IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v14y2024i2p21582440241260474.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impacts of Digital Leadership on Employee Voice Behaviors: The Mediating Roles of Employee Empowerment and Work Engagement

Author

Listed:
  • Cuibai Yang
  • Zhenli Li
  • Futian Li
  • Hongting Li

Abstract

This study examines the impact of digital leadership on employee voice behaviors, which are critical for organizations’ success in digital transformation. Using social exchange theory as the model foundation, we conducted a two-wave survey to explore the content and attributes of voice behaviors. Our findings show that digital leadership plays a crucial role in promoting employee voice behaviors, indirectly affecting prohibitive and promotive voice behaviors through employee empowerment. We found that digital leadership increases prohibitive voice behavior through increasing work engagement rather than promotive voice behavior. Additionally, our study reveals that employee empowerment and work engagement do not mediate the chain of effects between digital leadership and promotive voice behavior. This research contributes to the literature on digital leadership, employee voice behaviors, and social exchange theory, providing new insights into the role of digital leadership in promoting employee voice behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Cuibai Yang & Zhenli Li & Futian Li & Hongting Li, 2024. "The Impacts of Digital Leadership on Employee Voice Behaviors: The Mediating Roles of Employee Empowerment and Work Engagement," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:14:y:2024:i:2:p:21582440241260474
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440241260474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440241260474
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440241260474?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hee-Woong Kim & Atreyi Kankanhalli & So-Hyun Lee, 2018. "Examining Gifting Through Social Network Services: A Social Exchange Theory Perspective," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 805-828, December.
    2. Monje Amor, Ariadna & Abeal Vázquez, José Pablo & Faíña, José Andrés, 2020. "Transformational leadership and work engagement: Exploring the mediating role of structural empowerment," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 169-178.
    3. Gilstrap, J. Bruce & Hart, Timothy A., 2020. "How employee behaviors effect organizational change and stability," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 120-131.
    4. AlNuaimi, Bader K. & Kumar Singh, Sanjay & Ren, Shuang & Budhwar, Pawan & Vorobyev, Dmitriy, 2022. "Mastering digital transformation: The nexus between leadership, agility, and digital strategy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 636-648.
    5. Simon L. Albrecht, 2012. "The influence of job, team and organizational level resources on employee well‐being, engagement, commitment and extra‐role performance," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 33(7), pages 840-853, October.
    6. Shenghui Wang & Irene E. De Pater & Ming Yi & Yuchen Zhang & Tsung-Pao Yang, 2022. "Empowering leadership: employee-related antecedents and consequences," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 457-481, June.
    7. Weber, Ellen & Büttgen, Marion & Bartsch, Silke, 2022. "How to take employees on the digital transformation journey: An experimental study on complementary leadership behaviors in managing organizational change," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 225-238.
    8. Jialong Wu & Yuechao Du, 2022. "Linking Abusive Supervision to Promotive and Prohibitive Voice Behavior: Testing the Mediating Roles of Work Engagement and Negative Reciprocity," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-16, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qiao, Penghua & Zhao, Yuying & Fung, Anna & Fung, Hung-Gay, 2025. "How digital leadership guides ESG sustainability," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PB).
    2. Fleury, Afonso & Fleury, Maria Tereza Leme & Oliveira, Luis & Leao, Pablo, 2024. "Going digital EMNEs: The role of digital maturity capability," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(4).
    3. Culasso, Francesca & Gavurova, Beata & Crocco, Edoardo & Giacosa, Elisa, 2023. "Empirical identification of the chief digital officer role: A latent Dirichlet allocation approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    4. Sangeeta Gupta & Poonam Devdutt & Urmila Jagadeeswari Itam, 2022. "Centrality of psychological well-being of IT employees during COVID-19 and beyond," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 49(4), pages 365-380, December.
    5. Bulent Akkaya & Anna Bagieńska, 2022. "The Role of Agile Women Leadership in Achieving Team Effectiveness through Interpersonal Trust for Business Agility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-16, March.
    6. Hajiheydari, Nastaran & Delgosha, Mohammad Soltani & Olya, Hossein, 2021. "Scepticism and resistance to IoMT in healthcare: Application of behavioural reasoning theory with configurational perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    7. Zahoor, Nadia & Zopiatis, Anastasios & Adomako, Samuel & Lamprinakos, Grigorios, 2023. "The micro-foundations of digitally transforming SMEs: How digital literacy and technology interact with managerial attributes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    8. Francesco Virili & Cristiano Ghiringhelli, 2021. "Uncertainty and Emerging Tensions in Organizational Change: A Grounded Theory Study on the Orchestrating Role of the Change Leader," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-22, April.
    9. Qili Wang & Liangfei Qiu & Wei Xu, 2024. "Informal Payments and Doctor Engagement in an Online Health Community: An Empirical Investigation Using Generalized Synthetic Control," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(2), pages 706-726, June.
    10. Alida Volkmer, Sara & Meißner, Martin, 2024. "Beyond livestreaming: The rise of social media gifting and paid memberships − A systematic literature review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    11. Jinkyo Shin & Md Alamgir Mollah & Jaehyeok Choi, 2023. "Sustainability and Organizational Performance in South Korea: The Effect of Digital Leadership on Digital Culture and Employees’ Digital Capabilities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-15, January.
    12. Korzynski, Pawel & Kozminski, Andrzej Krzysztof & Baczynska, Anna & Haenlein, Michael, 2021. "Bounded leadership: An empirical study of leadership competencies, constraints, and effectiveness," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 226-235.
    13. Tao Zhang & Kun Zhang, 2025. "Establishment and Application of Modern Ecological Governance Systems from the Perspective of Digital Empowerment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-16, January.
    14. Wiweko Probojakti & Hamidah Nayati Utami & Arik Prasetya & Muhammad Faisal Riza, 2024. "Building Sustainable Competitive Advantage in Banking through Organizational Agility," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-15, September.
    15. Yuan, Sai & Zhou, Ran & Li, Mengna & Lv, Chengchao, 2023. "Investigating the influence of digital technology application on employee compensation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 195(C).
    16. Jiajun Wu & Liwei Chen, 2022. "The Effects of Multilevel Orientations on Frontline Deliberate Learning," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    17. Malik, Mohsin & Andargoli, Amir & Ali, Imran & Chavez, Roberto, 2024. "A socio-cognitive theorisation of how data-driven digital transformation affects operational productivity?," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    18. Cai Li & Sheikh Farhan Ashraf & Saba Amin & Muhammad Nabeel Safdar, 2023. "Consequence of Resistance to Change on AI Readiness: Mediating–Moderating Role of Task-oriented Leadership and High-Performance Work System in the Hospitality Sector," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    19. Cheng, Xiu & Wu, Fan & Li, Wenbo & Yang, Jiameng & Long, Ruyin, 2024. "What maintains low-carbon consumption behaviors: Evidence from China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 189(PB).
    20. Guangyi Xu & Jianji Zeng & Hongli Wang & Chen Qian & Xinran Gu, 2022. "How Transformational Leadership Motivates Employee Involvement: The Roles of Psychological Safety and Traditionality," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(1), pages 21582440211, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:14:y:2024:i:2:p:21582440241260474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.