriminant validity was confirmed using the criterion established by Fornell and Larcker (1981), as indicated by Table 3.

4.3. Common Method Variance

Data were collected from the respondents through the self-reported method; therefore, common method variance may exist, as pointed out by Podsakoff et al. (2003). This study followed the procedural controls (ex-ante/before data collection), as suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2003) and Kock et al. (2021), to minimise common method variance. These included anonymity, confidentiality, voluntary participation and avoiding complex and ambiguous items. To reduce the social desirability effect on the data, the respondents were assured of confidentiality, anonymity and voluntary participation. Also, the scales in the questionnaire were paginated to reduce the same continuity scale. A rest period was allowed between answering the questions on each page, thus creating a time difference in the answering of questions. In addition, temporal separation was used by collecting self-reported data from the same source (employees) at different points in time (Kock et al. 2021). Data were collected from the respondents in two waves, with a two-month time lag. At time 1, the respondents completed the questions on the independent and dependent variables. At time 2, the respondents completed questions on the mediating variables. In addition, the statistical control to minimise CMV ex-post (after data collection) included the use of Harman’s single factor test, the correlation marker technique, the CFA marker technique regression-based marker technique and the unmeasured latent method construct (ULMC) (Kock et al. 2021). Harman’s single-factor test was used to evaluate CMV. The results indicated that the four factors extracted accounted for 67.18% of the total variance. The results indicated that the first factor explained 32.47% of the variance, suggesting that CMV was not present. The results of Harman’s test as shown by the CFA indicated that no one factor accounted for more than 40% of the variance, suggesting that CMV was not present Podsakoff et al. (2003). Because Harman’s single factor test only helps to identify if CMV is present or not, and does not control for CMV, it cannot be solely used. The results of the ULMC were χ2 = 400.203, df = 227, χ2/df = 1.763, CFI = 0.955, TLI = 0.951, RMSEA = 0.041, and SRMR = 0.040. The results indicated that differences in the values of the CFI, TLI, RMSEA and SRMR of the measurement model compared with the measurement model with the ULMF were all below 0.05. This suggested that CMV was not a significant issue in this study.

4.4. Test of Hypotheses

Table 4 depicts the descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) and the correlations among the constructs. Figure 2 and Table 5 depict the statistical representation of the serial mediation model. The figure also shows the regression coefficients and the significance levels. Hypothesis one proposes that inclusive leadership is significantly positively related to employee voice. The findings indicate that the direct effect (β = 0.083, t = 4.625, p < 0.01) between the two variables is significant. Thus, hypothesis one is supported. Hypothesis two proposes that psychological safety mediates the effect of inclusive leadership on employee voice. The findings (β = 0.383. t = 4.926, p < 0.05) indicate that inclusive leadership is positively related to psychological safety. In addition, inclusive leadership (β = 0.083, t = 4.625, p < 0.01) is positively related to employee voice. Also, the findings indicate that psychological safety (aibi) (β = 0.194, LLC = 0.014, ULCI = 0.342) mediates the positive effect of inclusive leadership on employee voice. Thus, hypothesis two is supported. Hypothesis three proposes that affective commitment mediates the positive effect of inclusive leadership on employee voice. The findings show that (β = 0.401, t = 3.075, p < 0.05) inclusive leadership is positively related to affective commitment. Also, affective commitment (β = 0.125, t = 3.308, p < 0.05) is positively related to employee voice. In addition, the findings indicate that affective commitment mediates the positive relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice (a2b2) (β = 0.50, LLCI = 0.037, ULCI = 0.191). Thus, hypothesis three is supported. Hypothesis four proposes that psychological safety and affective commitment serially mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice. The findings (a1d2b2) (β = 0.0065, LLCI = 0.113, ULCI = 0.175) indicate that psychological safety and affective commitment sequentially mediate the effect of inclusive leadership on employee voice.

5. Discussion

This study investigated the effect of inclusive leadership style on employee voice. In addition, this study examined the mechanisms through which inclusive leadership affects employee voice through the serial mediation effects of psychological safety and affective commitment. The findings of this study indicated that inclusive leadership style positively influences employee voice. The findings of this study suggest that inclusive leadership encourages employees to speak out. The findings are consistent with previous empirical studies. The results of the study by Qi et al. (2023) indicate that inclusive leadership positively affects employee voice. Other studies by Qi and Liu (2017), Guo et al. (2022), Jolly and Lee (2021) and Liu et al. (2023) indicate a significant positive relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour. In addition, the findings of this study indicate that inclusive leadership is positively related to psychological safety. Also, psychological safety positively affects employee voice. Furthermore, psychological safety mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice. The results indicate that psychological safety is a mechanism through which inclusive leadership can affect employee voice. Ge (2020) explains that psychological safety encourages employees to speak up and voice their concerns and opinions in the workplace. According to O’Donovan and McAuliffe (2020), when teams feel psychologically safe at work, members are willing to take interpersonal risks and feel safe to speak up and engage in voice behaviour. The findings of the study by Manganyi (2023) indicate a significant positive relationship between psychological safety and employee voice behaviour. The findings of the study by Lee and Dahinten (2021) show that psychological safety mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour. The findings of this study showed that inclusive leadership positively influences affective commitment. Also, affective commitment positively affects employee voice. Furthermore, affective commitment mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice. The results indicate that affective commitment is a mechanism through which inclusive leadership can affect employee voice. The findings of the study by Choi et al. (2015) indicate that inclusive leadership positively influences employee affective commitment. An inclusive leader listens and responds to the opinions and contributions of subordinates. When subordinates appreciate their leaders, they tend to exhibit a high level of affective commitment. In addition, Cheng et al. (2022b) and Caliskan et al. (2023) indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between affective commitment and employee voice behaviour. Cheng et al. (2022b) remark that the relationship between ethical leadership style and employee voice behaviour is mediated by affective commitment. The study by Ly (2024) indicates that affective commitment mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee work engagement. Abbasi et al. (2022) explain that affective commitment indirectly influences the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee knowledge-hiding behaviour. The findings of this study indicate that psychological safety and affective commitment sequentially mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice. This study indicates that psychological safety positively affects affective commitment. Also, both psychological safety and affective commitment sequentially mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice behaviour.

6. Conclusions

6.1. Theoretical Contribution

This study developed and tested a new theoretical model on the mechanism through which inclusive leadership can affect employee voice behaviour in the hospitality industry by examining the intervening roles of psychological safety and affective commitment. The findings of this study indicated that psychological safety and affective commitment sequentially mediate the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice. Employees are an important stakeholder in organisations, and their voice behaviour is important in change management, adaptation and organisational effectiveness and long-term sustainability. Given the benefits of voice, it is important to understand the factors that influence employees’ voice behaviour. This study contributes empirically to the literature on employee voice behaviour by showing how an inclusive leadership style can help to promote voice. Also, this study adds to the literature by revealing the factors that can indirectly influence in a sequential manner the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee voice.

6.2. Managerial Implications

The findings of this study offer some valuable implications for employee voice behaviour, especially in the context of hospitality firms. The management of hospitality firms should develop an inclusive management style to promote employee voice behaviour. To promote voice behaviour, an inclusive leader needs to encourage the open exchange of ideas and collaborative communication by creating open communication channels and active listening. The implementation of a feedback system by an inclusive leader will encourage employees to give their opinions and receive feedback. An inclusive leader can also use reward and recognition to promote employee voice behaviour. Organisations and leaders can also ensure that employee voice mechanisms are included in decision-making processes through actions that reduce hierarchy. Digital technology such as emails, blogs and social networking sites can also be leveraged by leaders to encourage employees to share their ideas, knowledge and views and obtain feedback. Thus, training the top management on how to introduce an inclusive leadership style is very important. In addition, there is a need to train employees to understand that expressing voice is important to organisational effectiveness. It is important for leaders to promote psychological safety. This can include, as pointed out by the Centre for Creative Leadership, facilitating employees to speak up and making psychological safety a clear priority by creating a safe open environment. Training on how to create psychological safety in organisations is important. In addition, efforts to promote affective commitment by providing support to employees, creating procedural justice and rewarding employees should be promoted.

6.3. Limitations and Areas for Further Research

This study has some limitations that can be addressed by future research. This study utilised the cross-sectional research approach, which has limits on the causality of observed relationships. A longitudinal research approach can help to improve causality. This study focused on two mediators. The use of multiple mediators and the inclusion of moderating variables can help to better understand the mechanism through which inclusive leadership can affect employee voice. This study was performed in only one country. Replicating this study in different settings may help to confirm the findings. This study used the quantitative research approach. A mixed method approach that combines both quantitative and qualitative methods can help to provide additional information. This study used a quantitative approach and obtained mainly quantitative information. The addition of a qualitative approach can potentially enrich the results and enhance the validity of inferences through in-depth exploration.
This study focused on a limited sample of small firms in the hospitality industry. Therefore, care should be exercised in generalising the findings to all small firms and the hospitality industry. In addition, as pointed out by Huang et al. (2023), results of voice behaviour in the general business field may not always be relevant in the hospitality context. For instance, compared with technology companies, hospitality firms have unique characteristics. Whilst the hospitality industry tends to have a more hierarchical and bureaucratic organisational structure, technology firms tend to have a relatively flat organisational structure that encourages employees to voice their opinions. Thus, the context and factors that influence voice can be different in various industries. Ng et al. (2019) remark that culture plays a significant role in shaping workplace role expectations and behaviours. Cooperative behaviours are often expected in collectivistic and high-power distance cultures compared with individualistic and low-power distance cultures, where expressing one’s ideas is more important. Therefore, cultural differences can affect employee voice behaviour, and there is a need to extend this study to firms in other industries and cultures. Data were collected through employee self-reporting, and this may cause bias. Further studies should collect data about employee voice behaviour from managers. This study adopted the LePine and Van Dyne (1998) unitary operationalisation of voice. Other studies can examine the pathways through which inclusive leadership affects voice by using the Liang et al. (2012) bi-dimensional approach (promotive and prohibitive) to the operationalisation of voice.

Funding

The research received internal funding from the author’s university. This research was funded by the Department of Business Management, University of Limpopo grant no BMAN/23/1.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board (or Ethics Committee) of the University of Limpopo (protocol code TREC/205/2023:IR and dated 23 April 2023) for studies involving humans.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The research results were obtained from the questionnaire constructed by the Author of this publication. The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest

The author of the paper confirms that there is no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. Conceptual model. IL = inclusive leadership; PS = psychological safety; AC = affective commitment; VB = voice behaviour.
Figure 1. Conceptual model. IL = inclusive leadership; PS = psychological safety; AC = affective commitment; VB = voice behaviour.
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Admsci 14 00199 g002
Figure 2. Results of model test. Serial mediation model of inclusive leadership on voice. * p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01. *** p < 0.05.
Figure 2. Results of model test. Serial mediation model of inclusive leadership on voice. * p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01. *** p < 0.05.
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Table 1. Respondents’ biographic details.
Table 1. Respondents’ biographic details.
Biographic DetailsFrequencyPercentage
Gender
Male19847%
Female22253%
Age
21–30 years 10525%
31–40 years12931%
41–50 years10826%
51–60 years7818%
Level of education
Matric (high school) or below16439%
Post-Matric (diploma, degree)25661%
Number of years in the organisation
Less than one year276%
1–5 years11126%
6–10 years14635%
11–15 years11628%
15–20 years20-5%-
Table 2. Measurement model.
Table 2. Measurement model.
ConstructFactor LoadingAverage Variance Explained (AVE)Composite ReliabilityCronbach’s Alpha
Inclusive leadership (IL) 0.5400.8020.873
IL10.742
IL20.739
IL30.677
IL40.802
IL50.748
IL60.783
IL7-
IL80.708
IL90.644
Psychological safety (PS) 0.5800.7790.794
PS10.822
PS20.679
PS30.755
PS4-
PS50.784
Affective commitment (AC) 0.5630.8160.803
AC10.695
AC20.738
AC30.764
AC4-
AC50.803
Voice behaviour (VB) 0.5500.8310.866
VB10.722
VB20.695
VB30.741
VB40.779
VB50.828
Table 3. Discriminant validity.
Table 3. Discriminant validity.
Construct1234
1 IL0.735
2 PS0.6220.762
3 AC0.4260.3680.750
4 VB0.5300.4140.4820.743
IL, inclusive leadership; PS, psychological safety; AC, affective commitment; VB, voice behaviour.
Table 4. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis.
Table 4. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis.
ConstructMeanStandard Deviation1234
1 IL4.050.99-
2 PS3.921.030.528 **
3 AC4.281.070.347 **0.622 **
4 VB3.751.050.479 ** 0.508 **0.622 **
IL, inclusive leadership; PS, psychological safety; AC, affective commitment; VB, voice behaviour; ** p < 0.05.
Table 5. Indirect effects.
Table 5. Indirect effects.
RelationshipIndirect EffectBootstrap SELLCIULCI
IL-PS-EV (aibi)0.1940.1050.0140.342
IL-AC-EV (a2b2)0.0500.1790.0370.191
IL-PS-AC-EV (aid2b2)0.00650.1310.1130.175
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Fatoki, O. Inclusive Leadership and Employee Voice Behaviour: Serial Mediating Effects of Psychological Safety and Affective Commitment. Adm. Sci. 2024, 14, 199. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14090199

AMA Style

Fatoki O. Inclusive Leadership and Employee Voice Behaviour: Serial Mediating Effects of Psychological Safety and Affective Commitment. Administrative Sciences. 2024; 14(9):199. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14090199

Chicago/Turabian Style

Fatoki, Olawale. 2024. "Inclusive Leadership and Employee Voice Behaviour: Serial Mediating Effects of Psychological Safety and Affective Commitment" Administrative Sciences 14, no. 9: 199. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14090199

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