Employee voice and innovative work behavior among healthcare employees

Despite growing interest in innovative work behavior (IWB) in demanding work contexts, little is known about voice as a mechanism through which job characteristics relate to IWB. To address this gap, this paper incorporates role theory and conservation of resources theory to examine how, in the healthcare context, role clarity and workload affect IWB via employee voicing. Using data collected from 424 healthcare employees in one of the largest private hospital groups in Italy, we find that workload and role clarity are both positively related to employee voice behavior, which in turn affects IWB. Further, workload attenuates both the direct relationship between role clarity and employee voicing and the indirect relationship between role clarity on IWB via employee voicing. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.