Time to voice? A review and agenda for longitudinal employee voice research

This article presents a systematic literature review of 256 longitudinal studies found from two major databases to examine employee voice, involvement, participation, and silence within organisations. We first explore the development of employee voice as an academic subject of study and then explain how similar constructs, like involvement, participation, and silence have been incorporated to our review. We investigate how the compiled longitudinal articles examine, analyse, and explain how voice is elucidated through a study over time. We find that most longitudinal studies do not explicitly place importance on the notion of time when examining voice. We then compile well-cited models and voice frameworks to explain voice longitudinally. We focus on the importance of time and discuss how exploring voice through a temporal lens will be a step forward in understanding the dynamics within an organisation. In reviewing the features of existing longitudinal research in the field of voice and applying some key components of existing models (Marchington et al., 1992; Townsend et al., 2020), we develop and apply a broader voice framework that can incorporate different organisational elements, including process and outcomes over time. We also propose a future research agenda for longitudinal studies in employee voice.