Impact of self-leadership on employee voice behavior: a moderated mediating model

Current studies have focused on exploring the impact of self-leadership on in-role outcomes, while research on extra-role outcomes is limited. Will the self-leadership skills of employees work beyond themselves to transfer the positive state to the organization or their colleagues? This study explores this field and enriches the research on extra-role outcomes of self-leadership. Based on self-determination theory, this research verifies the mechanism of self-leadership on employee voice, with thriving at work as a mediator and job characteristics (expressed as the motivating potential score) as a moderator. Using a three-wave survey of 405 nurses, the results of confirmatory factor analyses show that the data fit of the hypothetical five-factor measurement model is acceptable and we find that (1) self-leadership is positively associated with thriving at work, (2) thriving at work is positively associated with promotive and prohibitive voice, (3) thriving at work mediates the relationship of self-leadership on voice behavior, and (4) job characteristics moderate the relationship between self-leadership and thriving at work, such that this relationship is stronger for employees with a poor job characteristic. Implications of these observations for theory and practice are also discussed.