Workflow centrality and Voice

Reference paper:

Venkataramani, V., & Tangirala, S. (2010). When and why do central employees speak up? An examination of mediating and moderating variables. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 582–591. doi:10.1037/a0018315

Abstract:

(A 50-word quick summary from my understanding)

Employees' workflow centrality is positively related to frequency of voice behaviors, with personal influence mediating this relationship. Workflow centrality is more strongly related to personal influence when employees had higher task performance, and personal influence was more strongly related to voice behaviors when employees had higher levels of workgroup identification.

Quick Notes/queries:

Related to paper

• What centrality, other than workflow centrality (extent to which employees are critical to task-related interaction networks), could be conceptualized in the working context? For example, Daniel Brass (1984) mentions about 3 social networks - a) Workflow network; b) Communication network; and c) Friend network;
• Does contextual performance moderate centrality (workflow centrality or other centralities) and personal influence relationship? For example, some employees though may not be central to the task workflow, may be perceived as influential owing to the degree of their contextual performance (such as helping). Such employees owing to this influence may exhibit greater frequency of voice behavior (such as voice directed at workers).
• Why were other measures of workflow centrality not used? For example, Daniel Brass (1984) mentions about 3 measures noted by Freeman (1979) - a) degree or number of contacts (number of other points to which a given point is directly connected - measures activity); b) betweenness (extent to which a point falls between pairs of other points - measures control of information); and c) closeness or proximity(sum of length of shortest paths from one point to all other points - measures independent access to others).
• Would some employees, with high work-flow centrality and personal influence, be motivated to maintain these 'positions' at any cost? If so, would not such employees resort to as much unconstructive criticisms, allegations and/or gossips as voice behaviors? If so, what personality or psychological antecedents identify such employees who misuse their centrality and influence?
• The domain of personal influence was specified as the "everyday work activities of the branch". Why was this not restricted to "everyday work activities of the workgroup"?
• How do the independent variable (work-flow centrality), mediating variable (personal influence), and moderating variables (workgroup identification and task performance) relate to voice directed at coworkers, supervisor and organization?
• Personal influence as a construct here is defined as the ability to impact group decisions and convert other unit members to their points of view. However by asking "How influential do you think this person is in your branch?", would not the personal interpretation of "influential" differ from the above?
• How does perceived expertise relate to 'Workflow centrality-> Personal influence -> Voice' relationship?

For further reading

• Social network approach;
• Multilevel data modeling (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002);
• Power distance;
• Collectivism;